The eye of the beholder

Being, as I am, a kind of social voyeur (some call it anthropology) I often find myself drawn to the less salubrious publications on the internet. No I am not talking about the conspiracy theory sites rather the mainstream newspapers such as the Daily Mail. This week there was an article from one Samantha Prick about how beautiful she is and how it has been a bane. Firstly, she isn’t beautiful in my opinion; she is at best quite attractive in a curious way, like a Doll but not a Barbie doll. Secondly, she is correct! Oh yes, she has a point with regard to perceptions people have and how they can affect you (if you let them)

Over my lifetime various people have suggested I take advantage of what “they” perceived as my good looks.  It has ranged from being an escort (even suggested last week!) to modelling or acting and on a few occasions the extreme................Gigolo-ing. Some have intimated I have already been doing this as I have been with a couple of ladies who whilst not rich were at least financially independent. That one really irks me as I have never let money be a reason to fall in love. And frankly it is an insult to those ladies that they would have been stupid enough to entertain “me”.

Whilst I do take issue with the article and the simplistic nature of her argument, I do understand there are shall we say, issues in that area?  It depends largely on how one perceives ones-self too.  I know I come across sometimes as confident and sure of my looks but the reality is far from that simple. I am NOT confident for example, never have been probably never will be. The “Oh lord it’s hard to be humble” song, for me, is a laugh.  But there is truth in what she says. Whilst in NZ I went to a professional recruitment agency that was billed as “The” agency for NZ. The recruitment interviewer told me I should “tone down” my look because it would probably intimidate the prospective employer! I was dumbstruck.  There she was in all her makeup and cleavaged  glory telling “Me” I was good looking and it might have a negative impact.  That was the first and only time I ever really thought, “I am fucked”!  I have no discernible talent/skill that employers are looking for, due in large part to never really knowing where I fit in and at 50 years old I am being told to “look uglier” if I am to get work in NZ!

The only area I am constantly advised to work in is sales, and I have already figured out I have too much of a conscience to try that one again.

Once many years ago I went to the Sandra Reynolds modelling agency to see if there “was” any truth in what people had been telling me. The guy who saw me took off my glasses and said, “Hmm, you eyes are quite big”! my immediate thought was, “so put me in a fucking meercat advert”!  even my last girlfriend (who was a model  and actress once) said my height shape and general measurements were perfect for a male model. I on the other hand look at what does pass for male models and then look at my photographs and have to laugh.  My nose is large, my teeth far from perfect I have a less than strong chin and jaw line, narrow shoulders and enormous “brackets” for wrinkles. “I” am under no illusions about my looks. Of course I appeal to some ladies, don’t we all one way or another? As is the case in reverse. 

When I reached 30 I happened to be sailing in the Med and a fellow sailor said to me “we are now at the age when we will be taken seriously in business, now it’s  our time”! he was a highly skilled marine electronics engineer and did indeed go on to business success in Barcelona, I always got the impression anyone “I” tried to do business with, thought of me as a mere lad, it was the wives of the successful yacht owners that liked me and there was a distinct air of suspicion from their husbands.  I am sensitive to atmosphere and I know Tolerance when I feel it!

The only time I managed to get my mug in some form of modelling was when Isobel started Izzy Lane and I did the men’s section. And they were awful! Even when I managed to get in Gladiator I spent more time hiding from the camera than proactively seeking the limelight. The sub director said at Shepperton when I was all made up; “ooh, Ridley will love you, you will go straight to the front”, it didn’t happen and was never likely to. 

I see myself in that grey area of not handsome nor ugly, like the large majority of us but for sure when I fall in love, she is beautiful and would hope she thought I was handsome.

It’s been a while since my last blog, before Christmas I think and frankly, I just haven’t felt the need, I have been screwed by apathy..........again! I have also been allowing the mind to wander in whatever direction it fancied to see where it would lead me.

Tonight whilst laying on the sofa, I managed to fall asleep before I wanted to, mental exhaustion takes me like that very rarely, but it happened and it was good.  When I woke it was once again with the thoughts of a woman I had once had a relationship with. It was many years ago yet she never really leaves my mind. It was her choice that we finished and although at the time I accepted it as inevitable, I don’t think I ever really understood what went wrong.  I am sure I made all the right noises if asked about it, kept dignity and suggested we just weren’t “compatible” but as I don’t think any humans are really “compatible” I would have known it was just an easy answer to a frustrating problem.

She was perhaps the first person ever to call my bluff. The words she said on our first meeting still rattle around in my head; “you seem shallow but I can see beneath that facade and that is who I want” not verbatim but she was essentially saying she didn’t care for the “shell” me, she wanted what she believed was beneath it. Made me cry a little. It was one very odd first date! I got the feeling that at last someone had “recognised” me despite the protective armour; it might as well have been a negligee as far as she was concerned. Oddly, it was at a time when I was closer to reaching some kind of academic fulfilment than I had ever thought possible, and that, had changed me considerably for the better (so I was told) I had reached a level of awareness previously hidden from me and was calm and reasonably level headed for the first time in my life. I was being offered a place at Oxford to study psychology (if I was prepared to do nothing else for 3 years!) I had been single for about a year and all looked rosy. I had this vision of finally laying to rest the notion that I was not as intelligent as I had always thought and here was my chance to prove it, but she entered my life and bang, I was off on a romantic rollercoaster. I left Plater that summer and never returned. (One might say THAT proves my lack of intelligence!) It never ceases to amaze me how adaptable I am. Living in the moment means one must be, but it isn’t an easy way of life.  I have to give airtime to the thought that I was probably a little scared of the commitment to 3 years at possibly the toughest educational establishment available. It wasn’t “modular” oh no, 3 years-exam-pass or fail! The thought of 3 years and then only getting a second or 3^rd! Was not acceptable to me, it had to be a first or nothing. So, it wasn’t a difficult decision, I had just crammed 2 years learning into one at Plater and the psychology tutor thought I was the bees patella’s whilst the sociology tutor considered my essays “visionary”! That’ll do for me I thought, academic potential identified thank you very much but I am aging rapidly and I have found the woman of my dreams.

Let’s get something straight here; I am not pining for a long ended relationship. It ended I got over it, that is a given. I am just curious as to why this one has never really left my consciousness. Sometimes I think the three years at Oxford would have been easier than the three years I spent with her! (I could say I got a “fail” after all!) There is a lesson in there somewhere and I probably know what it is.

So, this Christmas I spent alone and so I believe did she. I had several recollections of our Christmases together over those few days and at times I felt I was there with her. No, that isn’t right, what I mean is, I felt connected to her over Christmas, no, that isn’t it either! Ok, At Christmas, at certain times of the day, it was like I was there but unseen? Oh soddit! I can’t explain it. I am not used to being “lost for words” especially where affairs of the heart are concerned but in her case that seems to be....the case! I don’t like it, it is very annoying for me, I have been able to “rationalise” the others, but this one eludes me.

This wasn’t an easy relationship, by easy I mean; I had to make quite a few changes to my personality in order to avoid conflict but I accepted her observations about me and did see some truth in them. I had picked up quite a few bad habits and didn’t particularly want them and was happy to try and dispose of them for her (and of course me!) Physically she was perfect. The way she looked the way she spoke the way she dressed all of it was a stimulant beyond anything I had ever experienced yet she was the antithesis of “dolly”. I have never made a romantic decision based on looks despite some of my comments; I can’t get my head around a “type” how restrictive is that? Not for me. There has to be “something” something that strikes a chord and piques my interest. It isn’t something I can explain using words, therefore it “isn’t something I can explain”! I don’t want to either. That’s twice I have expressed my “lack of words” in this blog, that seems to be the problem, I can find no words to adequately understand why I didn’t keep her. She I am sure can explain it but given the impact I felt she had on me it wouldn’t help. I want to understand why “I” didn’t succeed. Yes, I “see” the arrogance in that statement! But let me explain; she stripped me bare and still wanted me, how often is that going to happen in a lifetime?

When it ended I knew I would have to get as far away from her as possible. I had to make myself very distant in both mental and physical dimensions, the physical was easy. I took the QM2 to the USA. I threw myself into whatever would take me away; mentally it was not happening and to be honest neither was it happening in my heart. I could very easily see myself getting the first plane back at the drop of a hat or a nonexistent phone call to “come home”! Despite having taken nearly everything I had from her house when I left, there were a few things I couldn’t get in the car which after a while I thought she would see and start thinking she missed me and would have similar feelings about having me back. She didn’t of course; she got stuck into her life. There was one incredible moment when we were communicating again where she said she would have loved a big hug.  I say incredible because it was totally unexpected, a moment of weakness on her part? I don’t know why I didn’t consider it a sign and leg it back to her, maybe I didn’t want her to want me in a moment of weakness? More likely I recognised “my” weakness for her and knew I would put pressure on her. That would not be right, love should have been able to just give her what she needed at that moment and ask for nothing in return? I know the “words” but sometimes the “Tune” evades me.

I don’t know if this is a common feeling but the thought of another seems as remote as the Antarctic, and even after a year or so you kind of know there will be things about the new relationship that will be either a reminder of the old one or a diametrically opposed one to one you loved. I know this quite painfully because the woman I met next could not have been more different from                     . she was a an ex actress and model that devoured red meat, hunted, smoked pot and was only slightly right of Genghis Khan.  I had spent the previous year’s becoming as vegetarian as I could and involved in ethical socially considerate environments, it “felt” very much where I wanted to be whereas this new one thrust me back into an environment I could easily be in, it was armour back on! It was easier to be with the new one because I could return to Mr. Cavalier, after years of being that way one never forgets how. Some of you may see that brazen over confident personality now. It is of course totally fake!  It is there to protect myself from any confidence sapping remarks. “Say what you like, I don’t give a damn”? Hmm, what is that about? Part of it is true; I don’t give a damn, but maybe inside a part of me does. The new relationship was awash with those “ribbings”, although to be fair she was also very confident in my abilities. That may of course have been because I gave the impression of bold confident?  It doesn’t matter now, she is one who let go and despite my admiration for her talents and ability, she was never going to be for me. The “connection” was probably “reactionary” (for both of us) I could also see that I could not give her the complete package she wanted. She doesn’t think I tried, I did, but not where she wanted it.

One of the mistakes I made with .............. Was when she exposed my soft underbelly, I assumed I could let go of all the bullshit and say what I wanted knowing it would be safe with her. I say mistake because although that might be treated as precious, it can be seen as a “weakness” that should be watched closely, even scrutinised. It was, and all my protestations that whatever stupid thing I said or did, it wasn’t the real me, eventually crumbled, whatever faith she had in me slowly disappeared. It was the first time a relationship had ended that, as I drove away, I was in tears with a kind of knowing it was beyond repair. It was a five hour drive to my parents house and for 3 of those I expected a call, I still thought there was something she was expecting me to do that would change things, I had exhausted myself and my repertoire was spent.

So I ask myself this question; is it ok to attempt a relationship with someone new when despite knowing and accepting this other one is over, there is still going to be a “connection” albeit garbled, still there for me?