I have a series of increasingly hopeless addictions, but none moreso than my addiction to a certain Chinese soap opera. This is something I do remarkably often, admittedly in different forms- I'll obsess about the guy I saw on the train (in this example it's Stuart, but generally they remain strangers) with the braces (as in clothes, not teeth) who pulled a decidedly battered £5 note out of his left shoe to pay for his train ticket, or the paintings of the fat women in the Whitworth art gallery (but their virtues have been extolled in this book, so I'll pause my obsessive admiration there).
So, this soap. It follows a similar trend to all my other obsessions; I've only seen it once, it pops into my mind at odd moments, I have absolutely no idea what its called and I would do an awful lot to be able to see/ get hold of it again.
Basic storyline of the episode I caught; boy and girl are dating, boy has a valve in his heart that he allows to take over his life. Boy is slightly uptight. Girl is flighty and odd, a good contrast, and she draws him out of his shell a little. Boy doesn't tell her about heart problem. Girl finds out from boys ex-wife and episode ends.
Whereas the current storyline in Eastenders is what?

This has deeper undercurrents than it might seem, and I'm going to write everything I've wanted to write for the last ten days and hope and pray he doesn't find my blog- on that note, anyone think I should change my name- or at least his (don't suggest Tick, that would be tasteless and I've already considered and rejected it. For him, that is) and go for a pseudonym? Suggestions welcome.

In terms of real life rather than a single episode of a soap opera that's currently haunting me, Stuart was born with a heart problem, all very long and complicated, and undoubtedly something I'd have focused on if he'd been the one telling me, but his mother, adore her as I sort of grudgingly do, just can't cut it in the attention keeping stakes. I think the story was an attempt to warn me off, as well. The long and short of it was that he's had numerous operations on his heart. She didn't mention, and I'm not sure if she knows, that he's working himself up into a knot about it; a knot that means he pushes me out of an embrace within the space of a heartbeat, that means we don't curl up on the couch together, that means he didn't fucking tell me.

In Ellen Kushner's latest offering one of the more multi-dimensional characters simply adores being touched; he revels with contact and attention, sort of relies on it to maintain himself. (I think; I could have described that better, but I haven't read it in a while due to the book being awful as a whole, so take that with a pinch of salt. You get the gist, and I might change it later if I can be doing with going back to my source material.) At the risk of sounding hideously Anita Blakeish, in the context of our relationship this would be me. I adore being touched, just as a general thing; it makes me feel confident and attractive; all it takes to make me happy. Although I hadn't really thought about it until fairly recently. But yes, I am quite a touchy feely person.
Being quite as misguided and rubbish as I am, I just assumed from the start that he didn't like being touched and figured he'd work through it- you hit twenty three and people are going to assume you've let someone touch you at some point since your late teens. That can't just be me? I booked him a massage for his birthday- and he hit the fucking roof.

But the problem's more recent than that. Somewhere inbetween his very public tantrum and my next oh-so-ingenious idea, I met his mother, sort of by accident on his side. He promptly abandoned me with her, "Ah. Mum. Imogen, this is my mother, mum, this is my girlfriend and oh dear is that the time?" which lead to an awkward pause as we both gaped after him as he strode off down the street, and then, "Now you simply must come for coffee, I don't often get to meet Stuart's beaus." She shuffled me off to Cafe Nero and told me about his heart, its issues with him and his most recent op, about a year ago and let me know she thought I was a bad match because "Dearie, I don't want to be rude, I'm sure you're a lovely girl, but someone like my son, well, I don't really think you have the strength of character needed to handle something like this".

This boy doesn't really let anyone in, and I had a bit of a hissy fit about that and decided that I want him to let me in. So I called him about a week after we'd managed to get over his reaction to the massage and told him we were having a pyjama party at the end of the week, "Keep Friday night free, we're having a girlie night in. You rent the movies, I'll bring the ice-cream and nail polish". He laughed, played along with me while I was planning, adding to it like people do when spinning fantasies of their future together.

For the first time in my life I arrived on time, laden down with three different flavours of ice-cream and compulsory sleepover kit; makeup, hair straightners, cute pyjamas. I leant on the door, cursing my new career as pack horse and sort of knocked with my elbow. Then gave up, dropped everything at my feet and let myself in, weaving my way through the dusky half-light in the flat, guided by the light snores coming from the bedroom. I found him in his work clothes; jeans and black shirt, curled on his side with the covers on the floor; surrounded, as I found to my peril, with cast aside shoes and a hairbrush. He'd unbuttoned his shirt before falling asleep, and my eyes had adjusted to the dark, just enough that I could see the scar running down his chest; I guess the reason why he's constantly playing with his collar, always louche with the top one, two buttons undone, but never showing.

If his mother hadn't told me I think I'd have passed out there and then in shock. But she had, and I was beginning to understand a lot. I curled up next to him on the bed, hands clasped together under my cheek as I just lay looking at him.
I woke up to full darkness in the flat and his arms around me. We just lay together for a while in silence, listening to the ticking sound emanating from his chest, and I realised why he kept pushing me away, locking me out.

We got up and had our sleepover, from the ice-cream to the movies to the sharing of secrets in the dark, admittedly in the wrong order.

And now all I'm left with is a nagging listlessness when it comes to english TV- you don't get stuff like this in Coronation St or even in Neighbours, world tour or no bloody world tour.