Wallowing in my gaping character flaws

I remember thinking I was a people person. These days, I have absolutely no idea why.


JOEL: I don't think you're going to be happy with anyone.
ME: So, what, your advice is…? Shack up with someone I’m not happy with and be happy?
JOEL: No, my advice is much more subtle than that, Cupcake. *steals cigarette* Stop being a twat.
ME: *meaningful pause* Well, gosh, why didn't I realise that was the reason? Thanks for being so succinct.
JOEL: I am trying to help you out, you know. You always do this, conjure up some tiny little flaw which you then use to push people away.
ME: Oh fuck me, we've progressed to people? Like, in general? I thought we were talking about boyfriendlies. *fliches cigarette* That must be why I've had trouble following your train of thought.
JOEL: *pissy look, snatches fag back and puts it out* You have a history of this.
ME: Why are you pissed off? OK, OK. *raises hands in mock surrender* Just be sure to let me know when I decide to push you away, then.
JOEL: You're just annoyed because you had the perfect person, you panicked and you blew it.
ME: What are you talking about? He finished with me. Remember that tiny little insignificant detail?
JOEL: We're not talking about him right now. You know you pushed him into it.
ME: *ignores him, lights up, tries not to throw a tantrum* I liked you much better when you were too busy trying to get your hands up my top to psychoanalyse me.
JOEL: Just admit he was the perfect guy for you, get back with him, and then I'll get back to my default position.
ME: *finally realising I'm in over my head* He is so NOT perfect.

Hilarious misunderstandings abound

About a month ago, I went out for coffee with my mother. There was a slightly awkward silent moment as we both stared out at the rain cascading off the canvas shelter at the front of the shop in a manner not unreminiscent of Niagra Falls. I waited a moment longer for her to offer me a lift to the train station, and when it didn't come I shrugged my way half into my coat, simultaneously downing the last few dregs of my cooling coffee, before giving up and standing, smoothing the coat round my knees. Goodbyes were said, physical contact was desperately avoided, and I turned to leave, hand on the door, chin tucked into collar. Rain related frown firmly in place.
"Imogen," she called, hastening towards me. "I, just, uh..." and thrust something into my coat pocket, looking more than duly embarrassed.
I, of course, assumed it was money.
"Gee, thanks Mum." Another pause and an expectant look. "I'll use it well, I promise," I said, smiling at her before rushing off to catch my train, the downpour efffectively taking my mind off it.

Cut to last Sunday. More torrential rain, the coat came out again. I was on the Circle line, slightly damp and shivering, standing with my arm looped round one of the yellow poles, when I absent mindedly put my hand in my pocket, encountering my mothers gift.

Let us establish here and now that my hands were numb and I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between a clothes brush and a strip of velvet at this point.

I wonder how much she gave me? I thought, pulling it out and looking. Before sort of half screaming and accidentally throwing the condom away from me in the shock of recollection.

Thanks, I'll use it well I told her. Oh. Oh my good lord.

Puppies.

"You?"
"Yes."
"You?"
"Yes."
"That's huge! You're, like, a mother. You're, like, married! Omigod! *long pause* Hang on. You?"
__________

"Babe," he said, with his arm slung around me as we walked to the bar. "How about we get a puppy?"
I sort of sputtered rainwater. It was beautiful. "A puppy? The small furry kind that eats shoes and books?"
"A puppy. Yes."
"I think you could have a puppy, and be a wonderful parent. But me? As well? Really, really not so much. I'm mean, I have a bipolar bitch scale and I'd have to murder it if it chewed any of my things." There was a long pause, which I decided to fill before his thought process reached the, My girlfriend really is slightly odd, stage. "Oh come on. No court would convict me."
"How can you not like puppies?"
"Of course I like puppies. But from a distance. In fact, I feel every partybash should come with a puppy, just so the host doesn't feel obliged to keep the person sitting by themself on the couch company. And so they have something to keep them looking occupied, keeping people from thinking they're socially inept. And holding a puppy would make someone more approachable, I guess... But actually, thinking about it, I'm not sure I'd advise cuddling a puppy on the couch for the whole evening if you're just after sex. I mean, a puppy is a very, well, easy child substitute. Semantics." I said, swiping at the rainwater inching its way down my nose. "If you want a puppy, get one. I might even babysit from time to time, but... we cannot get a dog. I mean, I'm not sure there's enough We for that. There's definitely not enough Me, but I'm pretty sure there's enough You."

He smiled at me and tugged at a straggling piece of hair. "Are we here again?"
"No, this isn't me locking you out. But, a pet? Please. I can't see myself as ever a dog owner. You'll have to find some other way to satisfy your paternal urges. Or you can come to grips with the idea of it being just your dog. But I guess that would make you a single parent, which I hear is tough."

He pushed the hair back behind my ear where rain drenched hair belongs.
"Ah," I said. "You've already paid for the thing, haven't you?"
"Sure have, doll."

Pause.

"Oh, right, fine. Call it Manet."

Yes. Do let's bring that up as much as possible.

I'm not sure they were ignoring us so much as we were just failing to register with them, while they debated the respective merits of those, uh, you know those things you get in airports that are either flat escalators or moving pavements? Those. And my amazing lack of technical knowledge has spectacularly just ruined all semblance of sentencical flow.

"Hellooo," she called, long, low and drawn out. No response. "Hey!" she tried again, on the bring of losing her temper. "Did you know Imogen's not wearing any knickers?"

She's from Poland, to be fair...

I sauntered over to the car taking advantage of the ridiculous hour* to cross the road without looking and said "I've just had an epiphany."
She leaned across and opened the door for me. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" she asked. "I hear they're bad for your heart."

* 4am. And not by choice. It's tough trying to be a social recluse with friends.

There's a guy been awake since the second world war

"You're hurting yourself," Joel took the comb away from me and started to fix the mess I'd made. "Do you remember when we were kids, and you used to get grounded all the time for refusing to let your mother comb your hair?"
"I remember you getting me grounded for a lot more than that. What about it?"
"You used to hide under the bed rather than let her do it."
"I only stopped when I gave myself concussion by banging my head against the bottom of the bed." I looked at him in the mirror, and he smiled at me for a second.

"But you have a choice," he said, still combing my hair gently, "I guess you can either hide under the bed, or work through the knots."

You see him on Tibb Street with his boots high on his calves, your red scarf trailing behind him, not quite touching the pavement; you see him with his collar turned up against the cold, and his hands hidden deep in his pockets, and you also see his refusal to huddle in against the cold, face bared to the elements. He still doesn't notice you walking behind him as he hurries to the cafe where you're supposed to be meeting. You check your watch; he's late, and you're even later. You see how he checks out the cafe in a single glance, registering your absence, then you see him stand in the queue with his head slightly angled, you see him lean in against the counter, conspiring with the waitress with the jeans and the over-the-knee boots, blithely ignoring everyone in the queue behind him. You see him lean over the counter and touch her hand, whispering and making her laugh; she pushes him away gently, and he walks off, and you know his order will get priority in the busy kitchen. He goes to find somewhere to sit, and when he stretches you see that his belly has flattened and tightened, and you wonder whatever happened to that beer belly he'd been nursing with such lack of embarrassment and you think, for just one moment, that maybe it's because... and then you push the thought away before it has time to form fully and push the door open.
You see him in the morning light in the studio flat and you see him preening, you see him waiting impatiently while you refuse to get up so early, you hear him put the music on loud and dance about, until you finally give in, get up and teach him some ballet, and you see him intuiting a move that, if you remember correctly, took you hours to learn and you try to sulk and he won't let you and insists you teach him something more complicated, so you try a lift, and you do, and it works pretty well, except he lets you both fall back onto the bed, and you push him away. You see him through winter, through spring, through summer, and everytime, now you think of it, he seems larger to you and more magnetic, and you're at a loss to explain what's happening.
You see him steal your beret, and once you see him wearing it out and you compliment him and he walks past laughing softly but he doesn't pause to say anything back and all those times he doesn't even look in your direction and acknowledge your presence you feel a little bit lonelier, a little bit more lost, and you want to ask him if he ever met someone he likes more than himself, but you think you know the answer and because the answer might strike a resonating chord you don't ask, and then suddenly, another time, he'll run across the road towards you, arms open wide and you begin to think maybe you were wrong; and you wonder exactly where it was you went wrong, took that misstep, you know there's something missing but you can't work out what it is, and you begin to feel slightly scared and confused, and then, one day you see him practising one of the dance moves you taught him and he jumps shyly when he notices you watching him, brusquely demands you mirror image a dance step and you comply because you love seeing him intuit ballet, it's like seeing yourself, and you want to move, break the double image but you can't and you realise you've always been the others double, a shadow of the other, and you laugh, but later when he moves away, a quick kiss goodbye, the light is gone, and you stand out on the balcony alone that evening watching the city without really seeing it and you realise just how much of yourself has disappeared. And then you hear him letting himself back in, coming straight to where you are, and you put your mask back on, smile and laugh at him, and he's quiet and he watches you, and he comes over and wraps his arms around your waist and says, Cupcake, I get the feeling you're standing on a ledge, looking down and you feel your mask shattering as you stare out at the city lights through the window behind him, and you remember you never could keep it in place around him, and you realise the light you've just been staring at has cast a shadow of the two of you together.