Sunday, April 29, 2012

Men really are like buses

The sequence of events is all a bit fuzzy now.   But the key points in the story are still there.
I called him (to ask if he wanted to do something?) He was having drinks after work with some of our colleaugues, but he went outside to talk to me.
"Yeah, I was just talking to X, and I was telling him about you and I, and he said,... well he said I should tell you that I'm still seeing my Ex.  Cause it's not really fair is it? On you. So maybe we should..."
"Call it a day?"
Later on, I cried my eyes out.  In hindsight this was probably because this reminded me of several relationships I had been in before.
I went upstairs to the laptop, and opened my blog.
And there it was.  Two messages, one of them really long, left on my comments, from this guy.
I promised him I wouldn't publish them , so I won't. 
To paraphrase: he said he missed me, he had finished with his girlfriend and he wanted to meet up (that sounds pretty cold, it wasn't like that, it was actually really sweet, however I'm sticking to my word).
This was a shock.
After all I hadn't heard anything from him for Two years! Not a text, not a facebook friend request- nothing!
But that is a divergent story. 
I went out of my way to persuade the Guy I Ended Up Having a Relationship With to change his mind.  The result was, that I ended up seeing them both. I figured if we're both seeing other people then we're quits. 
Maybe some of you readers could enlighten me on this, but How do people do that shit? I mean those people who two -time professionally, or as a hobby or whatever.
It was really weird.  Apart from the logistics for a single parent getting TWO babysitters on a weekend, and the expense!  It got to the point really quickly where I couldn't remember to whom I had said what.
The two-timing culminated one night when I realised I felt really angry with the guy.  I mean, although we were having a fun time dating, two years ago, he chose his crappy girlfriend over Me! Typically unable to voice my feelings, I ran away.  I ran away at the end of one of our dates. It was freezing cold, it was late, and I was upset, so I rang TGEUHRW,  He said, "Yeah, come over.  Bring sexy underwear and fags."

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Hindsight

When we got back to work, I could tell that he felt he had to 'make up' for falling asleep on me. 
The flirting was stepped up a notch.  He crossed the boundary that was our two desks width and he came and sat on the chair next to mine.  He sat with his arms outsretched across the radiator.
"You should take me out for a drink sometime......."
And that's how it starts isn't it? 
I know this now.  That's how it starts, with the casual assertion that 'you should do something for me', when really 'no, you should take me out for a drink'.
Nonetheless, I went.
On the evening we had arranged, I felt like shit.  I had one of those colds with blocked sinuses that make you feel like you're having an uncomfortable out of body experience.  After a day at work, the last thing I wanted to do was drink. I explained as soon as we met that I would just be having one glass of wine.  He said he was glad I hadn't canceled because he would have been really upset if I had.
I don't remember what we talked about.
At the end of the evening I went home (after all it was a school day).
He told me the next day, that he'd given someone a call and gone on to a club.
In hindsight, it all seems so disturbingly obvious.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Arrow

We sat opposite each other at work.
I had got more hours, and so was teaching everyday (equivalent to about a point 5). Our relationship started with a bit of office banter. Mainly this would consist of him telling me stories about his dating escapades. He would show me pictures of the latest women who had 'liked' him on the site.
He also talked about an 'Ex'. I presumed the dating stuff was an entertaining (if a little misguided) attempt to get over that relationship.
When I had asked him if he had a good Christmas he told me that he hadn't, he wasn't close to his parents and his dad was ill with cancer.
When it came to half term, to my surprise, I dreamed about him in the week I wasn't at work! I then realised that I was really looking forward to seeing him at the end of the second week.
It was my bosses wedding and everyone from work was invited. I was looking really hot and this didn't go unnoticed. He monopolised me for most of the evening: at one point we were standing at the bar talking to another colleague and he had his arms on the bar either side of me. I quite liked that too. He's six foot four, and it had been a long time since anyone had been that familiar with me physically.
Towards the end of the night we were talking and I realised he was going to kiss me.
"You're not going to kiss me in front of all our colleagues surely....."

Anyway, I drove him and a couple of other people home, dropping him off last. At his flat he played some lad music and I flippantly asked if he had any disco. And this was the hook (could it be that simple?) he put on some Shuggie Otis.
There was no romance, in fact he fell asleep on the sofa. I took a sheet off the clothes airer and put it over him, and then I drove home.

Thursday, April 05, 2012

Rich Indeed

It was the Person I Ended up Having a Relationship With that had said to me in June, "you need some counseling or anti-depressants or something".
I am having some counseling at the moment, but I will not be taking anti-depressants and I have found that the "or something" was in fact asking him to leave.
It was nearly seven months ago now and I find that I am still replaying the events in my mind, to a degree that I am not comfortable with.
Seven months ago it was waking me up in the middle of the night and at five or six in the morning. It was only absent when I was working and even then it would return like the water fills the hole as soon as you take your hand out of the bucket.
I realised a couple of months ago, that I had not bought or read a newspaper for FIVE MONTHS.
My days were a roller coaster (to use the cliche) of manically coping and then falling apart.
This turned into the same ride, but over two or three days; then it became weeks, and now it is starting to be an uncomfortable niggle, a thing that has not yet been dealt with.
So that's why I'm here.
To see if it will work.
To dump it in my psychic bin.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

you need some counselling or some anti-depressants or something.

I only ever had one counsellor that i liked.
I had one once that looked uncannily like my mum.
That was baaad.
We just sat there in silence for the whole hour. I couldn't speak to her. there was no way anything was going to come out of my mouth. I just sat and squirmed inside, ripping myself apart, for not only had it come to this, but when it did, i could say nothing.
She didn't say anything either.
It was counselling deadlock. I believe this kind of counselling has a name... but who gives a fuck what it's called.
But there was another woman who i really liked. She lived in a beautiful converted farmhouse and she saw people in a specially adapted part of the farm buildings. It was a lovely setting, there were kids things all over the courtyard at the entrance. She was a bit older than me but not too much. She asked me why i was crying on our final session.
She said, " Is it because you think we've done some good work here?"
I wouldn't have put it exactly like that, but i nodded.
The important bit was though, that she said to me, " Inside of everything you have told me, can you see, that actually, it's quite rich?"
And i could, i can. I know exactly what she meant, and although sometimes that is no comfort at all, in other times, that is exactly what i know, above anything else, that actually, this is quite rich.

Monday, February 28, 2011

So, whats been happening with you then?

I refer you to my post of 19th October 2008.
Two years and four months ago! Now i'm in that position that i mentioned. Looking back at that time and thinking, " okay.... was that really an uncanny prediction of the future or did i just somehow, in a really ridiculously roundabout way, make that stuff happen?'
Maybe you should decide? If i tell you the story then you can judge.

I'm still in my suburban house, but it definitely isn't as quiet.
The house is filled with music (five guitars at last count; a vinyl collection much bigger than my own). Conversations are a bizarre mix of ideas that fly around crashing into one another on a regular basis.
A daily routine of light and movement has established itself throughout the house.
It has been difficult and totally new to me and i am still taking time to readjust.
But you know what? This is the family that i sensed was coming on the 19th October 2008.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Dear Blog

I've been meaning to get in touch for some time.
I have to confess though, i'm finally getting round to it for purely selfish reasons.
Recently i have felt the dark cloud descending. I'm finding myself awake in the middle of the night turning things over relentlessly in my mind. I feel sluggish, negative and fearful of the future.
And then i realised what i needed to do was to talk to someone, and in a typical fashion i chose to talk to you. Because you won't talk back. We have history but we don't have issues. The Agenda is mine and mine only - you have no items to add.
Looking at you now makes me just want to relive our whole relationship, consume it whole , relish it for the ideals that it offers.
I'm going a bit over the top now i know, but you will never be scared by the force of my feelings.
I can rely on you.
You will always be there when i need you.
It's all about me.

P.S. Thank you to my three followers!
It means a lot, thanks for your comments.X

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Gentleman

I was picking up a prescription from the chemist this morning when a man that i recognised came in. A man in his seventies held the door for the other man who is possibly a similar age.
"You're a gentleman sir! There's not many of us left," said the man whom i recognised.
I know the man because he lived near our old house. The house was on a really steep hill. i would see him regularly pushing his wife, who was in a wheelchair. He pushed her valiantly, in all weathers, up or down the hill, on whatever errand they were running.
One day i was on the street battling to cut the huge hedge at the front of the house. I made way for them to come past, and he found time to empathise with my hedge battle, saying, "It's the growing season isn't it love?"
i still see him around the area where my doctors surgery is. He is no longer pushing his wife.
I wanted to speak to him in the chemist. I paused as i was going to the door, but i couldn't think of what to say. He doesn't know who i am, i couldn't ask after his wife because i knew what the answer would be. What if i cry?
This simple thing, i couldn't do it, just make a bit of polite conversation with a man who indeed was a true gentleman.
I waited to hear his name as he asked for his prescription, and then i left.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Presence/Absence

If i'm not writing on my blog for a period of time, it might be because i've met someone. There's a break between May 13th and September 25th last year because this guy contacted me through Facebook.
We messaged for a while but he asked me if i wanted to go out fairly swiftly. His personal circumstances at the time are way too complicated to relate here. So i won't.
Anyway we went out. I cried after our first date because he was so much more fragile in real life than he had seemed through the old social networking. I still decided to see him again however, and what followed was pretty intense from that moment. We maybe saw each other once a week, but spoke on the phone almost every day, had phone sex, text sex and sent videos and messages for each other on FB.
I just can't tell you the whole story but about three months later (three- it's the magic number) we fell out.
Within a matter of hours after the disaster that precipitated the end, he had removed all pictures of me from his Facebook account. He had wiped me out. It was such a weird feeling. Really painful and really harsh.
On having the post-fall-out 'what are we going to do now then?' connversation he agreed that was a little extreme. Further talks ensued along the lines of the 'maybe we could sort this out at some time in the future' variety. He'd left me a couple of dunken nasty messages that i had forgiven him for. Then a similar message appeared on his status update, for all our mutual friends to read. So i took him off my friend list and vowed never to conduct a relationship through Facebook again.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Happy Valentine

This is fucking hilarious.
I just Googled this guy, thinking that i really wanted to tell you his name, but i'd just better check that he's not a famous photographer first.
Okay, he's not famous, but his website came up straight away.

So, i'll tell you the story anyway.
A small group of us took a selection of our degree show photographs to Germany. We showed our work in a disused chocolate factory that was being used as studios by a group of young artists. We even slept there.
The review in the paper said "There are no people in the photographs of Nina Chadwick."
On the exhibition preview night this huge German guy came to talk to me. I mean, he seemed like a giant to me at the time (i was 23 and a very average 5'5"). He also had the deepest voice i had ever heard in my life. I mean, it was one of those voices that rumbled through you at a somewhat disturbing bass level. I can't remember what we talked about, but he asked me for my phone number and i gave him it, probably because i was too embarrassed to say no.

Once we were back home, i forgot all about it. Until he rang me.
I was living back at my mums. I was mortified when she hands the phone over to me and says, "It's Valentin for you."
This is actually a bit of a shit story because i can't really remember the conversation in enough detail. I'm pretty sure he asked me if he could come over to England. What? In my mums house? That's not sophisticated enough for a trans-Europe affair. I must have put him off somehow. I can't remember if he called again. I was going to live in Manchester in a few weeks anyway......

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Doctor

I met this guy at a party when i lived in London. There were lots of pills going around and really good music.
We got chatting and there was a really good vibe in the room we were in. The party was winding down and most people in the room were doing the same. A guy wearing a luminous yellow jacket with the word PEACE on the back brought a tray in with a glass of water for each one of us on it.
He was (and still is i think!) my only ever one night stand. I told him that, but i don't think he believed me.
He told me i had a huge ribcage! Only a doctor could make that sound hot. And the morning after when i asked him if i could use his toothbrush, he said, "We just exchanged bodily fluids. Of course you can use my toothbrush."
Then he walked me to the bus stop. So sweet! He said "Look at us, all we need are some kids and a couple of dogs" (I'm allergic to dogs but i didn't tell him that as i was enjoying the mental picture).
He took my number but i heard nothing.
Ages afterwards at another party with the same group of friends, i saw him again. He said he had called my house and someone had told him there was no Nina Chadwick living there.
I had my suspicions as to which of the males in our house in Brixton might have done such a thing. When i first moved to London, i would ring up my friends at home and say, "You know that programme This Life, well i'm living in it!"
I gave him my number again, in eyeliner on his arm, but the moment had obviously passed.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

Wish you were here

If you were here, i think we would have definitely gone out for a something to eat on Friday. Then we would have followed some good food, with even better sex. Probably just lain around reading the papers in bed on Saturday, with even more sex (as the sun shone into my bedroom). Tonight we would most definitely have been going to see the Vivian Girls at the Cockpit.

Note to self: must remember not to let the ones that get away become larger than the real-life loves.

On that subject however!!!.... As my current love-life is a bit dull, i thought i could tell you a few tales about some others that got away. These are a non-chronological mix of guys that i either did or didn't end up having a relationship/sex with. All they have in common is that for various reasons 'it didn't work out'.

There was this guy at a wedding that i was photographing. He was the guy who wasn't supposed to be there; a friend of a work colleague of the bride. Bizarrely, he had the same name as a prominent political figure in the middle east. Obviously i can't tell you who that was (just in case). I thought he was taking the piss when he told me.
He said he liked my hair (which was cropped pretty short at the time). He also said it had always been his dream to build his own house and to have a vegetable garden so his kids didn't have to eat chemicals. I felt like i'd been read like a book. Were my desires written all over me, or was that a complete coincidence that his idea of heaven was pretty damn close to mine? I gave him my number, but when he rang, i didn't answer the phone.
I have no explanation for this, but absolute fear. He was good looking, young and successful, easy to talk to and very interested in me. I was shitting myself, i couldn't even face the thought of talking on the phone, never mind going on a date. One of my friends called me a masochist when i told her that story.
I wonder what he's doing now.

Well obviously eating organic fucking carrots with a brood of well fed kids milling round him (none of whom have got holes in their socks)
!

Keep tuned in for more of my spectcularly unsucessful love-life.X