“That's why I called it Dangerously In Love. It's basically all of the steps in a relationship from when you first meet a guy to realizing you're interested... All of that” - Beyonce Knowles
When you’re under thirty, flirting and hooking up is a pretty standard operation. No one asks tricky questions it’s kind of a given... you are available, they are available... let’s move to stage one. At that stage in life’s glorious map, it’s all about taking the next step down the road; no one is worried about pot holes, or traffic calming. When you are under thirty and you get chatting to someone who you find attractive and who finds you likewise, it seems daft wasting precious time trying to predict the future, you just get on with making one. It’s all about where your life is GOING... no one is asking where your life has BEEN.
However as life moves on and thirty seems less of a frightening milestone and more of a distant fond memory... everything changes. If you are single at this stage in your life be prepared for THE BIG QUESTION.
Last week I had the good fortune to be sitting outside a City bar with man during a particularly beautiful desent from dusk into sunset. To be honest I had not given this particular man any thought beyond the fact that his parents had saddled with a name like Che (after the revolutionary Che Guevara), which I thought particularly cruel when you hail from Wiltshire (okay it’s West but not as west as Cuba from here!) Anyway, we’d been working together and were pretty wrapped up in the project. Therefore we’d never really noticed each other beyond our functionality to the project. But the project was over, and the team went for beers to celebrate. And suddenly here was Che... out of context. And he looked good. I’m rather pleased to say that the light bulb also went on over Che’s head, so we took our drinks outside the pub.
I’m not a great one for reportage... I prefer a quick sum up and my opinion for paragraphs down the page. (And you wondered why I’m a columnist and NOT a journalist!!!) But for a change, I’m gonna do the reporter thing and give you the whole dialogue. It started so well a bit of almost Hollywoodesque flirting... I thought Nora Ephron herself was secretly scripting us... short punchy statements, unblinking eye contact; meaningful silent pauses where beverages were meaningfully supped. But of course in Jax World... things don’t quite run like a movie.
However, in movie terms, we shall start the scene where it dawns on Che that he is quite attracted to Jax, for whom the same thought had occurred, so they mutually agree to step outside to enjoy the last of the sunshine over The Wren Monument.
Che: Was it true, that story about that bloke texting at all hours?
Jax: Yup! I seem doomed to give men the wrong impression.
Che: do you have loads of men texting you then?
Jax: millions and millions!!!
Che: so... there is no point in me texting you then?
Jax: none... you’d be lost in the queue
Che: is there a way to move to the front of the queue?
Jax; I’ll accept diamonds and furs at my desk... or flattery in a bar...
Che: Can I start with the last one; I might have to work up to the other two?
Jax: Sure... but don’t forget you’re starting on a path where diamonds and furs will be expected
Che: You always make me smile, you are very funny
Jax: Hang on that’s not flattery!
Che: believe me it is... men like witty women
Jax: as mates
Che: not necessarily
Jax: oh really when was the last time you dated a woman who looked like a bulldog chewing a wasp but who made you smile?
Che: I’m about to....
Jax: Confident... vaguely insulting but...confident!
Che: [Smile. Silence. Sip of pint]
Jax: [raised eyebrow. Smile]
Jax: Che?... are you married?
Che: No
Jax: meaningful relationship?
Che: No
Jax: seeing someone casually?
Che: No
Jax: swinger?
Che: [about to laugh] No!!!!
Jax: gay?
Che: [laughing] No!!!
Jax: unnatural relations with damp lettuce, farm yard animals....
Che: for heavens sake woman... what is with the interrogation!
Jax: just trying to establish your status...
Che: you KNOW I’m single Jax, you work with me!
Jax: I’m trying to find the catch
Che: There’s no catch, I just thought something was happening here and it’d be daft what with the project ending not to make plans to keep something happening... are you ALWAYS this suspicious?
Jax: Che... I’ve been single long enough to know that if a good looking man, who is not wanted by Interpol is asking me out, better find out why he’s single before I wake up in a pool of damp lettuce, with a goat and an angry wife in the doorway.
And word for word that is how it went down. But THE BIG QUESTION had to be asked... why was this person still available at a time in his life when most people are settled down. Because really, there has to be a catch. Is someone single after 30 because they messed up or couldn’t get started? It’s not romantic dialogue but it’s a question that serves you well when asked AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE.
Going back to the ridiculously named Che’s attempt to continue his connection with me, I thought (given blog 22) that I should get it in before I even agreed to a first date. The Nora Ephron wittily flirtatious fast moving script went out the window and we buckled down to establishing how the Creative Director’s single status came about. This was followed by my rather simular tale of misadventure.
We were both single late in life and we were both a source of disappointment to our parents on that score. They didn’t ask much. They raised us (on the luxury model that includes university and the subsequent subbing until we found our financial feet) and expected in return that we would find someone, chose them and settle down. It’s what society expects, and it’s a great idea... we’re not designed to be alone and we function best in emotional support units. We start of with a unit to raise us, and then we need to make our own as the one that raised us will expire before we do, and we need that one to nurse us in our old age and bury us like we did with the one we started of with. Of course we fluff it up with romance and style it in our own images but by in large... it’s kind of what society expects.
To be fair, society was set up when life expectancy was pretty short. Even in recent history the vast majority of UK residents were expected to pop their clogs before sixty. (63% of the population according to the 1911 figures in the rather fascinating House of Commons Research Paper 99/111). Health issues aside, for most people it was expected that peoples emotional life kind of followed this model:
• 00-10 childhood
• 11-15 finding yourself
• 15-20 settling down
• 20-30 raising family
• 30-40 middle age
• 40-50 approaching old age
• 50-60 dead
And whether or not you had a long innings or not, whether or not you were rich or poor ...you kind of followed the model. Unless you had mastered the art of looking into the future (and even today we haven’t quite that down) - you didn’t have the luxury of wasting time. LIFE our predecessors said... was SHORT. You just got on with it, no second, third or fourth goes... you just got on with it.
Today of course life expectancy in the UK is about 81. We seem to have managed during that gob-smacking century that was the twentieth, added a startling TWENTY ONE YEARS to our lives. And with a display of logic that worries some and startles many decided that we’d stick those bonus years in the middle to give us more time to do stuff. Our new model is:
• 00-12 childhood
• 13-19 teenage years
• 20-30 finding yourself
• 30-40 settling down/raising a family
• 40-50 second chance of setting down/raising a family
• 50-60 reinventing yourself
• 60-70 second chance to reinvent yourself
• 70-80 omg do have to reinvent myself AGAIN/dead
Well... as with all new models (and face facts, the old model had been running for CENTURIES so it was pretty fine tuned)... new model of how our emotional life should go has hit a major glitch. As a species we are designed to move quickly, rushing about because we are very conscious of our mortality. YUP! that major glitch is that if you give human beings time... they’ll fanny about never actually getting started on the next segment because they have time.
Turtles are fabulous at filling 80+ years because ruminating instinctual to them... they are designed to move slow and take it all in. We are not - as a species we are designed to excel on tight deadlines. We did fine over all on the old system because we just got on with it, life was short then you died. Give us time and we don’t ruminate... we procrastinate!
Which was basically the story that Che and I told each other. We were both stuck in a never ending finding yourself/reinventing yourself cycle that left the whole settling down process in flux. It never seemed like the deadline for settling down was imminent or even permanent, choices were deferred or even if they seemed to be made reneged on. It used to be so easy with a short lifespan to say ‘I’ve made my bed I’ll lie it”. But with the extra 21 years of life the last century gave us... why settle when you have time to start over?
But it does rather suck the romance out of a situation to have to find out why it is someone for whom the first flushes of youth are gone is still at the starting line. The sunset over the Wren Monument was rather wasted as it became established that Che (despite hailing from Wiltshire) had neither a goat nor a fixation on any of various plants of the genus Lactuca. – damp or otherwise. He's ligitamately single! He passed the interview with flying colours.
I left it that he should indeed text details of where we should meet up when he is next in town. However... he did text this morning... asking me did I know that lettuces are a member of the daisy family.
Should I be ALARMED??? !
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