If I have any regular readers, they’ll know that I occasionally meander off into the realms of introspection in an attempt to understand myself and define the manifold issues with which I have to attempt to deal, as whatever divinities are responsible for putting me on this planet have left me roughly 90 miles from the nearest available support. Anybody who has any patience for this kind of thing is welcome to read on, however I am conscious that there may be many of you reading this who really don’t care for my self-tormenting psyche and they are welcome to leave. Go on- if it’s after 7pm there’s roughly a 25% chance that Little Britain will be on BBC3. Enjoy yourselves. Just don’t expect any tea and biscuits at the end. Because I think it’s time I took stock- and what I want to do here is to bring in some of the things that various acquaintances have said about me recently- for which I hope they will forgive me- because I can get so wrapped up in myself that I don’t see the wood for the trees- or see myself as others see me.

To begin by explaining the title- there was an episode of Friends where (I think) Monica explained to (I think) Ross how every girl dreams of a perfect wedding. It’s relevant to my situation in so far as it ties in with some discussions about relationships, me and the lack of, and it touches on some very sensitive issues. Although I don’t dream of a perfect wedding, for as long as I can remember I’ve dreamed of a perfect relationship- all woolly jumpers, walks in the woods, going around Sainsburys on Saturday mornings and holidays in French farmhouses. And I think the fact that I start from scratch, without even a circle of acquaintances from which to find this perfect relationship, has made me increasingly desperate about the whole thing as I advance into my thirties and the prospect seems more and more remote. Stephen R Covey doesn’t help- the first of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (one of the others not being giving up on said book two or three chapters in) is beginning with the end in mind- but I think I’ve had something of that attitude for a long time. I can remember at university that I’d lose all interest in a girl if I found out that she had a boyfriend- goodness knows how many potential friendships I’ve lost that way, but at the time it seemed as if there was no point getting to know somebody if I couldn’t get the one thing I wanted out of her. And what the hell do I want. anyway? Buggered if I know. Not sex on its own- I do know that love is more important to me. Through asking myself questions like this, I’ve reached the stage where the desire- no, not the desire, the need to be in a relationship has become self-perpetuating so that I can feel it so desperately, and yet when I think about it not actually want to be in a relationship if the opportunity arose.

My regular readers may also recall a series from a year or two back where I analysed my sexuality in quite a fair amount of depth; what they may also recall is that the picture which emerged wasn’t exclusively straight by any stretch of the imagination. That’s another area where the Perfect Relationship holds me back- because it’s definitely with a woman. I want the children and the public displays of affection. I honestly don’t know how I’d feel about a gay relationship and probably never will know, because I’ll only find out if and when a guy comes on to me. But I have a suspicion I’d be horrible at it- I have quite a conservative circle of acquaintance these days and I’d find it difficult if not impossible to acknowledge a boyfriend in front of them. And while some 25 years ago my mother sat me down and told me that if I wanted to dye my hair green and put a safety pin through my nose (once I turned 16, of course) it was fine as long as I was happy, several family members whom I dislike have been putting about rumours concerning my sexuality for the last fifteen years, and to put it bluntly I wouldn’t want to give them the satisfaction of being right. OK, I wouldn’t want to take a boyfriend into their Sun-reading racist household either, but I suspect any gay relationship I had would be so furtive as to be non-existent. In any case, the net effect of nearly twenty years of wrestling with my preferences is that I don’t know what I want, and having been knocked back every time I’ve tried to reach for something, my confidence in myself has somehow slipped away in the night. It sounds an awful thing to say, but in the romantic sense of the word, I have no idea how it might feel to be loved- or desired physically, for that matter, and I can no more conceive of myself being in a relationship, gay, straight or whatever, than I can of waking up tomorrow morning having turned into a grapefruit. The only way I can describe it is that it feels as if a bit of my personality is missing- as if there’s a gap after the part which deals with getting to know people and having friendships, and before the part which handles long-term relationship skills which I just use with family. I have no idea whatsoever where the confidence went, only that it seems to have slinked away in the night after my trip abroad last year, when I came back filled with Aussie self-confidence and Kiwi resilience- and it seems to be the easiest thing to lose and the hardest thing to win back.

The counterpart of the Monica Factor is what I call the Cordelia Factor, in homage to the Buffy character. There’s a moment in the episode ‘Out of Mind, Out of Sight’ where she admits that although she doesn’t necessarily enjoy having to live a continuous popularity contest, she’d rather make the sacrifices she does and be lonely in a crowd, than be herself and be truly alone. I could equally call it the Nixon Factor- reading a biography of Dwight D Eisenhower last year, I was struck by some of Eisenhower’s misgivings about his Vice-President. In particular, Eisenhower remarked of Nixon to one of his aides, "Doesn’t he have any friends?". In other words, Nixon could have a comparatively successful political career with many allies and supporters, but no apparent close friends. That’s something I can so readily identify with- my Christmas card list this year is going to be in the region of 50-60 names long, but there’s nobody on there I can go to when I have real problems. And yet, to my colleagues and acquaintances, everything seems fine- in fact I make an art of it, and my parents overheard somebody last year saying how typically laid-back I was. Intellectually I know that my insistence on giving the impression that everything is OK to everybody harms me and the people to whom I eventually admit that things aren’t OK. There have been too many times when my folks have rung one day and I’ve said that everything was fine, only to ring them again the next day in an advanced state of desperation and despair. What I think it comes down to is that I’m so desperate to be liked that I don’t want to bother anybody with my problems, except those acquaintances which are already tainted by my emotional releases, and so practically everybody I see every day of the week thinks they know me and how I feel about things, when the fact of the matter is that I adjust my views to fit the prejudices of whoever I’m talking to and would never admit to anything else.