Todays Riddle- Am I SUCH a Bad Person?

It is a strange fact indeed, but it really is true that I am probably the most important person in my grandmother's life.
By her own admission, what keeps her alive every day is some dream that somehow, my life will become everything she wants it to be.

There is a strage in which her dreams for her son got translated to me. It is funny, her memory truly is amazing, but there is a sense in which her memories of my childhood, also include her momories of my fathers. He and I are separate identities now, but in her head, we were the same child.

She cannot see anymore, really, and from the way she speaks, I guess she still sees me as I was at twenty.
She asked me recently if I had intention of getting re-involved in party politics. I smiled.

Otherwise, I go to visit very couple of months. If you knew how near she lived, you would be appalled. It's having time but it's also something more.

It's a mental effort, a vast evasion operation.

Gran: So where is it you work now?
Me: Hagley Road.
Gran: Doing what?
Me: Same old stuff I always do.
Gran: How much does it pay?
Me: Enough. And that's also enough of this topic.
(Pause)
Gran: You should give me your phone number.
Me: You don't need it. I'm sure if there's an emergency Tuba Man (the name me and my brother use for my revered father) will let me know.
Gran: Why won't you give me it?
Me: Because then you'll ring it. I get enough phone calls wasting my evening as it is. It's better as it is. I can ring when I get a chance, but you know, I don't really get much free time.

Then we'll digress onto Irish Politics and the current state of Fianna Fail, all of which I'm quite comfortable talking about with her.

My grandmother is my closest family member, without a doubt, but the thought of personal conversation with her scares me livid. When I visit family members, my barriers are not only up, they are fully reinforced.

I can't handle them. It's the probing, the wanting to know about your life, attempts to show they care, offer advice, when they really have no idea how you see things. In their world settling down, marrying and having children is the normal course of events. How do you explain how much more complicated life is?

Women. They have always been my ruination one way or another. They are just another of my bad habits, bordering on addiction. Only they aren't even an addiction I get much pleasure out of. It's a bit like tobacco, only much stronger. It's partly you enjoy it, but more importantly you REALLY don't like going without it.
I smoke twenty to thirty a day, so see how addicted I can become to something.

Women truly are amazing creatures. They are lovely, soft, smell good, their hair is nice and their breath on your chest whilst they sleeping is perfume from God.

The allure is huge.
It's the price tag.

Somtimes I wonder if maybe I'm just unrealistic.

I always look back to my first (and only) love Joanna. I'm actually wondering if I even loved her. I did, but mainly because there wasn't much reason not to. It was never really put to any huge tests.
OK, I'm nineteen, she's twenty.

The vast majority of the time we spend together is spent in bed. We spend large parts of the weekend in it. So yes, we DO do a lot of talking and all that sort of stuff, but healthily interspersed with other things. Occasionally, we may watch a film together.
But we don't go out together and we don't go to the pub together. We have our own friends to do that with. We hardly see eachother during weekday daytimes. We never even eat together.

And it was perfect. That to me, really was how a relationship should be. Why would you want to see more of them than that?

One thing always stands in my mind as to why she was the perfect girlfriend.

I remember me and my mates were watching an adult video once. I went to change the tape and couldn't find the other one, so we all looked round the floor. When we found it, we noticed that Joanna had just silently crept in, got into the bed, and pulled the cover over her eyes.
She wasn't going to intrude on a lad's occasion. She was just going to lie there and wait for me.
She really didn't care what I did. She didn't need to know, or want to know. She would be there when I wanted her, and not when I didn't.

And it's funny really, because as a result, she's one of the few women I've ever really trusted.

I think I did love her, you know.
Back then, anyway.

I suppose she defined my life. I never got over her, and losing her made me very bitter indeed.
At this point I made the decision that paying money to feel loved up was wiser. You don't get hurt that way.
And so I fell in love with Ecstasy.

I settled down (of a sort) at twenty-two. It was a mistake, I guess. I've worked out I have a bit of a flaw here, which keeps me making the same mistake over and over again. I really cannot help it, and I will continue to make the same mistake, I guess.

The mistake is this. By the time I was twenty-two, I was pretty much the person I stayed.
I have realised that it is true that I just randomly flirt with everybody. Half the time, I'm not really conscious of it. I'm just checking the territory. The problem with this, is that someone isn't the target of my flirting, interprets this as interest.

Now comes the problem. If they then respond in a manner which betrays reciprocal interest, I then direct my attention that way, purely instinctively. I'm still not really thinking. It's just a gut instinct.

It then reaches the point when I start to get flattered and play up to it.

Now. With Claire it is certainly true I had been flirting a bit with her, even gone for a few drinks, but at the time she wasn't my prime focus.

When she hit me with the blunt statement that she thought she was falling in love with me, I didn't really know what to do.

So I thought, hell, it's a good start. If she loves me, I can probably love her. It could work.



So I thought.

Yes, we ended up living together.
Yes, we got engaged.
Yes, we fought a lot.
No, I was too cowardly to end it. I couldn't see how.

She had an abortion.

It was Hell. The whole couple thing. The whole having to spend every minute of your free time watched over by the same person.

'What's this in your jacket pocket?'
'What are you doing in my jacket pocket?'
'I was going to wash it.'

Not much you can say really, but it's awful. The great thing about being an adult was you didn't have to worry about this stuff anymore. You only need answer to yourself.

You are no longer you, you are part of Crushedandclaire.

Is the price for sharing a bed sharing your life?

'They are fags I bought today because I haven't actually given up smoking. I don't want to give up smoking, I only pretended to so as to please you, and I don't keep going out to the shop JUST to get phone vouchers, Mars bars and Quavers.'

No, I never told her that. What excuse I came up with, I'm not sure.

The thing is, there is a pattern.
Claire was needy, I always felt very protective towards her, even in during her rages. But over time I realised, I couldn't give her what she wanted. Over time I think I became very resentful towards her, her continual jealousy, her fear of letting me out of her sight.

And I know she felt I didn't love her.

And I didn't, not in the way she wanted. Two quotes of hers that always stick out, because I guess they are true 'You're a brilliant friend, but the worst boyfriend in the world.' and 'To know what it's like to feel love from you, I'd have to be a dog'.

And I guess that's where I am. Finding women has never been the problem. I just really have no idea what to do with them when I've got them.

I couldn't endure another Claire situation. I just want a Second Joanna. No hassle, no jealousy, no wanting to be able to dictate my life, just there, there to lie with on a Saturday morning as we make love and discuss the children's progammes we remember before Football Focus.

And then I want to go out in the evening with my friends.

Isn't that love?

Well, if it isn't, then I don't much want it.

It's supposed to be a pleasure not a burden.

It should be an extra bonus in my life, not the dominating feature of it.

And yet.

How much trouble it has caused in my life.

Myself and The Chimney Sweep were discussing a while back about leading good lives.
I basically said, I didn't feel I'd ever hurt anybody and had led a good life.
Old Chimney Sweep through a spanner into the works by pointing out that I had hurt a few women on the way.
Not intentionally, I pointed out.

I'm looking for Joannas, but keep turning up Claires.

And I'm really not good at dealing with these situations.

Bottom line is, you either make me feel good, or you don't.
If you start arguing with me, trying to get me to alter my actions, involve yourself in an area of my life which I don't want you near (the majority, in fact), then, by definition, you are NOT making me feel good.

And I will take steps to completely terminate contact.

Easily done in RL. It's never taken more than a five minute telephone call.

And I really don't see what all the fuss is about. Far better it's done cleanly, before emotions become too entrenched, for yourself as much as them. You cannot risk getting emotional, when you have made a decision on rational grounds, that they are endangering the security of your existence.

How often have I had to make this decision? Fortunately, not that often. Twice in the last two years. The first posed no problem at all, and to be honest, I did feel a little sorry for her, but at the time I thought I was in love with someone else (which I probably wasn't, more an obsession). The second did a get a bit nasty. In this instance, the circumstances were a bit different. She had started telling me things about her past, which I felt were highly intimate and created a conflict of interests, in that it made it unethical for me to engage in intercourse with her.

This sexless relationship was not something she could accept, so we decided to call it a day, but she did get pretty abusive about it.

Maybe I'm missing something.

Maybe I really am a complete bastard.

But, there we are.
None of this would really matter, except I'm knocking on thirty and in the last year I did find something I wasn't looking for.

Serendipity.

Life, as of last August had every ingredient in it, to be perfect, a life I could be happy in, perhaps, till my dieing day.

The club scene had filled the void Joanna left, now career and blog together, could replace the club scene.

Was it a dream?

I guess I don't know.

But it is the nearest I have ever got.

It really was true. August last year, I had never been so content in all my life.

I look back and wonder what I could have done differently.
I really don't see what I COULD have done differently.



The Problem; You have arranged, due to your stupid ability to get yourself in stupid situations without thinking ahead, to meet another blogger. You two speak regularly. A lot of stuff has been said.

Life changes. There is a revolution in your life. Due to a successful career move, it is hard to cram writing a decent post, talking to this person on the phone AND going to the pub, plus the fact that the other person is interfering with your relationship with other bloggers and doesn't realise you find her public statements degrade you, you must end contact as soon as possible.

Further urgency to this problem arises, when they ring your flatmate whilst you are out, making her boyfriend (your best friend)VERY ANGRY.

Extra problem: The blogger you need to completely end contact with, knows a lot of stuff about you that you don't want anyone to know. Stuff you think could damage your blog.

Your happiness is in the balance here.
Your long term happiness really is in the balance here.

Your long term happiness starts the day you never hear anything from her again, but are also comfortable that she will do nothing to harm your blog.

So.

How would you have set about it?

Remember, I'm not a vindictive person. I wanted no bad feeling. I wanted her to understand, that it just wasn't sense for us to remain in communication. It could serve no positive purpose. It just wasted valuable time.

Because I really don't know how I could have done anything differently.
And it may still have ruined my life.
Trust me, I've wracked my brains over this.

I don't think I've ever invested so much emotion or stress into anything. I know how my Dad felt when he set up his own business.

That was his shot.
That was the moment he'd been waiting for, that was it. And his client base grew, the firm grew. But I guess he worried that first year.
In a way, I know now how he felt.

Mine was, mine is, here and now.
And to have that one shot ruined over something so trivial, is something I really don't get.

Love.
Took me a long time to find it.