Hieronymous the Anonymous

Elective affinities, maybe

Image via Wikipedia

Teasing away at the back of my mind the last few days have been two quite fundamental questions: what should I expect to feel when I am in love (and by extension what should I settle for)? And what sort of woman is right for me?

For someone who thinks and questions so much it's unusual that these questions haven't been settled long ago. In actual fact they're not subjects I think of much at all. When my mind strays into this area it's usually with some particularity I am looking to understand - a girl usually, or a complex situation I am looking to understand. It's rare that I ever step back and look at it in more general terms.

What's made me wonder at this now is that I've met a girl - which is a lot less momentous than a statement like that might suggest. I went out last week for drinks on the rooftop bar at Campari with one of the girls from a few weeks back. It was a balmy night and we sat across from each other and shared a few drinks and a light meal and talked easily and well until it was well and truly dark. Several times as I sat there I sized her up, could I like her? What did I feel? I certainly felt engaged by her warm and friendly manner, but there is much more than that. A couple of times I imagined myself with her, testing it, could I be intimate with her? Well, yes, to some degree at least.

We parted later with a big kiss and an embrace. I headed home thinking that she is there if I want her. That night I lay in bed happy to know the situation was in hand, but for the first time in months questioning myself as to the purpose of this. What was I looking to achieve? Was it true love? I didn't expect that. If not, then what? Well I don't know. Maybe it would be fun to see where it might go. Try it out with her, if it doesn't work then we've had a few months of fun. I couldn't really expect more than that.

It was this attitude that surprised me. I've never been one to go half-way. All my life I've been an all or nothing guy. It's an attitude that has led to some successes and a few failures, but I have always considered it a integral aspect of my personality. I know in myself that I'm never happy in ambivalent situations. I'd rather commit wholly or walk away, and that's more true of relationships than anything else (that's despite having numerous female friends who have an ambivalent attitude towards me). On top of that my independence has always been something I've cherished, not something to be relinquished easily. Perhaps I've been harsh in the past, foolish even, but I've never been inclined to 'try out' a relationship: if it wasn't the real deal I was happier walking away and doing my own thing. Why was this different now?

It's that train of thought that led me to the first of my queries: what should I expect to feel? Throughout I've had this expectation that 'the' relationship would carry with it a kind of romantic and companionable glow. I wanted to believe them close inside me, to feel as if as we moved in different directions that we were in sync with other, naturally so, like heartbeats. I have always agreed with what St Exupery wrote, that "love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction." I believe in the essence of that, that in love we move outwards together rather than remaining stagnantly defined in the others gaze.

On a couple of occasions I've had something approaching that - but for whatever reason, it could not be sustained. I always saw that as a failure, but perhaps I should have been more accepting of it. Are my expectations too high? The person aims for all says no, that is the point of it all isn't it? Yet I begin to wonder just a little, and find myself wondering at my wondering.

So then, what qualities does the perfect woman hold for me? Questions like this are fraught with peril. As soon as you define her you find yourself gazing into the eyes of a woman completely different and falling in love with her: which goes to prove the reality of the oft-mentioned chemistry between couples. It exists. All the same, you're much more likely to share that chemistry with someone you are compatible with than not. In my case I started with a list of ideal qualities and have winnowed it down based on the harsh truth of experience.

As it happens a few years back I put down my ideas on the perfect woman, and that still holds true now. All I would add is that I need someone with spirit and sass I think. If you look at the women I've been close too none have possessed all the qualities I've noted down, but they have each had one quality or another in sufficient quantities to make up for it. Regardless, I need a strong woman beside me with a defined sense of self - nobody wishy- washy, respectful but not deferential, a person with opinions, attitudes and beliefs all of her own.

So then, where does that leave me? Regardless what I think I suspect I'll end up doing what I feel. Right now I feel like giving this girl a good go. It may not last beyond a few weeks or months, but so what, it might be fun while it lasts. And it might last a good deal longer than that, who knows...

Into the past

Something of significance happened a couple of weeks ago which, for some reason, I've held off on discussing until now.

Some background is required. Back in 2001 I met and fell in love with a woman, Tania. For a couple of months we were close and intimate and making plans for the future. Looking back I think that is the happiest I've been, but naturally it couldn't last. Tania was a lawyer working in the corporate world and going places. One day she told me she had been offered a posting to Singapore to become the Asia Pacific regional counsel - the very job she had been striving for.

Now the job was hers she didn't want it. Why now, she asked, just when I've fallen in love? I was quiet, shocked in my own way but unwilling at first to say anything. Tania was torn up, distressed, damned if she did and damned if she didn't. When finally I spoke I told her she must go, that I did not want the shadow of her regret getting between us. After further discussions she agreed, and we resolved to part as a couple but too remain friends. It seemed easier that way.

To cut a long story short she left amid all sorts of other things, and about 2 months later I followed her. My actions were romantic, even whimsical, and a belated attempt to prove the commitment I had been unwilling too earlier. Quite typically I went beyond the call, resigning my cushy job, selling my car, letting out my apartment, and effectively burning my bridges. It's history now that it didn't work out. I returned to Melbourne as 9/11 crippled the world and in a state of deep sorrow. WE kept contact with each other for perhaps another year and that was that, over and out.

Till the other week.

It was a Saturday when I was online and browsing Facebook when I saw one of my friends had a new contact with a person who shared the same surname as Tania. On impulse I typed her full name into the search box, and much to my surprise saw her profile and her picture pop up on screen. It was her, the woman I remembered. For long moments I stared at the picture disbelievingly, as if it was the last thing I expected. But there she was.

The temptation was to fire off a quick message, hey, guess who, how you going? I didn't though. Instead I went about my business before going to bed. In bed I found much I had forgotten of that time come back to me. I lay in bed ruminating on our relationship and from the perspective of many years on pondering what I could have done differently. I concluded there was quite a lot, though without too much rancour.

In the week before I had met with Whisky and he told me a story of the woman he was falling in love with. Like Tania she had come to him at the crucial time and told him she was likely to be heading back to London, where she had a house. Whisky had said nothing, neither for or against, and had sensed she was upset by this.

Over a beer I told him that was the worst thing he could have done. He needed to say something and, I thought, the best thing was to be honest with her: tell her how you feel, tell her how you don't want her to go, explain that you understand but want her to stay. I told him that more than anything else she was looking for reassurance. She wants to feel loved and cherished, she wants to know that it matters to you, and that her future is wrapped up in hers.

I had little doubt as I spoke that what I said was true - and as I did I realised the irony in the situation. I was advising him to do the thing I had not. Stupidly I had taken the (characteristically) selfless tack with Tania, had looked upon it objectively and sacrificed any feelings I might have in the service of what I thought was the greater good.

It might have made no difference at all, but I should have spoken from the heart, should have been unreasonable. I should have told her that I understand the dilemma but I don't want you to go. I should have told her I loved her and that her future was with me - be it here in Melbourne or in Singapore or anywhere else. I should have been true to what I felt; instead I was reasonable.

Lying in bed thinking that all these years later was almost liberating. I've long since recovered from my disappointment and any consideration of what might have been is no more than that now. I was glad to think it though because it was the truth revealed, and in its revelation was the proof that I have learned. that was a seminal relationship for me in a multitude of ways, and I look upon it now much as the relationship I had to have if I was to mature as a man. For all the pain I felt at the time it made me a better man. With that thought I fell asleep.

The next day I resolved to write to Tania. I was not sure if it was appropriate after all these years, but considered if she thought it not she would not respond to me. I wrote a simple email and sent it off. Within a couple of hours she had answered, how delightful to hear from you after all this time...

We exchanged a couple of further small messages and in those I learned she was back in Australia and that she had a 5 year old boy. That gave me pause to think in bed that night. This time it was to wonder at the things I have missed out on. Perhaps in another universe that boy would have been mine. I was taken aback. For a little while I felt it deeply, not her, not the boy who might have been, but rather the absence of what I might normally have expected for myself. I looked it was not there.

I woke and once more whatever I had felt the night previous was processed. Time to move on, I thought. I had been curious to hear of Tania again, to reconnect with her briefly, but our time was long ago and had long passed. In general I don't believe love can come twice with the same people. It springs up between two people in a time and a place made for it, nurtured by the environment you live in. It is an unlikely event in much the same way conception is, a million to one shot made possible by a string of unlikely events becoming so. It takes at that time and so can last forever - or fails and falls away into the past.

This is what this is: part of the past. We exchanged some nice emails and then I let it go. I was glad to have had the opportunity to speak with her again, and feel better for it - but it is to the future I must turn. One more stone turned.

Another random non-event

On Thursday I wore shorts for the first day this season. It was sunny and bright and just over 30 degrees. I got in the car and with the sunroof open drove across town to visit the Cheeses and check out their new addition. We cracked a bottle of Sparkling Shiraz sitting out on the back deck, then had a beer or two. As I drove back I stopped at a set of lights in Prahran. I glanced across at the car next to mine and found sitting in the passenger seat a chocolate brown labrador about the same age as Rigby. It was a battered old BMW 318i driven by a woman in her mid-twenties. As Rigby often does the dog stood upright in the passenger seat. He was a very good looking dog, just like Rigby, and I felt myself becoming proud and sentimental, before leaving them behind at the lights.

Yesterday it was warm still, but with it came the rains we get in October and November. It was a summery rain - I walked around in a t-shirt - falling solidly at times and later developing into a storm, much as we get at this time of year. Later in the night I was in the city waiting at a tram stop for a tram to take me home when it started pouring down. While I sat undercover listening to an audio version of Frankenstein the rain fell so heavily that within minutes the tram tracks were awash with water that flowed like a stream down the slight incline of the road. It was marvellous, doubly so considering we are in year 5 or 6 of drought.

The tram came and I got on board as the rain eased. By the time it made it to my stop the rain had ceased, but all around me there were flashes on the horizon as if a battle was occurring just out of sight. With the flashes there would come a few moments later a slow rumble. It was just on midnight and my suburban street quiet. Once the world lit up as if I had walked beneath a flickering fluorescent street light. I love storms.

Earlier I had been in town and unexpectedly having drinks with old colleagues. It was good, as if I had never been away. I found myself wondering aloud about things which had been so much a part of my life then, and falling into the same easy conversations as before. It was good.

At one point I found myself pondering a decision I must make. For much of the night I found myself sitting next to a girl who liked me. I had always been distantly aware of this, but had never really given it much consideration. Let's face it, I always had a lot on my plate and though gratified, had other things to worry about. Perhaps because I have been gone nearly 12 months, or perhaps she is different now, but I found myself reacting to her differently. I liked her more than I remembered. For a start I noticed her a lot more, and realised that besides a bright and winning personality that she was an attractive woman. She compared me to George Clooney, in personality more than appearance, an association she had obviously long held. We had frank discussions together all night. We talked and I gazed at her long legs and short skirt and her engaging smile and I was attracted to her and for a short while contemplated taking it further - further being a drink elsewhere just the two of us, then back to my house.

It didn't happen. In the end it feels too close to home. I may not work there any longer, but I still have good contacts with people inside. It may seem trite, but it was a complication I wished to avoid, though these things are ever likely to change. We parted on the steps of the station with a quick kiss and the promise to catch up again.

Then home to Rigby.

Pending ideal world

It's just about the first anniversary of all the bad shit that happened last year. 2008 was a year full of bad shit in general, and I was well and truly in the thick of it in the second half of the year. It was a year ago though that it really hit the fan.

I've been vaguely aware of the impending anniversary for a weeks. In the days leading up to it my mind turned to the specific events of 12 months ago. I have some very clear and definite regrets about what happened, and in particular some of the things I did that in hindsight only added fuel to a very fiery situation. That was not my intention. I acted in good faith, but that is never any guarantee that the conflagration will be avoided.

51 weeks ago Paige and I were not talking. It was civil I guess, without being particularly pretty. She had just sent me an email explaining how nice it had been to know me, but that she couldn't be my friend any longer. I responded a couple of days later with a last ditch effort to repair things. When that drew no response I decided it was time I made the break final. As much as anything I needed to conclude the to and fro between us, and move on. So I thought.

I have a slightly different opinion now. I can understand why I thought that way and how it led to the action I took. Yet if I had my time again, and with the benefit of the wisdom hindsight has given me I would have acted differently. At the time I was caught up in the vortex of a relationship going sour very quickly, made more complex by having no idea why. It was a volatile time and I felt every shift in the relationship as if I was living on a fault line. Now I can look back with the perspective that was impossible to me then; then it was in my face, in my beating heart, it was everywhere and forever and there seemed no escape from it.

I needed to break the cycle. Rather than backing off and letting things be for a while, as I would do now, I instead made the break final. I sent Paige an email similarly explaining what a pleasure it had been to know her. I would miss her, I said, but I couldn't go on like this. As a ceremonial cutting of the ties I had removed her as one of my Facebook friends, and I told her hat, explaining why - nothing personal. In a final bit of housekeeping between us I made some reference to our ongoing working relationship, our colleagues, and made mention that one of our mutual friends was aware of the situation.

It was a nice, kind, gentle email, but it turned everything upside down.

That was this weekend past. It was the weekend of her birthday. In an act of fury Paige deleted her Facebook profile altogether, including the 50 odd who had been her friends on that. On the Monday she attacked Becky and explained she couldn't be her friend for the moment (a situation that continues to this day), and then went on to make extravagant and ridiculous accusations against me. She acted like the woman scorned, bitter and irrational.

It was nasty, and I learned very quickly there was nothing I could do about it. My defence only served to inflame the situation, so that soon I came to accept her recriminations with a silent humility. I passed from anger to frustration to pity. And ultimately to sorrow.

So here we are, 12 months on. I have no idea what she thinks now, or what she feels. I hope and expect that she has come to her senses, though last I heard she was still unwilling to face what had happened. I presume she has accepted she over-stepped the mark with me, and hope that if she ever thinks of me it is without the bitterness she felt then.

Though it is the anniversary of the final break, my abiding memory is not of the hard days but of the good. I feel regret for how it turned out, and am still confused, but when Paige ever lingers in my mind it is with fondness recalling the good times we had together and the intimate bond we formed. I am grateful for that and to her. In an ideal world I would like to see her again so that we can make our peace - and perhaps be the friends we were meant to be.

Pending an ideal world I can only remain true to what I feel - and so yesterday, after some consideration, I sent her a simple message by text: Happy birthday Paige. Be good...H.

The way to my heart...

Image by Stephen Poff via Flickr

Just in case you're interested, this is some idea of how to win my heart.

The other man

I caught sight yesterday of a photo from Jennie's wedding. Jennie, of course, looked fine, but it was her new husband Tim who really caught my attention.

He's an odd looking fellow. Unattractive really. You might expect me as the other man to think something like that, but I like to think I'm pretty fair. I knew he wasn't flash looking, but lets face it, beauty isn't everything. But he's definitely both odd looking and ugly - which is surprising if only because Jen is a good looking girl herself.

Funny thing I didn't feel a lot seeing the photo. I felt disconnected from it, as if it had little real relevance to me. That was accentuated by the way he looked - I couldn't see him as a rival, even though he got the girl. I certainly didn't feel any pangs of loss or jealousy. If anything I looked at the photo and recalled the connection we had Jen and I, and felt affirmed that it was indeed a close run thing.

These days I'm pretty philosophical.

Can't get started

Not sure how to explain it. Perhaps it's the women, but I'm romantically un-inclined at the moment, same for months. I go through the motions, but too soon I lose interest in even doing that. I wonder why it is.

It's strange to think but I went through a barren period for years when I was not remotely interested in any woman. I wondered if something had died in me. I wondered if I had been cured of love. I mean I was busy still, I went out, saw women, had sex, and was generally more in the moment than I am now, but it was pretty much for fun only. I remember occasionally getting wistful about the days when I felt so much. I was afraid that it was all used up. Little did I know that in fact I was storing it all up for the big comeback.

When it came back it came back big time, and until recent months was still going strong. No though, nothing. I wonder if in fact I have exhausted something in all my romantic tribulations. I need the rest. Maybe I've become jaded, though I don't feel it. Maybe I'm distracted by other things, and that's a distinct possibility. Or perhaps I find nothing in the current crop to move me - and that feels true too.

I wonder what I want from this. I think I am happy to take it quietly for now, and perhaps there is something revealing in that admission. Not forever though. I want to be swept up again at some point in the future. I want to feel and believe passionately. For all it's a bit yeah-nah. I can't even get interested in the freely available sex.

The remembered and the forgotten

Last night I saw the preview screening of the new Star Trek movie at Crown. It was good. I liked the series but the movies up till now have been pretty dull. This was a lot edgier, and faster paced. I enjoyed it.

I was with the publisher, she'd got the tickets from someone. We had dinner afterwards at one of the nearby restaurants looking out over the dark waters of the Yarra. It rained on and off outside and it looked bleak and cold and wintry. I commented on how just last week I wore shorts one day, but then that was Melbourne for you. Then we discussed outbreak of swine flu and from there the end of days. 2012 I hear.

After dinner we went downstairs to the car park. As we were approaching her car a submerged memory came to mind. Years ago, 8 or 10, I met a woman here and had oral sex in her car. I had forgotten that, but now it all came flooding back to me. Strange to have memories like that. For some reason I mentioned it to the publisher - no sooner remembered than spoken. She looked at me strangely. What, here? she asked as if it was a bizarre place to happen. Then she shrugged her shoulders, your life! she muttered.

I can't remember the woman's name, but I remember what she looked like. She was blonde, about 30 years old. She was willowy but lacked confidence. She had told me soon after I met her that she hadn't been with a man for 5 years. I remember later how she would talk dirty to me and how it didn't seem natural though equally it appeared she enjoyed it. I remember there were words she would use then that seemed odd to me, or perhaps from another era, as if she had read too much erotica from the 1930's.

Though she was not my type I was fond of her, and wanted her to find her place. She was of a type I seemed to attract for a time. It seemed I brought something out in her. After her early hesitancy she became excited, daring, both surprising and thrilling herself, though always in the same slightly awkward manner. It was easier for me and I think that inspired her in ways, how I felt, the way I expressed myself, the attitude I generally had. I'm always there, if it feels good why not do it, but it was she who took the initiative. That pleased her too, and I had no complaints.

And so in the car park of Crown I happily copped a head job. I don't remember much of what happened after that, except that a month or two later I heard from her. She was with a man she was in love with, was happy and wanted me to know. I was happy for her. It seemed a common story, I was the catalyst for a lot of these epiphanies while I continued down my individual way.

It had been raining while we were in the cinema. The roads were wet with it, and the night cold and dark. The publisher drove me home by the river and through the back streets to my door. As we drove along we chatted. I looked out at the passing scenery. The river was remarkably high considering how little rain we'd had till recently. It didn't take much. I looked out beyond the river to the buildings on the far side, commenting on a big, bright neon light over there. The Magic Hour it said.

Not long ago I playfully thought to myself that if I ever write my memoirs I'll actually write it about the women in my life. Women I Have Known I thought I'd call it. I figured it was more revealing to see myself reflected and refracted through the myriad small and large relationships I have had. I'm sure there was a story in it, and last night it seemed a strong and interesting story.

I've known a lot of women, probably too many actually. So many that I remember only some of the names, and of the faces many seem to be lost. I remember not so long ago walking down the street as a woman came the other way. She was young with dark curly hair. She seemed familiar in some way, and she gazed at me as if expecting something. We passed in the street without a word being said. It was only later I remembered her - we had spent about 3 weeks together having almost continuous creative sex. She had fallen for me. How could I have forgotten that?*

I have no way of knowing how many women I have been out with in some capacity - close to 200 I would guess, maybe more. I haven't been intimate with all of them, but a good number. So where does this leave me?

Your life the publisher had exclaimed in the car park as if it was something from a book, something oddly shaped and mysterious. Well, what does it mean then? I mused on this on the drive home, all of it, the willowy blonde, the mystery of my life remembered and forgotten, the bare facts of things.

I expect a lot from life and that's why I've done more than most, and gone off in different directions. It's also why I never wanted anything more from about 195 of those women. From the other 5 I wanted everything. I am a romantic, which seems incongruous I guess, but undeniable. I feel deeply when I feel. I believe in all the greatest of possibilities and when in the grip of this romantic hope will strive to make it so. My heart is often tender; I am sensitive and sensual and delighted to be alive - and it is this I hope to share.

Against this is the sheer number of women I have known, and the purely functional approach to these interactions I have occasionally been guilty of. By and large I've acted well, but there have times I have been more ruthless. And there is a part of me that is single minded. There are women who love me - well, that's their problem I think.

All this serves to confirm that there is little rhyme and reason when it comes to relationships. I'm a man, so there are two sides to me, but in the end I am neither fish nor fowl. I expect to one day to be living the perfect life I aspire to - until then I will live day by day enjoying whatever comes my way.

* There is more to this story. This woman was an architect. While I was seeing her I was also seeing another woman, quite different. Each of them would tell me stories from their life, including work. Over a period I began to notice some commonality in their stories. I had a sinking feeling: this couldn't be, could it? What are the odds? I started to ask some innocuous seeming questions until there came the moment when I could be left in no doubt: of all the people in Melbourne, of all the different businesses, I somehow managed to go out with two women from the same office independent of each other. Too weird. But typical in a way also.

Cracking the nut

Today I am wearing my pale blue t-shirt inscribed with I love my pussy across the front, with an image of a sitting cat. It could use an iron, and I'll have to change it if and when I go out. It's clear outside, and after a few days of cooler weather it will be warm again.

I'm aware of having dreamt throughout the night. The dreams themselves have largely faded from me now after being clear upon waking up. I know the dreams in themselves appeared to have little relevance to my life as it is today, but they have had the unusual effect of clearing my mind of much that was cluttering it. Today things are much more straight-forward than in days past.

I sent an email to Paige the other day. For the last week or so I have felt unsettled. Much is happening lately, and a lot which remains uncertain looking forward. I've dealt with that day by day, but it has not been entirely satisfactory. Most mornings through this period I've woken with a sense of loss, or perhaps more accurately, the sense of something missing. I nibbled at the edges of this not knowing exactly what it was but feeling as if it was something to do with Paige.

On Monday I woke knowing what it was. I miss having someone to talk to as I used to with her. I have friends I share a lot with, and many of whom who would love me to open up to them completely. It's not as easy as that though. It's just not in me to be that way, no matter how beneficial I know it to be. It's something I've tried to change over the years, and I am much improved on what I was. Still it does not come naturally to me.

For some reason it was different with Paige. Looking back I can't help but think she sneaked under my guard. While my attention was elsewhere she closed with me; when I finally looked there she was by my side. I think she saw something in me she could relate to very strongly. For a woman who could be seen as hard to know she showed a lot of intent in getting close to me. For a long time I was distracted by other things. I was happy to find her there but thought little of it until much later. It was only too late that I understood what she had understood from the first: that we fit.

Our relationship had the same surreptitious quality to it. Looking back it seems we did everything together, and even then I had some idea that there was something more happening that I never bothered to follow-up. I was arrogant, freely admitted. Much of what we did was completely casual, but that was the charm of it. We were always there, both of us. Throughout the day we might chat on the phone 2-3 times, we'd chat online a similar number, or have one chat that went intermittently the whole day long. We would lunch more days than not, and catch up for an impromptu coffee out. She would visit me a couple of times daily, while I would occasionally pop in to see her. We caught the train together to and from work. Occasionally we would delay the trip home - I would tag along while she went shopping, showing this thing and that for my approval. We might have a glass of wine on those nights in one of the dinky little bars around town, and sometimes even decided on dinner. Friday nights without exception we spent together, either in a crowd or alone. Regardless, we were a pair.

Throughout all this we would each share whatever was happening in our lives. Over countless meals she told me much more of herself than I ever revealed to her, but I found myself opening up. If anything of note happened throughout the day the first person we'd speak to was the other - meet you downstairs for coffee. In this way every little bit of our lives was put on the table for the other to dissect and comment on.

One day I was feeling pretty blue. I remember Paige asking if I wanted to catch up for lunch, a pretty standard request. On this day I told her that I was bad company, might be better if we give it a miss. Let's go anyway, she said, and secretly glad I went along with her.

It was mid-winter, we went to a little restaurant in Flinders Lane called Journal. We sat by the window and ordered lunch, and while she looked at me I began to talk. What I said doesn't matter now, what matters is that I opened up completely. Me, the strong, cocksure man who always had an answer for everything revealed my vulnerable underbelly. I talked and talked, encouraged by her keen attention and occasional prompts. She was a good, sensitive listener, as if she understood everything and was more than sympathetic. She cared.

Back in the office I felt obliged to send a jokey message to her thanking her for listening to my grizzling. She replied immediately with a lovely email: Anytime H.... and I do mean that... anytime you want to talk, vent, chat, laugh whatever just give me a call or whatever.... it’s my pleasure.

I appreciated her response right away, but the significance of it only struck me much later.

About a week after this exchange it all ended abruptly, as I have described elsewhere. Only then did I truly realise that I had lost someone near and dear to me. And it was only a month or two later that I understood the full extent of what I lost. For years I had tried to be more open, to expose myself more fully to those closest to me. Somehow I had managed that with Paige. Not only had I found that person I could relate to without a second thought, I had briefly become the man I had aspired to be. Then it was taken from me. I had glimpse and then whoosh, gone.

It is the lack of this connection that has ached within me these last couple of weeks. I have needed an outlet from all that is going on, but there has been nothing for me. On Monday I connected the dots: I wanted what I had shared with Paige, right down to the casual intimacies exchanged throughout the day. That's what I needed, but it's what I didn't have.

It's important to note that while trust is essential for this, it is not enough by itself. You form a different relationship with every person you know. They each see a subtly different face. With few do you become more intimately connected, and fewer yet - for me anyway - do you actually feel able to expose yourself to. In the end it's something to do with chemistry I think, it is the combination of personal chemistry that forms that intimate bond, or not.

This sat in me for 24 hours. I felt helpless. I knew, but could do nothing. I had lost that thing. On Tuesday I sat down and began to write an email. I'll often do that for therapeutic reasons, writing all that I feel with never any intention of sending. On Tuesday I set out like that but within a few lines knew that I would send this.

I wrote a long email. I explained some of what has happened lately, and something of the process I have been going through. I touched on our parting, how bewildering it was, and then I wrote a few lines on the bitterness that later came between us. I didn't dwell on this, but I explained my side of it. I also admitted sorrow that I had not sought to understood how she felt or what she thought. It was all about me. Then I went on to write much as I have above, and to recap something of my feelings for her:

I liked you Paige, I trusted and respected you, and I cared for you. You were my friend, my confidante, my drinking buddy and my shoulder to cry on. I thought that was the end of the story and would forever be. That's something I something I should have protected, but from ignorance failed to.

I concluded by saying I would love to have some part of that again: I want us to be friends.

I don't expect a response from her. It would be nice to claim back something of what we so mysteriously and abruptly lost - I still don't understand. I don't expect it though. It was good to put it out there though. It was good to represent myself to her. She can go on thinking whatever she likes of me, but this is the truth in black and white, take it or leave it, but there it is. I've made my voice heard.

In the same way I had to tell her what I feel. It's no good hiding your feelings under a rock. It is crippling to have things inside that remain forever unspoken. Let them out, give them wings and send them out into the world.

I feel better now having done this. And though I expect nothing from her, I have the feeling that these words might be good for Paige too.

A man without qualities

There are things I want to write, but I don't know where to start. All the elements are there, swirling around me ripe to be plucked and written of. But which one first, and to what point? I know these things so well, but by collecting them together what is it I am trying to say? I think this will one of those occasions when I just write and let it out of me and hope by the end I find the sense and reason that led me to write in the first place. To discover the things I knew but did not know until I wrote of them. How often that seems the way.

For the last little while I have been well behaved. A lot has been on my mind in one way or another and so I have been disinclined to complicate things further. At the same time I have been conscious of re-making my life in some way, and was unsure yet what I really I wanted, and where things fit. And to be honest I have not felt the usual desires - or if I did they were more distant, muddied by competing demands on me.

I may pause but the world continues to spin on its axis. Regardless of my inclination I am still subject to external pressures and parties. I move within a society - my society - needing to react and respond to the people in it and to the little events that occur within it; all the while keeping my own counsel. I enter in to this society adopting a variety of personas depending who I am with. Sometimes I am a man of wit and brio, mostly with people I know less well. At other times I am more reserved, more silently strong. Sometimes, with those I am closest to, I am more open, more apt to reveal something of my inner workings - though it is a rare event. In all cases I am pushed and pulled in different directions by the environment around me.

I feel like a character in a novel. It is not something I think often, if at all previously, but of late it seems more true. Being of the literary type this fleeting thought will often bring a small and sardonic smile to my lips. I feel I am in the middle of things, a key character around whom so much revolves, but who despite a proud independence remains at the mercy of events he does not entirely understand. For some reason the novel that actually comes to mind is The Man Without Qualities, by Robert Musil.

Sometimes as part of this I wonder whether I feel all the things that I should feel, as if a part of me is muted. When that happens it as if I am a character in a novel, at one remove from myself. I am surprised at how casually and easily ruthless I am. It is not so much in what I do, but rather in what I feel - or don't. It as if there is a part of my subterranean mind that works at these vexed questions while I go about my normal business. Every so often there is delivered to my conscious mind the resolution to these questions, objective, logical and bereft of complicating sentiment. I accept it as it is, a fait accompli, all the associated angst pre-digested and easily swallowed.

Though this process can be used to describe much, I am particularly referring to my dealings with women. What else?

A key part of this life I am looking to design includes the woman I want to share it with. Much in this pretty picture depends upon her existence. The picture is quite clear to me, and though I don't know who she is, or even what qualities she possesses, I know how and where I want her to fit in. There is nothing sinister in this, I believe very strongly in being equals. I want what I want though, andwill never setlle for anything less.

Though I've taken my foot off the accelerator in recent times there are still many women in my life. I can't live without them altogether.

Not long ago I caught up with a woman I met briefly before I headed off to Brisbane 4 years ago. We hit it off then in a big way. I liked her; she liked me. It was only that I was moving away that it ended. A month or so ago I heard from her again, inadvertently I guess, but it was enough to re-establish contact. We met for a drink and got on well again. That's good.

I've moved on though. I like her, but I'm a different man to what I was then. I have different needs now. Though I think she is a lot of fun, I doubt I can love her deeply, and know that she will not give me what I want if that picture is to be complete. I'm interested in seeing her again, but already fear that she is becoming wrapped up in me. That's a nervous feeling most men will be familiar with. I don't want to lead her on, but I don't want to lose her either - and so I must navigate a tricky middle way.

There is another, a switched on Chinese girl who thinks I am the bees knees too. I don't really know yet what I feel for her, but I am happy to persist for now.

Then there are the women long established in my life. I lead my single life and do my bachelor things, my eyes on some far distant prize, while in front of me there are those who would happily join me I think. I have become more aware of this lately, alerted by others whilst knowing it in my own heart. There are two who I see a lot of, who I talk to often and share much of what is important to me. They are women, but I see them as friends. I feel for them in 'that' way, yet I think if I turned to either of them and proposed then they would happily agree.

It gives you a strange feeling to know that. They're at my finger tips. I need only compromise a little and bingo, I'm married to a great girl. Why not then? Because neither are right for me. I don't feel that edge of excitement that I think is necessary. I will do almost anything for them as friends, but I do not feel that raw desire in my stomach. They are familiar and safe, desired by other men, but for me I hardly even think of them as women. So no, never.

I wrote of Jennie the other day, but in truth all I feel for her is a distant affection. I have no doubt much more could be re-ignited given the opportunity, but equally I know that opportunity will not come. In it's place then I wish her happiness knowing I am not to be a part of it. There is some regret, though not so much at how things ended up, but rather about some of the things I did. I did wrong, and would if I could ask forgiveness for that, but know I shall have to live without it.

There are others too, but none that will figure in that part of my life. I'm lucky to have so many women as friends, but at the end of the day it still leaves me here on my own. This is the society I enter into and exit. These are the things I deal with and adjust to day after day. Day after day I am left wondering still, manfully trying to figure things out much like Ulrich. And in the midst of all this I wake with a yearning I seek to put down, to ignore, for another not mentioned here and, I'm sure, never to be encountered again.