tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-300343782024-03-05T15:03:48.591+00:00Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Open"The road to truth is long, and lined the entire way with annoying bastards."Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.comBlogger516125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-46758647422271511092018-02-03T21:04:00.001+00:002018-02-03T21:17:05.717+00:00What I want He's been gradually edging closer to my side for the last hour and a half. And now one hand is resting on my leg, and six empty glasses have collected by our feet. We are on a bench sitting against a wall, and when he kisses me, my hair catches in the wood behind my head.<br />
<br />
We'd met an hour into the New Year, after he'd approached me while I ordered drinks at the bar. We kept chatting, and eventually kissed the way you tend to kiss a complete stranger when you're drunk on New Years Eve. Later, he left me charmed and intrigued enough to give him my number at the end of the night.<br />
<br />
'My New Year's resolution is to go on one date this year', I'd said when the topic inevitably came up, 'It's been quite a long time'.<br />
<br />
And so here we are, a week and a half later, in the corner of a basement bar.<br />
<br />
It's been a long time since I've done this, <a href="http://sleepingeyes.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/times-have-changed-it-doesnt-matter-at.html" target="_blank">longer than a year</a>. And as the night goes on, I find myself getting reacquainted with all the ways attraction makes opinions and thoughts bend and shift, selecting stories to be told, and anecdotes to be left out, the way you subtly test the things you think the other person might like.<br />
<br />
<i>Ah, this is fancying someone</i>, I remember. He kisses me again.<br />
<br />
'So what are you looking for?' he asks as we separate, and the directness of the question catches me off guard. <br />
<br />
'I don't know really,' I say after a moment of thought, 'If I met someone I really liked, then obviously I'd want a relationship with them. But I don't want a boyfriend indiscriminately. I'd like to do things, and meet people, and date. What about you?'<br />
<br />
'So, I don't think I want a relationship at the moment,' he responds, confirming something that I'd pieced together from the stories he'd told me, a feeling I already knew.<br />
<br />
But what I don't expect is the immediate sense of a pressure lifting, a calming sense of relief. That what I want isn't the promise of a relationship, or commitment. And nor is it an escape route, or way out. <br />
<br />
What I want is something more straight forward, but harder to find in a world where dating can sometimes feel like you're only being told what someone <a href="http://sleepingeyes.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/it-was-very-good-day.html" target="_blank">thinks you want to hear</a>. For the first time I consider an option I hadn't thought about, something rarely offered: for someone to be honest, to take away the anxiety over what this is, to have things laid out upfront.<br />
<br />
We leave the bar hand in hand, and walk towards Oxford Circus tube. I walk down the steps after he's kissed me goodbye, and five minutes later my phone buzzes with the words 'all booked x'.<br />
<br />
Because there was one more thing I realised I want, and that's a second date.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-53102785601856032092017-12-17T13:10:00.002+00:002017-12-17T13:10:47.039+00:00Times have changed, it doesn't matter at all, not these days'Met anyone nice recently?'<br />
<br />
Ah, there we go; the brief tug backwards, like a few strands of hair caught in a hand on the tube.<br />
<br />
It's deceptive, too: a casual, diluted version of a hot topic. Part question, part appetite for news.<br />
<br />
<i>Well</i>, I think, there’s a load of really nice new colleagues at my new job. There's the tall, interesting man who joined my old work as I was leaving, who I bonded with over skiing and music and travel, but not over the boredom and futility of dating apps, because that's how he'd just met his new girlfriend.<br />
<br />
There’s the 50 year old woman I ate dinner with every night for three days while I was away. And the 32 year old stranger I sat next to on a beach and paddled in the water with for eight hours straight; through flashes of heavy rain followed by stretches of sun, talking non-stop about life, equality, work, and the stories we had from the places we’d been. We’re still in touch now, actually, she was great.<br />
<br />
There’s the man the two of us talked to over instant noodles after too many glasses of sake, the one with the beautiful eyes, surprisingly good English and politely attractive way, who we both agreed was hot as we crept back into our dorm beds on the eve of my last day. <br />
<br />
There’s the people I shook hands with in the main room of the nightclub three floors beneath London on Friday night, introducing ourselves over the blast of house, but I don’t remember why we got talking, or their names.<br />
<br />
I also liked the woman I exchanged a few words of solidarity with at the tube doors, when a man walked past us and took the space that should have been ours. <br />
<br />
All these people flash through my mind on a grid labelled Nice People I’ve Met Recently, but I know that's not where this conversation is headed, that isn't what is meant.<br />
<br />
So what I say out loud is<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>No, no one, I haven’t met anyone, not <a href="http://sleepingeyes.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/no-expectations.html" target="_blank">since February</a> really, nothing since then, no dates, nothing, all this year. </i><br />
<br />
And I'm not sure what I'm more tired of having: the question or the answer, or the inevitable discussion about <i>why</i> that follows, over and over again.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-29542294663394326342017-02-14T11:09:00.001+00:002017-02-14T14:04:16.778+00:00No expectations<i>How did this happen</i>, I think, not for the first time that morning. Because now, it is most certainly morning.<br>
<br>
My eyes are closed and my feet are moving, my chest is rattling, my nose hairs are tickling from the rumbling bass. A few of us went for a quick drink and now here we are, 12 hours later, the group dispersed and my eyes settling on the man to my right.<br>
<br>
We catch each other's eyes in mutual appreciation of the moment, the intro we recognise, the hour, the incoming drop. We grin at each other and he says "I can't believe they wanted to shut this place down" and I yell back "I know, it's nuts".<br>
<br>
He places his finger over my ear when he leans down to talk to me - the nightclub equivalent of holding the door open - and although it's nearly 5am, some rituals are still in place: he offers to buy me a drink.<br>
<br>
His friends are unreachable, the spot where mine were is empty now too. We move to the next room, a different sound, a different crowd. We dance next to each other and then, slowly, subtly, he moves behind me; puts his hands on my hips, and then he turns me around and we kiss.<br>
<br>
***<br>
<br>
Walking through the city in the dark. It's past 6am, freezing, and his jacket went home with his friends. We flag down a black cab and I give the driver - his first fare of the day - my address.<br>
<br>
And all I feel is a lightness, a relief that this sort of thing can still happen; a night can still tumble into something you didn't expect. I lean into the stranger on the backseat, he kisses the top of my head. We're laughing-tired, too stupidly wired for the hour; comparing the ringing sounds in our ears.<br>
<br>
It's 8am when we finally call it a night, or a day, and get into bed with our clothes on, not bothering to change. We stay that way until the afternoon. He leaves later, and when he says "thank you", I know him just well enough to know he means it. It's not numbers we swap but names; a long hug, a quick kiss. <div><div>
<br>
"You're welcome," I say, letting him out. The night is over, there's still no expectations. And I'm still smiling to myself after shutting the door.<br></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-35956445919504529902016-11-14T21:11:00.002+00:002016-11-14T21:16:02.547+00:00How are you When you're in your 20s, most friendship groups form because of some uniting cause. You're all single, you all like tequila and sequins (in that order), or you all memorised Roald Dahl poems as a kid.<br />
<br />
Whatever it is, you're all in the same situation, you can relate to each other in some way. You rely on each other, talk about your tumultuous dating lives and relationships, your <a href="http://sleepingeyes.blogspot.com/2013/03/remember-when-we-spent-our-saturdays.html" target="_blank">fears about the future</a>, or absolutely nothing at all.<br />
<br />
Out of that, a sort of day to day dialogue emerges. You have a casual, almost unremarkable routine of checking in with each other, and popping round, and it's a sort of barometer: you all seem to know how everyone is.<br />
<br />
But at some indeterminate point in your 30s, slowly that begins to change.<br />
<br />
And you know it's inevitable, natural even: but that doesn't stop it feeling strange when your good friends no longer come to you with their day-to-day stuff.<br />
<br />
More often than not, they've got someone at home who can listen and take the load off their mind midweek, rather than nipping round to yours, or for a quick one in the pub.<br />
<br />
For me, this year's heartbreak hasn't been a romantic relationship dwindling. It was realising that little by little, my friends no longer need me in the same way they did before. And in turn realising that I, being single, still need them in the same way I always have.<br />
<br />
Which was the thought process running through my mind a couple of weeks ago, when winter was in the air, and my mood was dogged down one day mid week.<br />
<br />
My next planned social event - because now, they are almost always planned - was still a couple of days away, an impossible work situation was feeling impossible, and family matters felt like they mattered a lot.<br />
<br />
What I really fancied was a quick chat, something to perk me up: but my last failed attempts at rousing the gang on Whatsapp for a spontaneous drink were ebbing at the confidence to make the same suggestion again.<br />
<br />
I knew, if I was to send a message, or an email, or make a call and say I could do with a chat, that responses would come and someone would be there.<br />
<br />
But when your mind is telling you that everyone else has somewhere else they'd rather be, then the simple call or text that would fix things can be the hardest one to make.<br />
<br />
So I didn't, and the day trundled on, along with my mood. Until just before the end of the day, when a text message arrived.<br />
<br />
The name surprised me. It was a friend who had largely disappeared this year, leaving one of the biggest gaps of all. But there she was - as if she knew I needed her - with just two words:<br />
<br />
<i>Dinner soon?</i><br />
<br />
And that was all it took. We chatted away, she asked how I was, and we arranged a Sunday afternoon out. Little by little as the inane back and forth continued, my brain lifted itself out of its slump.<br />
<br />
It reminded me just how restorative a simple <i>how are you </i>can be. That friends are still there, but they need to know that you need them.<br />
<br />
And single or not, I think that reminder works both ways.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-39153655222990524672016-04-28T10:35:00.001+01:002016-04-28T11:45:07.842+01:00It was a very good dayWe are in his room, and outside it, the sun is setting on the weekend.<br />
<br />
'I need to go home' I say, because it's Sunday, because we've got work tomorrow, because it's 9pm, because at some point all good days must come to an end.<br />
<br />
'I need to go home' I say again, half an hour later, and this time I reach down and put on my shoes. <br />
<br />
'We should do something proper. Go for dinner. Without hangovers.' he says, looking directly at me, smoothing down strands of my hair. <br />
<br />
'Yes, we should. Let's do that.'<br />
<br />
'Let me know when you get home,' he says, once, then twice, 'Check the number works' he adds with a smile.<br />
<br />
And then we kiss for a long time at his front door, and then, finally, I leave.<br />
<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
At a friend's birthday the night before, it's late when he passes me his phone.<br />
<br />
I read the words <i>I'm going home soon. I was wondering if I can I have your number?</i> he's written in the message field, and I nod, then we sneak off to the kitchen, and my stomach flips as we kiss.<br />
<br />
Night rolls into morning, morning rolls into a walk to my house, my house turns into the park, Bloody Marys in a pub garden, and it's afternoon now: we sit on a park bench in the sun. <br />
<br />
'Tell me things about yourself,' he says, 'Tell me things you like.'<br />
<br />
The park bench in the sun turns into a slow, arms-round-eachother amble along a canal.<br />
<br />
We stop for food; hands held across the corner of a square table for two. We walk, we walk, we walk back to his for a film, a nap. Full circle. <br />
<br />
Back again, he said, like it wouldn't be the last time. <br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
I wait for the bus, I let him know that I'm home. <br />
<br />
A couple of messages from him is all it takes, and the light feeling in my chest is replaced by one that is more familiar to me. <br />
<br />
The next day, confusion.<br />
<br />
<i>Perhaps I imagined it,</i> I think.<br />
<br />
A week passes of nothing, then two.<br />
<br />
***<br />
It's awkward, isn't it? It's not the ending you expect. <br />
<br />
You want the love story, the follow up, the excitement, the dates, the things that are meant to happen after a good day.<br />
<br />
As a love story, it's lacking. But as a good day, it's pretty much complete.<br />
<br />
To look at good days in anything other than isolation is silly; I don't take them too personally any more. <br />
<br />
Good days are like good dates; there'll be another. <br />
<br />
He was another, after all.<br />
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-31910162984151197812016-04-04T10:19:00.002+01:002016-04-04T10:54:25.738+01:00Travel when you canWhen you're bored, and single, or you don't have anything pinning you to where you feel you should be: book some flights, and travel.<br />
<br />
Get pushed back in your seat as the plane takes off, and leave everything that was worrying you or stressing you, or niggling at your heart, on the runway at Heathrow.<br />
<br />
Resign it to lost property.<br />
<br />
Do not ask for it back.<br />
<br />
Stay in the sky for hours, a day and night, longer than most people will ever spend above the clouds. Then land, and wash your face, and get back on and do it again.<br />
<br />
Arrive on the other side of the world, your concept of time gone topsy-turvy. The sun is shining and you're shedding layers outside the terminal; there goes your hoody, you're holding your coat. <br />
<br />
Spend some time with friends.<br />
<br />
Have decision-free days that revolve around brunch and booze, and beach, then gently excuse yourself from the slow moving group. <br />
<br />
Split off from the comfortable, go-with-the-flow, someone-else-will-do-it mentality, and get on a different flight.<br />
<br />
Hire a car, pay for a GPS.<br />
<br />
Throw your backpack in the boot, start the engine, and feel the familiar <i>what the fuck am I doing </i>nerves you always get when you arrive somewhere on your own. <br />
<br />
Pull over whenever you fancy it, watch the river for as long as you want. When you get going again, realise you've left your anxiety by the side of the road. <br />
<br />
Do not turn back.<br />
<br />
Drive to places you know, and places you don't. Book single rooms with communal living spaces, and sit where people can see you - on a sofa, in a kitchen, outside a library, in a cafe - and wait. Put down your phone. Smile at someone and say <i>hello, how's your day been?</i><br />
<br />
Talk to strangers. Do whatever they're doing the next day.<br />
<br />
(Alone doesn't always mean being alone.)<br />
<br />
Swap the conversations of home - relationships, and property, and careers - for stories about travel, and countries, and plans. <br />
<br />
Sit on surf boards and count the waves that come in threes, sit on cliffs and point towards the next body of land.<br />
<br />
At night after a few glasses of wine, sit on a wall, look down and talk about the size of the splashing, glittering fish.<br />
<br />
Listen to lives that sound like the one you want now, instead of the one you left behind. Meet the sort of people you always look for in London, but never seem to find.<br />
<br />
Spend time by yourself in the car, or in your room, or standing knee deep in the sea, and think about all the things you want to do. <br />
<br />
Stop feeling too old to do them.<br />
<br />
Eat fish and chips on a bench by the sea by yourself, with your sun-tinted face tilted upwards to sun, and your feet sticky with sand, and feel very much like you don't want to share any of it:<br />
<br />
The experience, the photos, the chips.<br />
<br />
Get back on the plane, curl up across two seats. Take your perspective home.<br />
<br />
And make sure the next time you can, you travel, and even just once, or sometimes, or here and there, that you do it alone.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-29322988096016671292016-02-09T12:54:00.000+00:002016-02-09T12:54:20.431+00:00HandwrittenI carry the letter inside, curious. I'm playing the guessing game usually reserved for Christmas and birthdays where you search the front for clues.<br />
<br />
My name and address are handwritten, the stamp is first class, the envelope edges sealed shut with a protective layer of sellotape.<br />
<br />
Inside there's a printed old style world map and two sheets of paper with the same design, writing covering each plain side.<br />
<br />
<i>Look</i>, I say to my housemate, <i>someone's sent me a proper letter</i><br />
<i>How cool, that's exciting, </i>she replies, peering over,<i> it's beautiful paper. Who's it from?</i><br />
<br />
Details, details. The fact that there's a letter at all is enough. <br />
<br />
For a while now I've been sending cards to my friends randomly throughout the year, just to say hello. Occasionally I get one back, but not very often.<br />
<br />
And often, to be honest, that's not really the point.<br />
<br />
Send all the emails, texts, and Whatsapp messages you like: there's nothing like a letter, not even close.<br />
<br />
If you want to let someone know that you're thinking of them - really thinking, and you mean it - you should always write. <br />
<br />
It doesn't even matter what you say.<br />
<br />
Like when I wrote to someone on the other side of the world because I'd been feeling like an inadequate friend, but couldn't say as much or find the words. <br />
<br />
I couldn't say "things are bad for me, so I'm struggling to be there for you" so I sent her two sheets of handwritten A4. Musings, random things, arbitrary stuff, and a bullet point list of things that are good.<br />
<br />
But this letter is different, it does a better job of getting to the point than I could be brave enough to do. <br />
<br />
It's the sort of letter you send when you won't see the person for a while, a level of honesty you might get to in the early hours of the morning, on a big night, but drifts into fuzzy memory the next day.<br />
<br />
It's rare, the sort of letter you imagine yourself getting one day but don't ever think you will: a proper one, full of nice things: encouragement, observations, appreciation, advice.<br />
<br />
I don't know where to put it, so I keep it in plain sight: on the table, next to my bed.<br />
<br />
And in this time when so many messages are sent quickly, filed, pushed down by newer things and forgotten, I know that this one will be kept.<br />
<br />
Aside from everything inside it, it's handwirtten, and designed to be re-read.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-80803362625555440222016-01-18T12:35:00.003+00:002016-01-18T12:39:28.498+00:00Too much talkI've always been a firm believer on changing things you're not happy with, no matter what the time of year.<br />
<br />
The test is simple: if there's an issue that comes up in most conversations you have, and you're not getting paid to go on TV and talk about it, then either make it happen, or make your peace.<br />
<br />
It's not always easy to do. <br />
<br />
Actually, fuck that: sometimes it is easy to do, sometimes change is made out to be this big thing when all you need to do is stop yourself, or put a bit of effort in, or find another topic to talk about.<br />
<br />
Otherwise, another year goes by and you realise you've been throwing your wishes and aspirations against a wall like paint - and they look so bright on there, so vivid, and so different to the blandness of day to day life, that it's easy to think you're making things happen just by chucking it up there and saying it's so.<br />
<br />
Talking about all the things you'd like to do, and the way you want things to be, feels good as you do it.<br />
<br />
But unless you actually act on these things, do what you say you're going to do, follow through, you might as well not say anything at all.<br />
<br />
It was an unexpected gift from my best friend at Christmas which reminded me that of all people, I'm as guilty of this as anyone else. <br />
<br />
I've spent so long talking about going <a href="http://sleepingeyes.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/annnndshes-off.html" target="_blank">back</a>, going away, putting pin points in the world. But bar a few European trips, that's all it's been: talk.<br />
<br />
A few things have stopped me, mostly it's just being comfortable. Yet all this time my world been shrinking; quietly getting hemmed in by <a href="http://sleepingeyes.blogspot.com/2015/10/love-hurts.html" target="_blank">panics</a> and aspirations (own the house, meet the man, have the wedding, make the kid, get bigger house) that have never, really, been mine. <br />
<br />
And then a few days before Christmas, there it was: part present, part reminder to do what I keep saying, part peace offering after a year of rocky friendship:<br />
<br />
A beautiful leather travel wallet, engraved with my name.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
It's nothing, really, just a baby trip. A couple of days extra holiday than the contract says you're allowed to take at once.<br />
<br />
But it's a start; a toe dip in significantly warmer water.<br />
<br />
Make this year as the year you do the things you always say you want to do, or stop saying it and talk about something else.<br />
<br />
I choose to put the travel wallet on my shelf where I can see it, and book the flights.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-73394614672912710102015-12-22T14:47:00.003+00:002015-12-22T14:47:36.371+00:00Storm free<i><a href="http://itwasagainstherbetterjudgement.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Blonde</a> gave me another prompt (eye of the storm) which I started writing about and then went off course. But the theme's in there somewhere, promise. </i><br />
<br />
For someone who sends cards all year round for no particular reason, I'm surprised by the amount of effort it takes to buy, write and post them for Christmas.<br />
<br />
But this year the effort seems necessary, because this was the year things changed.<br />
<br />
It was the year that my friends and I grew up, just a little bit, with a wink: made lifelong commitments, created human beings, chucked it all in and went abroad; broke down, broke up, and realised as a few things crashed that <i>right: so this is how life's going to go now.</i><br />
<br />
So this year, there'll be cards: and it starts with me, in bed on a Saturday morning, making a list of names.<br />
<br />
The list surprises me, and so it should: because throughout my childhood and teens, friendships were stormy things. Never calm for long, always a battle to maintain.<br />
<br />
They were precarious, and worrying: something that could, and often would, be messed up at any moment (usually, it seemed, by me).<br />
<br />
Almost no one on the list comes from my school days, which at one point might have seemed odd.<br />
<br />
But now, it seems obvious: if you go to five different schools, you'll be constantly interrupting, re-jigging; trying to squeeze between friendships and groups that were, in that classic, cliquey, school-like way, already formed.<br />
<br />
I wish someone had told me back then, in the middle of one of the storms, that I'd make the best of my friends at university, and at parties, and at work, into my late twenties and beyond.<br />
<br />
That when people ask how we know each other, there'll be furrowed brows and longwinded explanations, of friends-of-friends and introductions here and there.<br />
<br />
That when they arrive, the friendships won't end up fitting a defined shape, or group, or neat number at all. <br />
<br />
That one day I'd make friends to get really, stupidly drunk with, who'll drive me home the next morning while I'm being sick into a plastic bag, and laugh when I say "see, this is how I know you're good mates, because I'm not even ashamed".<br />
<br />
That I'll have friends that are strong minded and friends who speak up, and friends who I can honestly say "mate, you're being a complete nightmare"; and instead of it causing a storm (and I'll never quite shake the fear that it will) they'll say "I am, I am. And that's why I love you, because you'll always let me know".<br />
<br />
That I'll make friends whose priorities will change from nights out to nappies, and whose lives might take a different direction to mine, but one day I'll sit on my bed and write a list with their names on and feel happy.<br />
<br />
Because my main worry when it comes to friendships now, is remembering to post their cards.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-68732852539837828452015-12-14T13:38:00.001+00:002015-12-14T13:38:18.401+00:00Starting smallWe decide to give each other <a href="http://itwasagainstherbetterjudgment.blogspot.com/2015/12/in-which-i-am-surprised.html" target="_blank">a little prompt</a>.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Because when life is too big, too much, <a href="http://sleepingeyes.blogspot.com/2015/08/sitting-with-news.html" target="_blank">too overwhelming</a> to write about, but you know you need to write; what you need isn't a pen or a keyboard, or book, or blog, it's somewhere to start.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The subject delivered via text message is "an item that brings you joy", so I sit on the bus and I think about all the things I own, and I try to assign them a value. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
First I think of the ring on my finger. Three different types of gold interlinked, and given to me by my parents on my 16th birthday.<br />
<br />
It's not just a ring, of course: it's a comfort when rolled back and forth, a poker-tell that I'm nervous; a heart fluttering novelty when taken and worn by someone else on their little finger (and it has been, twice).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Then the diaries come to mind. Altogether there are twenty, perhaps, although to be fair I've never counted.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Notebooks of different shapes and sizes filled with a script that changes, but retains some element that has been unmistakably mine since the first entry in 1991.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Occasionally, I like picking one and reading through; feeling whatever feeling it is that comes - but is it joy?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And then because I'm on the bus and thinking about diaries, and memories, inevitably I think of the thing I need to write about the most. Would diaries help? If she'd kept them, would things be different?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I begin to open tabs and Google this new idea before stopping myself, and coming back to the task at hand: the prompt. This is why we're starting small. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Because life gets in the way, because writing means processing what's happening, because sometimes you just need to write something, anything, and start there: do it, write it, no distraction.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And that's when I realise the item that brings the most amount of joy is, and always has been, a pen, a keyboard; whatever I can use to write with. </div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-37864725291375230822015-10-02T13:08:00.000+01:002015-10-02T14:29:12.231+01:00Love hurts<div style="background-color: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><i><b>Preamble</b>: The other day I listened to this series of podcast episiodes called <a href="http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/strangers/love-hurts" target="_blank">Love Hurts</a> in full. And then I decided to write to the woman who made it. My email ended up saying a lot of what I've wanted to say for a while, about being single, looking for love, not finding it, and how other people react to singleness - so here is a (heavily edited) part blog post / part email version here. A little disjointed as a result, but there you go. </i></span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
I rarely feel compelled enough to write to people whose podcasts I've listened to, but I just stumbled upon the Love Hurts series Lea Thau did on the Strangers podcast, and it sucked me in. </div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
It was uncomfortable and comfortable listening all at once.<br />
<br />
She interviews past dates to find out why it didn't work out, talks to relationship experts, and exes, and discusses the question of dating and sex, <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">and delves into her own past to try and answer to the question of why she's been single for so long, and the big one: Is It Me? </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">What struck me most was the relief of hearing someone say out loud how embarrassing being single is</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">, when so much time is</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> spent pretending not to be ashamed about it - to couples, and other singles, to yourself.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">It's something I wouldn't ever have admitted, and have never heard voiced by someone else - and yet I found myself thinking "yes, embarrassment. That's exactly how it feels."</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">If you've read this blog for any length of time, you might know I've been single for four years. You might have read what happened, and the ups and downs that followed; sparse as the posting has become.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br />
Perhaps you've been supportive, perhaps you've longed for me to find The One each time I mentioned a date. Perhaps you've left a helpful comment saying I <a href="http://sleepingeyes.blogspot.com/2014/03/i-dont-know-where-to-put-you.html?showComment=1397248313337#c8440794269794480968" target="_blank">should be over my last relationship by now</a>, that it's time to move on.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Whichever group you fall into, you'll know that I haven't really spent the last four years looking for love, exactly; more getting over the last one, being alright by myself, and trying to find what fits now. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">And you might have gathered along the way that I'd rather be single than with someone for the sake of it. That I don't think there's much point in settling, or continuing to date someone who you know wants different things, or going on indiscriminate online dates, when there's a bigger world out there to explore.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<div style="font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">But none of that changes the fact that I'd love to be in a relationship, and that often, admitting as much is a difficult thing to do.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Aside from anything else, we can all probably admit that the grass isn't greener over there in coupledom; but at 31, it's just a different, more socially acceptable field to be in.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
Because yes, it can be brilliant being single, but it's also<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> a mess of contradictions.</span><br />
<br />
It's something your equally single friends want to maintain (at least, until they find someone themselves), and your coupled friends want to change.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
It means talking about how you feel, whether you're happy or not, and, of course, replying to the ever persistent questions about the men in your life and whether you're dating.<br />
<br />
It means handling the lull in conversation, the flash of a concerned look, the reassuring noises, and the empty feeling that follows if the answer is "there's no one, and I'm not".<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Being single means subjecting your life to analysis, and noting in comparison that people in relationships are rarely also asked at the dinner table "so, how <i>are</i> things with you two? Are you <i>really</i> happy?", when they're the ones, we're often told, who are not. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">We are told that no relationship is perfect, yet they don't need to refer to the hard work involved and never have to admit what they would change, or what they perhaps miss - </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">to be point where I assume it's just something that cannot, or should not be said.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
The fact remains: in January I will have been single for five years, and I will continue to feel embarrassed when saying the number out loud.<br />
<br />
No matter how comfortable you are with being single, it gets harder and harder to reconcile yourself with it when everyone around you is so focused on finding someone, or marrying, or committing in some way. </div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
And this is in London: a city full of people like me. I live with two of them; we travel, we busy ourselves, we date, we have lots of friends.<br />
<br />
But it feels increasingly like we're all treading water, waiting for someone to come along and change this status which isn't <i>quite</i> acceptable - long term, anyway - without that <a href="http://sleepingeyes.blogspot.com/2013/11/on-defensive.html" target="_blank">well known aside</a> being whispered behind you.<br />
<br />
Every situation has its ups and downs, and I was in the middle of a down period when<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> I listened to this podcast last week. But instead of making me feel low, and more embarrassed, I felt reassured and absolutely ok.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br />
I don't know many other people who've been single for 4+ years, so it just helped to hear someone else who has speak with so much honesty, and frankness, and bravery on the subject, in a way that I have never heard anyone else be.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">
So with that, I'll say it: <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">I am single. It's been nearly five years since someone last called me their girlfriend. And if I've got to be ok with that, then everyone else should be, too. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span>
<b>Podcast links: </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<a href="http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/strangers/love-hurts" target="_blank">Part 1</a><br />
<a href="http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/strangers/love-hurts-2" target="_blank">Part 2</a><br />
<a href="http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/strangers/love-hurts-3" target="_blank">Part 3</a><br />
<a href="http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/strangers/love-hurts-4" target="_blank">Part 4</a><br />
<a href="http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/strangers/love-hurts-the-follow-up" target="_blank">Follow up</a><br />
<a href="http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/strangers/love-hurts-one-year-later" target="_blank">One year later</a><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-10636529728281871282015-08-24T13:30:00.000+01:002015-08-24T13:44:07.534+01:00Sitting with the newsWell then, let's see.<br />
<br />
<div>
You know it's not going to be Good News because you've received the Bad News Preparation text; a variation of "ring me when you've got a quiet few minutes" or "we have the results, let me know when you're around".</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So you duly find a spare meeting room at work, soundproof, bare; a sheet of frosted glass between you and 70-odd people beginning their day.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
You scroll to <i>D</i>, press call, say <i>hello. Alright</i>?<br />
<br />
And then the News comes.<br />
<br />
It is gentle Bad News. Expected in some ways, not that it makes the reality any easier to hear.<br />
<br />
It is contemplative News; it elicits silent inevitable tears, but no immediate action: there's nowhere to rush to, no hospital to attend, no funeral to plan, no shouting to be done.<br />
<br />
Nothing tangible from last night to this morning has changed.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It is the sort of News where you are required to be calm, and kind, and patient, even though you feel anything but. You are worried about them, and a little bit (selfishly) worried about you.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It is News where you need very close friends to appear, and so they do, without question.<br />
<br />
They let you lie on their floor when you've extracted yourself from the meeting room, past the curious eyes, and into their flat where their baby grips your little finger, and you wonder what to do next.<br />
<br />
(<i>Nothing for now</i>, they say, <i>no research. No Googling.</i> <i>Just let it sink in</i>)<br />
<br />
Friends appear and sit next to you on the sofa and watch mindless TV. They squeeze your hand. Hug you tightly. Invite you to eat lunch, take you out in the evening, get you extremely drunk and then safely home, checking in the next day.<br />
<br />
They walk with you, and listen while you babble thoughts, or laugh, or talk about other stuff as if there's been no News - bad or otherwise - at all. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In the week that follows you learn that this sort of News makes you angry, and frustrated, and sad, and upset, and raises questions, and skepticism, and an anxiousness that spreads into every corner, but on top of all that, there's something else.<br />
<br />
Because aside from all this, News has always brought knowledge, understanding and awareness, and although you don't quite understand yet, you are now aware, softened by it.<br />
<br />
And so you just sit with it. Because for now, that is all the News requires.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>(As an after thought: I'm not purposely being suspenseful here, I'm just not ready to get opinions and information yet on the specific thing. Hence for now it will just be referred to as the "News")</i></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-76217991718229309582015-06-15T22:38:00.000+01:002015-06-15T22:39:46.991+01:00RealisationsThe strange thing is, I always wanted it to happen.<br />
<br />
In the same way that you might wonder why you always get a ferocious hangover while your mates wake up feeling bright, I wondered why this particular nuance of other peoples' relationships never extended to me.<br />
<br />
Why did they always get noise, when all I got was silence?<br />
<br />
And then as I blinked awake on Saturday morning, too early, there it was.<br />
<div>
<br />
The familiar double buzz beside me, the name on the screen, the clock stating 06:54am, the sinking thump in my chest, and t<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">he first post-break-up-statement-of-regret of my relationship career. </span><br />
<br />
<i>Long time no speak, how are you? I hope you're good. I miss hanging out with you x</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
My brain picked up the words I'd been waiting for, and ran with them.<br />
<br />
It ran into the future and back into the past, and woke up all the possibilities that had been slowly melting away over the last couple of months.<br />
<br />
My thoughts flipped around, got lifted up and carried away which meant it was a good few minutes before something obvious dawned on me: the time.<br />
<br />
It was now 7am, which meant that these weren't the realisations of a man who had come to his senses in the bold light of a new day.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
No, no. They were the emotional, needy, drug-fuelled, drink addled words that came at the end of a long night.<br />
<br />
<div>
And they were words that I shouldn't have replied to, but I did. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Of course I did.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
(You can't wait four relationships for something to happen, and then not act on it when it does.)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So in a gesture that was half clinging onto a thread of hope, and half curiosity: <i>what would happen if I introduced a very un-modern, sober dose of honesty into proceedings</i>? I sent a response.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I can't tell you what the messages that followed said, partly because they happened over a course of weeks, partly because it's done now, finished, and looking back seems something worse than futile. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But I can tell you about the Saturday night when I went out, hours after receiving what would be his final message, and sat at a bar next to The Lawyer.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Around three or four Surprise Tears had begun their descent, so I pulled my hair in front of me to shield my face from the barman and she said "Will it make it better if I put my arm around you and give you a hug, or worse?" and I said "Worse", and so we sat there, separated, and she said "Well, just so you know, I really want to hug you. And also, it won't feel like you're better off, I know it doesn't, but you are." and I said "I know, I just feel so sad. Again." because sometimes, that's just all it is.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It took two days for the perfect reply to shape itself, and then there it was: everything I wanted to say in a box on the screen.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>I am having a lot of fun. And it's a shame you're not going to be a part of it as I'd hoped you might. I wish you all the best anyway.x</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
And with the realisation that noise is good if it's final and purposeful, but silence is better if it's not, I pressed send. </div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-23191639731240595852015-03-17T11:18:00.002+00:002015-03-17T11:18:38.481+00:00Waking up One day you just wake up and feel a bit better.<br />
<br />
Not totally alright, but less like the world's already gone to pot before you've even opened your eyes.<br />
<br />
Realising you don't feel as resolutely awful as you have been for the past few weeks - or <a href="http://sleepingeyes.blogspot.com/2015/01/flight-mode.html" target="_blank">even months</a> - is like that morning when the sun rises before you do at the end of winter. <br />
<br />
That little bit of light making lines on your bedroom wall means you've made it through the bleakest bit of the year.<br />
<br />
Instead of shifting awake and having to lie there, trying to guess what time it is, and how long it'll be until your alarm goes off - is it 4am or 7am? - now you <i>know </i>it's daylight outside, and that means it's time to get up. <br />
<br />
As the mornings get lighter (in every sense), so does your perspective on <a href="http://sleepingeyes.blogspot.com/2015/02/i-cant-see-way-this-can-work-he-said.html" target="_blank">the situation</a>.<br />
<br />
It begins to feel less like a failure and more like another thing you'll look back on and see more and more holes in, either when the next one comes along, or before.<br />
<br />
And more importantly, you know there probably will be a next one - that's something to look forward to now, too.<br />
<br />
Either way, after months of your brain working overtime, you've made a decision to stop questioning yourself so much.<br />
<br />
Just let stuff happen. Say yes, and see where it takes you.<br />
<br />
Stop analysing, comparing, wondering what if this, or what if that - instead, just wake up each day, feel a bit better.<br />
<br />
You'll work it out.<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-54605404251686386942015-02-16T11:08:00.000+00:002015-02-16T11:08:44.120+00:00"I can't see a way this can work", he saidI cried the next morning when I woke up before my alarm, and then I cried in the shower.<br />
<br />
I cried on the bus, looking out of the window.<br />
<br />
I cried at my desk, really discreetly, and in the toilets at work.<br />
<br />
I cried because I was frustrated, I cried because I felt sad. <br />
<br />
I cried with a bit more volume and vigour when I got home that evening and no one was in, then I cried in the shower, put my make up on, did my hair, painted my nails and went out for dinner.<br />
<br />
I almost cried in the restaurant, but we changed the subject just in time - and then I ordered another drink.<br />
<br />
The next morning, I cried because of the radio silence; because I didn't have someone saying "hey, good morning, how are you?" and that was always quite nice to have until it wasn't there any more.<br />
<br />
I cried when I looked in my kitchen cupboard and saw the honey I'd dared myself to buy, because I wanted to believe he'd be back, and he likes it.<br />
<br />
I cried when someone was mean to me, and I cried because they didn't know. And I cried because I'd been mean first, and I hadn't meant to be, but when you're upset and tired things come out the wrong way.<br />
<br />
Later that afternoon, someone approached my closed bedroom door with a tentative knock.<br />
<br />
I cried, shaking my head, when she asked "Have you heard from him?", then I cried on her shoulder when she hopped up onto the bed with me and gave me a hug.<br />
<br />
I cried when she said "no, it's not like starting again, because now you know what you want, for next time."<br />
<br />
(I cried at the prospect of "next time")<br />
<br />
I didn't cry when they made me leave the house and go for a walk, through east London Fields, down to Columbia Road and back, and the sun was shining and the dogs were out.<br />
<br />
I realised I hadn't cried yesterday - and then I cried because I still felt exhausted, because I know it will get better and the tears will probably dry up soon.<br />
<br />
But until then, I'm going to cry because this is how it goes, and this, in every sense of it, is normal.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-80574191843710009782015-01-29T11:53:00.004+00:002015-01-29T11:53:55.406+00:00Flight mode<i>I don't know what's going on. </i><br />
<br />
This is a hard thing for me to admit, and write down, and say out loud.<br />
<br />
The last time I said it out loud was in a pub last week, and then I cried while my mate looked concerned and her boyfriend hugged me as their baby wiggled on his lap.<br />
<br />
For some reason, it's embarrassing to admit when you think something has shifted, when you think something's amiss; not quite right.<br />
<br />
It's embarrassing when you're surrounded by sure-footed single people, or friends in committed, straight forward relationships, it's embarrassing to admit you're in one that is uncertain.<br />
<br />
It's embarrassing when you don't know, then you do, and actually forget what I said last time - it's all ok.<br />
<br />
Or isn't.<br />
<br />
Fuck it, you don't know.<br />
<br />
Another thing that's hard for me to admit and write down, and say out loud, is that I sent a text the other day and watched my mood drift downwards as I imagined worse case scenarios until the only logical solution was to switch off my phone completely.<br />
<br />
It's embarrassing because I used to pride myself on knowing what's going on, what I want - and now my sense of self-worth and the course of my day regularly hangs on someone else.<br />
<br />
On this occasion, my mind whirled until precisely 4:35pm.<br />
<br />
<i>Take that</i>, I thought, putting the phone into flight mode. <i>You cannot get me here. </i><br />
<br />
And when I think about it flight mode is an apt term: for it is in these moments - when everything I've known for the last four years is up in the air - that I want to flee.<br />
<br />
When everything's uncertain, and I want to say "sod it" and shut it down, and go back to it being just me.<br />
<br />
When the phone is off and I'm running in the opposite direction and doing my own thing again, it's almost a relief.<br />
<br />
<i>Imagine if I just knew I was single, I'd know what to do.</i><br />
<br />
Flight mode is the safe one; it stays until I've managed to put myself into a better mood on my own. <br />
<br />
And then I switch the phone back on, and the message arrives immediately, and then although I still don't know much - at least I do know I'll be ok.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-75094705398843553362014-12-15T10:19:00.001+00:002014-12-15T10:19:33.915+00:00Middle of the bedI've spent a lot of time over the last few years getting used to being ok by myself.<br />
<br />
And by this, I don't mean tolerating singledom until the next bloke comes along - I mean actually, genuinely thinking "if it ended up being just me, that would be ok".<br />
<br />
Some people get a bit weird hearing that; you can tell because nearly all of them see it as a cue to reassure me that this won't be the case, as if the single alternative to life would be a bad thing, or breakups never happen.<br />
<br />
But if becoming ok on my own was difficult and took time, then blimey, learning to be with someone else again is another task entirely.<br />
<br />
Over the last almost-four-years, I've honed the art of being self-sufficient, relying on myself and a brilliant group of friends for most things.<br />
<br />
And now, little by little, I'm having to adjust to trusting someone else. <br />
<br />
When will this end? I think to myself on a near weekly basis, when the text reply is a little late in coming and my mind jumps to the worst case scenario: he's lost interest, he's found someone else, he would rather not see me, he's going to cancel, he's going to let me down.<br />
<br />
At times like that, there's no reassurance you can give me, because this is how it goes. <br />
<br />
Or rather: it's how it's gone before. It's happened. And it's happened after one month, two, six, 18, it's happened after years with someone, it's happened after five dates or eight.<br />
<br />
That's my experience, and as much as you always have to take people at face value, not let the past make you paranoid about what's coming up, and definitely not trot out that tired "I've been hurt before" line (everyone has by now, we're not 20 any more) - experience is what you tend to go on. <br />
<br />
I expect to be let down by him in the same way that I expect phone calls or texts saying "Call me when you can" from my mother to bring bad, sometimes devestating news: because at one point, it seemed like they always did. <br />
<br />
(The fact that she usually just wants someone to look after the dogs at the weekend is neither here nor there. I'm still like. "So, just the dogs? No one's died?" while relief settles across my chest.)<br />
<br />
And I reassure myself with "whatever happens, you'll be alright anyway, you idiot", then he's at my door, or there at the station, or the reply comes and it's asking when he can see me again - and then all the panic goes away and I tell myself not to be a dick next time - and besides, I sort of knew all along that he would be there; there's a little hope I can't let myself assume to be fact quite yet, but I just need to see it for myself. <br />
<br />
I'm having to get used to the fact that even something as simple as a bad night's sleep at my house doesn't mean he won't want to come back.<br />
<br />
"I didn't sleep too well last time I was at yours" he said, "you like to get in the middle of the bed."<br />
<br />
"That's because I'm not used to sharing it," I reply, "I'm sure I'll adapt..."<br />
<br />
Like everything else, it'll probably just take a bit of time. <div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-42458162083288347792014-11-06T14:32:00.005+00:002014-11-06T14:37:23.592+00:00A small little shift The covers move beside me.<br />
<br />
My eyes are shut - I'm only half awake but I'm listening. Unused to sharing my sleeping space, I wake up at every slight turn (although I pretend not to).<br />
<br />
I'm facing the other way, identifying the sounds as they happen: he gets up, t-shirt goes on, picks something up. The door clicks. He walks out.<br />
<br />
He pads to the kitchen, there's the faint sound of water running, then he's back.<br />
<br />
There's a couple of gulps, then a gentle tap; glass on wood. He settles back, and I go to sleep.<br />
<br />
It's a couple of hours later when I wake up, thirsty, squinting at my bedside table.<br />
<br />
Then I'm so surprised that I sit up, and stare at the glass for what seems like a minute, but is probably less. I look at the sleeping form next to me, the half full glass on his side, then back to the previously empty glass on mine.<br />
<br />
<i>Huh.</i><br />
<br />
It's a few hours later when we're both awake, and I'm wondering if, perhaps, I'd imagined it.<br />
<br />
"Did you fill up my glass of water?" I say.<br />
"Yep." he replies.<br />
"Oh." I marvel, like he's just written a book and dedicated it to me, "Thank you."<br />
<br />
And he won't know it, but in doing this small, unremarkable thing, there's just been a tiny shift in my brain.<br />
<br />
I look at him differently now; this person who woke up thirsty, got himself a drink, and thought I might want one, too.<br />
<br />
Some people might remember the day they got given flowers, or a piece of jewellery, received some grand gesture, or a kiss - but as that small, tiny, considerate act sticks with me even weeks later, I think, I will remember this.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-36248082237325565442014-10-23T15:45:00.000+01:002014-10-23T16:24:50.983+01:00Learning to dateFor a while, it seemed like everyone in the world was going on dates except me.<br />
<br />
My mates always seemed to have a bloke on the go. When one dropped off the radar, another would take their place, and all the while I'd sit there listening, watching their phones light up with interest and wondering: <i>how the hell do they do that</i>?<br />
<br />
The truth is, I've never been as comfortable with dating as I have with being single.<br />
<br />
I tried to be a few times; for the stories, because I thought I should, because people kept asking if there was <a href="http://sleepingeyes.blogspot.com/2012/05/how-many-times-have-you-asked-been.html" target="_blank">anyone on the scene</a>, because more embarrassing than saying "no" were the cocked heads and reassurances that <i>well, you'll find someone soon</i>, and because sometimes nice boys asked me out and it felt more awkward to turn them down. <br />
<br />
But in doing so, I realised that if you try and date when you're not entirely comfortable with the idea, you don't really enjoy it. You just spend an inordinate amount of time <a href="http://sleepingeyes.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/do-you-get-it.html" target="_blank">dreading the details</a>, worrying about the consequences.<br />
<br />
So I waited.<br />
<br />
Then eventually, I <a href="http://sleepingeyes.blogspot.com/2013/03/first-dates.html" target="_blank">met someone I liked</a> - and after feeling nothing for anyone for so long, even when it fizzled out, it still brought back a little spark.<br />
<br />
Things seemed to happen the old fashioned way after that; eye contact, flirting, a drunken kiss leading to a few lovely dates.<br />
<br />
When things didn't go to plan (what plan?), there was the enjoyment of being single - and for nights when you just want to know that someone, <i>anyone</i> fancies you - there was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinder_(application)" target="_blank">Tinder</a>.<br />
<br />
The latter was used sporadically, more out of curiosity than anything else, and on one occasion resulted in a perfectly pleasant (read: boring) evening in a London cocktail bar.<br />
<br />
Tinder dates, I concluded on the way home, merely meant three hours of wondering where on earth to begin with a complete stranger you didn't really fancy, and were best limited to an occasional confidence boost from the comfort of my sofa.<br />
<br />
Which is why even when I walked down the steps of Waterloo Bridge early in October, taking a deep breath before scanning the crowds for a vaguely recognisable face - the one I'd been texting for the past two weeks - I wasn't quite sure how I'd ended up there.<br />
<br />
My expectations were low even after we'd spent the evening together; when the time of his last train approached and we tried to find a way around it, but couldn't, and so I walked him to the station instead.<br />
<br />
"Well, we'll have a less sensible night out next time then," I said of our early finish. And he replied, "Next time eh?" and I said "Only if you want to."<br />
"Are you kidding? Definitely. That'd be amazing." and with that, an arm curled around my waist.<br />
<br />
I walked away from the tube station that night grinning, because the kiss had lingered a little longer than it normally would between two strangers. <br />
<br />
And I realised that this is how dating, like being single, was meant to be: comfortable, <a href="http://sleepingeyes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/are-we-friends-yet.html" target="_blank">unpredictable</a>, and always with a bit of excitement still to come.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-49772393143786012182014-10-07T14:36:00.000+01:002014-10-07T14:36:40.846+01:00The internet is playing a trick on us<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lots of us, my generation, are guilty of falling for it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We're constantly, unknowingly seduced by numbers (over a thousand followers? Must be a big deal) and faces (the featureless, flattering photos of Instagram) and other people's life events (the party where everyone's having the time of their lives).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And no matter how well we think we're negotiating this life stuff, these little tricks - and deep down we know they're tricks - end up making us feel bad about ourselves anyway.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So a while back I decided to cut down my online life a bit, and make sure I was doing alright without it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A few weeks before my 30th birthday, I decided that Facebook could be where I got event invitations, or involved in group inbox conversations, or tagged in photos - but I would no longer browse what I had begun to term The Timeline of Doom. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Despite never being a particularly active user, not having it on my phone, and never big on sharing my innermost thoughts, I hadn't realised how much I subconsciously flicked onto the website in between tasks at work throughout the day, and the effect that was having on how I felt about myself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">At first, it felt a bit alien not to be entertained by the constant slew of missives from friends and acquaintances. I felt a bit of a pull towards it, and that surprised me too. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But after a few days, then a week, then a month and more, the habit dropped completely. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now I manage quite nicely without the constant drip-feed of other people's lives - which almost never made me feel good, but did give me a lot of <i>oh my god, why aren't I doing that -</i> and instead, if you'll excuse my French, began to give a shit about the stuff that actually, you know, matters.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And low and behold - when you're not comparing yourself to others, or locked down to life on a laptop, or updating the world on your every move for a Retweet - it's like...bloody hell, I'm doing alright. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In fact, I'm doing good: I'm working hard, earning enough money to live the way I want to in one of the world's best cities. I can travel and see friends abroad, live in a good houseshare, occasionally date people, occasionally not, have busy weekends and quiet week nights. And all of that is ok. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Being online a lot can warp your priorities, and change what you think you want. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It's fine if other people aim for marriage, babies or a house, writing a book, or getting fame and popularity in a corner of the internet - but at the moment, I'm working on a different kind of future: where I work hard and earn money, not "likes", having fun and, well, a pension; because when I'm old and rickety after all the adventures, I'm going to need some cash. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A timely reminder of the digital microcosm we live in now came the other night, when I sat opposite a man I'd just met for the first time - through an app, ironically - laughing, flirting, getting along fine, and seeing a blank look on his face when I mentioned the word "Buzzfeed".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That someone my age had never heard of this huge website that dominated so much of my online feeds seemed odd - but it was also hugely reassuring.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Because most of the websites, numbers, influential people, followers, likes and carefully posed profile pictures are all part of the internet's big trick.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">What matters is when you're sat in front of someone, just getting on, having a laugh. Mates, dates, your face, their face, chatting in the real world: knowing that if they like you, that's cool, and if they don't, you'll still be alright. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And no amount of Instagram filters can help you with that. </span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-37341949017257548422014-09-22T23:14:00.000+01:002014-09-29T23:39:39.557+01:00All the little placesI was 16 when I fell in an approximation of love for the first time.<br />
<br />
At that age, I had no idea that there would be others after him. It was just all completely new, that rush of lovely reciprocated feelings, and because I didn't yet realise that boys who said they loved you might one day just... not, there were only good things ahead.<br />
<br />
You fell in love once, and he had huge brown eyes, and we were going to be together forever, and that was that.<br />
<br />
He was two years older than me - a frightening age gap in my mother's opinion - and she was suspicious, she later told me, because those huge brown eyes never met hers. But she had the good sense to let me find out for myself.<br />
<br />
And then three weeks later when he ended it, my mum perched on the bed where I'd been laying in the dark silently crying for the past couple of hours, and comforted me. Then she said, "You didn't sleep with him, did you?" and quietly "Thank god." when I shook my head no.<br />
<br />
This wasn't just my first initiaition into heartbreak, but the first time I realised it wasn't just people you had to get over, but places too. My bedroom used to be my bedroom, but now it was where me and him first stood there hugging and then slowly, tentatively, kissed.<br />
<br />
The bench in the park where we'd walked my dog - the one with my initials and his scratched into the wood - no longer belonged to a London Borough Council, it was ours. And then, because it hurt to look at it, it was to be avoided at all costs.<br />
<br />
The park is still there, the bench is too. Reclaimed by the council, the love for that brown eyed boy long gone and replaced ten times over.<br />
<br />
But if I'm passing, I'll sometimes sit there and run my fingers along the seat trying to find a trace of the letters I carved with my house keys 14 years ago, feeling nothing except glad that although it hurt, it happened, and I learnt from it, and occasionally I'll wonder what he's doing now.<br />
<br />
And sometimes, all that seems to have changed is my age, the men, and the locations: the more people I meet and get attached to, the more invisible flags get planted and fade all over London - some quicker than others.<br />
<br />
Some places have a sort of magnetism about them; your eyes are automatically drawn to a doorway or corner, or a flat, a bus stop, and the conversations you had there pop into your mind, word for word.<br />
<br />
The other day I crossed over to the side of a road that took me past a front door.<br />
<br />
Not because I hoped to see him come out of it (although I armed myself by inwardly rehearsing our conversation just in case) but more because I'd been unconsciously refusing to go near it.<br />
<br />
I'd been avoiding an entire side of a busy road I used most days, and now, I decided, I wanted it back.<br />
<br />
Doing so triggered a little memory, and made my chest hurt for a second or two. I glanced at the door and no one came out of it, and then I carried on walking home.<br />
<br />
But everything fades, and nowadays I know that soon I'll walk past that door and feel nothing but a vague curiosity; wondering a little bit about what he's up to, and what little flags will get planted next.<br />
<br />
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-28538869497581496932014-08-25T13:09:00.001+01:002014-08-25T13:09:29.645+01:00Are we friends yet?For the second time in as many weeks, my body reacted like it'd been given bad news.<br />
<br />
My phone lit up on the desk at work, <a href="http://sleepingeyes.blogspot.com/2014/07/this-is-all-i-know-at-moment.html" target="_blank">his name</a> on the screen again, and my stomach dropped an inch or two. <i>For gods sake, what now?</i><br />
<br />
The rejection had dissipated slightly in the two weeks since his original message, the one that mowed down every cliché in the field: <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">not looking for a relationship, would be amazing to still be friends, </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">carry on hanging out more,</span> etc, etc, etc. The next day, my reply had been calm and honest (fuelled only slightly by gin), explaining why friends couldn't happen: because I was hurt.<br />
<br />
So now, knowing that my day was about to be disrupted by whatever he had to say, I carried on with what I was doing. Left it there unchecked for a while until I was ready: my day will not stop for you.<br />
<br />
Eventually I looked at the message, and stared at it, all four words and a kiss.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Are we friends yet? X</span><br />
<br />
It was just a thread, nothing more. And when you hang on to threads, <a href="http://sleepingeyes.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-perilous-truth-about-being-dangled.html" target="_blank">you get dangled</a> - and that wasn't about to happen again.<br />
<br />
That didn't stop replies lining up in my mind for the best part of a week, covering every emotion from sarcastic, honest, angry, witty, to mildly humourous, none of which would ever be sent.<br />
<br />
Then one week later at the tail end of a house party, the bit when you sit on the kitchen counter and chat about the world, a friend and I talked about me being single.<br />
<br />
"I suspect it's the sort of bloke I'm attracted to", I said, "here's a good example."<br />
<br />
Then I showed him the text messages, trying to explain this person I really liked and his sudden departure from my life, "...and then I got this."<br />
<br />
My friend held my phone and looked at the final message, his eyebrows furrowed. "Who even does that?" he said, seemingly angry on my behalf.<br />
<br />
Then, before I could do anything, he'd tapped twice on the keyboard and pressed send.<br />
<br />
When I grabbed it back and looked down, there it was; the answer I'd never have sent.<br />
<br />
The lines of communication officially closed and all threads cut with a simple word:<br />
<br />
<i>no</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-20729587154704868352014-07-14T22:34:00.001+01:002014-07-14T22:58:03.222+01:00This is all I know at the momentIf there was ever a way to press pause on a moment and bottle it, now would be the perfect time.<br />
<br />
This is what's going through my head as I lie there fully clothed, the thumping hangover slowly worsening or abating, I can't tell which.<br />
<br />
Hip hop plays low in the background. An arm slips around me, the other hand finds mine, and I bury my head in his neck.<br />
<br />
"Bloody hell, I'm dying" I say, because the night before ended at 6am when daylight crept into the party, and only then was it time to go home.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It was when I woke up later that morning that the text was there, asking if I wanted to come round that night.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"I can't do tonight, but do you fancy just being a hungover mess with me this afternoon?" I replied, because he'd had a big one too, and misery loves nothing more than company when it's only a short, slightly ropey, too-hot-for-this-hangover bus journey down the road.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I told no one where I was going; there was no one to tell anyway, but it felt nice to just disappear to his flat in the middle of the afternoon, pull down the blinds and forget about the outside world for a while.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In fact, I tell no one about any of it, save a few close people who know me well enough not to ask too much, and not to share the details they hear.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Because this is how dating seems to go; it's uncertain, it's fun, and it's mostly closing your eyes and storing this moment because you're not sure how it will turn out later. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And all I know is what experience tells me: that this - whatever it is - isn't ready to be labelled yet, won't be for a while, and doesn't need to be prodded in the way my friends would if they knew. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
What would I say if the questions came? That it's not as terrifying as it was at the start, certainly; that he's 30% familiar, and 70% an unknown mystery, but we're working on that with every date.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Well, sort of.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"You're going to a desert island and can only have one soft drink and one alcoholic drink forever", he says, 'what you having?"</div>
<div>
"Ribena. And a gin and tonic" I reply, "you?"</div>
<div>
"Strawberry milkshake and a White Russian." he returns.</div>
<div>
"Interesting. A milky choice there."</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Then I turn around and he curls behind me, and all I know is that even with a hangover, this is a good place to be at the moment. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So with the important questions covered, for now, we nap. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-47467933991314670192014-06-22T08:54:00.000+01:002014-06-22T09:11:12.780+01:00Changing states of mind"If you like someone, you don't mind getting two texts in a row from them."<br />
"Either do it now, or do it tomorrow."<br />
"I think just do it now. No games. You want to see him, so just ask."<br />
"God, I haven't seen you like this before."<br />
<br />
My mind was in a state of flux.<br />
<br />
It had been that way since the minute I'd woken up and brushed the button to light up my phone, ostensibly to see the time, but also to see whether there had been any deliveries overnight. And there hadn't.<br />
<br />
Panic had set in.<br />
<br />
"So he wanted to see you last night..." <br />
"Yes. But it was late and too far so I suggested this afternoon and now nothing. Nothing. All day."<br />
<br />
The feeling of all rational thought taking leave was an alien one. It was unsettling to seemingly have so much time, so much energy to devote to just one thing, one person, one bloody phone screen.<br />
<br />
The highs and lows were disrupting the nice, level minded constant I'd put time and effort into building up. It was disconcerting. I was going nuts.<br />
<br />
<i>Right. What would you advise someone else in this situation?</i><br />
<br />
This was the question I'd asked myself earlier on the bus, as I'd stared out of the window and envisaged a future that contained both the perfect and worst case scenarios in quick, altering succession.<br />
<br />
I'd say you can't assume to know the motives or thoughts of someone you've known for just a week. I'd say it's hormones. I'd say what do you really know about this person? I'd say not everyone treats their phone like the messiah.<br />
<br />
But really, I needed rational advice. I needed the real talk, the science, not the irritating "how exciting! No, but this is exciting!" exclamations of those who have been in relationships too long to remember the fear, the terror, the crippling insecurity of having feelings for someone you've known for only a week.<br />
<br />
I needed Google.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">How to stop yourself feeling completely crazy when...</span><br />
<br />
When what? When you've known someone a week? When you've had a spectacularly good first date? <br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">...you're on Facebook</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">...you're on your period</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">...you're falling in love</span><br />
<br />
Google's last autocomplete threw me, and I stared at the results warily before clicking onto what I considered to be <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/get-hardy/201203/the-early-stages-falling-in-love" target="_blank">the most reputable</a>. And then I read.<br />
<blockquote>
<i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">"You are under the influence of your hormones that are making you feel, all at once, euphoric, endangered, and exhausted. You are adding a dating relationship to your normal, busy routine. This can make you more anxious than normal. This process can be threatening and make you feel unsafe."</span></i></blockquote>
Science out of the way, I needed the reassurance from my perennially single, tell it like it is friends. I needed two gay mates and a housemate.<br />
<br />
"Yeah, it's horrible." they agreed, "Bloody awful, liking someone. The worst."<br />
"I know, it's so much easier when you don't care."<br />
"Urgh, I feel for you."<br />
<br />
<i>Finally,</i> I thought. <i>People who understand.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
After a while and a beer I realised that while you can't know someone else, you can know yourself. You can know how to allay your own fears - even the most startling irrational ones - or at least set them on the road to recovery.<br />
<br />
Knowing that I'd taken the adult route, the direct route, would mean that even in the event of a Non Reply, I would feel better for trying.<br />
<br />
I typed.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">"[Full name]. Are you still free on Monday?"</span><br />
<br />
It sent. It delivered. It sat there, under my last message, making my screen into a field of green.<br />
<br />
<i>You've known him a week. You'll get over it. Plus if he loses interest this quickly there's clearly something else going on and you do not need a problem child. Nope.</i><br />
<br />
And the weird thing was, I started to feel better.<br />
<br />
An hour passed, then two, and the strange feeling in my chest was returning to normal.<br />
<br />
"I don't think I'll hear from him again. I think that's it", I said, as my housemate and I walked home from the park, ready for a night in.<br />
<br />
We were mid way through unpacking a bag of shopping when my phone, discarded and in disgrace on the kitchen counter, lit up with a message.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">"For you? Yes. X"</span><br />
<br />
And then I fell into a state of relief.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script expr:src='"http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/PleaseDontEatWithYourMouthOpen?i=" + data:post.url' type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Please Don't Eat With Your Mouth Openhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09246896544080806179noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30034378.post-48427221340015484442014-05-23T11:24:00.001+01:002014-05-23T11:24:29.086+01:00What's the worst that can happenIf there's one saying I've heard over and over again through the years, it's this:<br />
<br />
"You might as well try. What's the worst that can happen?"<br />
<br />
This seems to be the go-to response when someone wants to put themselves out there, take a risk or try something new - and for some people, it probably serves as the kick up the arse they need to do just that.<br />
<br />
Which is great for them.<br />
<br />
But if you're the sort of person who worries about the "worst that can happen" a fair amount of the time, the idea of imagining the worst case scenario and using it as a reason to do something probably won't be all that helpful.<br />
<br />
In fact for years, putting any focus on the "worst that could happen" - the uncertainty, not knowing the outcome, potentially looking silly, getting a negative reaction, failing - would conversely be the thing that stopped me trying in the first place.<br />
<br />
It keeps you in stasis.<br />
<br />
And if you normally calculate the risk and go with the option least likely to cause a fuss, you're unlikely to be the sort of person who takes a deep breath, ignores the thumping in your chest, and rejects something like a pay rise offer because, well, you reckon you're worth more.<br />
<br />
Because let's be honest, if jobs are hard to come by, pay rises are even harder. If they don't budge, it might mean you have to find another job - and with rent to pay, that's a pretty big risk to take.<br />
<br />
But last year, this is what I did.<br />
<br />
It could have been this thing I read - about how women get promoted based on their <i>past</i> accomplishments; where men get promoted on their future potential; that women actively highlight the things they're <i>not</i> good at, hold themselves back, state their shortcomings before anything else - which made me stop, take a picture of the pages, and admit that yes - this is me in my career so far, grateful for anything, undervaluing myself - and see that fitting that sort of statistic <i>is</i> probably the worst that can happen.<br />
<br />
Maybe it was that.<br />
<br />
Maybe it was yet another impending house move signalling an overhaul, maybe it was just the reckless "sod it" feeling that passes over me sometimes like a tide (the same one that also makes me book things like plane tickets to take me half way around the world). <br />
<br />
Whatever it was, it made me say "that's generous, thank you - but actually, I deserve this much" - and push a much higher figure over the table, along with the reasons why.<br />
<br />
(I calculated that the worst that could happen would be them laughing, my embarrassment, handing in my notice, living off meagre savings, and struggling to find another job. So I sorted my CV out just in case.)<br />
<br />
In the end, the pay rise I wanted came through, and with it - as I walked out of the room stifling a grin, feeling really quite emotional - a feeling of wonder: if I asked for that and got it, what else can I do?<br />
<br />
Which is how, six months later, I ended up sitting at my kitchen table after a decidedly mediocre day at work, contemplating the worst things that could happen if submitted my CV for a job I'd chanced upon, which was at the very edge of my abilities, and already showed a large amount of applicants in the running.<br />
<br />
The worst? I'd hear nothing, and stay where I was. <br />
<br />
The other worst? I'd get an interview, and have to lie about a doctor's appointment. <br />
<br />
(The guilt, the guilt. Always the guilt.)<br />
<br />
But then one e-mail became a phone interview, which became more face to face, and now here I sit at my new desk, in a different, bigger office, with a new job and new colleagues; managing, instead of being managed.<br />
<br />
Granted, "Well, you might as well try, because the best that can happen is that someone says 'yes', and in fact the more you try, the more people <i>will</i> say yes" doesn't have quite the same ring to it as the original version.<br />
<br />
But for now, as far as sayings go, it seems to be working for me.<br />
<br />
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