BLOG 161: The Booty Call

“Don't worry about finding the right woman- concentrate on becoming the right man.” Rita Rudner

It’s early... the sun isn’t quite up yet, but I know my body... it is saving my hangover till this afternoon. It likes to tease me that way! So I thought I’d get this blog written ASAP before I have to submit to the evitable punishment of over indulging.

You see...yesterday the sun decided not to stop shining. This was particularly marvellous because I was having outdoor drinks with a group of people that have been on a project with me. They are a mixed bag, and you have to love em all... although I was looking forward to the drinks it was tinged with a bit of sadness as it was a farewell session. Nothing makes you drink more than a little tinge of maudlin. That said the sun would not stop shining ...and name me a city that is finer in the sunshine than London Town. We’d chosen a historic pub with its own coach yard and sat in the sunshine talking rubbish with wild abandon for 6 glorious hours.

As I said we indulged ourselves with 6 hours of swopping intimate tales in a 15th Century coaching house court yard. This was conducted while consuming the fermented products of the grape and hop (I’d also add apples to that as sunshine does call for cider). Of course, this meant we all parted on the best of terms (hugs, kisses and heart sworn promises to keep in touch)... then we all staggered back to our respective homes. I should imagine there will be some soreheads this morning followed by the usual post drink cringe fest of recalling the indiscretions that you’ve told people you hardly know.

You see, a few drinks in the conversation went to relationships... doesn’t it ALWAYS! But of course, intimate relationships are the stuff of high comedy, intense drama and great story telling. It’s the one thing we can ALL talk about, as we’ve all been there. I always look forward to the three drinks in conversation swerve, for it is at this point we learn more about our friends and associates than we ever would without the added benefit of the hop or the grape. Alcohol has a wonderful way of loosening the tongue. We’d been on the same project for three months; you’d think we’d all know everything there is to know about each other in that time. But no. It took alcohol to learn the stuff that turns people into friends... the stuff that we could sit in the sunshine and laugh about.

They learnt that my man selection process is so flawed that I clearly need counselling if my dates continue to be so freaky (see blog 22). We learnt Matthew will not be taking on his next project as a past indiscretion with the wife of a senior partner has come back to bite him twenty years later. We learnt Jackson annoyed his ex-girlfriend so severely that she spat at him through a letter box. We learnt Janelle keeps promising men she’ll go on holiday with them...but never goes. We learnt Laura is so pre-emptive about bad relationships she ends good ones. We learnt Paco was once married but then something strange happened with the smell of a chinook helicopter engine (you had to be there).

But the story that had most of us clinking glasses and toasting the teller... was Daniela’s story of why her one year relationship is NOT a relationship. Daniela like many of us hasn’t the time for a full blown romance. She’s not in the right place in her life for one right now, and she doesn’t want to lead anyone up the garden path. She’s a very honest person and it would totally go against her code to get involved with someone when she knows from the start it will not go anywhere. And yet one year on...she’s still in it. Happy, honest and having fun... but totally label free.

However alcohol is a curious thing. Daniela’s story had me wondering (as I watched my train glide into the station) if I chose not to call the train a train... would it stop being a train? This puzzle kept my inebriated brain ticking over till my stop... when I found it much more important to march with purpose to the doner kebab shop. From that point onwards my only thought was how NOT to spill salad on the pavement as I munched it on my final walk to my front door.

But the subject forcibly returned when after a couple of hours I received a text from Marlon whom I’ve had an on and off non-relationship with for almost a decade. For the last couple of years that non-relationship has been decidedly off, but recently he got back in touch suggesting we could just be friends and maybe meet up for a just friends drink... (a plan even my 1 year old cat could see through!). But as Marlon and I share a lot of mutual friends, I’ve left the whole thing on a back burner hoping any interest will fizzle out. Clearly it hadn’t done that yet as Marlon was in town and wondered if I wanted to join him. It was easy to get out off... after all I’d just got back to the suburbs following a marathon session in town, so it was easy for my decline to be accepted. (Once the doner kebab has been eaten... I’m going NOWHERE!!!)

But what got me was that I was more concerned about the practicalities than the morals. Marlon does not do emotional liaisons. He courts the company of female acquaintances whose long term relationships have ended. In particular he courts those who are not yet looking for a partner due to their complicated lives but who clearly have not retired their needs in the sexual arena. It was quite clear that what Marlon was calling for was what the Americans have so charmingly called a ‘booty call’. That is a sexual liaison without emotional baggage. And I was more concerned about the fact that I had consumed 6hrs worth of booze and an extra large charcoal grilled doner with added shish, chicken, kofte and salad... than I was concerned about the morality of Marlon’s call.

I wrote about Jane Austen’s books recently and pored scorn over the morality of that time. However, it dawned on me that I had spent a huge chunk of the day discussing relationships - and at no point did anyone extol the virtues of being in a committed relationship. The nearest to it was Daniela’s situation – but even she wouldn’t call that a relationship. It started me thinking about what constitutes a relationship and what doesn’t. Is it as Daniela believes simply a case of not subscribing to labels or is it something else?

Since the sexual revolution of the 1960’s, it has been okay for women to public admit they have ‘needs’ in this area. Traditionally these needs would be sated in a marriage or committed relationship, but lets face facts... people just aren’t mating for life anymore. There are an awful lot of people who just are not partnered up. Worse still there are an awful lot of people whose lives are just too complicated to easily install a replacement permanent fixture. There are children from previous relationships to consider (who do not deserve to grow up seeing a parade of faux uncles or aunts), there are employment issues to consider (divorced people tend to take on extra responsibilities at work in order to boost household income), there are many many issues like this that get in the way of simply moving on to the next partner. So what the hell happens to those ‘needs’?

Well, it’s a phone call received after the kids have gone to bed. It’s not an invite to a movie or dinner, not just coffee, not a casual or formal get-together, just a plain old-fashioned itch scratching which may be sexual or near-sexual. Of course, the phone call would not be received by a random person. Men like Marlon are on the periphery of every social circle. Once your relationship is in trouble... Marlon will be the friend you could talk to. And once your relationship is really over...Marlon will ensure stress relief is available with no strings attached. A friend with benefits. You need not worry about Marlon ever expecting more than being the pole the bear scratches his itch on... he won’t want to take your kids to the park and he understands that you have an 88 page report to do so you won’t be around for as long as it takes. But the way the whole thing works is that it is recurring – and yet without status. This is because emotional bonds are strengthened faster than they are weakened. In a normal relationship the recurring pattern of intimacy operates under the blanket title ‘Relationship’ to which the participants form a bond. To overcome this, the emotional bond stabiliser is the fact that this situation is NEVER like NEVER referred to as a relationship. EVER.

But please. Isn’t all this just a load of rubbish.

I go back to me on the station platform as merry as hell, wondering if I didn’t call the train a train would it be a helicopter?

Simple answer... no.

Call it what I may but it would still perform the functions of a train. It is what it is.

I get it that it can be fun and rewarding to take the emotional baggage out of relationships (though ONLY if both parties are clear that it's only about sex.)It’s really rare in those situations for mutual romantic feelings to develop. I do get it that an enduring and satisfying relationship is built on a strong foundation of deep friendship and multi dimensional understanding and these label free couplings are the furthest point from that. (Come on what enduring and satisfying relationship would survive being turned down for a doner kebab?) However... these things do endure and these things do satisfy and newsflash... these things ARE relationships!

They just aren’t the ones old Miss Austen and her bonnet wearing ladies aspired to (or had the opportunity to have!). These are a relationship type the late 20th century gifted us. No mess, no consequences from beginning to end. Of course if there is... then you weren’t even in the new fangled relationship in the first place! You were in the good old fashioned one we all know and love....the whole ruddy time!

I have a feeling that Daniela’s beau would find it unacceptable that she would be unavailable because of the love of an extra large charcoal grilled doner with added shish, chicken, kofte and salad. I feel such a rejection would cause some mess and no doubt some consequences. She can say it’s a ‘non relationship’ till we are both blue in the face... but she’s in one. A proper old fashioned romantic tryst, with a modern twist but...

A proper old fashioned romantic tryst. (Jane Austen would be thrilled!)

If it wasn’t so ridiculously early in the morning I’d give Daniela a call and let her know the conclusion of my ponderings... however, I doubt anyone wants to hear how doner kebabs, booty calls, and a train that certainly wasn’t a helicopter cleared that up for me!

(Well not for a few hours yet anyway!)

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