Here we go again. I remember writing that the periods of my irrational, ridiculous, paranoid, childish insecurity are diminishing and becoming less frequent, and that is still true. But they aren't gone completely and it strikes me that I have entered my latest one tonight. I think that perhaps writing about how I feel will help me, because I will read it back and think "You're being such a dick! Stop it! Cease! Desist!" and then that'll happen. Possibly.
I trust Kat with my life. Implicitly and unconditionally. The part of my mind that remains rational during these insecure periods knows how much she loves me, how dedicated to me she is, how committed she is. Why then, you might (justifiably) say, does the insecurity raise its head in the first place? Believe me, I wish I knew. Then, perhaps, I might be able to fucking do something about it.
At least this time I know what's triggered it. A completely innocent party in all this, a friend of hers who goes by the name of Nikolai. By all accounts he's a lovely bloke, although I've never met him. From what I've heard he's also a gentleman. I don't attach any responsibility to him, let me make that clear.
Early on in our relationship, Nikolai hung out at Kat's apartment and the two of them polished off most of a bottle of whisky and as a result were understandably quite drunk. Nikolai is a good-looking bloke who doesn't really do commitment, and is used to getting his own way with the ladies. That night he expressed an interest in sex. Kat turned him down flat, as you would expect: "That's not going to happen; I'm seeing someone else." He accepted this. He made no further moves or tried his luck again. They shared Kat's bed - she has no spare room - and he brought her breakfast in bed in the morning. He left shortly afterwards. Nothing untoward in any of this. You can see what I mean when I describe him as a gentleman! Even under the affluence of incohol, he instantly accepted it when she said she wasn't interested and that was the end of it. If only all men (and women) had willpower and principles as strong as that. And he's there tonight, right now, and they're having a bottle of wine and watching TV, or listening to music and having a chat, just like friends do.
You're probably beginning to understand by now what I say when I use the adjective "irrational" when I refer to my insecurity. The story has nothing in it to raise any sort of reasonable objection. Sure, some people might object to their other halves sharing a bed with anyone of the opposite sex, no matter what the circumstances, but I am not one of those people. I don't purport to criticise those people or to consider my own opinion superior; their line in the sand is just in a different place to mine. Last Friday night, Kat shared a bed with her best friend, Uffe, who's a ridiculously good-looking Danish feller with whom I think I get on very well. I have no issues with either instance and I say that with utter conviction.
I think this shows that I am making progress. The me of even two years ago would have developed this sort of insecurity but might have actually paid attention to it, letting it sabotage my relationship or friendships with people and letting it actually cause damage. This version of me is determined that that will not happen. It is up to me and me alone to silence this side of my personality.
So, what form does it actually take? Well, mostly, it's the repetitive and insistent voice that wants to know "what if?"
What if Kat gets too drunk and he takes advantage of her? Worse than that, what if she is willingly engaging in all sorts of debauchery as I type these very words? What if she gets sufficiently frustrated of the distance between you that she makes a habit of this to stop herself getting bored? What if she realises, as a result of this, that she doesn't need you at all? At this point, the voice starts to sneer at me. It says, well, I'll tell you what: you'd be alone again. Your world would be a wreck. In all senses except the literal, your life would be over. The thought terrifies me to the extent that my insides seem to actually curl up on themselves. I have tried just not thinking about it, but it's like the elephant in the room. The more I try not to think about it, the more vivid the images my imagination helpfully contributes.
And yet, detached from this, is the normal part of my mind that in these instances just happens to have been shoved to one side. "What the fuck?!" it offers to the debate. "What kind of mind comes up with scenarios like that?! You're being the most ridiculous, pathetic excuse for an adult human being that you possibly could be at this moment. How dare you doubt a girl who has done nothing but improve your life since she entered it? How fucking dare you even imagine that a girl who has done nothing but love you would behave like that?!"
Crucially, I think, I know that it's that part of my mind that I have to listen to. Each time I go through this, the rational voice gets a little bit louder in relation to the paranoid one. I like this trend because it gives me hope that, one day, I won't ever have to listen to that awful, insistent insecurity again.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Thursday, 3 June 2010
Relocation, relocation, relocation
I'm in Helsingør at the moment, enjoying a few days away from work and generally just chilling out. I absolutely love this place. It obviously helps that the weather's so gorgeous at the moment, oh, and the love of my life lives here. My opinion, I remember, was slightly less gushing when the windchill brought it down to -20 here in January/February. That said though, the more time I spend in Denmark the more I think that I could happily live here. There are a couple of minor problems with that idea though.
First, I don't speak Danish. I know that the local authorities here offer free Danish lessons to non-Danish citizens who settle in Denmark, and I know that the vast majority of Danish people speak English well enough to understand me. Neither of those things would help with the short-term necessity of finding a job, though. Who, in Denmark, is going to employ someone whose grasp of the native language involves ordering a beer and saying "thank you"? Kat seems to think there are English and Irish pubs in Copenhagen that almost insist on hiring native Brits & Irish to work there, the better to create a more authentic experience, but I'd still feel very uncomfortable if a local Dane, in their own country, walked into a pub and I had to ask them to order their ale in English. That wouldn't be quite right, I don't think.
Second, the assorted credit agreements that I am paying for monthly at home. I'm not sure (say) my car finance company would take too kindly to me closing my bank accounts and leaving the country. So that's at least another 18 months of paying those off, unless of course I win the lottery. I don't play the lottery, so I would file that under "unlikely".
Finally, would I really want to abandon a fairly solid career to start working in bars or coffee shops? Like any job I suppose, there are days where it's just a total pain in the backside but generally I do enjoy what I do. My parents' relief when I got this job and embarked on a Civil Service "career" was marked and if I said to them "yeah, I'm resigning from that and going to pull pints in Denmark", I suspect their reaction would not be one of enthusiasm. Yes, it's my life, but I've put my poor parents through a lot and I am not simply going to ignore their feelings and opinions. When you're sixteen you don't appreciate it, but on the whole parents do know best.
So there you have it. Three fairly hefty obstacles between me and a new life in this wonderful country and I know that for the forseeable future I am rooted to the north of England. However, I feel that the more time I spend here, the more the urge to relocate is going to grow.
First, I don't speak Danish. I know that the local authorities here offer free Danish lessons to non-Danish citizens who settle in Denmark, and I know that the vast majority of Danish people speak English well enough to understand me. Neither of those things would help with the short-term necessity of finding a job, though. Who, in Denmark, is going to employ someone whose grasp of the native language involves ordering a beer and saying "thank you"? Kat seems to think there are English and Irish pubs in Copenhagen that almost insist on hiring native Brits & Irish to work there, the better to create a more authentic experience, but I'd still feel very uncomfortable if a local Dane, in their own country, walked into a pub and I had to ask them to order their ale in English. That wouldn't be quite right, I don't think.
Second, the assorted credit agreements that I am paying for monthly at home. I'm not sure (say) my car finance company would take too kindly to me closing my bank accounts and leaving the country. So that's at least another 18 months of paying those off, unless of course I win the lottery. I don't play the lottery, so I would file that under "unlikely".
Finally, would I really want to abandon a fairly solid career to start working in bars or coffee shops? Like any job I suppose, there are days where it's just a total pain in the backside but generally I do enjoy what I do. My parents' relief when I got this job and embarked on a Civil Service "career" was marked and if I said to them "yeah, I'm resigning from that and going to pull pints in Denmark", I suspect their reaction would not be one of enthusiasm. Yes, it's my life, but I've put my poor parents through a lot and I am not simply going to ignore their feelings and opinions. When you're sixteen you don't appreciate it, but on the whole parents do know best.
So there you have it. Three fairly hefty obstacles between me and a new life in this wonderful country and I know that for the forseeable future I am rooted to the north of England. However, I feel that the more time I spend here, the more the urge to relocate is going to grow.
Sunday, 30 May 2010
Soulmates
I don't believe in soulmates. I don't believe in Fate. I am not an actor simply performing a pre-determined script. There is no such thing as a girl who was "meant" for me, like it's our destiny to end up together. Love is something that develops and strengthens and creeps up on you until suddenly, you realise you'd struggle to live without them.
As usual when it comes to matters of a serious nature, I defer to someone more eloquent than me:
Yeah, yeah
If I didn't have you
If I didn't have you to hold me tight
If I didn't have you
If I didn't have you to lie with at night
When I'm feelin' blue
If I didn't have you to share my sighs
And to kiss me and dry my tears when I cry
Well I really think that I would
Have somebody else.
If I didn't have you, someone else would do.
Your love is one in a million
You couldn't buy it at any price
But of the nine point nine nine hundred thousand other possible loves
Statistically, some of them would be equally nice
Or maybe not as nice, but say, smarter than you
Or dumber but better at sport or...tracing, I'm just saying
I really think that I would probably
Have somebody else
If I didn't have you, someone else would do
If I were a rich man, diddle iddle iddle iddle ee
I guess I would be with a surgeon or a model
Or a relly of the royals or a Kennedy
Or a nymphomaniacal exhibitionist heiress
To a large chain of hotels
If I were a rich man, maybe I would fiddle
Fiddle diddle diddle with the rich man girls
I'm not saying that I'd not love you if I was wealthy or handsome
But realistically, there's lots of fish in the sea
And if I had a different rod I would conceivably land some
Even though I'm fiscally consistently pitiable
And considerably-less-Brad-Pitt-than-Brad pitiful
Am I really so poor and ugly that you think
Only you could possibly love me?
And I really think that I would probably
Have somebody else
If I didn't have you, someone else would do
And look, I'm not undervaluing what we've got when I say
That given the role chaos inevitably plays
And the inherently flawed notion of "Fate"
It's obstruse to deduce that I found my soulmate
At the age of seventeen
It's just mathematically unlikely that at a university in Perth
I happened to stumble on the one girl on Earth
Specifically designed for me
And if I may conjecture a further objection
Love is nothing to do with destined perfection
The connection is strengthened; the affection simply grows over time
Like a flower, or a mushroom, or a guinea pig, or a vine
Or a sponge, or bigotry.
Or a banana.
Love is made more powerful by the ongoing drama of shared experience
And the synergy of a kinda symbiotic empathy
Or..something
So I trust it goes without saying that I would feel really very sad
If tomorrow you were to fall off something high, or catch something bad
But I'm just saying, I don't think you're special!
I mean..I think you're special, but
You fall within a Bell curve
I mean I'm just saying
I really think that I would probably
Have somebody else
I think you are unique and beautiful
You make me happy just by being around
But objectively you would have to agree
That baby when I found you
Options were relatively thin on the ground
You're lovely, but there must be girls as lovely as you
And maybe more open to spanking
Or....fucking table tennis, I'm just
I really think that I would probably
Have somebody else
I mean, I reckon it's pretty likely that if, for example
My first girlfriend Jackie hadn't dumped me
After I kissed Winston's ex girlfriend Nia at Steph's party
Back in 1993
Enough variables would probably have been altered by the absence of that event
To have meant the advent of a tangential narrative in which we don't meet
Which is to say there exists a theoretical hypothetical parallel life
Where what is is not as it is
And I am not your husband, and you are not my wife
And I am a stuntman, living in LA
Married to a small blonde Portuguese skier
Who when she's not training, does abstract painting
Practises yoga and brews her own beer
And really likes making home movies
And suffers neck-down alopecia
But with all my heart and all my mind I know one thing is true
I have just one life and just one love and my love, that love is you
And if it wasn't for you, darling you
I really think that I would probably
Have somebody else
If I didn't have you someone else would surely do
You get the idea, I think. I'm not saying that I could happily just have someone else if my current relationship came to a shuddering end. As it happens, I just can't imagine a way in which I could remain a functioning member of society if that happened. The point here is that my life was not an already-written narrative in which I was inevitably going to end up marrying Kat. If we hadn't met; if I hadn't searched for whatever hashtag it was that led me to her Twitter page back in September, and then clicked the follow button; if she had dismissed my presence following her as an irrelevance and not replied; if either one of us hadn't bothered with Twitter in the first place, then our lives would not have been empty wastelands. We'd have found other people, and been happy enough and continued to go about our day-to-day lives. Soulmates. Do. Not. Exist.
But of all the possible tangential narratives my life could've taken, I'm pretty happy with this one.
As usual when it comes to matters of a serious nature, I defer to someone more eloquent than me:
Yeah, yeah
If I didn't have you
If I didn't have you to hold me tight
If I didn't have you
If I didn't have you to lie with at night
When I'm feelin' blue
If I didn't have you to share my sighs
And to kiss me and dry my tears when I cry
Well I really think that I would
Have somebody else.
If I didn't have you, someone else would do.
Your love is one in a million
You couldn't buy it at any price
But of the nine point nine nine hundred thousand other possible loves
Statistically, some of them would be equally nice
Or maybe not as nice, but say, smarter than you
Or dumber but better at sport or...tracing, I'm just saying
I really think that I would probably
Have somebody else
If I didn't have you, someone else would do
If I were a rich man, diddle iddle iddle iddle ee
I guess I would be with a surgeon or a model
Or a relly of the royals or a Kennedy
Or a nymphomaniacal exhibitionist heiress
To a large chain of hotels
If I were a rich man, maybe I would fiddle
Fiddle diddle diddle with the rich man girls
I'm not saying that I'd not love you if I was wealthy or handsome
But realistically, there's lots of fish in the sea
And if I had a different rod I would conceivably land some
Even though I'm fiscally consistently pitiable
And considerably-less-Brad-Pitt-than-Brad pitiful
Am I really so poor and ugly that you think
Only you could possibly love me?
And I really think that I would probably
Have somebody else
If I didn't have you, someone else would do
And look, I'm not undervaluing what we've got when I say
That given the role chaos inevitably plays
And the inherently flawed notion of "Fate"
It's obstruse to deduce that I found my soulmate
At the age of seventeen
It's just mathematically unlikely that at a university in Perth
I happened to stumble on the one girl on Earth
Specifically designed for me
And if I may conjecture a further objection
Love is nothing to do with destined perfection
The connection is strengthened; the affection simply grows over time
Like a flower, or a mushroom, or a guinea pig, or a vine
Or a sponge, or bigotry.
Or a banana.
Love is made more powerful by the ongoing drama of shared experience
And the synergy of a kinda symbiotic empathy
Or..something
So I trust it goes without saying that I would feel really very sad
If tomorrow you were to fall off something high, or catch something bad
But I'm just saying, I don't think you're special!
I mean..I think you're special, but
You fall within a Bell curve
I mean I'm just saying
I really think that I would probably
Have somebody else
I think you are unique and beautiful
You make me happy just by being around
But objectively you would have to agree
That baby when I found you
Options were relatively thin on the ground
You're lovely, but there must be girls as lovely as you
And maybe more open to spanking
Or....fucking table tennis, I'm just
I really think that I would probably
Have somebody else
I mean, I reckon it's pretty likely that if, for example
My first girlfriend Jackie hadn't dumped me
After I kissed Winston's ex girlfriend Nia at Steph's party
Back in 1993
Enough variables would probably have been altered by the absence of that event
To have meant the advent of a tangential narrative in which we don't meet
Which is to say there exists a theoretical hypothetical parallel life
Where what is is not as it is
And I am not your husband, and you are not my wife
And I am a stuntman, living in LA
Married to a small blonde Portuguese skier
Who when she's not training, does abstract painting
Practises yoga and brews her own beer
And really likes making home movies
And suffers neck-down alopecia
But with all my heart and all my mind I know one thing is true
I have just one life and just one love and my love, that love is you
And if it wasn't for you, darling you
I really think that I would probably
Have somebody else
If I didn't have you someone else would surely do
You get the idea, I think. I'm not saying that I could happily just have someone else if my current relationship came to a shuddering end. As it happens, I just can't imagine a way in which I could remain a functioning member of society if that happened. The point here is that my life was not an already-written narrative in which I was inevitably going to end up marrying Kat. If we hadn't met; if I hadn't searched for whatever hashtag it was that led me to her Twitter page back in September, and then clicked the follow button; if she had dismissed my presence following her as an irrelevance and not replied; if either one of us hadn't bothered with Twitter in the first place, then our lives would not have been empty wastelands. We'd have found other people, and been happy enough and continued to go about our day-to-day lives. Soulmates. Do. Not. Exist.
But of all the possible tangential narratives my life could've taken, I'm pretty happy with this one.
Saturday, 29 May 2010
Personal Development
"I didn't have an easy childhood" is a cliché and probably unjustified in the vast majority of times it's used. Compared to many people, I had the easiest of childhoods. A fairly spoilt only child in a family that has never been well off, but has equally never really struggled for anything. At least one holiday a year and sometimes more; school trips; a private education. Not exactly a broken home, is it, despite divorced parents.
However, the private education side of things wasn't as smooth as it could have been. I blame no-one for this except myself. When I was between the ages of maybe thirteen and seventeen, I was an obnoxious little shit. Arrogant, superior (if that isn't tautology), all too eager to believe the hype about my own intelligence that my well-meaning family and teachers repeatedly gave me. The fault is my own.
However, the upshot was that I didn't particularly develop social skills until I joined sixth form and was suddenly exposed to "girls" as a species (my school was single-sex). As a result of my behaviour up until that point, I didn't really have proper friends either. The combination of these two handicaps resulted in a deep-seated insecurity that has been with me ever since.
Not a great lot about this insecurity is rational. I've learned to accept that certain people seem to actively want to spend time with me and take part in conversations with me. The insecurity comes in my continued bafflement as to why they want to do so. I spent so many years being ostracised by my peers that I still genuinely don't really "get it" when people want my company. I always suspect that they have some sort of ulterior motive. In high school it was usually that they wanted me to do their homework for them. Now? Well, who knows what I think they want? Therein lies the irrationality.
When I first entered into my current relationship the insecurity was there to rear its head as per usual. If I were to describe or design my perfect "type" of girl, Kat would tick more boxes than anyone I've ever met. Yes, she smokes. Yes, she's a vegetarian. She's ridiculously competitive to the extent that sometimes I think it might be best just to not enter into any sort of game or competition with her. If I win, there's a tantrum. If I lose, there's gloating. She's not perfect. But she is as close to it (for me) that I've ever experienced. So the insecurity was extrapolated to match. How, my subconscious reasons, can such a wonderful girl as her possibly be interested in someone like me? And more to the point, when is she going to realise this and abandon you? According to this little voice, it is only a matter of time.
This has in the past led to self-sabotage. My subconscious is so convinced that I will end up alone again that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; I end up behaving in such a way that a break-up becomes inevitable. My fear of this behaviour repeating itself with Kat is not irrational. I'm terrified of fucking it up. But as scared of that as I am, I'm equally determined not to.
This is all leading up to a main point. Over the last few months I've noticed a distinct dimming and quieting of that insistent voice of insecurity. I don't crave constant reassurance from her about her love for me and her commitment to "us" (and I suspect that this is as much a blessing for her as it is for me; my needy side is not pleasant). Obviously I miss her when we're apart and that feeling only gets stronger, but if we don't chat on Skype or on the phone for a day or two, it's no big deal. I don't instantly suspect that this means she's going off me, as I might have before. I am relatively relaxed about it, I know she cares about me and she's thinking about me.
Big deal, you might say. Of course she is. Anyone who's ever met her can see how much she loves you. Well, yes. But this is a big deal for me. It shows me that with the right support, this monkey on my back need not be a permanent fixture. I might even defeat it one day.
It's a work in progress. I still have my days when every possible sentence and action on her part gets interpreted as an omen that she's about to leave me (irrational much?!) but they're becoming more and more infrequent. I'm beginning to grow up. She's made me a hugely better person since coming into my life and I hope that she appreciates, eventually, just how grateful I will always be for that.
However, the private education side of things wasn't as smooth as it could have been. I blame no-one for this except myself. When I was between the ages of maybe thirteen and seventeen, I was an obnoxious little shit. Arrogant, superior (if that isn't tautology), all too eager to believe the hype about my own intelligence that my well-meaning family and teachers repeatedly gave me. The fault is my own.
However, the upshot was that I didn't particularly develop social skills until I joined sixth form and was suddenly exposed to "girls" as a species (my school was single-sex). As a result of my behaviour up until that point, I didn't really have proper friends either. The combination of these two handicaps resulted in a deep-seated insecurity that has been with me ever since.
Not a great lot about this insecurity is rational. I've learned to accept that certain people seem to actively want to spend time with me and take part in conversations with me. The insecurity comes in my continued bafflement as to why they want to do so. I spent so many years being ostracised by my peers that I still genuinely don't really "get it" when people want my company. I always suspect that they have some sort of ulterior motive. In high school it was usually that they wanted me to do their homework for them. Now? Well, who knows what I think they want? Therein lies the irrationality.
When I first entered into my current relationship the insecurity was there to rear its head as per usual. If I were to describe or design my perfect "type" of girl, Kat would tick more boxes than anyone I've ever met. Yes, she smokes. Yes, she's a vegetarian. She's ridiculously competitive to the extent that sometimes I think it might be best just to not enter into any sort of game or competition with her. If I win, there's a tantrum. If I lose, there's gloating. She's not perfect. But she is as close to it (for me) that I've ever experienced. So the insecurity was extrapolated to match. How, my subconscious reasons, can such a wonderful girl as her possibly be interested in someone like me? And more to the point, when is she going to realise this and abandon you? According to this little voice, it is only a matter of time.
This has in the past led to self-sabotage. My subconscious is so convinced that I will end up alone again that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; I end up behaving in such a way that a break-up becomes inevitable. My fear of this behaviour repeating itself with Kat is not irrational. I'm terrified of fucking it up. But as scared of that as I am, I'm equally determined not to.
This is all leading up to a main point. Over the last few months I've noticed a distinct dimming and quieting of that insistent voice of insecurity. I don't crave constant reassurance from her about her love for me and her commitment to "us" (and I suspect that this is as much a blessing for her as it is for me; my needy side is not pleasant). Obviously I miss her when we're apart and that feeling only gets stronger, but if we don't chat on Skype or on the phone for a day or two, it's no big deal. I don't instantly suspect that this means she's going off me, as I might have before. I am relatively relaxed about it, I know she cares about me and she's thinking about me.
Big deal, you might say. Of course she is. Anyone who's ever met her can see how much she loves you. Well, yes. But this is a big deal for me. It shows me that with the right support, this monkey on my back need not be a permanent fixture. I might even defeat it one day.
It's a work in progress. I still have my days when every possible sentence and action on her part gets interpreted as an omen that she's about to leave me (irrational much?!) but they're becoming more and more infrequent. I'm beginning to grow up. She's made me a hugely better person since coming into my life and I hope that she appreciates, eventually, just how grateful I will always be for that.
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