Hieronymous the Anonymous

Low-life's with badges

I was due to go out yesterday searching for somewhere to live with Whisky. I called him in the morning first thing asking to call me back. On my way to his place I called again, hoping aloud that he was not still asleep in bed. When I got to his place I rang the bell again and again. The newspaper was rolled up in its plastic wrap on the path. The outdoor light still shone brightly. I called again and then rang the bell another dozen times as he didn't answer.

At that moment I heard my name being called. I turned around to find a woman I knew, on skates. She explained to me that Whisky was locked out of the house. That his phone was inside. That he was back at her place. And that he had been knocked out by a bouncer the night before.

As she drove me back to her place she told me the story. They had been to seen the Hoodoo Gurus play at the Prince the night before. I had nearly joined them myself, but decided last minute to give my cold some rest. Whisky had been dancing near the front she told me, when the bouncers approached him. They had a discussion, and tried to remove him, he resisted, and no doubt said a thing or two. Then one of hit him and knocked him out cold. He was out for about 2 minutes.

By now I was back at her place. Whisky was there with a sheepish smile on his face. There was a red welt across his nose that he couldn't explain. He took up the story. He told me how when he had come to they had wrestled him out of the bar. He told me some of the things he said. I understood. I asked if anyone had actually seen him hit. No-one had. He had wanted to report it to the police, but told to come back tomorrow. It was only when he got home that he realised that as he lay unconscious the bouncers had rifled through his pockets, taking his housekey and a wad of cash.

All through his story I'm nodding my head. I know it all without him telling me. I can see how stupid it is to take on these bouncers, but know too how hard it is in that moment not to. And I was thinking to myself, probably just as well I wasn't there. You gotta back up your mates, but odds on I would have got involved to and no knowing then where it may have led.

I had my own experience of this a few weeks ago. I fell into an argument with a bouncer and his mate. They stood there and wouldn't let me back in - I had been gone 5 minutes escorting someone to the station. Out of sheer perversity they decided I wasn't allowed back, no matter what I said. They wore the badges, they were God, and they knew it. It is hard to accept that. Hard to accept being dictated to by a couple of lowlifes who think they have the authority to do what they want. You know you should say or do nothing. You know there is an easier way. It sticks in your craw though. What gives them the right... And so even while you're telling yourself don't say anything, don't say anything, you open your mouth and say something, and it's on for young and old.

There's something wrong you know. Sure, the likes of me and Whisky should know better. But late sometimes, a couple of drinks in you and some little snot telling you what to do it's hard to remember what is better. And we're men, hardly an excuse, but a definite reality. We're virile men, we're not used to being told what to do by some lowlife who does it just for the thrill. And we're not necessarily going to cop it. It shouldn't be that way.

No doubt there are some very decent people out there who are bouncers, but too many are low-life's looking for the opportunity to lord it over people and beat up drunks. They should be there to keep the peace, not to provoke. The best are polite and conciliatory, they don't need to prove anything, they don't see their position as something to abuse. They are professional, but there are too few of them. There must be a better way to licence and to regulate this industry.

Funny, I had brunch this morning with a mate who was at the gig and saw it all. Later, he tells me, he went to the casino and found a whole area roped off because of a giant brawl. Twenty bouncers took on 5 burly patrons, heroes all.

The Bear Came Over the Mountain

I read a story before, The Bear Came Over the Mountain, by Alice Munro. It's good. achingly good. And true. That's the test for me, always: how true is it? I can imagine this, can see it, can know that this is what happens, and understand how it might feel to be in that circumstance, the sorrow of it and the ache. Raw and true.

You should read it sometime. Like all the best stories, there is all of life in it.

Strange is the new normal

Sometimes I think of how many strange episodes I live through, before realising there is nothing strange about any of it. It appears strange because you do not know the rhyme or reason of it, do not know where it leads or what it means or what will happen next. Man, that's my life sometimes I think, and that's the point: what appears strange has really become quite normal. It may make no more sense to me now than it ever did, but that is no excuse for thinking it out of the ordinary.

So when I am tempted to say I am living through strange times what I really mean is that once more, again, I am confused by what I am faced with.

A week or so ago I watched a film late at night. It was an old classic, A Town Like Alice, starring Peter Finch and Virginia McKenna. I enjoyed it for all the usual reasons, but was struck in viewing it how much Virginia McKenna reminded me of Jen. There was rough physical resemblance - tall, attractive, blonde-haired Englishwomen of a particular type, independent and good and feminine. It was this - aura - which most resonated with me, this Englishness. There is a type, of which Jen is one, that are graceful and loyal and intelligent and true. Above all else you know you can rely upon them, that they will not let you down in a pinch. It was there in spades in Virginia McKenna, and it is in there in Jen.

In recent days I have been reminded that it was about 12 months ago when we really began to blossom together as friends, and when I really began to hope for more. I hope to see her again in the next few months.

Parallel with this have been the unexpected developments with Paige. For the last 3 weeks I have had to contend with a good friend making herself absent from me. I have gone from angry and frustrated to sad and compassionate. All of this has focussed my thoughts on her and on our relationship. Previously I valued but took it it for granted. I enjoyed her company, and in an understated way cherished her friendship. It was unusual I see now, but she was always there when I reached out to her. Then she wasn't - and I missed her.

It is almost 3 weeks exactly since we were what I would describe as 'normal' - that word again. In hindsight our normal wasn't really that normal. In a way we were a psuedo couple without thinking about it - I didn't anyway. We were each the first person we turned to, and each of us looked to spend our free time together.

I realise this now in its distinct absence. Often the way it seems. I realised how much I had come to rely on her, and how dear to me she was as a person and as a friend. I may have got angry and frustrated, but it was from confusion, and from feeling her absence cut deeply in me, as if I had been denied something I needed to be happy.

I fretted I guess, and I questioned, and I wondered. I confronted her and was told that it was not personal, that she was sorry that I felt this way, that she expected we would be friends still. And I lashed back, sorry doesn't cut it any more I said. I need to know Paige: what's going on? Why? And again she responded, I know, I get, I'm sorry.

She got it, but I didn't. And then last night I did.

God, it was all about me, it was about me and being scared and thinking no, no, no, I don't want this trouble, I don't want this trouble - and that's why I tried to take it on, to understand, to get an answer. Things brew in darkness, they take on an unearthly life of their own. You have to talk to let the light in, to make it truly normal, to reduce the scale to the manageable. Too late now for that.

Last night I saw her torment. I saw how torn she was. There I was, as I am mostly, composed, lively, engaging, and there she was part of our group but where I sat there was a hole where I should have been, where she would not look. I felt sad it had come to this. And so sad for her. And I knew then for the first time how much I cared for her.

I could sense in her wanting to be as she was before. She had reached out to me in small ways in the days previous. She had made little efforts which I had responded to in kind. Still there had been something hesitant in it, a simulation of what was once real. In person she was different, quiet and contained, away from me. I could not understand this dichotomy, this hesitant desire to re-engage with her inability to look at me when I sat opposite her. That was my confusion and her torment - and vice versa.

So, today I admitted something: she had me. I didn't want this to happen, but now I'm hooked. Had things stayed as they had been none of this would have happened. Her behaviour drew attention to something I had not bothered to look for, and now a spotlight shines on it bright and obvious. It's there, like the Holloywood sign, the thing I didn't want to know about I now can't get away from.

You know, I had seen this coming from a long way off and refused to acknowledge it. This is where Jen comes in. I knew in some distant part of my mind that something was coming my way if I was not careful, and so I turned to Jen in my mind and in my heart. How ironic, the woman I had tried to shed myself from I now turned to to ward off another. Not to be though. Last night it hit me, and today I'm hit still.

There it is. I didn't ask for this. I didn't want it. I didn't want to be in this situation again for God's sake. Now it seems to me there's a choice of two possible outcomes.

I go to work on Monday with the intent to play the game by her rules. I'm ready in my head to walk away from her altogether when I walk away from the job. Obviously I'd rather not do that, but I'm ready to do what is right. Part of me says flee now.

The other option is that we reconcile. That's what she dearly desires I think, but that is problematic now. We may not have spoken of it, but it is now in her head and in mine. Neither knows what the other is thinking, but both of us know what we are feeling. It's hard to put those things to one side when you look in the others eyes. The only real chance we have at friendship is to get it lanced, to speak of it and put it behind us.

I guess there is one last option. That we come together and follow through. We look in each other's eyes and nod our head, and go to each other.

Fuck life's strange.

Dreaming again

I can't remember the last time I dreamt before last night. Life has been unsettled over the last 6 weeks, and I don't think I've been in a place where I could slip into the sort of routine where dreams flow.

Last night I went for drinks after work and then dinner afterwards. The usual crowd was there, including the girl I have spoken of before, Paige I'll call her. I was in good enough form despite once more being overlooked, or looked around, whatever the apt term is. It frustrated me before, made me angry sometimes, but last night it just made me feel sad - for her. I saw somehow as I had not before the torment in her soul, the battle taking place which I am the cause of. I wished I could touch her: it's okay. Instead I smiled and joked, I tried to engage her in conversation. She smile fleetingly, and at times would respond with an almost histrionic fervour to something or another somebody else might say, but overall she was subdued. I saw in her eyes the little girl inside.

I got a lift home afterwards, a car full of women, including her. My last memory of her is as the car turned her forlorn figure caught in the headlights. I could feel her sadness.

I went to bed with that, convinced that she was in love with me, and battled with - which seems the default for the women I meet. I slept, and I dreamt.

It was one of those nights where I seemed to dream all night. Occasionally I would shift in my sleep and become aware of the night beyond, of time passing in the dark, and of the fact of my dreaming.

I dreamt many times but there are two dreams that stand out in my memory now. They are strange and poignant I think, worthy of Freud or Jung.

In the first dream the phone rings and I answer to a woman's voice. Her voice was familiar, the voice of someone I knew, or should know anyway, but as I listened I could not place it. In her greeting there was that expectation of being known, expected almost, someone familiar, like those people who say "it's me" knowing that the other will know who 'me' is. I recognised that but not her voice, and did not want to let on, did not want to offend by admitting to it. "I'm sorry," I said, "I can't hear. There's a lot of noise her."

She said something again, but as she spoke there really was a banging sound in the background preventing me from making out her voice, let alone what she said. And I so I said the same thing again, and again as she spoke her words were drowned out by a sudden eruption of noise, loud voices this time, so that once more I could not hear.

The odd thing was that on neither occasion did she raise her voice against the noise, as you might have expected her to. If anything her voice began to fade, as if she was getting further away from me. Her identity was still a mystery to me, though I was nagged by the thought that I should know. And in the dream, as I stood there with the phone in my hand, there was the growing realisation that I would never know. That no matter how many times I asked something would be contrived to prevent that final connection from happening.

In another dream I am a hotel, or something similar. Though it is set in modern times there is something old world in the setting, a health spa perhaps like Thomas Mann might have written of, people collected in this one place for a common reason. I am in the breakfast room, buffets arrayed around the room with hot steaming in them. Plate in hand I meet a dark haired woman. She smiles at me as if she wishes to know me, and I smile back politely. We talk as we stand in line. She is attractive, though in a modest, unassuming way, a pleasant, good person. I am flattered by her attention, and a little surprised. Eventually we part.

Later I come across her again. This time she is in tears. I try to comfort her. Hey, I tell her, it's okay. I take her in my arms and quietly speak the words I hope will soothe her. I realise that what I had seen earlier had been a performance, a show of confidence she did not feel. This was closer to the truth, the person she was. I feel her sadness, and know without understanding that her overwhelming emotion is disappointment.

I manage to calm her down, and promise to meet up with her later for a coffee or a drink or something. She brightens at this, and once more we go our separate ways.

The appointed hour comes and she is not there. I wait and wait, pacing up and down and feeling anxious for her. Eventually I go back inside. There appears to be some group activity happening. Without thinking I join them playing cards. Just as I'm sitting it occurs to me that there has been a mix-up. I get up again abruptly, giving my cards to a grumpy old woman. I dash out and hurry to where I think this mystery woman may be waiting for me. I'm desperate not to disappoint the poor girl, and the dream ends.

There were many more dreams, but these were the most pointed of them and so I remember these best. They seem revealing too if only I knew how to read them.

There is one last little oddity. Though I can't remember all the dreams there seems to be one constant throughout all of them. In the background in each, and never once taking a central role, is the woman Paige I have written of - every other character is a stranger.

I woke a little after 5am and remained in a state of half sleep for about 30 minutes. Throughout that time I thought of the dreams and of Paige. Though the dreams did not seem particularly auspicious I felt reassured somehow. It was dark outside and I was in my bed warm and comfortable and safe. As I was to feel later in the day I felt complete in myself, but at the same time - and this is my analysis in hindsight - I had taken things outside of myself. I had removed myself from the centre of things. Throughout the dreams even when I wondered what was happening I had appeared a strong and certain character, and that's what I felt then. And I felt that strength towards Paige too, as if I could make it all good.

I don't know what any of this means, but I am dead curious.

On the way to the chemist...

I’ve got a heavy head cold, and so went out before to get some medication to help me through the day. It was just after 9, after the peak hour commuter rush, the streets then quieter, more pedestrian. The cold was biting without being chilly, and the sun bright in the blue winter sky. I crossed over Elizabeth Street, looking both ways. To the right were some trams stopped at the terminal, the end of the line, like a couple of behemoths at rest. To the left Elizabeth Street stretched into the distance, clear of traffic to Bourke. As I ambled across the road the thought occurred to me how most cities of reasonable size don’t differ too much. The city seemed to be taking a breath after the early rush, a stretch and a yawn as it properly woke to the day. Melbourne I know like the back of my hand, but there was something familiar in that feeling that reminded me of other places far away.

Often when you’re travelling you’re up early to make best use of the day ahead. I am anyway. Often times the day is fresh early on, the streets begin to fill and the day unfold, another in a long series, and all around, in all the little things that seem novel to the traveller, the stalls being set-up, odd newspapers being sold on odd but familiar street corners, and people who look different going about things that might happen at home – hustling to work, waving down the bus, and so on – happening again and again, here in another place from home, novel but familiar. The city comes to life.

In many places early morning is the calm before the storm. I remember in Delhi being up early and watching the cycle rickshaw drivers, skinny as a pipe cleaner, clamber out the back of the rickshaw they had slept in, and stretch in the early daylight, before washing themselves from a bucket of water. Soon enough they would be in the thick of it, like no other place. Or Paris, the street cafes facing out onto the road, the café au laits and the quick croissant on the way to work, the Eiffel Tower sticking out over yonder like in a postcard. Funnily enough as I crossed the road to the chemist Izmir popped into my head. Of all places Izmir. I spent one morning in Izmir I think, in transit to somewhere else, and remember the cool weather and the slightly ratty streets near my hotel, and the odd little sights like I wouldn’t imagine seeing at home. But something familiar too, like it is everywhere I think because it is a human rather than cultural behaviour.

Strange the things you think about on the way to buy some Codral.

Different countries

A couple of weeks ago, on a Friday, I wandered around the city searching for something. Normally I’d have been out drinking, but my usual drinking partner was not talking to me. In her absence I had lined up a date with a hot Norwegian girl, but the events of the day had affected me to the point that I was no longer in the mood. I cancelled. I felt lost and aimless.

I did not want to go back to what might be loosely described as ‘home’ – my mothers house. I was not ready to face that, and besides, it was Friday. It was a cold and dark night. I looked in shop windows and ambled through brightly lit department stores. Everything felt inside me, intensely so. As I went along my mind was consumed with the events of the day and previous. I tried to interpret them, to understand, finally to make sense of where I was in all of the muddied picture, what I wanted really, what I felt.

It was an unpleasant place to be. I sometimes think when I get like that that I am like a black hole, an intense ball of focussed intellectual energy sucking in all the surrounding light. I don’t know how I must appear. Intimidating I think, a brooding presence. I know enough that when I am like that then it is best to avoid other people. Miss Norway never had a chance.

As all this went through my head I found myself in the food hall of David Jones. I am fully convinced that the body has an innate understanding of what is best for it. When sick it knows in general how it should be treated, what to eat and not to, it urges rest upon us to recoup our health. My ailment was spiritual, what I needed was a little solace, a little comfort. DJ’s fit the bill.

For nearly an hour I browsed the shelves, very deliberately choosing between the great array of gourmet products on sale. As I looked I was very aware of the urge to spend money. This was an indulgence, I knew that, and I wanted to indulge to my hearts content, much as the jilted sweetheart gorges herself on a box of chocolates. It was a kind of therapy, but there was also pleasure in it – I love good food after all, and here was the choicest of the choice to choose between. Go for your life bro.

After I made my purchases there I went out into the cold world again. I angled my way towards Flinders Street station, unwilling yet to really start home. On the way I detoured to the Dymocks store in Collins Street. I entered that large, subterranean world and for another hour moved between the shelves of books, plucking from them promising looking tomes I would minutely examine before replacing – or adding to the pile of books I carried to the counter to buy.

All throughout my mind is processing, is going through what feels like a step by step path towards a kind of internal reconciliation. By the time I finally step onto my train I have come to a fragile peace with myself, thanks in no small part to these small therapeutic acts of shopping. How revealing I thought later, than in pain I go to the things that appear most important to me – good food and literature.

It is now another day and I do not feel dissimilar to what I felt that evening, though I have a better understanding of it now.

This morning the girl who has been studiously avoiding me came over and talked to me like she used to. I was polite in return but gave her little more than that. Things have turned. I am no longer as able to turn my cheek to what she did. You get wary after all. Is this a false dawn? And it is basically phony: how could you possibly pretend that nothing has happened? Everything has happened, and everything changed. I felt angered after she left, thinking that. Angry at her, and then angry at me: how could I possibly have allowed myself to trust her that much? I felt betrayed by her, but the fault was mine.

I went walking at lunch. As before I tried to draw a logical line through things. As before I didn’t really know what I felt or what I wanted. I was in a state of internal conflict. I was aghast at how she had stooped to treat me, notwithstanding her enigmatic apologies. I was aware at the same time at the hypocrisy of my feelings. I recalled, as I walked up Elizabeth Street, how I had given someone else the very same treatment. At the time I had argued that I did it to preserve myself, to distance myself from the person I felt for and didn’t want to feel for anymore. It was selfish though, and destructive, and as hard on me as it was for her – and it didn’t work.

I mumbled a silent apology but it made no different to what I felt. You feel what you feel, independent of good sense or logic. The brain and the heart may as well be different countries, or speak different languages at least. My brain tried to reign things in, but it was my heart, sitting low in my stomach, that dictated terms.

I don’t think we can be friends again, not like before anyway. It’s a long haul to get to that point, and it starts with an explanation from her. Why have you acted this way? What was the need for it? I’m hurt, sad I’ve lost a very good friend, angry that I should have left so much of myself out there in harms way. I can’t imagine what she’ll say that could explain it to my satisfaction, but if she does it then it must be by Friday. After that I’m gone.

In all of this I see reflections of times past, other women. On Friday night I had a couple of drinks with some friends, played some pool. There was a girl there, Zemelzah her name was, call me Zee she said. She was cute, fun, though I wasn’t really in the mood. She told me her name was Cornish, though she was a good Aussie. Later over the weekend I was reading a book in bed. Suddenly I thought of that girl again, or her name anyway, rather stupidly wondering if there was significance in it. Jen, after all, is from Cornwall.

Silly, but these are honest thoughts. What the heck.

Rose Street Artist's Market

For people visiting Melbourne let me recommend the Rose Street Artist's Market in Fitzroy. If you know anything of Fitzroy you can imagine a little of what it's like, bohemian, independent, creative. I went there today on my travels and wandered around the stalls selling jewellery and leather bags and handmade hats and notebooks of recycled denim and artistic photos and clothing and all manner of creative things. Most of the stuff was of great quality, and some of it unique. I bought a couple of things myself.

In Rose Street funnily enough, between Brunswick and Nicholson Streets.

Something simple

There was a function I went to the other night with a couple of girls from the office. It was held at the hotel a couple of doors down from where we work, a 'Casino Royale' evening designed to promote the hotel as both an accommodation and function option. It was surprisingly well done. Through a series of rooms there were perfectly authentic roulette, blackjack and craps tables. Waiters walked around with trays of drinks and with delectable offerings, mushroom risotto and mini burgers and won ton. In one room there was a chocolate fountain surrounded by platters of sweets and pastries; in another a couple of bartenders mixed up French Martini's with Chambord all night.

Probably 80% of the guests were women, and they were delighted by the array of treats presented to them. I was pretty happy myself. I watched with fascination as one after another of the women took a strawberry or a wafer and dipped it into the falling waterfall of liquid chocolate. I joined them, as did my two friends.

We had been given some play money to gamble on the tables, and we went from one table to another. It was lucky it was not real money because I did mine pretty quick, but one of the girls - the slightly crazy one - had a lot of luck and rode it for all it was worth. All the while we're sampling the passing food, having another drink.

Well it was good but then it was time to go, except I stayed. One of the girls left, but the other - the crazy one, Sonja - was on a roll and didn't want to leave while the going was still good. This girl used to be the protege of Jen, but since she had gone she had looked to me for guidance. She's only 21, and a young 21, but smart and good and lively. I couldn't leave her by herself so I stuck around, trailing after her as she continued to joyfully participate in all that was on offer, like a kid at Christmas.

Now there is a point to all this. I don't write simply to record the trivial events of my life one after another. I did this, then I did that, and then I did something different again. No. You go about your life and often unexpectedly things are revealed to you, about yourself, about others, about the whole thing sometimes. You turn the page and there is something new, or something shown in a different way...

At about 10 she decided she had had enough. As I led her down the grand curving staircase I felt an abrupt sentimental surge go through me. It had been rainy and wet all day. For reasons I could not explain I had experienced one reminder after another of Jen and the time we spent together this time last year. These memories - small, sweet - seemed part and parcel of the rain, like they had come tumbling down with it. They were with me again as I walked down that curving staircase. "Guess what?" I said.

I so wanted Sonja to know what to ask. I wanted to turn to her and to speak from my heart, as if to set free from it. It felt like a game of Jeopardy. The answer, the words in my head were: I miss her being my friend; I miss her being on my side. What was the question? But the moment did not pan out as I wished, as I knew it wouldn't. Instead Sonja responded with a predictable "what?". For a moment I was tempted to turn to her and answer honestly. I don't do that though, and as I escorted her outside to the cold and wet Melbourne night it seemed so simple, so basic, and so silly. We had gone through so much, Jen and I, had created a monster and had jumped at its shadow ever since. But there it was really, there was the heart of it, nothing grand or terribly big, just something terribly true. I wish she was my friend again. I wish I could feel she was on my side, hoping for me, cheering me along as she once did, quietly supporting me as I did her, as friends do.

Great moments

Went out this morning looking for somewhere to live. Checked out a joint in Rose Street, Fitzroy that had sounded promising but no good. Walked up to Brunswick Street, looking in the same shop windows as when I used to work in the area, and ended up in the bookshop, liked I used to then too. I walked up the road and then back again, and as many times before found myself in the cafe that I would occasionally go to for a pre-work breakfast back in the days.

I had bought a new book of stories by Primo Levi in the bookshop, and opened it up as I ordered my first latte of the day. My attention was drawn away from it though to the TV in the corner. Normally the cafe is typically Fitzroy, a tad bohemian and aloof from many of the events of the world. I remember though coming and eating breakfast there the morning after the Socceroos had defeated Croatia to make the quarter finals of the World Cup. There had been celebration in the air that day, and up and down the street with scarfs being waved and strangers smiling at each other in recollection of the grand and exciting victory. That mood had infected the cafe too.

Today the Olympics were showing on that little TV in the corner, and a replay of the dramatic victory of Steve Hooker in the Pole Vault final. I set my book aside, and watched the event I had heard news of waking up but had not seen. Others in the cafe watched too, and waitresses between serving late breakfast clustered around the TV watching it as if it was new.

We watched as he dueeled with his Russian rival, each failing before the Russian cleared a height which the Australian had to match if he was to go on. On his last attempt he did, taking it into the next round. The bar went higher, and once more the Russian led off, failing to clear the bar with all his attempts. Hooker too failed, until it came to his last jump. Fail and it was silver for him. Clear it and it was gold.

Up and over he went, his arms outstretched in victory even as he came down. His Russian rival applauded him as Hooker ran onto the track to embrace his coach who had leapt from the crowd. Next to me the couple watching laughed witnessing the sheer exuberance of the moment. One of the waitresses clapped her hands once, and then turned to fill someone's order. I smiled too, feeling myself fill with it. There was a sense in the cafe of a shared moment, little though it was. For a few minutes we had stopped to watch the event we already knew the result of, and in those minutes shared a common hope. At the end of it there was this sense of release. As on the world cup people turned to each other and smiled without words, understanding without explanation.

These are great moments. Later he jumped once more to collect the Olympic record, the icing on the cake.

Mysterious women

Riddle me this Batman.

Or Batwoman maybe – I think this is something a woman is more likely to make sense of than any man.

Late last year I got friendly with one of the women in the office. She’s an interesting person, smart, has an attitude, can be a royal pain in the arse. She was fun though, and we had no trouble finding some kind of common ground even when we were having a go at each other. I would go down and sit in her office and shoot the breeze when I needed a break, or we’d catch up for a coffee, and so on. Over time the routine deepened and our relationship became more open as we came to know and trust each other better. As the months went by we became each others closest friend in the organisation. We would lunch 1,2, sometimes 3 times a week together. In between times we would have coffee, and occasionally would go out after work for a drink and even a meal at times. And up to a couple of weeks ago we had probably had drinks – either as part of a group or alone – every Friday night since April.

In the parlance I had become her ‘work husband’, the person she hung out with and went to within the work environment, and vice versa. We became more than work friends though, we became friends in a deeper sense, and shared much that went on in our lives very openly and honestly.

You might think this all a bit strange, and too good to be true, but by and large it was platonic. Sure, there had been some flirtation early days, and some attraction, but reality was that I was caught up in Jen and couldn’t conceive of another woman, while at home she had her own boyfriend.

Anyway, all was going swimmingly up to a couple of weeks ago. Then on Monday I went into work and found when I spoke to her she was all business. She was like that in the next few days also. We didn’t do lunch, or catch up for coffee. Our telephone conversations became terse and to the point, and she would no longer chat online as we did before.

When you are close to someone you pick up things pretty quickly, but you didn’t need to be super sensitive to understand that something had changed. Then one day I was on my way into work when I stopped for a donut. When I came out of the shop I found this girl standing at the lights. We’re on the same train line now, and had got in the habit of catching up in the train on the way in, and often on the way home too. Naturally this hadn’t happened in that week, but to that point I had not read too much into it. She goes swimming in the morning and sometimes catches a later train, fair enough. On this occasion as I saw her standing there I went to her and gave her a playful poke.

At this point I was thinking nothing, but then, as if guilty, she started to tell me that she wasn’t avoiding me but that she had to run to catch the train and got in another carriage and couldn’t be bothered walking through the train to catch me. My phone rang and I answered. I spoke remembering how just the previous Friday I had looked out the window as the train pulled into her station. I had seen her arrive at the station at the same time, and then hurry along the platform to make it to our regular carriage. I had smiled to myself then, endeared by her effort to make it to me. I got off the phone and I had only just turned to her when she spoke again. I saw you in the subway she said, but I was too tired to hurry. I nodded my head. Made some small talk. I didn’t believe her. I believed she had been avoiding me. It may not have even occurred to me but for her guilty babbling. I fell silent.

Later that morning I got an email from her. She apologised, hoping that I didn’t take anything personally. She was feeling crap she said, and not very social. A couple of days later I got a similar email after another odd episode. I responded the second one saying ok, whatever, you’ve been weird later but no dramas.

This week has been even worse. From virtually living in each others pockets I went to not actually speaking to her until today. She sent me a brief message earlier in the week hoping I was well. Midweek I sent her an email telling her I was so confused by her manner – distant, abrupt, sometimes rude, always enigmatic – that I had begun to question the substance of our friendship, to wonder whether I should be bothered or not. I hoped so, I told her, I liked her after all, I valued her friendship, but… It was in her hands.

She responded to that briefly. She thanked me for being honest with her. She said my email deserved a full response, but that she could not give me that at this time. She told that she hoped and expected that we would remain friends long after we moved on. And once more she reiterated that the time was not right to say more.

On the one hand I was reassured. It’s hard not to believe that you’ve done something wrong when someone becomes so remote from you. That clearly was not the case. But if not, then what? And on this subject she was as mysterious as ever, frustratingly so. There was something, but it remained unsaid for reasons I could not know.

Today she invited me to lunch with a few others. I went hoping this was the first step in mending things. Over lunch though she would not look at me. When she spoke it was to the other two, and it was if I was not there. Nothing was addressed to me. I tried to enjoin her in conversation and she would respond as necessary, civilly but with nothing more. I left lunch feeling deflated, confused, frustrated, once more wondering if there was a point to this.

She’s a complex girl. I know that. I figure that has something to do with all this, but not all. There is something to do with me, and I don’t know why.

So Batwoman, tell me. What’s going on?