When
I was younger I used to stare at girls I deemed attractive until they
either magically decided they liked me too, or until they stormed
off, passing me only to remark what a pathetic, weird, desperate
loser I was, while simultaneously spitting in my face. Something they
wouldn’t have done if they knew that saliva-on-face action
constituted kissing, which in turn meant we were locked in a long
term, unhealthy, imaginary relationship. Then they’d act all
surprised when I’d turn up at family events. Bitches. Of course,
the magical ones who decided they liked me too expected the courtship
to extend beyond me simply finding them attractive. They’d expect
us to talk and share experiences and get to know each other and all
the other things that inevitably led to dislike and contempt. We
couldn’t just stick to the base animal attraction. Oh no. Still, in
retrospect it was a damn sight easier than all this grown up, dealing
with your feelings, real world bollocks.
I’m
a year out of a seven-year-odd relationship, so called because it was
about seven years long and odd. It was one of those partnerships
where you both kind of fumbled along without knowing much about each
other, until inevitably one of you realises that it’s been
painfully dull for at least some years and you’d rather eat broken
glass marinated in animal faeces, than spend another few minutes with
the broken wretch you’ve co-created. To her credit she got there
first, so I had to play the wounded ex, the jilted man and the
whining bastard for several months before realising it was all for
the best, and though it hadn’t happened before, that she was right
on this one. Also we made a nice person out of eggs and sperm and
sex, who I wouldn’t try to cram back inside for all the porn on the
Internet. Of course this time-share person does necessitate the
continued meeting of it’s mother, but that’s usually fine. She’s
found herself a new chap to attempt to bond with on a deep,
meaningful level and he seems as nice as you can determine someone to
be on one very brief meeting.
And
that wasn’t even my first relationship. Hell no. I’ve been with
other women – and previous to that, girls – and most of them have
even let me see them naked, though we never made a person and it
obviously wasn’t because of anything wrong with me. Just sayin’.
So as a longish list of failures can attest, I can do that boyfriend
thing. It isn’t the old ones that are the problem though, it’s
the future ones, or to be more precise, the lack thereof. Because
during the seven year stretch of my most recently failed coupling,
some of the rules seem to have been amended. Staring, for instance,
seems completely out now. No one is staring anymore, at least not in
my age group. Apparently it is deemed weird and creepy for a now near
thirty year old to sit alone in a pub and stare, unblinking, at a
young lady thing. The number of magical reciprocations off the back
of that has dwindled to none and has been replaced by the odd smack
in the face. That’s fine though, because I’m adaptive, I can duck
and dive and reassess my options as well as the next man. Except the
next man is wearing stupidly tight jeans, a gaudy, ironic T-shirt,
frankly impractical footwear and has a ludicrously expensive,
ludicrously ludicrous haircut. On top of this he’s openly talking
out of his arse and you feminine types, with your breasts and lovely
hair, are lapping it up.
So
I think to myself: fine. If I must actually approach someone I find
to be visually pleasing, instead of willing them toward me from afar,
so be it. I shall succeed on the very fact that I am not going to
talk pretentious, flowery bum gravy at you, and I shall let you know
that. We shall sit and chat and it will be lovely. I will listen, and
if interested I shall seek out your company and listen again. At
various points I will offer glimpses of my inner workings, so that I
can see how disgusted I make you. I will relish the feeling of my
heart foolishly trying to evacuate through my throat, I will attempt
to make further contact, maybe in a social environment outside of
that in which we met. I will allow myself to grow over fond of you.
Because I am an idiot. The thing is, it’s still just someone else’s
spittle dribbling down my cheek. I’m creating possibilities where
there most likely aren’t any, I’m implanting little looks that
haven’t been made. I’m pretending that spit is a kiss again. I
also have a quite irritating habit of being attracted to the
unattainable: those in relationships, those very recently out of
relationships, those possibly too young, too clever, too good etc
etc. In some cases I manage to tick all the boxes in one foul swoop.
Well, it saves time you see.
So
at the moment I walk the line between entirely not letting on to a
lovely person how I feel, due to it being a bad time to do so, and
just bloody well letting them know, because then we can skip right to
the rejection and disappointment and I can get on with the short
lived awkwardness, self loathing and pity before moving to the next
victim. Sadly, due to the fact I am rather ‘picky’ (by which I
mean it matters both how a person looks and what they have locked
away in their pretty little head), victims are few and far between.
Hence the likelihood of my increasing attraction toward the current
lovely person, and the certainty of the escalating clumsiness with
which I shall attempt to woo. Which can only result in a heightened
sense of loss on the inevitable ‘no thanks’ outcome. It’s a
wonder I do this to myself really, as I’m so acutely aware of how
badly it tends to end.
I
write a lot better than I talk, if only I could talk like this,
fluidly, without needing large periods of time to mentally arrange
sentence structure, or look up a word, or find a different way to say
something that’s going to be horribly obvious if somebody’s
reading this anyway. If I could talk like that I reckon I could send
hearts more a-flutter than a butterfly sanctuary and moisten any
ladies lady area to such an extent that readings of my love poetry
would be called upon during hosepipe bans. As it is I shall have to
hope that being able to raise a giggle combined with the lingering
hurt caused by square jawed, athletic ex-lovers are enough to
convince young Ms. Whoever that it’s worth a punt on a weedy,
bookish type with the complete original run of Flaming Carrot comics.
It’s
a long shot, but rather that than go back to not getting spat at.
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