BLOG 241: Shattered

"The hard truth is... not only CAN she live without you... She'd rather"  

Greg Behrendt co-author "It's called a break up because it's broken" 

It's shocking really.  

Here I am being paid to build relationships... and be it personal or be it work... I just can't do battle to save what is broken myself.  I walk away from every situation where relationships are fractured or broken.... Am I a case of  those who can't teach? 

I have spent most of my working life being paid to advise on how to build relationships. It’s a weird thing to do for a living but that’s the skill I have that corporations seem to be happy to part with (in some cases) significant piles of moollah to get right. Business functions on the premise that a company should find out what people want and deliver it for profit. 

For many companies the challenge never seems to lie in the delivery, systems are in place to get what ever service or product they make into the grasping paws of those in need, those in want or those prepared to get into debt to satisfy desire, For most companies it's the staying abreast of what people want that is the gauntlet that they find hard to pick up with any degree of confidence. 

Over the years the skill I have for reading this correctly has morphed into human relationships, and as you know I write blogs and advice columns for internet dating sites these days. My top ten lists have been pinged about cyberspace and hopefully clueless lovers are little more prepared in the art of not making their partners feel like they are a trivial consideration. 

For as I write in almost every article - it is never the big stuff that causes relationship breakdowns... it's the small stuff. It's the not checking each others plans, it’s the not knowing each others expectations, it’s the not treating the other person as home base from which all else radials. That will end the deepest connection and be ultimately less forgivable than coming home and finding the Dagenham Girl Pipers dancing at the foot of the matrimonial bed.  (NOT a analogy before you ask!... I went out with an Essex Boy … and funny enough that was MUCH more forgivable than when he booked a football trip that clashed with our annual vacation.) 

So here I am this morning, putting finishing touches on a piece for a HR magazine about building great staff relationships, and checking the edit on my 10 ways to have a successful romantic relationship article for a website. And it dawned on me... what the HELL do I really know about any of this???! 

One would think that given that my jolly nice lifestyle is funded by spouting wisdom on relationships, that I must be exempt from hurtling into all the pitfalls those not gifted with the insight I possess do. My relationships should be like perfect vases not some glued together vessells leaking water. And given my propensity for fleeing at the first sign of a hairline crack.... maybe it does appear that way. 

Which is why sometimes when I get paid for spouting wisdom I feel like such a fraud. Yes, if you follow the steps I write about, you'll have better, healthier relationships with great communication.   But to date I've never figured out if fighting to make something work is a process worth going through. I've never really bothered myself. 

I think one of the worst things about being super-emotionally-aware is that you know what every thing means before the other person has even processed it. It means that I know where things are heading before anyone else, which means that my one great skill... is leaving. 

I walk before the person even explains to me where they were at in their head. The only steps I take seem to be in the opposite direction. 

Maybe it comes too easily to me to see that not knowing the date of your annual vacation with your spouse means the event just wasn't important enough to you in the first place. Which means that down time with your spouse isn't something you treasure. Which means that of course you'd act like a single man and get tickets for the Nu Camp. Which meant it was time to go. 

Maybe it comes too easily to me to see that not giving someone the work appraisal appropriate to their service  means that their contributions to date just were not important enough to you in the first place. Which means that what ever they have done so far isn't something of value. Which means of course you would down grade an established member of staff to level of a newbie just learning the job. Which meant it was time to go. 

I write about how to have healthy successful relationships be they corporate or personal. 

Walking away from relationships that are damaged in anyway does seem to be in conflict with that to some people.That giving advise on healthy successful corporate or personal relationships must involve advice on repair.

Actually in my defense, to date I have never yet given any advise on fixing anything. I strongly believe that the fractures are a disconnect. They lead eventually to a shattering of the relationship... maybe not today, maybe even not tomorrow. But broken, even when repaired can never be whole... and will always have less value. The trick... the thing I get paid to give advise on is NOT to damage the relationship in the first place. 

And THAT is advice worth every darn penny people pay me to deliver it. 

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BLOG 240: Somebody

"Too much of the time, we are blinded by our own pursuits , people that don't even matter, while all that time we waste means the people who do love us have to stand in line and beg" C Joy Bell

I put Valentines Day into the search in Twiiter this morning. I thougt there would be some sweet romantic messages to be inspired by and add to my favourites. But I was surprised... there was not too much joy to be found on this the international day of lovers. Instead there was heartbreak, loneliness and miscommunication bounding through 140 charecters or less.

It was the loneliness that struck me. These were not the words of people with no one to love. These were the words of one half of a couple over and over again. It seems the biggest issue is not that people cannot find someone to care for... its just that some people make a complete hash of looking after the hearts they are guardians of. They let work, or kids, or parents, or religion or politics or just about anything get in the way of ensuring that the fragile connection that is romantic love remains connected and strong. They leave their partner feeling so incidental, so singular... so lonely. then they send them a hallmark card and aa bunch of flowers or a box of Thornton chocs and think everything will be alright. But it won't. And Twitter this morning was a testiment to that.

When I wrote my novel, I was charged with finding words to put in the valentines card from my heroine to my hero. The card had to give our hero instructions on how to keep safe the heroines heart. I recall spending an age lookng up poetry, and folklaw and a zillion books of psycho babble. I found nothing. I admit... I was struggling. The manuscript had been accepted, but this particular section of the book was flagged by editors for a rewrite.

I usually write with a classic radio station on... so that my mind is soothed and focused on task. But there was this day (with my publisher breathing fire down my neck about my galleys) when I must have tuned into a Gold station playing stuff from way back when. Thank goodness I did...for it was then I heard the perfect words.

The song was from 1984. It was written by a hugely talented Essex boy called Martin Gore. The band who performed it were Depeche Mode ... and the song was simply titled... Somebody.

To this day I genuinely feel it says it all. If you don't understand what your lover wants from you... this song is your instruction.

My father told me... "The point of pop music is to put the words in the mouth of some inarticulate boy so that that he can tell his girl that he loves her".

There is some truth in that... but 'Somebody' goes further.

It tells us what every lover wants - change the she to he if it suits your circumstances. 

Then of course the big plus is the melody -  if you source the song you will find that it is beautifully and simply performed as a prayer of hope.(I'd recommend the live version called Somebody live 101... you have to hear 92,542 people in Pasadena Rose Bowl sing those lyrics... its amazing and heartbreaking and yet so beautiful!)

So ... make this a Happy Valentines Day all you lovers out there.

And if you are in any doubt about how to achive this, ....I'll leave you with the words of Mr Martin Gore... 

Somebody: Depeche Mode.

I want somebody to share
Share the rest of my life
Share my innermost thoughts
Know my intimate details
Someone who'll stand by my side
And give me support
And in return
She'll get my support
She will listen to me
When I want to speak
About the world we live in
And life in general
Though my views may be wrong
They may even be perverted
She'll hear me out
And won't easily be converted
To my way of thinking
In fact she'll often disagree
But at the end of it all
She will understand me
...

I want somebody who cares
For me passionately
With every thought
With every breath
Someone who'll help me see things
In a different light
All the things I detest
I will almost like
I don't want to be tied
To anyone's strings
I'm carefully trying to steer clear of
Those things
But when I'm asleep
I want somebody
Who will put their arms around me
And kiss me tenderly
Though things like this
Make me sick
In a case like this
I'll get away with it
And in a place like this
I'll get away with it


 Somebody lyrics © EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Universal Music Publishing Group

Somebody lyrics © EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Universal Music Publishing Group

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BLOG 239: Things you never wanted!

"Sometimes the things you want the most don't happen and what you least expect happens." 

From the movie "Love and Other Drugs" spoken by the character Jamie Randell played by Jake Gyllenhaal  

When I was a kid growing up, I used to be fascinated with my parents welsh dresser. You know one of those weird bits of furniture where for some unknown reason adults take it upon themselves to display plates that no one is allowed to eat of and glasses that no one has permission to drink out of. It came with cupboards at the bottom that the 'real' stuff we really used were shoved into. I genuinely could not see the point of these items. To my childish brain... if you had something you used it. I certainly did not display my hornby trains on a shelf... they were for playing with! I used to spend a lot of time looking at the things on display on the dresser and wondering why on earth they bought them if they could never be used.

But they are a different generation so that's probaly what they do... collect crap and display it. To me it just seems daft to have a huge piece of furniture taking up floor space and doing nowt. Since leaving home at 18, I have comitted to buying things only with both function and form. Life is too short to be dusting ornamental squirrels for heaving sake!

This morning, I wandered down stairs to feed Skyla... (who has taken it upon herself to sit on my head until I get up... where do cats learn this stuff... is there a how to torment humans school they attend at Battersea before they are allowed to be adopted?)… anyhow, as I passed through my home I looked at items enroute and asked myself.. how the hell did I get THAT? 

Where on earth does some of this stuff come from??  

Now as the only breadwinner in the household for the past 9 years, there is no other person buying stuff... so it really has to be me... but honestly I genuinely have no recollection of buying most of it! 

*Why have I got two Indian elephants...one made of pewter and another of bronze? 

*Where on earth did a purple velour pen holder come from? 

*Can someone explain the bag of plastic diamonds from the Victoria and Albert museum? 

*Or the silver salt and pepper set that look like Egyptian cats and also a plastic set that seem to be replicas of the Homepride men? 

*The complete works of the Beatles in every format known to man (HOW>>> I am a Rolling Stones fan and have never purchased anything from the Liverpool moptop boyband!) 

*Oh … and a set of display only plates and some hand blown glasses too fragile to touch 

What the hell?? Have I become my parents without realising it? Am I seconds away from buying a welsh dresser?... GAH!!! But  I have to face facts...none of this stuff is used.. they just loll about on semi display.  And this is the stuff I just passed on the way to feed the cat! 

What if there is more??...  in less than 10 days I am embarking on a major redecorating binge. Obviously to have full access to the walls I am going to have to move a lot of stuff out... what on earth will I uncover then! 

Will I have to submit and go get a 'display cabinet'. Nooooooooooooooooooo! 

It is so bizarre. Before you leave home you swear you will have a super stylish 'bachelor/ bachelorette pad... all chrome, black leather and electronic gizmos. You swear you will live in a loft or converted warehouse. You swear you wil have a view of city lights, or riverside, or ocean. You just swear you'll do it better than your "Olds" and you'll be cool and clutter free. 

Then you grow up. 

So here I am... four bed semi in the suburbs, view of everyone else's four bed semi's out front and a view of my garden out back. Inside... there is a notable and  distinct lack of chrome, black leather and electronic gizmos. And worse of all... today in a brief wander to the cat bowl I discovered enuf stuff I never use to easily fill what ever the 21st century equivalent of a welsh dresser is. 

HOLY CRAP!! (quite literally) 

How did I end up being closer to replicating my parent lifestyle than carving out my own!!!!

I really meant to be a whole lot cooler than this.  

WHERE did it all go so wrong?

A literal laugh out loud and a choked back sob! 

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