I was 15 when I first made a boy cry.
It was something of a revelation for a young and awkward girl to have made her best friend cry. My only experience of the emotions of boys and men was in the person of my dad. A partrician example, staunch and proud and ‘manly’. Cry? You would have had to poke him in the eye with a sharp stick to see that…
Rich and I had been friends for months, hanging out, listening to the Police and Nik Kershaw on vinyl. Talking for hours on the phone about the Police and Nik Kershaw. We were pretty tight and so he asked me to be his girl.
I said yes, of course, he was lean and blonde, and he liked The Police and Nik Kershaw. What’s not to love?
So for 9 days I was his girl.
Unfortunately for him I was an awkward antisocial 15 year old and I actually had no idea what it meant to be his girl, and I got scared when he got too close. Really scared, and so one day, when we were alone at yoof camp. I told him that I couldn’t be his girl any more.
And he cried.
You could have knocked me over with a feather. I was absolutely gobsmacked (great word that).
Me? Having that kind of power? Enough to scare me even more…
We never quite got our friendship back (like duh). By the time I had got a bit more comfortable with me, and with having him in my personal space he was seeing someone else (a ‘whole lot more’ of them than he would have seen with me – which incidentally didn’t stop him snogging me sensless at Easter Camp when we listened to The Cars and made out on our camp beds…) and we moved on; me to work and then overseas, him to parenthood, marriage and divorce.
I often wonder what may have happened if I hadn’t been such a fraidy cat. Maybe I’d be a solo mum, divorced from him, or maybe we missed a great opportunity. Not something I’m likely to know this side of eternity.
Anyway I got to thinking about Rich, my errant youth when I made another boy cry yesterday and felt almost as bad as I did the first time.
He asked me to come over, he wanted us to go out, out to the zoo, as it happens and while I’m a big fan of the zoo, the weather was cool and I had a client coming over to peruse some work, so I said no.
His reply was floods of tears followed by speechlessness. He had to hand the phone over he was so choked up.
He rang off so quickly I had no right of reply, and truth is I was so upset I almost dropped everything there and then to go after him and soothe him. I had no idea he’d be that cut up… the zoo’s not going anywhere, neither am I, it will just have to wait for another day! I’m actually still tripping, and in all honestly a bit flushed and flattered that I have such an effect on him. What girl doesn’t love when a boy gets all toungetied and weak kneed when she’s around? I have to say that it’s the first time that my refusal to go on a date made him cry. Can you imagine what he’d have done if he’d asked me to marry him and I hesitated?
Poor boy, it’s pretty tough being in love with a girl when you’re only 3.
Day – 22 The Waiting Room
We sit together, he and I, quietly contemplating the view, neither of us speaking; him because he knows what I’m thinking and me because I know that he knows what I’m thinking.
I’ve not sat like this with him for a while. I’ve missed it, but when you know you’re the one at fault for buggering things up it’s usually easier to just keep your head down and hope that he hasn’t noticed you’ve been laying low. He’s got plenty of friends, one less won’t make much of a difference.
That was how he’d found me, sitting on the sofa, looking out the window, wondering if he’d missed me at all and before I’d barely admitted the thought, there he was. I hadn’t even heard him sit down.
I almost turn to look at him but I’m not quite ready to meet his eye so I continue to stare out the window. I can’t help but let a tear escape, God knows I’ve missed him so much.
Still, he doesn’t speak, but I can feel his hand on my shoulder.
It’s going to be ok.
Kissing Dreams
I’m pretty sure I’m at the nth degree in singular frustration.
Actually probably the lth degree, we may not yet have got to nth. I’ll keep you posted…
To Preface: I’m not usually prone to remembering my dreaming. I say it that way because every time I say I don’t have dreams I get shouted down – (as in “YES YOU DO, YOU JUST DON’T REMEMBER THEM” or words to that effect.).
So, to re cap. I don’t usually remember my dreams. At least, I didn’t until the cat came along.
Now, how is it possible that this animal could cause such a dramatic change, I hear you ask?
Because, what I meant to say earlier is that I don’t generally remember my dreams unless I have had my sleep interrupted. And now that the cat wakes up for food at 6am or so I am also awoken. As it’s a toss up between getting up at 6am, feeding the cat, shutting the bedroom door and going back to sleep… or ignoring the cat and having him meow (he’s an oriental remember… he has a whine and a half on him) and having him get progressively more restless and irritated I generally get up, feed him, skip to the loo and then go back to bed (ok, not skipping so much, but you get the idea).
And I go back to sleep and so, as it happens, to dream.
Which is where we get back to the frustration part. This morning’s dreams were kissing dreams. Kissing which I haven’t been doing, nor am I likely to be doing any time soon.
It would be ever so much less frustrating to have kissing dreams about someone like George Clooney, or Charlie Sheen (I know, still can’t get past that teenage bad boy obsession) simply because they are so far ‘out there’ that the kissing dreams are harmless nonsense. However, my frustration is elevated because instead, I’m having kissing dreams about someone who’s actually within my acquaintance.
Now, please don’t go giving me advice about throwing myself at him and kissing him anyway. I’ve heard that some guys actually thrive on that. But having a terminal case of ‘rejection-shyness’ (with good reason) has meant I’m not likely to behave in such a way as to fulfill that particular man fantasy. (Not without knowing first that it would be welcome, which defeats the whole purpose, I think).
So, I’m stuck, with my subconscious telling me what I already know and in all honesty I wish it would just blinkin’ well shut the heck up.
Or better still, that the cat would sleep through till 7am so that at least I wouldn’t remember.
