sashinka | observation orientated, with a twist of lime | a blog

Strange Fruit
Got a weird telephone call yesterday. I used to be friendly with a guy called H; we met through mutual friends, were - at the time - in the same professional sphere, had lots to talk about. If the world is divided into people who know they're good looking and people who don't, then he definitely falls into the former category (and of course the world is really divided into people who divide the world.... and people who are very annoying). So I have to admit that when I met him I was bowled over by his suave good looks and height (there are very few tall Jewish men). We became friends in a short-lead-time intense way.

After a while, a pattern emerged. I discovered that I was one in a line of women with whom he had intense friendships, that eventually fell by the wayside; turned out I knew a couple of people he'd been friends with. I don't have that many - if any - ex-friends; sure people grow and move on, but I tend to think of someone as a friend I haven't seen for a while, rather than a former friend. It became clear that he didn't fancy me, but liked being surrounded by women with wide social circles who find him attractive. I remember the first time we went "out" we met up in a North London gastropub that was exhibiting a selection of works on womens' bodies; photos of Marilyn, lots of ... that artist who paints curvaceous women; the place was pounding with celebrations of womanhood. And of course there I was, replete in my cleavage enhancing best. It didn't take me long to realise that he's not into that kind of woman. He's into super-skinny boobless boylike women. He once called a mutual acquaintance who I think looks remarkably like Christy Turlington fat.

But we became friends. And I found myself taking him to lots of parties, or including him in social things I was doing, and without fail, at the end of the evening or the next day, he would call me and ask for the number of someone he'd met through me. The first few times, I complied. Then I realised it was an addictive pattern, they were rarely interested in him, and I felt awkward procuring womens' numbers for him. One time, we were in a bar, he'd talked to some woman who'd refused to give him her number, and he asked me to get it for him. I said no.

Anyway, he got into this whole faux-therapy thing, and was very taken with analysing everything I said, which became stressful, and dull, frankly. Sometimes you just say/do things, and they have no meaning. Call me Freud, if you want. And also, he brought out my worst characteristics, which is not his fault. It became more and more cloying to be in the friendship, and I felt increasingly analysed against my will, and I suspect that he enjoyed exhibiting his supreme intelligence over a mere mortal like me. And in other circumstances, I feel quite bright.

So, February time we got into a quite ridiculous email correspondence - because it was too much hard work to be shouted down on the phone - where he used lots of language about "engaging with my problem" and "shifting paradigms" and ended a lenghty diatribe about my shortcomings with "let me know what you want to do. I dont want to have an extended email exchange around this, though, please." And I just got tired. I thought, I'm grown-up now, he's a nice guy, but this is too much hassle. He's not my therapist, and he's probably not my friend, and he's just using me to get to some better/thinner/more interesting woman out there.

And I realised that I never has FUN with him. It was always fucking hard work and fundamentally frigid. So I just never replied to his last email and felt an enormous sense of relief.

Back to the plot. He called me yesterday, out of the blue, basically to offer me some work. Which was thoughtful. Though, in the reverse circumstances, I would just have given the contact his number, and said "not spoken to H for a while, say hi from me." I felt remarkably awkward talking to him, and at the end of the conversation he told me "he'd got himself a girlfriend a little while ago" - I imagine they were on special offer at Waitrose, and that he was "having quite a journey exploring the relationship." Then he said he was "open to reconnecting with me" - which made me feel like playing Connect 4 - and he suggested we meet for a drink. I parried with "the busy with work" move. He said "are you really busy or you just don't want to meet up" and I remembered why I wasn't friendly with him anymore. I said I didn't know.

Part of me can't help wondering if he got in touch because he heard I'm having a party. He hates to miss a party.