Thirty Faux Pas

It’s my birthday this week. I used to really look forward to birthdays but now I just view them as a horrific reminder of the passing of time. People say to me “You’re only as old as you feel” – really? I feel about 100 so that’s not going to really give me an accurate assessment of how old I am eh? Apparently it is not polite to ask a lady how old she is but I am going to be possibly impolite and tell you all that I will be 34 this week. 34! I remember being 16 and thinking that everyone who is over 20 was decrepit! In my twenties I viewed anyone in their thirties as ancient. Now I’m in my thirties I have considerably altered my perception of age. For example, due to ‘old age’ I managed to tear my Achilles tendon last year by walking...just walking...not doing anything too strenuous, I wasn’t sprinting or anything or even larking about – I just walked and it tore! I thought that this was just due to me being particularly unlucky and clumsy but then I found out that my husband who is ten months younger than me tore a muscle in his neck when he was drying his hair after a shower! Again, he wasn’t doing anything he hadn’t done a million times before and he is fairly fit but while rubbing his head lightly with a towel he managed to tear a neck muscle! Terrifying stuff. This would never have happened in our twenties!

It’s funny as my dad is 65 and he doesn’t moan half as much as me about getting older. He is more mobile than me and given the slightest opportunity he is up ladders, drilling things and dashing up and down stairs with cupboards and so forth, stopping only for a cigarette and a cup of tea.

There are just little hints everyday that tell me I’m getting older, aside from the random injuries performing simple tasks. For example, during a rare shopping trip yesterday I picked up a pair of boots and said to my husband “What lovely boots, with the low heel I bet they’re really comfy” and within a moment I realised that gone are the days when I would pick up a huge pair of boots with metal heels and flames up the side and think – ‘they’re probably really uncomfortable but they’ll look great!’. I haven’t worn a dress in around a year as I just can’t be doing with faffing around with stockings or even worse – tights. Plus, if I have to wear high heels I spend most of the sitting time sliding them off under the table as I find heels so uncomfortable due to the whole Achilles tendon soreness that still persists over a year after the injury.

I find myself getting grumpier by the day. Yesterday while getting off the bus a lady who was waiting to get on the bus stood right in the middle of the doorway so attempting to get past her was ridiculously tricky. Why do people do that?!?! She could see that there were people trying to get off the bus so she made herself as big as possible to prevent it from happening! Almost deliberately! I’m not going to elaborate on the thoughts that crossed my mind – those are between me and my psychologist – but I was perhaps irrationally cross over something very small.

In my youth I was always up to date with what was in the charts, always. Music is important to me and I always followed the music charts. Over the past few years however I have found myself getting further and further out of touch until I genuinely couldn’t tell you what is Number One in the charts these days. I probably couldn’t name five songs in the charts. I could name a few artists but not the songs. As I type I am listening to a music station on the internet that solely plays music from the 50’s and 60’s and I wasn’t even born in those decades. The current track is by Pat Boone.

I bought a pair of slippers yesterday in the aforementioned shopping trip, to keep my feet cosy. They’re not the novelty style of slipper – no Bart Simpson with the feet holes in his mouth – these are sturdy, comfortable slippers that even had a label on them reading ‘full support’. I can’t help but think that I’m forcing old age upon myself. I sigh with pleasure upon seating myself in a comfy chair. I don’t like going out when it’s raining. Parts of me make cracking noises when I stand, twist open a bottle or turn over in bed. I don’t like going out on a Saturday night to the pub as it’s too busy – plus I can’t drink alcohol at the moment which is a little frustrating if everyone is drinking around me and I am the only sober person.

When I see something I really like, instead of just going out and purchasing it on a whim I now consider if I really want the product or need it, I then consider what else I could do with the money if I don’t buy it and then I look up reviews on the internet to see how good it is and look into other brands, models etc to see which is the best product to buy; A far cry from the random purchases of my twenties. This is something that my husband routinely did even before knowing me so I lay the blame for this piece of behaviour squarely on his shoulders. The thing is that it is good behaviour, it means I don’t go wild and buy something on credit that I will regret later – which, believe me, is something I did several times in my youth. I may lack spending spontaneity these days but I don’t have half as much junk as I used to have.

I worry about pensions these days when ten years ago I was carefree, well as carefree as you can get with OCD. To be honest I didn’t think I would make it past my thirties, I’m not sure why, I just always thought that my anxiety, smoking and bad diet would finish me off before anything else got me so I rarely thought past my third decade. And now I am there I have distinctly started worrying about pensions and mortgages and all of the financial shenanigans that I never thought I would face. I never thought that I would get married so I surprised myself there – it is my third wedding anniversary this week also which, according to Wikipedia, means that we are to give each other leather gifts. This makes me think of the leather trousers I used to have in my twenties. And the Scarlet red PVC trousers that I had that made my boss remark that I looked like I had stepped out of a bondage catalogue, although how he knows that remains a mystery :)

I’m just not ready to give up some of the fervour of my youth. I still sing loudly in the shower, I recently purchased a pair of shoes that look very similar to the ruby slippers in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and I intend to wear them with something that probably clashes enormously like I did in the olden days. I still enjoy putting up the Christmas tree and I get almost sick with excitement on Christmas Eve.

What’s more, I still get a little excited as time veers towards my birthday so hopefully I can muster up the energy to celebrate my birthday in style. That’s if I can be bothered to organise anything :)

On the fringe of The Fringe

Every year the Edinburgh Festival comes around in a blaze of enormous posters announcing delights of every kind, all jostling for your attention; every taste seems to be catered for. Whether you like your Classic Shakespeare or puppet shows involving parts of the body or cheeky burlesque shows or raucous comedy or fine art – there’s something for you.

Except, for me, every year it is the same story. Every year I say ‘Next time I’m definitely going to see some shows at the Festival’. This usually occurs just after the festival is finished or at the start of the year. I mention it periodically during the course of the months leading up to around June when schedules are being announced. ‘I’ll take a look at the events sometime soon’ I think to myself. Then, as this year and every year, I suddenly find myself in the middle of August and I have neither seen nor booked anything and by then I just don’t have the impetus to go to anything. I can honestly say that during the entire 15 years I have lived in Edinburgh I have seen about 5 shows in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Which is pretty poor actually when you consider how many shows take place over the course of that month each year.

I can’t decide what it is that most puts me off. I’m not a big fan of crowds, especially after a Faithless gig in Princes Street Gardens. A good friend and I went to see Faithless many years ago and as it was outside and Princes Street Gardens is perilously steep when standing at certain angles, I was precariously placed as it was. The music was playing, the beer was flowing (not for me if I remember correctly) and everyone was having a good time. I was in the thick of the crowd which I wasn’t too happy about but I was coping. Suddenly this guy started leaping around, I mean fair play it was a concert but before long he turned into Zebedee on a trampoline (would that work?) and after knocking into me several times he punched me square in the back of my head. Whether he meant to do this or not makes little difference as the impact sent me sprawling into the crowd and, as I am not the tallest of people, I suddenly became lost in this maze of calves and ankles. Yep, probably doesn’t sound much to the seasoned gig goer but I was scared I was going to get trampled. At first I protected my head then I just got scared and held my arm as high into the air as I could manage as I could hear my friend shouting my name. A hand gripped my wrist then my hand and I was pulled free of the crowd by my friend who put his arm around me and led me to a safe spot. I won’t deny that I said a few choice words about the eejit who caused my pounding head (It wasn’t just the music) but after a wee while I was feeling a bit better and managed to enjoy the rest of the concert. I know this probably doesn’t sound much when you say it out loud but coupled with having my leg stamped on during a high intensity song on the dancefloor of a popular nightclub – I’m not a big fan of being in crowds. If you have ever been to Edinburgh during the festival you will be able to testify that the city is usually crowded with happy people enjoying the festival and that’s great – I applaud the fact that people have actually bothered to make it out, usually in the rain sadly, to enjoy the enchantments the festival has to offer. But for me, I just don’t like being in large groups of people, it makes me feel claustrophobic and the hypervigilance that comes as part and parcel of my OCD gives me sensory overload trying to ensure that everyone around me is ok. I end up feeling exhausted in even a short period of time in a crowd.

The next thing that puts me off is the rain, sounds a bit lame but for some reason it generally seems to absolutely pour down in August. I haven’t had a dry birthday for many years – a few years ago on the way to cinema to meet my friends on my birthday I had to keep sheltering in various places and I was still soaked through when I got to the cinema which was 10 minutes away from my flat. Rain is good, without it we would suffer greatly and I’m grateful for its appearance but its greatest hits seem to regularly coincide with the festival. Even as I type, we have just had days of hard rain and flooding in some areas – I am reliably informed that some rivers are swollen and my husband was wearing inappropriate footwear which has left his feet very wet and I was forced to nag him again to wear his ‘rain shoes’...anyway...I never know which coat to wear when I go out. Do I wear my big rain coat and feel too hot or my little summer coat that although waterproof wont adequately protect most of my body if it were to turn into serious rain. Edinburgh does appear to have a peculiar weather system, I’ve seen it snow, rain, hail, sunshine and the wind to be ferocious all in one day, possibly one afternoon. After googling the weather in Scotland it came up with the phrase "If you don't like the weather, wait twenty minutes and it'll change." And for Edinburgh this is pretty much right most of the time.

Cost is usually another factor in what to see at the Festival. There are so many things to go and see and if you were to go to every event that took your fancy you may end up sorely out of pocket. In saying that, there are some very good free shows on and I can happily say that I attended a free comedy show in the Jekyll and Hyde pub a few years ago. The comedian had OCD too and it was interesting to hear his take on life with OCD – like I said, there something for everyone.

I’ve known people take a week off work in August and spend as much time as possible seeing as many shows as possible. While I think this is a valiant effort, I think I would like to just see a few shows to be able to process what I have seen and enjoy it – quality over quantity perhaps.

There are often some amazing art shows at the festival and I particularly enjoy a good art exhibition. I went to see an exhibition of surrealist art at some point over the past year – I really can’t remember when, that’s what being stuck in the flat does to you, just bends time and makes it seem so fluid so you never really know how long it has been since this and that. Anyway, the exhibition was astounding and there were some truly fascinating pieces. We also went to see an Impressionists exhibition which I thought was ok but I wasn’t as enamoured with that as I was the surrealist exhibition.

Edinburgh is literally bursting with culture, exhibitions, and shows of every kind. It should be able to put a smile on everyone’s face. The thing is, when you live here, after a few years it can become just a bit mundane – perhaps I am just being a grumpy old sod but during the festival, even going to an appointment always takes longer due to the enormous amount of people in the town at that time. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against tourists – Edinburgh’s rich diversity benefits from the influx of people from all over the globe and the tourism brings a lot of money into the capital. However, the volume of people in the city going up means more people on the public transport and more people in the streets generally stopping still right in front of me as I am walking somewhere quickly causing me to almost collide with them. I know, I know, I don’t own the streets and everyone should be able to do what they want with their holidays but suddenly standing still to take photos in the middle of the pavement without realising there are people behind you is something that has gotten on my nerves for as long as I can remember. I’m a courteous person and as polite as it is possible to be without having a meltdown but something within me burns with rage if someone is walking at my pace in front of me and they suddenly stop and due to the sheer quantity of people on the street it is hard to swerve to avoid them without crashing into someone else. Everyone has their Achilles heel and this is mine, I’m so hypervigilant, trying to be as well mannered as possible and show consideration to my fellow pedestrians that if someone is more free and easy with ‘the walking rules’, it truly infuriates me. As you can imagine, even after walking a short distance, attempting to evade the groups of ‘sudden stoppers’ and large groups of people who seem to stop and chat in the narrowest areas of the pavement so everyone else has to press themselves against shop windows to pass (and from inside the shop this can be a strange and compelling sight) and the people passing out flyers not realising my OCD will make me draw my hands in and making me feel impolite for not taking them...oooh don’t get me started!

I think what I am trying to say is that, if you live somewhere for a long time you don’t tend to do the touristy things anymore – if you ever did – and the simple task of getting from one place to another during the festival starts to make you feel irrationally angry with everyone so when I get to my destination I’m generally in a massive grump. I only went to visit the Castle a few years ago! Sometimes it is great to do all the touristy things you can in the city you live, its fun to pretend you’re on holiday :) Perhaps I’m just jealous that everyone seems to be on holiday and I’m struggling to get to the dentists or hospital or to work.

I’ve heard that the Edinburgh Tattoo is amazing; every night during the festival we hear the rush of fireworks over the castle. Once during the festival a friend and I were climbing the mound on our way back to my flat and suddenly the sky was lit up with a multitude of beautiful fireworks, it was a Saturday and the fireworks went on for a few minutes and in the green, blue, red hued light cast over my friend’s face we both smiled and it was such a perfect moment. A moment that makes you feel glad to be alive, glad to live in Edinburgh, glad to live in a city burgeoning with talent, beauty, wildlife, wild night life and entertainment. One day maybe I will go to see the Edinburgh Tattoo instead of being cross when I can’t get anywhere near the Royal Mile during the festival.

Of the few shows I have seen at the festival, some things have really stood out.

Several years I went to a book reading by Rich Hall during the festival. It was held in a small, darkened room and he wandered on stage from behind a piece of cloth that could be called a curtain if I were feeling generous. Rich Hall is an amazingly intelligent and amusing fellow; he was a joy to watch. He spoke to the crowd and talked as if he were talking to us individually. Initially he introduced himself and sat down in the battered comfy looking armchair that had been provided for him. After opening his new book he said dryly ‘Did you think this was going to be a reading out loud?’ before flipping the page and laughing to himself for a moment or two – the crowd laughed heartily and he started talking and the event was thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish.

I saw a truly fantastic play, starring one of my friends, last year called ‘The Dress Affair’. It was a play about prudence and passion, predator and prey, pleasure and pain; it was wonderful. The acting was accomplished and even in the dimly lit room the play oozed seductive style, drawing you in. I smiled, I bit my lip in anticipation, I stifled the emotion bubbling within me – it was truly a breathtaking piece of theatre.

We went to see Ed Byrne during the festival 3 years ago and he asked if anyone was recently married – coincidentally my husband and I had married the previous week. I put up my hand, as did a lady at the other side of the stage. He asked the lady how long she had been married and she said several months. He then asked me and I shouted ‘Five days!’ at which point he proclaimed that while sweet that we were seeing him on our honeymoon, should we not be on holiday somewhere? We never did get around to having a honeymoon holiday, we will at some point. He was actually very nice and asked us a few questions and at the end of the gig he leaned forward into the crowd, as we were only a few rows from the front, and he shook both my hand and my husband’s hand and wished us the best. That actually made my night :)

So you see, there have been several great things at the festival and I would probably have seen a lot more had I organised myself a little better. The fireworks at the end of the festival are always remarkable too. I doubt that I will be going to see anything this year considering my current health and financial status.

Definitely next time I will see some shows at the Edinburgh Festival...

Riots

I was saddened greatly at the recent riots in England. What seemed to develop during the peaceful protesting against the death of Mark Duggan culminated in riots, the deaths of at least four other people, destruction and theft of a vast amount of property and probable injury of many other people judging by the weapons being used and glass, fire etc. Were the consequences really worth the actions? Did the rioters achieve what they set out to achieve?

Like everyone else, I can only speculate as to what caused a percentage of the population of England to take to the streets and express their anger, but no one has the answer, not really. Even in a large group of people, everyone still has their own mind and acts an individual, even if encouraged or pressured by someone else. Every single person those nights will have had their own reason for doing what they did and subsequently they will have to live with the consequences of their own actions.

And that’s all we have left now – consequences, the aftermath of these riots.

No one can change what happened, any of it, as much as they may want to. As my OCD brain seems to spend a great deal of time thinking and fretting about consequences, I started to think about some of the consequences of the past few days.

One of the main consequences of the riots is that, it is probably going to take a lot of money, effort and time to rebuild the things that were destroyed. Apparently there are some insurance policies that do not cover acts of riot and so property owners are being told that they may be able to claim the money from the already cash strapped police force. As well as there being a global recession, even if people have insurance, due to the large amount of claims that are undoubtedly pouring into insurers right now, it may take time for assessments and for the money to be made available to the property owners. Some burnt out properties may be considered crime scenes so police will have to attend to them which mean perhaps forensics etc and if this is the case, the cost may rise further. One unexpected consequence I suppose is that the insurers and police may have to employ more people to deal with all this.

For those who have to rebuild their businesses or houses, this prospect must be so daunting and my heart really goes out to these people. Having your business looted or your house destroyed by fire must be heartbreaking, working towards making a success of things and having that taken away from you – it’s not surprising that these people are angry and to be honest, it would be easy to feel the need to retaliate but, as the saying goes "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." And after feeling the effects of these riots – why on earth would they want to put someone else through that?

What are the consequences then for the perpetrators of the violence, looting etc.? I’ve tried to imagine what it must have been like; breaking into shops, smashing things up, stealing expensive things, wrecking peoples livelihoods, running with the gang, ‘sticking it to the rich’ as has been bandied about. The feelings must have been intense – anger, frustration, adrenaline pumping, fear, excitement. Now, it is the next day, back to reality and, as graffiti in my old hometown read ‘much has happened, little has changed’. Sure, you might have a new Xbox or jewellery or a new phone but was it really worth it? Has anything really changed other than there is some destruction and devastated people? Is a criminal record really worth whatever was stolen? And as for the – ‘sticking it to the rich’ motive, the thing is, that this hasn’t really affected ‘the rich’ a great deal has it? Yeah, a few big shops have been looted but they can probably claim it on their insurance making it more of an inconvenience really.

The people who are really hurting are those with small businesses during this recession struggling to make ends meet who saw their livelihoods torn apart. The families of the people who have died during the riots. People whose homes were damaged by fire and violence. People who were innocently walking home and were either injured or prevented from getting home safely. The parents of the people who took part in the riots. Maybe even the people who took part in the riots themselves and now regret it.

Don’t get me wrong, you may think ‘well it’s easy for you to say this sitting up in Scotland where there hasn’t been any confirmed rioting’ and I suppose you’d be right, I’m no more qualified than anyone else to talk about this, but perhaps I’m saying all this as there but for the grace of God go I?

I’ve been watching the news these past few days, agoraphobia has led me to watching rolling news, and so many possible explanations have been given as to why this has happened. One was the ‘single parent family’ argument – this often gets up my nose as my parents are divorced so both my sister and I come from a ‘broken home’ and I have never been a violent person. My sister is well dressed, has a good job and is one of the nicest people you could meet. I don’t know how you would describe me but before my illness I was a (hopefully) successful software tester – a role I hope to return to – I wasn’t particularly well dressed but that’s due to my general lack of fashion sense and I hope that my friends would consider me not a bad person.

I have many of the features that the people on the news described as risk factors for wanting to be involved in rioting and looting – I came from humble beginnings; my parents were in no way rich, we weren’t destitute but there were a lot of things that I wanted in my childhood that my parents could not afford. I come from a ‘broken home’. I grew up on a council estate. I was told by several people that I would never make anything of myself.

I spend a lot of time alone and often feel disaffected, alienated from people. I live in an area where I don’t know any of my neighbours or indeed anyone in my community – apart from my husband obviously. I have been made redundant several times, I cannot even get a job at the moment as I can’t leave my home alone so I am forced to exist on benefits and the kindness of my husband. I’m depressed that my life is this way at the moment. I don’t feel like I have much control over anything.

Isn’t that one of the main causes of unhappiness in human beings? When there is a lack of control or perception of lack of control in a person’s life they are more likely to lash out or become depressed? I’ve always had a problem with lack of control, unfortunately when I have a lack of control of anything in my life I tend to end up taking it out on myself. With the control factor in mind – did the rioters feel like this was the only way they could gain control over something in life?

The problem with this is that, effectively what you’re doing is throwing your toys out of the pram which may get attention but it may not be the attention you wanted. If the rioters did this to get attention it certainly worked admittedly – the news was saturated with coverage – but the short lived attention hasn’t really turned anything around. Momentary control, that didn’t really get any solid message across or offer any sort of solution to aid the cries for help,. If people were reaching out to be heard, to be noticed, have their plight told – did anyone really get the message? Perhaps this outpouring of anger and frustration was a way to say ‘help me’?

And therein lies the sadness – if all of this really was a cry for help, all it has resulted in are anger, destruction and punishment.

Was the reason of everyone on those streets those nights to avenge the death of Mark Duggan in Tottenham? Was the case investigated quicker? Whatever the circumstances of the man’s death – would he have wanted such behaviour to take place in his name? His family have reportedly said they do not condone the violence. His brother reportedly said that he didn’t want the riots to be about his brother’s life as Mark was a good man.

Or for many people, was it just opportunistic? Some people stole sweets and beer rather than high price items. Would you really steal given the opportunity? I tried thinking about this – if I had the opportunity to steal something and no one would know, I wouldn’t be caught and I would have something I really wanted – would I steal it? The answer is no, really, I wouldn’t do it. Because I know it is wrong – I’ve had it drummed into me, all of my life that stealing is wrong. So, given the opportunity, would you really steal something if you thought you wouldn’t get caught. Maybe you would but would you feel ok about it afterwards?

Surely there are ways to get your message across without violence and devastation, if there are enough people with the same problems, surely they can be addressed without chaos? As a child you learn that having a tantrum often does not help you get what you want or need – but can you really put hundreds of people on a theoretical naughty step and will it help? I know that things are pretty terrible at the moment but surely violence just makes it worse?

In the wake of the riots, social networking has been under scrutiny for easing the communication of the rioters in order to gather large groups of people quickly but surely social networking sites are not responsible for what people do with them? You can give someone access to a social networking site but what they choose to do with it is their choice – personal responsibility has to come into this somewhere – I know everyone is looking for someone to blame but ultimately, if you choose to loot or riot, unless someone literally is threatening your life if you don’t do it, you have a choice to walk away. I know that there is peer pressure and people can get bullied into doing things – perhaps I don’t really have a full understanding of what drove the rioters that night but whatever they did, responsibility has to be taken. There really is no excuse for breaking into buildings, violence, threatening behaviour and stealing.

I’m saddened by the unseen consequences – the psychological affect on both the rioters and the victims of the events. Dealing with what you have done is a burden on its own, even those seeming to lack conscience will be justifying what has happened to themselves and as you get older you often find it more difficult to believe your justifications. And for the victims of the wreckage, they may never feel safe in their own home or business again. What if someone decides to give up their business as they feel they can no longer cope? Will depression rates go up? What will be the long term effects on those people?

People may move away from the areas where the riots occurred – fearing for their safety and the safety of their loved ones. Insurance premiums may go up in those areas due to perceived heightened risk and this could have knock on effects. Will property prices in those areas go down? Will people want to invest in those areas? How will people pay to repair and rebuild their shattered buildings and community? Perhaps community spirit will prevail and fellow citizens will assist each other?

There are so many other consequences that I suspect that the rioters never even considered but may have occurred. During the riots, how did ambulances get through the melee? What if you were pregnant and trying to get through the streets in an ambulance to give birth in the hospital? Was anyone’s life endangered because the emergency services were dealing with the rioting and looting? What if a doctor’s car was torched, preventing them reaching their patients? There is video footage of one poor young man being helped to his feet and subsequently mugged – how many other people did this happen to?

How much money was lost as people could not travel safely to work and could not do their jobs? How many people were injured by glass and other debris? Did the injured rioters seek medical assistance for their injuries? If not they would be risking possible infection or bleeding to death. If you were a rioter and are sent to prison, if you have family who is going to take care of them? I understand that one of the girls in court had a six week old baby.

And what about the opinion of the rest of the world? After the events of those nights – who will want to visit the cities affected? Tourism may go down and I understand that funds from tourism are important to us. What will the global opinion do to our economy? Is the rest of the world disgusted with us for not being able to maintain order in our country?

The clock can’t be turned back, what is done is done. It’s dealing with the aftermath that is going to be the challenge now. Whatever the reason for the riots, let’s hope that they don’t happen again and if we can’t find a solution to all the problems that exist in the U.K. – at least please let us try, together, to make things better?

Country Girl?

My husband yearns to live in the countryside. He longs to look out of the window and see green fields, babbling brooks, happy tweeting birds and busy bees merrily bobbing from one burgeoning flower to another. Now, I have nothing against the countryside, per se, but I have considerably more problems with the countryside than my husband. In theory for me the countryside sounds idyllic, the smell of fresh grass and corn fields blowing gently in the breeze; the problem is that a) I have raging OCD and b) I’m ultimately a City Girl.

My husband grew up in a house which is both beautiful and in the middle of nowhere, with nearby farms with sheep and cows and horses and little woods in which to adventure. It’s a great place for kids to grow up and I’m not surprised my mother-in-law and father-in-law chose to live and bring up their kids in such perfect surroundings. I, on the other hand, grew up on a council estate in the North East of England, surrounded by industry, grey buildings and graffitied back alleys. As children, if we congregated on the only green patches on the estate to play football or just hang out we invariably terrified the locals, were complained at or had people come over and say ‘I know where you live, I’m going to tell your Mum you’re misbehaving!’ and so as we entered the 1990’s we developed a sort of pavlovian reaction to grass and greenery – it meant one thing, that we were probably going to get complained at. Even my childhood beach experiences involved frolicking in the sand and sea only to look over at the factories and chemical works on the other side of the coast. At one point we used to go to the field at the back of the secondary school we went to and play in the sandpit for the long jump! Even the local park was next to a railway and the fear of the passing trains was pretty intense for me. Also, there was the whole ‘stranger danger’ thing going on at the time so each time we went to the park it was in large groups and inevitably if any adults walked towards the park we would all flee, whooping and screaming. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad place to live, it just could have had a bit more countryside. As my OCD developed as a child I became terrified of certain plants and trees for fear of poisoning and every dog I saw I was terrified would give me rabies. Therefore the countryside became something to fear and shy away from.

So you see my childhood experiences differ somewhat from those of my husband. The countryside leaves him feeling refreshed and relaxed. For me it’s just a catastrophe of toxic plants, bitey insects and scary farming machinery.

I’ve always been used to densely populated areas, as I’ve explained before I lived 19 years in the North East of England and 15 so far in Scotland. When I first came to Edinburgh I was astonished at how big everything was compared to where I lived before. The houses, shops and buildings seemed gigantic and I was surprised at the size of everything. I never really adventured into Edinburgh’s grassy areas until a few years ago. You see, I’m very much a city girl; I can’t cope without knowing there is a shop nearby or a supermarket within 5 miles of where I am staying. Every day I look out of the window to see other tenement flats and I’m sort of fine with that. I like to know that I can buy make up nearby, even if I don’t wear it at the moment. I like to know that there is a good restaurant or take away nearby. I also can’t drive so I like to know there is a good bus service or train station wherever I am. Essentially, when it comes to where to live or go on holiday, I’m a complete pain in the bottom.

Whenever I stay in the countryside, it is eerily silent outside and I inescapably find it almost impossible to sleep. Mainly because I’m used to lots of noise – I’m used to squawking seagulls, delivery vans, drunks shouting in the streets, dance music filtering through the air, the laughter of our neighbours and other multifarious cacophonies. This is what I’m used to and so faced with total silence my brain can’t handle it and therefore continues to witter on to no one in particular all night and so all I get is a string of intrusive thoughts and tinnitus which for peaceful sleep does not make.

There are a lot of downsides to living in the city obviously; the aforementioned noise, it can be a little expensive as is demonstrated in my Dad’s face every time he comes to visit and claims he has to take out a mortgage to buy a meal (he is prone to exaggeration on this matter of course), it seems a little more polluted than the countryside, it’s noisy (I realise that I’ve said this twice but I feel that it needs further emphasis). However, you just don’t seem to get 24 hour shops in the countryside and whilst I rarely need anything at 2am, it’s always nice to know that I could if I wanted to.

I have never been camping and the idea terrifies me. The closest I have ever come to camping was falling asleep in a sun tent thingy that my Nanna had when I was a child – and that was pitched in her back garden...and it was during the day. I think it would be fantastic if I had the guts to go camping but I just don’t. I don’t like the idea that I would have nowhere to wash my hands or go to the loo. I would be terrified that every touch of a plant would lead to my demise. I would be worried that I’d be savaged by a hedgehog in the night. Anxious that any camp fire I had would cause a raging forest fire for which I would be responsible.

My husband hankers after a barge; he loves boats of all kinds. Now, I’ve been to the canal and I know that the water is not very deep but I just couldn’t bring myself to sleep in anything floating in water – no matter how shallow. It took quite a lot to even get me on a boat but eventually I managed to actually feel comfortable enough on a boat that I don’t freak out every 5 minutes and think I’m going to fall over the side (Although on my last boat ride I had such bad vertigo that I almost did fall over the side!). I even got married on a small island forcing me to get on a boat – despite not being able to drive I was permitted to take the wheel for a while, sailing a boat wearing a wedding dress and veil is fun but no easy feat :)

As I get older I find nature more and more fascinating and this had led to me venturing into some of the greener areas of Edinburgh to spot wildlife. For years I didn’t realise what a rich variety of wildlife we have in Edinburgh alone. The first time I saw a heron I was in awe of this vast stealthy bird, creeping through the water searching for a fishy treat. In the past few years, when I have been able to get out and about, I have spent long periods of time, standing silently with my camera, taking photos of wildlife and I love it. I love the feeling that I have just seen an animal or bird that I previously hadn’t. I have learned that not every brown bird is a sparrow, that robins are territorial and fight with other robins when nearby, that some geese eat grass, that there seem to be bunny rabbits everywhere! Things i just wouldn’t have really paid much attention to before. My most recent find is a group of Eider ducks – I’d never seen an Eider duck before and on hearing their ‘ooooooh!!’ call I was instantly smitten and they are now to be known in my head as ‘The oooooh birds’.

I always used to think that most people probably don’t really change a great deal over the course of their lives, it seems like once you get to a certain stage where your personality is shaped then that is how you’ll be. I never expected to make the transition between rambunctious twenty year old and domesticated thirty year old but lo and behold it appears to have happened while I wasn’t looking. Maybe there is room in my life for the countryside after all. While out on a nature walk a few weeks ago I turned to my husband and said humorously I thought “This is your fault!”. He looked at me understandably puzzled and I continued “I never used to be like this before I met you; you’ve made me really into nature and domesticity! And it’s weird!”. The thing is, it’s not weird, not really and it’s not his fault. I have spent my whole life trying to work out where I fit in the world, what I like, what I want to be and it turns out that all I had to do was buy a camera and find the nearest canal, pond or nature park to find something I truly and thoroughly enjoy doing.

I don’t think photography is something I could ever do as a job and I’m not great at it but I adore it. After a day taking photos I can’t wait to go home and look at them. Perhaps when my OCD and vertigo have eased I may get to other parts of the country to spot other wildlife. I may always be a city girl at heart but perhaps there is a little room for the country girl at weekends :)

A Novel Question

Last night my husband and I were discussing how many books we have read in our lives and it was a somewhat tricky question. This was due to watching ‘The Stewart Lee Comedy Vehicle’ where he explained that the English Polymath Thomas Young read all of the books published in his lifetime. His lifetime was from 1773–1829 and while I am not sure how many books were published during that time, it’s a fair assumption that so many books have been published in my lifetime that the chances of me reading all of them is ridiculously slim. Already feeling slightly depressed at this prospect I attempted to look up how many books have been published between 1977 and 2011 and even the internet could not seem to answer my question, giving me a series of results telling me how many Stephen King books have been published and various other authors but no concrete number of the books published in my lifetime. I felt cheered slightly by the prospect that, in not even attempting to read all the books in my lifetime, there are certain books I will never have to struggle through. When I say struggle I don’t mean due to my reading ability, I just mean the books that I haven’t been able to truly appreciate in my life and would therefore never want to have to read them.

A controversial choice in the ‘books I just couldn’t get through’ seems to be Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. I know, I know, you may say “But it’s a classic” and I’m sure it is but I couldn’t make it past about three chapters. I have a sort of three chapter guideline with novels – grip me, excite me, interest me, draw me in within three chapters and I am hooked. If I am not interested in the book after three chapters I try a little longer but I invariably find that I don’t enjoy the rest of the book. It may seem a little restrictive but I do find that a book that grips me within three chapters generally will keep me reading long after I am supposed to be in bed, meet someone, get off the bus etc. This doesn’t apply to every book as some books have very short chapters and I do relax my guideline for this. This may seem a little harsh but I have read too many books where I reached the end and felt that I had wasted three or four hours of my life that I will never get back and so, with the vast amount of books that I want to read, I need to whittle down the list where possible. Anyway, back to Catch 22 – I tried to read it, I read and read and tried hard to concentrate but I just found myself drifting mentally and eventually I put it down. Later I started again, determined to get through it but again I just couldn’t build up the impetus to get through it. Don’t worry; many people have admonished me for not giving it a chance but to no avail. Not everybody enjoys everything and I just couldn’t read the whole book. I’m not insulting it, in fact it could be viewed as a book that was too good for me and that I was the one worse off for not having read it to completion.

I went through a phase several years ago where I decided to read as many of the classic books as I could as there were lots of classic literature to which I had just never gotten around. I read Nineteen Eighty Four and Animal Farm by George Orwell, Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier among others. I read the philosophies of Descartes and Nietzsche, I read Jean Paul Sartre, I read Freud and Jung all topped off with a helping of A Brief History of Time (more about this later) by Stephen Hawking. Now don’t get me wrong, I read some good books, I read some turgid books and while I think it was something that I originally wanted to do – like a child having eaten a whole birthday cake alone, I felt bloated, consumed, and sick of reading. Perhaps not so oddly, after this period of nonstop obsession reading, the idea of even a thin book, even a wafer thin mint of a book, had me metaphorically pushing away my plate and holding my hand to my mouth – no more, at least for a while.

After a period of rest I started to read Will Self books which in retrospect were possibly a mistake at the time. In my humble opinion dear reader, Will Self is an amazing author but I found that I regularly needed a dictionary by my side; the words he used were almost musical in content, I actually found myself writing notes while reading his books. Like an inexperienced reader he seemed to take my hand and led me into a world of language as well as entertaining me, making me look into myself and around me at the world. Anyway, I read one particular book by Will Self where I spent most of the book finding that I identified, at least in part, with the main character only to find out his true nature at the end and I didn’t like his true nature at all. Hopefully the lack of detail doesn’t spoil the book for anyone who chooses to read it but the book really made me think. As I hadn’t been diagnosed with OCD at this time I had no one to really discuss my thoughts and worries with and I worried that I was like the character. Years later I can look back at this and have even read the book again without fear and it was truly thought provoking. I also read The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and Dorian by Will Self around the same time and both books were amazing.

As is my obsession, once I start doing something I tend to find that I need to consume everything concerned with it. I started reading Robert Rankin books as recommended by a good friend of mine and before I knew it I had read pretty much every book he had written, finding me bereft waiting for the next. I was the same with Terry Pratchett books too at one time. I read books from many genres; I read chick lit, fantasy, crime, science fiction. I read the Dan Brown books, enjoyed the Harry Potter books from J.K. Rowling (despite the books being for kids I have scarcely met an adult who hasn’t read them). Ultimately I realised that, I just can’t read everything I want to, it’s just too much.

When I was a child I was a voracious reader, there was barely a time when I didn’t have at least one book on the go. I read in bed, I read on the loo, I read in the bath (That’s how Halloween got soaked and the pages were stiff and yellow :( ), I read in the garden (It’s scary reading Silence of The Lambs by Thomas Harris when birds keep squawking unexpectedly!). I read most of the books in the kids section in our local library and got books for Christmas and birthdays. I truly loved reading.

In my teenage years I read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, I then read it again...and again...and again. I read that book in total five times and I still can’t get my head around some of the concepts. I was determined not to let that book beat me, it wasn’t the reading of it that was causing me issue, it was understanding it. I think I pretty much decided there and then that I was never to be a scientist or a mathematician – although to be fair my degree is a Bachelor of Science so strictly speaking I am a scientist...of sorts :)

The thing that often put me off reading as a teenager was being required to read specific books at secondary school, I don’t remember us getting much of a choice as to whether or not we read Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Spoiler alert for those who haven’t read it and want to, I’m about to reveal something concerning one of the characters so if you don’t want to know, skip to the next paragraph. I was determined not to read it, in my teenage rebellion, as I didn’t want to be forced to read a book that I didn’t think I would enjoy. I know, I know but come on! I was a teenager, that’s how we roll. Anyway, we were supposed to read a chapter every week or some such thing and then during one of the English literature lessons the teacher said “What was the significance of the events surrounding Piggy’s death?” (you were warned) and my first thought was ‘Piggy died?!?! I didn’t know that!’ and I had a pretty hard lesson trying to get out of that question. I did read it after all and, sadly as I suspected, I didn’t enjoy it – whether it was the being forced to read it for my own educational sake or the fact that it was about a group of boys running amok on an island challenging the concepts of human nature, it just didn’t spark anything inside me. The thing is, that if I say today that I didn’t enjoy the book, people seem to get cross with me telling me that it is a classic and that I just didn’t appreciate it; this may be the case but I just didn’t enjoy it either way and as everyone am entitled to my opinion.

When I was a child I read a book about a king who was terrified of being poisoned and so requested that he was given a goblet made from a unicorn’s horn. It was a beautiful book with intricate illustrations but to this day I haven’t been able to find out what it was called and as I was a child I can’t remember what it was called so I have never been able to view it again which is a real shame. I remember reading The Demon Headmaster and The Prime Minister’s Brain both by Gillian Cross as a child and for a while was convinced that people were trying to hypnotise me :)

In these modern times I have both an eBook reader and a Kindle as, due to my OCD, I physically can’t touch books anymore due to my mysophobia (fear of contamination and germs) but I do miss the feel, the smell of a book. My husband steadfastly refuses to read electronic books, as if being disloyal to the beauty of a book. I’ve suggested buying eBooks for him several times only to have him shudder and say “I’d rather have a real book”, apparently he agrees with Douglas Adams in that any technology invented after you are 35 is unnatural – despite the fact that he is not 35 yet, this doesn’t seem to waver him from this opinion. I have only just managed to get him onto a social networking site. Considering he is in I.T. he has some very conflicting opinions!

We had a discussion last night about whether eBooks will wipe out physical books eventually and whether it is ironic that companies online set up to sell books may or may not lead to the death of the physical book by selling eBooks too. I hope not. There is something so exquisite about books and book stores; walking into a bookstore is such an experience – so much knowledge burgeoning out to meet you and it can be yours if you choose – I don’t get the same feeling shopping online for eBooks. Thumbing the book spines, smoothly gliding a book from its shelf and leisurely reading the synopsis on the back – it’s a tactile, tangible, palpable experience which cannot be elicited by browsing eBooks. It may be more environmentally friendly to have an eBook reader seeing as there is no real paper involved, eBooks are available wherever you are (especially on the Kindle), you can carry thousands of tomes around with you and you’re not likely to get a paper cut from an eBook reader but somehow without a physical book, it just isn’t as ‘real’.

All that being said; I do love my eBooks readers as they allow this OCD and agoraphobic to read whatever I want, whenever I want and for that I am enormously grateful.

So, back to the question of how many books I have read in my life? Who knows, it could be hundreds, it could be thousands. There are lots of people who will have read more than me and lots who have read less. It should really be quality over quantity when it comes to books and I have had a mix of the two. What is true is that I hope there’ll be lots more books I’ll read in my lifetime.

I might even give A Brief History of Time another read :)

Commuter Virus

Years ago, when I was a fully functional, reasonably mentally stable member of the human race I used to work in an office around 15 miles away from home. This meant a walk from my place of residence, embarking on a train, disembarking at the location and walking aside a vaguely terrifying main road to the office. At home time it was pretty much the same, just in reverse obviously. Some people used to complain about the commute, others used it as a chance to catch up on their reading, others would sit silently slugging down enough caffeine to allow them to speak to fellow colleagues without biting their heads off – to be honest, if nothing else it was a fascinating study of human behaviour really.

And me? I actually quite enjoyed it; the people watching, the chit chat over the plastic tables, the finding out if your ticket was going to get checked and if it wasn’t, moaning about buying a season ticket and having it ignored (before the introduction of barriers of course). There was also the ‘who can read the free newspaper quick enough to get to the cartoons and horoscopes before the end of the journey’ race which generally ended with a friend of mine nodding sagely and saying ‘Hmm, yeah, Nemi was good today I guess’. One thing that always fascinated me was the way people act on a train, the sort of etiquette that exists. I don’t know what it is like in more densely populated areas like London but in Edinburgh there seemed to be a system where, for some annoying reason, every time anyone got on the train they would immediately congregate around the doorway – despite the fact that there were oodles of free seats on which there were no people, feet, bags or books. Now, it’s easier to get off if you’re near the doorway, I get it but it is not for EVERYBODY ELSE WHO HAS TO STRUGGLE THROUGH THE THRONG OF PEOPLE TO GET OFF!!!! I am particularly annoyed about this as it caused me to miss my stop on more than four occasions. Perhaps I’m just too polite to shout ‘GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!!’ and I should be more assertive but in the same way, I was trying to maintain the stress free environment, not causing a fuss, observing some sort of unspoken etiquette. After watching this happen for approximately six years I started being more outspoken about it but always was eyed by fellow commuters to not complain, to keep the peace. It was particularly frustrating for people with bikes as trying to insert a bike onto a train through a group of people in the doorway, all steadfastly studying their newspapers, is no small feat. It wasn’t a lack of intelligence, the people in the doorway were often chatting amiably about complicated tasks at work and so I can only guess it is either a lack of common sense, a furious desire to be the first one off the train as if it were a race or a phenomena not yet revealed to me.

Then there was the Train Nemesis. Bear with me, this one is a bit esoteric but after travelling on any mode of transport for any length of time (in this case trains, or it would be Bus Nemesis wouldn’t it?) you start to develop an intense dislike for a particular commuter for no real reason at all. It’s an odd phenomena, it could be the noisy way the person eats across the table from you, it could be the person who always tries to hog your favourite seat or it could be someone who is pretending to read a high brow book but clearly not actually reading it as it takes them 3 years and in this time they open it and then stare out of the window holding it up so people can see just how damn smart they are! Sorry, got a bit carried away there. It could be the person who talks loudly enough to prevent anyone from reading or they could be talking about the most banal stuff that you feel like shouting at them or moving seats, but you can’t as their voice seems to resonate around the whole carriage! For a friend of mine, his Train Nemesis seemed to join his path to the train station and each time he would try to race past the man who became known as ‘The Running Man’. This seemed to happen every day and my friend often couldn’t work out how the man always seemed to get ahead of him and so he would hurry too. It seemed to intensely annoy him to the point of competition. I daresay that onlookers would have mentally noted them as ‘The Running Men’ due to this :) For me it was the ‘Man Who Always Tries To Steal My Seat’. Every day I would hurry down to the train station and TMWATTSMS would be waiting on the platform, looking nonchalant but he knew what he was doing, waiting to pounce! When the train arrived everyone would surge towards the train door. Being small it was usually easy to manoeuvre my way into the crowd and sometimes people would let me on the train first and I would coolly walk through the door, thanking people, before hurrying desperately to the seat next to ‘The Bunny Window’ (More about this later), in the corner with the table seats. Occasionally he would smile or scowl but always his expression read ‘you won today, but soon I will be victorious!’. Sometimes I think he would get on the stop before just too annoy me and as I didn’t see him at the station I would think ‘haha! The seat is mine!’ but then I’d clamber onto the busy train only to realise he was sprawled out in MY seat, eating a muffin!!! A Muffin!!! His eyes saying ‘You have to get up pretty early in the morning to catch me out’ – and presumably he had. It was a weird thing, a sort of dislike for somebody due to no real basis at all, it would fester within you. You would never actually do anything about said nemesis but they were always there.

Then there were the Train Guardians. These are people whom are so regular in their daily commute that, if you don’t see them, you know that you are late for the train. For me it was ‘The Tall Man’, ‘Lady with the Beret’ and ‘The Twins who aren’t really Twins’. Basically I would leave my flat and 9 times out of 10 I would pass a tall stern looking grey haired man whom would wear a jacket or carry it along with an umbrella – the closer he was to my flat when I passed him, the later I was for the train. Then, further along the journey I would cross paths with ‘Lady with the Beret’ who would generally be hurrying and I didn’t stand a chance of catching up with her but just seeing her was comforting, no train missed yet. Then, just before the train station there was the tv shop that always had breakfast TV on with a clock on screen – anything after 8:10am and it was Game Over, 30 minutes wait minimum, mostly in the cold to catch the next train. Finally on the journey there were two girls who seemed to go to school near the train station, they looked so alike you would briefly think they were twins but up close they looked little like each other really. Again, the further away you saw ‘The Twins who aren’t really Twins’ from the train station, the more chance you had of missing the train. It was pretty foolproof really, even if one failed you, you always had a backup Train Guardian. I am not sure what these people were like in real life, I hope they’re lovely people, but they kept me on the right track train time wise and for that I wish to publicly thank them.

The aforementioned ‘Bunny Seat’ was a seat next to a window adjacent to the possible sighting of bunnies next to the track, generally to make the journey more pleasant it was important to observe a series of games, one of which was animal spotting. For example, in a part of Fife, it appeared that someone had released a pet rabbit into the wild population and this meant that as well as the usual brown wild bunnies, some of them were pure black and a mix of brown and black so it was interesting to try and spot as many types of bunny as possible. Then there were the occasional deer that frequented the fields surrounding the station and so spotting one was always good. There was the heron that sat patiently near a pool of water near one of the stations, but only on some occasions. There were seals in the pool at the Deep Sea World Centre that you could spot while crossing the Forth Rail Bridge (I called one of the seals ‘Pancake’, I’m not sure why, it just ensured that he had a name I could call him). Generally spotting any animal would generally send me into a smile of delight and I would feel like the journey was somehow more worth it that just going to and from work.

I always found the journey into work slightly more difficult than the journey back, mainly because I’m not a morning person. Some people can just leap out of bed, ready for the day. For me, it seems to take roughly four hours after waking to gain any semblance of normality. Sometimes getting the train would be a monumental struggle in the mornings due to my sensitivity to and lack thereof caffeine. A friend of mine and I had a signal, if he hadn’t had his coffee and therefore did not want to speak to me he would simply nod almost imperceptibly and continue listening to his MP3 player and I knew instantly not to chirpily attempt to make conversation. On the few occasions I tried to be cheery in this situation it was met with either a steely glare or a ‘Hello’ through gritted teeth. On the mornings in which coffee had been, or was currently being consumed, generally he would be in good spirits and we would have a jolly chat. The only thing is, as I regularly got on the train with a few people I knew, if I was having a bad morning I’m just way too polite to ignore anyone so I would attempt to manoeuvre myself onto the part of the train where no one I knew would be. This invariably backfired though as there would be someone whose car had broken down and had to take the train that day and would be hugely chirpy while I would smile weakly and try to forcibly wake myself up by will alone.

One thing I always found funny was when random commuters would become heavily involved in the conversation a friend and I were sharing that they would almost involuntarily join in. For example, my now husband and I were discussing cartoons or some such thing when my husband said ‘Apparently the cartoon character Goofy was meant to be a cow, not a dog’. I asked him what he was talking about, or words to that effect, and said that I thought he was a dog. Husband then said he had read somewhere that Goofy was meant to be a cow, at which point the commuter in front of us put down his paper and said ‘I’m sorry, but that’s just crap! He’s a dog!’. We then entered a full debate with the man regarding the species of a cartoon character until we almost agreed to meet the man the next day to see who was right! I once saw a lady lean across the aisle and tell a fellow passenger that her boyfriend sounded like a jerk and she should dump him as the girl had been trying to make a decision for most of the journey between noisy sobs.

We used to have the most entertaining chats on the train and another friend of mine used to produce things from his pocket on a fairly random basis – he once had a pipe in his pocket even though he didn’t smoke, it was huge too, proper Sherlock Holmes style. He also got on the train one day and produced balloons from his pocket which he proceeded to blow up and we had fun batting them around the carriage much to the probable chagrin of the other passengers. One balloon seemed to escape at every station we stopped!

When I stayed in San Diego for six weeks several years ago I struck up a good rapport with the hotel shuttle drivers Wayne and Felicia. Felicia drove the bus to the office I was frequenting in the morning via a few stops in La Jolla and we got on famously. We chatted about all sorts of things and she even took me out to see the sights in her car on the one day that I actually managed to get away from work. Wayne drove the evening bus back from the office and he had an amazing sense of humour – a man with a firm twinkle in his eye who seemed to love the complexities of language whom I regularly confused with both my accent and some of my words – I’m afraid he may have learned a few more swear words from me during my time there. I used to wait for him to come back from taking hotel guests to various locations in the late evening on breaks from my computer and we’d sit and chat in the smoking area (that’s when I was a regular smoker that is). Wayne and Felicia made my daily commute so much fun, without them I would have probably sat in silence the whole way to and from work. I think Wayne even had us all singing on the bus at one point! Happy days!

Let’s face it, you have to keep yourself amused on routine trips. The thing is, I’ve always been able to settle happily on a train or bus for long journeys. Apparently as a very small child I liked nothing more than to sit in my pushchair and watch the world go by and I would scream if I had to get out of it. Don’t worry, I don’t scream these days if I have to get off a train/bus – that would be impolite to other passengers.

But what of my fellow passengers, what do they do to ease situations for people around them? One thing that infuriates me is the ‘despite the fact that there are no other seats free on this train and you are standing, I’m still going to put my bag/feet/guitar/Laptop etc on the seat so you can’t sit down’. One man actually tutted loudly at me for politely asking him to move his feet and when he did he kicked me hard in the shin to express his disgust. I don’t wish to be melodramatic but that kick hurt like crazy – I have since read that there is some sort of nerve in your shin that if kicked will generally make the person collapse due to the pain – so there, it hurt!

It’s like some people get onto the train and mark their territory, they invade the space provided and don’t allow other people to invade their space, like a virus – they set up home in their seat and it becomes theirs. Like a virus they are sneezed out at various different stations and resolve to make things more uncomfortable for people for asking them to move their bag.

I’ve found a way of preventing people from sitting anywhere near you that doesn’t involve creating a literal stink – gleaned from Jasper Carrott I believe – when people are getting on the train, as they pass you, smile as widely as you can. This, also like a virus, spreads throughout the train the general consensus that you’re probably going to engage them in some sort of conversation and you will more often than not be avoided at all costs.

I was looking forward to hopefully getting back to work in the near future and joining the commute again then I remembered the cold winter days, stuck in the snow, shivering waiting for the trsin. Or having the trains cancelled in summer as the rails are too hot. Perhaps I’ll just work from home :)

“I wish to register a complaint!”

Recently I had to assist my Dad in writing a letter of complaint to a particular company regarding a product he had bought. Despite him attempting to return the product he was still being charged for something that he wasn’t using and hadn’t actually wanted in the first place. It’s complicated and I won’t name the company but we found that on searching the company’s website last year, there was no email address to complain and the only ways to communicate with them was through writing a letter and sending it through the post or phoning the company which, on the one occasion he did phone them, cost around £7 and it was only a short call and didn’t solve the problem.

Eventually, after several months, we found that there was an email address available to which the query could be sent. I set to work constructing an email to send to the company, it took around an hour to write the huge mail containing all of the necessary information and explaining the anxiety this had caused. This got me thinking about the nature of complaint.

It’s not often that I feel the need to complain to companies, TV shows or people but I do find myself saying “There’ll be letters!” at certain things on the TV as I have the expectation that people will hit Twitter, Facebook, the internet in general to air their grievances against particular things. I would say generally that very little on the TV offends me, occasionally I might think something is inappropriate for the time of day etc but on the whole I don’t feel the urge to write an email/post a message if something offends me. Perhaps my desire to complain is directly correlated to the amount of energy and time I think it will take to write the complaint or how much money it will cost to complain (phone call costs, price of a stamp etc). A scientist could probably construct an equation in which this could be expressed but I more than likely wouldn’t understand it and would have to have it explained to me.

For example, I believe it was last year that I was watching the X Factor, it was probably the final as I only ever seem to get around to watching reality shows at the Final – apart from Masterchef, I really like Masterchef. Anyway, the Christina Aguilera performance with the burlesque dancers was on and I looked up from whatever I was doing and my first thought was ‘That’s quite raunchy for this time of night!’. For anyone who didn’t see it, it mainly consisted of scantily clad women generally writhing around, thrusting their hips and straddling chairs. Perhaps I’m doing it a disservice; it was quite enjoyable and sensual but maybe more of an adult nature. The outfits weren’t really the problem, you could see women in lingerie on billboards, shop posters etc, it was more the sexual nature of the dancing really. I remember thinking ‘Ooh, there’ll be letters!’ as I thought of someone reaching for the Basildon Bond and their best fountain pen after spluttering over their cup of tea (I’m not sure why I get this image in my head to express someone being offended!). The thing is that, there were letters, or rather emails I suspect to the X Factor expressing outrage – I understand that the complaints reached into the thousands. Now, I have to admit that I did think it was perhaps a tad raunchy for pre-watershed viewing and I’m not exactly a prude but what did I do about my offended sensibilities?

Nothing, absolutely nothing – unless you count saying to my husband ‘There’ll be letters’.

The funny thing is, despite being mildly shocked, I still continued to watch said performance – whether it was to see if it got any worse or if it was just because I couldn’t stop watching it, like watching a terrible drama unfolding I literally couldn’t tear my eyes away. I didn’t switch it off – why? I’ve asked myself this question, maybe I wanted more to complain about mentally or to say that I had seen it (although it was undoubtedly going to end up on YouTube) some part of me wanted to have seen it when it happened, a spectator to what was probably going to be causing some outrage on Twitter even as I watched. Is this human nature or am I a damaged individual? Actually, don’t answer that :) Perhaps if I had kids and they were watching it I may have felt more outraged at their exposure to a performance like that but I would have probably switched it off or sent the kids out of the room until it was over. This is an area I will address if and when it ever occurs I suppose.

In the olden days, complaining seemed to involve writing a letter to the necessary party, expressing extreme offence to the material (or as Hugh Laurie in ‘A Bit of Fry and Laurie’ once said “I'm going to write a stiff letter. A very stiff letter. On cardboard. And I shall post it too! ” ). There was, and still is I believe a show on TV where viewers would write in about various programs and complain and their letters were read out on the TV. I often wondered to where you would write if you took offence to something in the complaints program. Answers on a postcard please...

Anyway, my point is that, being so enraged by something on TV, you could go and write a letter and post it to the relevant party and then you had to wait for a reply. The interesting thing about this is that, apart from the actual writing of the letter, there is very little instant gratification in this - having your complaint recognised and acknowledged by the party – there is a wait. I mean, the fact that you are so annoyed by something that you put pen to paper, it must be serious – right? Now, with the birth of the internet and social networking sites it is possible to complain almost immediately to whomever you choose without the, probably advisable, cooling off period. We are passionate creatures us humans and, judging by the responses on internet forums of varying natures, some people perhaps don’t cool off and calm down before they send a potentially inflammatory remark without thinking. With the internet and social networking sites there is a sense of instant gratification – if you don’t like a TV show you can often post a message on the site of the show, the director, the actors etc and frequently get a response quickly; even if the response isn’t from the person themselves, a like minded individual responding seems instant gratification enough at times. To know you’re not alone in your thinking.

I suppose in the modern age we are used to having more power and control than we used to. In the past, when complaining by letter you didn’t know how many other people had complained or if the person didn’t reply you didn’t know if your complaint had been read or if anything had come of it and you could pursue it further but let’s be honest, most people may have thought about their complaint and considered it not worth the time and energy to continue it at that point. Also, when you wrote a letter of complaint it wasn’t immediately mocked or supported by lots of other people, whipping people up into a frenzy. Nowadays we are encouraged to vote for people online/by phone, vote people off reality tv shows, wherever you are, whatever your opinion – we want to hear from you!

There are billions of people in the world and it’s fairly likely that every individual will have an individual opinion on everything. In the past, it was perhaps more difficult to get opinions across to large amounts of people, now everyone who has access to the internet has a voice. Everyone should have their say, free speech and all that, and most people do but with instant posting on social networking sites it is all too easy to make a throwaway comment or create something that can create an enormous amount of controversy.

An example of this is the song ‘Friday’ by Rebecca Black. You know, the YouTube sensation? I hadn’t heard it but from the comments I had read about it I half expected some sort of song about something hugely offensive with an accompanying horrific video. Some people were praising it, which is nice, but there were a large amount of people who tore into her – one allegedly suggesting she should harm herself and die! To be honest, I was almost afraid to view the video as my expectations were terrifying. I really have no idea why the video produced so much vitriol, to me it just seemed like a pop video by a young girl singing about how she was looking forward to the weekend and that she was waiting for the bus. I thought I had viewed the wrong video. In my humble opinion dear reader, it wasn’t the greatest song or video I have ever heard or seen but it was certainly catchy. I can’t imagine feeling so irate by the song that I would email or tweet the singer to express such bitterness towards her. People put allsorts of stuff up on You Tube, surely that’s the point of it – to express yourself to the world. Obviously not everyone is going to agree with the opinions expressed by everyone but to personally attack a girl for wanting to be in a pop video and show the world seems a tad harsh. What gives someone the right to publicly insult a young girl for doing something she wanted to do that seemed fairly harmless. Did I miss something? Did she do something heinous?

But then again, everyone has an opinion and should be able to express it so perhaps it was just people expressing their opinion – there’s probably no need to be overtly cruel though.

One set of complaints that actually surprised me recently was the flurry of complaints over Fiona Bruce reading the news with a pair of glasses on. As a fellow bespectacled girlie I know how sucky it is when you want to wear your contact lenses but have an eye infection so you have to wear glasses, but for people to say that she shouldn’t have been reading the news in her glasses seems so ludicrous! (In my opinion). Admittedly I noticed she was wearing glasses and thought ‘Hmm, does she usually wear glasses?’ but I sort of ignored that and got on with the business of watching the news. Apparently there was a bout of comments on Twitter saying she looked “awful”, criticising her appearance and some saying she should have stayed at home if she was ill. I mean, what do you think about that? So it’s openly ok to criticise someone’s appearance publicly but if that were to go on in other places would it be classed as ‘bullying’?

The thing is, there’s often no happy medium, if you express yourself you risk ridicule but if things are censored or cut out then there is uproar! Our rights are being violated by not allowing us to see something! It’s political correctness gone mad people shout. So what is the solution? There is always someone who is going to take offence at something and perhaps it’s up to us to sit down, consider our complaint, think of the consequences of venting our spleen and if we still feel it is a valid complaint, go ahead and let rip.

As for me, frankly if something on TV offends me I tend to switch it over and watch something else, I’ve got enough to worry about mentally without getting worked up over something that either doesn’t interest me or in the grand scheme of things isn’t that important. If I do find something massively offensive, trust me, I will write a letter, write an email and make my voice heard but until that time comes I will continue my viewing pleasure and I undoubtedly will be caused to utter my well worn phrase ‘There’ll be letters’ :)

A First Time for Everything

Recently I spent a little time in hospital and, in a room with about four other women all of whom seemed to be making some sort of noise, unsurprisingly I couldn’t sleep. I haven’t slept well since I was about 14 so in order to try and get any sleep at all I did something that I have been doing to induce sleep for around 20 years – I attempted to recall lists of things. Over the years this has involved attempting to remember the names of everyone I have ever known, the entire cast of Eastenders (with their real life names for bonus points), the name of every book I have ever read etc. This largely works, however there was that tricky night where I ended up texting a friend of mine at around 3am asking him the name of a woman from The Bill whose name positively escaped me and was actually preventing me from sleeping.

Anyway, my usual tricks weren’t working so I attempted to relax while thinking of the first times in my life – the first memory I remember having, my first boyfriend, my first day at school etc – these memories actually surprised me as there were many times I remembered in vivid details when ordinarily if someone asked me if I remember my first alcoholic drink or something similar I would say yes but never really analyse the memory.

The first memory I have is being chased around the play dough table with Janine Robinson by Mark Smith in the nursery. Admittedly this is an odd first memory really – I don’t actually remember starting nursery but I do remember throwing back my head and laughing uproariously as Mark shouted ‘RRRAAAARRRGGGHHH!!!!’ as he chased Janine and me around and around the small circular table. I remember the play dough, the smell of it and the look of the table and as I run it in my head I can almost be back there – around 3 and a half years old, without a care in the world.

I remembered the first birthday I could remember with any real clarity. I was 8, I remember the huge card I got that unfolded to reveal a huge number 8. We went to a car boot sale and, as I have always had an attraction to shiny things, I managed to convince my dad to buy me a pair of rainbow coloured earrings from a stall. My Mum, Dad, sister and me went to Redcar and I remember my Dad singing along to ‘Runaway’ by Del Shannon (I’m not old enough to remember it from first release being that it was 16 years before my birth, my dad liked old music). I remember staring at those beautiful earrings, glistening different colours in the sunlight. I remember my dad taking us into a cafe and telling me I could have anything from the menu, ice cream, knickerbocker glory, sundae etc but I said that what I really wanted was a glass of milk!

I remember my first kiss. I was around 14 and I was with my first boyfriend. I was teasing him by saying I had written about him in my diary and I was holding the diary pressed against my chest, smiling and telling him that he wasn’t going to get to read what I had written. I remember his blue eyes sparkling and he leaned forward as if to retrieve the diary from me but instead he kissed me. The funny thing is that I remember thinking at the time ‘Oh! My first kiss! This is amazing! I’m having my first kiss!’ while in the meantime I was probably sitting motionlessly with my eyes wide open and my mouth not moving a great deal and once I realised that I was doing this I started to think ‘Oh smooth, now he’ll think you’re a bad kisser!’ while not realising that this was probably causing me to be more motionless. My boyfriend didn’t seem to mind and we went out for around 5 months after that so I can’t have been that bad a kisser :)

I think that the first time you do most things falls into a series of categories - either it doesn’t matter, is terrifying or exciting...or a combination of the latter two. The first time for things can be life changing. For example, the first time I rather foolishly smoked a cigarette led to a 10 year smoking addiction, that was pretty life changing and trying to reverse it and wean myself from that addiction was life changing too. Strange that I remember my first cigarette but I don’t remember my last cigarette around four years ago.

I remember the first concert I ever went to, it was Neil Finn at the auditorium in Glasgow. I remember how beautiful his voice was; flowing over the audience like smooth warm chocolate and tears flowed down my cheeks, not because I was sad but because I was happy. I felt alive, the first time I had sat in the same room as a man whose music I had admired for so long. I was in my twenties and I had never been to a concert before so my boyfriend at the time arranged the tickets and it was a wonderful night.

I was a picky eater as a child and I think I drove my mum to distraction by not wanting to eat anything expect potatoes, she even had to tell me that a piece of cheese was ‘orange chocolate’ once in order to get me to eat it! I remember going to a friends house and having my first meal with another family – I’m actually ashamed to admit it but I think I probably just sat there looking at the strange-to-me food such as lamb, carrots etc while hot wet tears dripped down my face; scared to eat the food as I had never really lived to eat, only ate to live and wouldn’t try anything new. I remember my boyfriends mum convincing me to try a little chicken kiev when i was around 18 and finding that it was the most wonderfully sumptuous thing I had ever tasted and that I shouldn’t really be frightened of trying new foods.

My first day at university was a prominent memory too. I was living away from home for the first time, not only from home but far from home – well 150 miles or so but it felt like a long way for a small town girl who hadn’t really left her hometown much. I had to go into a huge hall to matriculate and while waiting in the queue I got talking to a man who would become a part of my life to this day. He told me his name but on seeing his matriculation form his first name was different. I was upset as I thought he had given me a false name just to get rid of me but it merely turned out to be a misunderstanding and that he preferred to be known by his middle name. I think I actually accused him of giving a false name before he laughed and explained – he probably thought I was nuts.

As I explained before, I came from a small town and I had never been to Scotland before coming to university in Edinburgh so my boyfriend at the time agreed to drive me up to Scotland beforehand to show me how beautiful it was. Now, you have to understand that I was a naive young girl who only had experience of Scotland from TV shows (Supergran springs to mind), Billy Connelly and the cartoon ‘The Family Ness’. Also, it didn’t help that people had told me that haggis were real animals and that highland cows didn’t exist but were other cows dressed up for the tourists. As you can imagine, my expectations of Scotland such as everyone wearing kilts, bagpipe players on every corner, haggis running around hills with two legs shorter than the others etc were somewhat different to reality. Ignorance I know but I moved up to Scotland 15 years ago and I love it – even if I do sometimes think it would be nice to see more men in kilts :)

I remember my first ride on a steam train. I was about 18 and my boyfriend at the time, whom I had only been seeing for a few days, drove me far into the North Yorkshire moors without telling me exactly where we were going. To be honest I was pretty scared, despite him constantly reassuring me it was a surprise and everything was ok I still considered making a run for it when he stopped the car! We walked down to a small railway station where a steam train was waiting. We travelled from Grosmont to Pickering and it was exhilarating – hearing the actual ‘choo choo’ of the train as the wheels clacked along the track, steam billowing from the chimney as we moved along at a leisurely pace. I put my head out of the window to get a better look and was in awe – it was amazing! It would have been more amazing had I not pulled my head back inside the old fashioned carriage only to find that my face was covered in soot and dirt causing my boyfriend to howl with laughter!

I remember my first taste of champagne, having never had it before and discussing this with a good friend of mine many years ago he gave me a bottle of champagne and told me to enjoy it as I should enjoy the finer things in life. I was so touched, the bubbly liquid tickled my nose as I drank it in special champagne flutes I bought for that very occasion and I raised my glass to him that New Years Eve for giving me a taste of the good life.

Many years ago a friend of mine saw that there was to be a performance of Mozart’s Requiem in Edinburgh at the Usher Hall and as it was my favourite he asked me if I would like to go. It was a chance to dress up, I’ve always been a little tomboyish and I very rarely get dressed up – mainly due to looking like ‘a bag of rags’ in no matter what I wear. I had lost a lot of weight and was about a size 8 at the time, I bought a beautiful floaty deep purple dress and a new pair of shoes. I pinned up my hair and for the first time, probably ever, I actually looked ladylike! I remember leaving work and making my way to the pub to meet my friend beforehand, I felt like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, hoping I oozed sophistication. I suspect in real life I looked a complete fright but I prefer to think I looked ok :) My friend was dressed in a suit and looked very smart, we made our way grandly to the Usher Hall. I clattered up the smooth steps to the hall in my flowing gown, holding the arm of my friend. The music was wonderful, so beautiful and again I think I probably shed tears due to simply feeling so emotional. At the end of the night I flopped onto my bed at home, sighing happily that for one night I actually looked like a lady.

Some firsts in life are just incredible. I remember trying on exactly two wedding dresses before finding that the third was the most perfect dress I had ever seen and it was even in my size – it was pretty much exactly the same design I was looking for, it even had sleeves with tiny glass buttons. I remember the first kiss as a married couple and the first time I signed my name using my married name – yep, you guessed it, I accidently signed it with my maiden name – d’oh!

I also got to thinking about some things that I haven’t done such as go to a festival, see Egypt, watch ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, become a published writer etc. Even though I wasn’t critically ill or anything, just very poorly, it seemed that during my hospital stay my life truly passed before my eyes...

...Or it could have just been the medication they gave me that made me remember all this stuff :)

The Female Sex...and the City

I have started watching ‘Sex and the City’ recently…I know, I’m about ten years later than everyone else. The thing is, I have been ill recently and at the moment I can’t leave home alone as I am so dizzy that I fall over. Due to my inability to go out alone, I have been pursuing my favourite pastime – watching TV – and I seem to have gotten hooked on the dazzling lifestyle and tales of the glamorous women in ‘Sex and the City’. The thing that stopped me from watching it before was that every time I switched it on, Kim Catrall was invariably in some state of undress and I got bored and annoyed with that pretty quickly so I didn’t feel like watching it. However, as Comedy Central has started showing it during the day, the need to remove large amounts of the sex has been necessary and this actually has encouraged me to watch it.

I’ve been watching two half hour episodes about three times a week, lapping up the luxurious yet troubled loves of the four female leads. I have cried over the Carrie and Big situation, laughed at Samantha’s sexual exploits (the ones they can show at that time of day), aahhhed at Charlotte’s sweetness and felt sorry for Miranda and her success driving men away. In watching this I have seen their many dalliances with the opposite sex but the thing that is largely forgotten is – how do you go about finding a close female friend?

I’ve known lots of women in my life and been friends with many of them but I’ve never reached that level of friendship with a woman where we trust each other implicitly and can share everything. For years I blamed this on not being a girly girl, but I am deep down.

I’m a woman, I like the same things as many women but I’ve never been able to successfully hold down a deep and meaningful friendship with a woman. So, whereas the ladies in ‘Sex and the City’ are seeking perfect relationships with men, I desperately crave a successful friendship with a woman. I have a successful relationship with a man – my husband – we love each other, we don’t play pointless games with each other, we say what we mean, we communicate well and trust each other completely. I can honestly say that I have found a great man. Yet still, my search to find a woman who likes me and with whom I can have a close friendship eludes me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m friends with lots of women and there are many women that I care about a great deal but I can never seem to build up the level of closeness that other people have with their friends. When I see my female friends in photos in a bar or somewhere on holiday, looking so happy and having a great time – I wonder why I can’t do the same.

Whenever I go out with a group of women we dance and have fun but I invariably feel that I am less liked or not as fun as the other women and this makes me feel inferior and useless and I end up feeling depressed. I find it so hard to make women like me and to get on well with women.

I never seem to have had the same problem with men. I’ve managed to forge good and close friendships with men throughout my life and my closest friends are men – this has it’s advantages and disadvantages. Over the years friendships with men have often culminated in relationships and thankfully I have stayed friends with the majority of my exes but it is sometimes difficult to be friends with men without things getting complicated. A friend of mine once told me that it is difficult for a man and woman to be friends, particularly when the woman has feelings for the man. His reasoning was that if a man and woman are friends and the man has feelings for the woman but the woman does not reciprocate, the man is likely to just stay friends without trying anything once he knows. Apparently if a man and woman are friends and the woman has feelings for the man, even if the man doesn’t reciprocate the feelings he is still likely to go for it while the opportunity is there. I’m not sure if this is always the case but it does seem to have occurred in my life at least once.

I have a few male friends with whom I have shared friendship without any sexual overtones and these are the friendships that have lasted and been some of the most trusting. I find it difficult to trust people in general and there are few people I trust wholly.

As with the girls in ‘Sex and the City’ sometimes you want to have a frank conversation with someone about how something made you feel – a sexual experience, a passionate moment and obviously it is great to have a woman to share those thoughts with. When you don’t have a close female friend this is a bit of pain as if you talk about these things to your male friends they often don’t want to hear details like that, or if they do you worry they might get the wrong idea. It is also not always enormously appropriate to talk about past experiences with your current partner so where do you turn?

When I was a kid, so disliked by girls was I that a group of them followed me home once spitting all over the back of my coat as I walked. My mam was disgusted by the sight of my spit covered coat on my return home and desperately tried to find out who did it. Whenever I became friends with women I seemed to get picked on and as I was a very sensitive child this upset me greatly. In my adult life, so disliked was I by the girls in a hair salon that I worked, one of the girls locked me on the roof and shut the fire escape door so I couldn’t get back in. Men don’t seem to have ever picked on me the way women have. I'm not tarring all women with the same brush, perhaps I've just been too scared to get to know women better due to worrying they might hurt me.

Back in my youth I had a boyfriend, who will remain nameless to spare their privacy, whom I cared about a great deal. After going out for a period of time he told me it was over – I was devastated, overly dramatic about it in hindsight but devastated nonetheless. Anyway, I had a close friend whom I called to discuss it with and she was very comforting. A few days later I phoned her again and she said she had seen my ex. I laughed and said ‘He didn’t ask you out did he?’ the line went silent. The silence was deafening and ominous and in a squeaky voice I said ‘Did he?’. She sighed and admitted that he had asked her out and that she had said yes. I remember slamming the phone down at some point and I remember how I felt. To be fair, she used to go out with him before me and they had always been close but it felt at the time like a major betrayal. Now this happened twenty years ago and when it really comes down to it, it was all part of life’s rich tapestry and if I hadn’t gone through that and everything else subsequent to this then my life may have been very different and so I am glad I went through it but at the time it really hurt.

The problem is that I have never been able to get the worry out of my head that if I am good friends with a woman that my partner may fall for them or vice versa and perhaps I have been pushing women away as friends because of this fear. As you all know, I have a ridiculously high level of perceived fear daily and perhaps I have shunned the idea of having a women as a friend due to a fear blown out of all proportion.

This is likely as when I was a kid, the people I shared most of my time and friendship with was my lovely cousins – Sam, Kim and Kendra – and my lovely sister – Shell - and we all got on great, all girls together. We didn't have boyfriends then so the worries were not an issue for me. Even then though I never really felt I was good enough due to my own self esteem issues and I so desperately wanted everyone to like me. Desperation is never a good thing and has led me to sabotaging more than one friendship with my desire to be liked. It can come across as a tad clingy.

At primary school I had a wonderful female friend with whom I spent a lot of time, I felt she really understood me and I adored her. To this day I still feel very fondly towards her and probably always will. The problem was that when we got to secondary school we were sometimes in different classes and didn’t get to see each other as much. She made friends easily while I struggled and I became so jealous of her other friends that I must have seemed positively possessive which does not come across well and is more likely to force the person away from you more than anything else. I’d never felt anything like that before, especially at the tender age of 12 and it affected me greatly. I was confused and miserable that I couldn’t make friends as easily and felt like I didn’t truly belong anywhere. I think most teenagers feel like this at some point but I just felt bereft. I made friends eventually but it was hard. Then my parents divorced and I lived with my Dad.

I found it easier to be friends with men, to a certain extent men didn’t care what I looked like or what I said and it was fun to be as lewd as possible without other women calling me a ‘slapper’.

As I got older I started wondering if my awkwardness of being friends with women was due to me maybe being attracted to women. I liked the look of women’s bottoms as they walked down the street and a few lesbians had made overtures towards me and I wondered if this was my big realization. Was I finding it difficult to talk to women as I was attracted to them? I’ve thought about it many times over the years and there are a lot of really beautiful women out there but being with a woman just isn’t something that I’m attracted to. To be honest I’ve always wanted to kiss another woman, mainly just to see what it feels like, but I am more attracted to men than women and regardless of a small amount of curiosity it appears that I am completely heterosexual. On one occasion I was in a bar on the dancefloor and a pretty looking woman danced next to me, closer and closer and she was smiling at me in a way that invited me closer. Over her shoulder I could see my friends Jamie and Caitriona urging me on, knowing as they did my now legendary desire to kiss a woman to see what it felt like but I completely bottled out and within minutes the woman was lip locked with another woman! There goes my first and last opportunity to kiss a woman.

The problem definitely lies with me as, whenever I am with a woman anywhere – be it a bar, at work, a café etc – I just feel that they are better than me, more of a woman, smarter, prettier, more intelligent and I just end up feeling bad about myself no matter what they say to make me feel better.

Or it could be, as a friend said to me recently, maybe I just haven’t met the right woman yet? Or maybe I am just self sabotaging my female friendships out of fear?

Regardless of the reason, I hope my female friends will understand when I say that I want close friendships with women, but is anyone willing to put up with me to get there?