The Man Who Wanted To Be Someone Else

This is the story of a man I secretly refer to as Wrong. The night we met he was wearing a very wanky hat.

I’d taken myself out to a nearby bar where I knew they’d have some live music. So out I’d gone.

I took a seat at the opposite end of the long bar table, and as the band hadn’t yet started yet pulled out my ipod and decided to continue working on a writing exercise I’d started a few months back. (Footnote 1).

I snuck a glance at him using my well-honed peripheral vision and yep, he was watching me.

He instantly moved closer, more of a pounce actually. Instantly I drew my shutters and ignored him. He interrupted me anyway.

Telling me that he was curious and wanted to know what I was doing. I know it’s kind of immature of me to expect that I can go to a bar on my own, whip out a notebook and expect not to be asked what I’m writing about - but the truth is folks, it’s nobodies business but mine.

Why do other people feel they have the right to interrupt and pry anyway?

I did my best to deflect his interest. I really didn’t want to be disturbed, but this was not somehow understood. I’m polite - to a point.

So then he offered to buy me a drink. I declined. I DECLINED! How is that not a hint?

So when he went to the bar, he asked the bartender what I was drinking and bought me one anyway. Pushy? You betcha.

I set it to one side and decided I wouldn’t drink it. He returned to his end of the table and I figured that would be that. Silly me.

He waited until I took a sip of the glass of wine he’d purchased for me. And pounced again. Wanting me to listen to his ipod. Of course. Again I tried to distance myself. Politely (although patience fast becoming tested at this point) declining his offer.

I was listening to my music, doing my own thing, I really didn’t wish to engage in conversation with anyone else. Wrong had decided that wasn’t going to be happening - not on his watch at least.

He asked me what I thought of his hat. Ah, a bit of a wank if you want my honest opinion. Not even remotely deterred he explained that if he took it off he’d have hat hair.

In my opinion you offer to buy someone a drink and they decline and then they tell you your hat is a wank - it might be possible - just - that they’re CLEARLY NOT FUCKING INTERESTED and you’d be wasting your time to persist.

So, he bought me another wine. And another. And then a vodka martini. And another. As you I’m sure can understand by this point the wine and vodka martini’s had softened my guard and we were having a conversation.

About what I can’t remember. I doubt very much it was the alcohol that bought about my lack of recall here - I think it was more the nature of our conversation. Vanilla. Bland. Boring.

He wanted to take me to the Courthouse hotel - at the top of Oxford Street. There was no way I was going to go anywhere with him. He pushed it giving up on the sixth time I said no.

I remember walking home feeling very happy that I’d managed to get away from him.

It wasn’t until the cold light of day the next morning that I realised I had in fact given him one of my business cards. I found him patronising and thought (I was under the influence so can be forgiven for my lack of judgement perhaps?) that if I gave him reason to respect me he’d quit with treating me like I was twelve.

I guess it’s fair to say here that alcohol in a large quantity definitely affects my decision maker.

After I’d gotten up and downed a couple of nurofen, some coffee and toast - I dared to check my phone. Yep. Six (SIX) missed calls and three text messages. All from Wrong.

I deleted the voicemails without listening to them and actually shuddered when I read the first text.

‘Morning Beautiful, fancy having breakfast with me?’

The next:

‘Hey gorgeous, can’t wait to gaze upon your loveliness again, call me’.

Hmm. Never.

The last:

‘Hey beautiful, are you okay? Please call me’.

Clingy.

He persisted over the next few days telling me he’d felt a connection and was really keen to see me again. Again, against my better judgement I’d relented and agreed to meet him for a drink. I’d had a crap day that particular Thursday. From out of nowhere I was surrounded by dissenters. People who weren’t hesitating in airing in their criticisms of me. I figured at best I’d have someone I could sound off to so agreed.

I opted for somewhere local so when I was done ranting I could wander off home and that would be that. The first place we chose was crowded and I couldn’t hear myself speak so we chose to move elsewhere. On the way up the street he actually told me that he had a lot to teach me. Ooh, really?

He started talking at me - banging on about being the big man and a successful sales man (yawn) so I thought if I blasted him with a bit of pure intellect he’d shut the fuck up. I mentioned my numbers theory (Footnote 2) and he shook his head, told me I was wrong and started banging on about quantum physics. I didn‘t get to finish what I was saying and he‘d already changed the subject. Then I mentioned a theory explained to me by someone with a doctorate of economics. He had the immediate foolishness to attempt to correct the theory.

By now I was getting irritated. He kept moving closer to me. Pushing his knee up against mine. Instinctively I moved further away. Yetch. He threw his arm up over the back of my chair so I moved my chair. All this getting in my face was starting to piss me off to be honest.

When he asked me about the state of our relationship - I figured it was time I left.

He asked me for a kiss, I politely declined. I stood up to say goodbye and he lunged at me. I grabbed him firmly by his shoulders and held him at a safe distance.

He asked if he would hear from me again and I said I doubted it. We’re just too different. I’m strong, all about passion and confidence. I don’t mind spending time with someone who is shy - but someone who is all about impressing me by telling me I’m wrong and treating me like I’m made of brittle glass when it’s perfectly fucking obvious that I’m not - is boring and annoying.

My man is a man’s man. Confident. Passionate. Strong. Slightly arrogant. Witty. Lighthearted. Allergic to bullshit. Capable of lifting big things. Funny. A little bit charming when the need arises.

Wrong appeared to take himself too seriously for my liking. It was as if he’d decided that he was the big man when he seriously wasn’t. Wrong had made the bad call in thinking I needed him to be my big strong man when I’m doing just fine on my own two feet.

Some time ago I formed a friendship of sorts with another bloke. Someone I’ll refer to as C

C does have a bit of a swagger to him - but on him it’s sexy and amusing. He has a beautifully deep voice. He has a style that’s all his own. He brings out the candour and colour in me naturally - he understands I have a passionate heart and knows how to work it the way it needs to be worked. He fights with me, challenges me and confidently argues with me - then surprises me with his gentle side.

He knows instinctively when to advance and when to pull back. I’ve promised us both that when the music stops, that’s when the show is over, and when the show is over it’s time to go home.

I eat ones like Wrong for breakfast. They want to treat me like some silly little princess stuck in her castle and they’re the only ones who can let me out. I want to shout right back at them as loud as the neighbourhood will accept that I am not in need of a short weedy guy with an ego writing cheques his personality can’t cash to rescue me from an already together life.

He even had the small balls to tell me I didn’t know the first thing about sales. LIKE I EVEN CARE but coming from the family I do with the background we have, this is an insult. A very ignorant insult at that.

In all a very dull nail in a very boring wall.

But on the plus side he caused me to have more of an appreciation for C and his colourful approach to life. C is light on his feet (a bit too light at times for my tastes). He is confident but not blithe, his conscience is present and he doesn’t claim to know everything. He even asks for help if he’s not sure of something.

I know. So unusual I find it attractive.

Oh, and did I mention his eyes? Chocolate, twin pools of. Until he smiles, wherein they turn caramel.


Footnote 1 = An exercise where I hit shuffle on my ipod, and critique the next song to play and try and finish it before the next song starts.

Footnote 2 = That numbers govern our entire world. Everything is about numbers. It’s a logical structure that all that we interact with on a daily basis is measured against. If there were no numbers at all imagine the chaos we’d be living amongst.

Gilroys Hotel, St Leonards 01.04.2010

A truly beautiful day today. Sun soaring in the sky like a bird set free. Beautiful cool breeze tickling at the edges of an azure blue sky. Bubbling with it the promise of more fun to be had. And in the shortened shadows of this early autumn afternoon lurks a dewy spot of gloom. Just a small one, almost quiet enough not to be noticed.

A former love of mine thinks it is fair to hang on to something that has absolutely no place in his life. Photographs are sacred, and more so - to me. Eighteen months ago things were very different and I snapped so happily - lost in the lush tropics of another country, surrounded by beauty on all sides.

To hold to ransom someone elses memories of happier times is not only unfair - it's a kind of torture, sure and pure.

Unnecessarily inflicting hurt and bitterness in those who don't require it.

It was never a punishment he needed to exact, but he did regardless. Sometimes I wonder if this keeps him warm at night.

A found poem

I found this poem tacked to the end of a spectrum article... it's so beautiful I felt it was worth sharing...

August Sestet - written under the influence of some anonymous Japanese Sages

Down where the afternoon
pools in winter paddocks
brown cows shoot the rising southerly breeze
and the late sun
spraypaints
the arms of the elms
those great old gantries
and one yellow-tailed black cockatoo
slouching inside his zenga overcoat
splays the same blue phrase
across the afternoon
in the same cool and melancholy
way
the sky has been rehearsing it since noon

It's 4:48 on a Friday, halfway through
my life
and this is what I come to now
none of it mine - all of it me
all that love has left
The unrequieted landscape of
my soul

(Mark Tredennick - Spectrum 27 March 2010)
This was a postscript to the article - In From The Cold At Last.