It may be a tad presumptuous to apologise. It assumes people have noticed my absence, that someone has missed my blog being updated on a semi-regular basis.
So, I am sorry.
To tell the truth, since I arrived home from Japan nearly two weeks ago - sleepy, sweaty from the flight, and blinking in the runny English sunshine (so different from the sharp shards of light that pierce Japan!) - I have been trying to marshall my thoughts into another blog post. I cannot leave the story half-told, even though it has been over for days now.
I am no longer jet-lagged. I have stopped craving okonomiyaki and ramen and inari sushi. My tan is starting to fade, but the white lines left from my socks and swimming costume are still visible. In fact, the whole thing is starting to fade a little, and I woke up last night wondering if it had really happened at all. Life has gone on. I opened my A-level results, celebrated getting into university, and started on my reading list.
It's not like I changed dramatically, like I found a new understanding of myself and have gained wisdom and knowledge previously beyond my ken. Nothing like that. I'm just a bit less ignorant about the rest of the world. All I've really learned for definite is where to get dinner in Bangkok for less than 40 baht.
The reason I can't finish writing is I can't get past Ise. Ise was a game-changer. It's this place slightly off the standard beaten tourist track, across the bay from Nagoya, home of the most famous Shinto shrine in Japan. It is demolished and rebuilt every twenty years. The inner temple is said to contain one of Japan's 3 sacred treasures, the Sacred Mirror, but nobody has seen it for centuries. The outer temple is bustling with temple-goers, but they are all Japanese. It is a site of holy pilgrimage. The signs telling you not to take photos are written in archaic kanji. There is no English anywhere.
I went to Ise on a whim - because I met a boy in Tokyo and he was going. Because I wanted to spend more time with him, because I had fetishized the idea of a whirlwind romance taking place across a whole country. Because I was scared that if we were apart for too long, he would just vanish. Evaporate. It seemed like he was too perfect to be true.
We went to the temple in the morning, and then went to Meoto Iwa, the Wedded Rocks, a pair of rocks tied together by a huge rope. They have been enshrined. They are officially gods. I took a photo of us in front of them, wondering how two deities would feel about being such a tourist attraction.
After that, we went to the beach. The ocean was so blue, and the sand so white, it looked like somewhere else, some tropical paradise, not the sort of thing you would normally associate with Japan. I wore a bikini, despite the fact the only other girls at the beach were either a) skinny as models, b) fully covered up, or c) both.
Lots of stuff went wrong that day. We fell asleep by accident. Trains were delayed (shockingly!). I got a sunburn so bad it blistered. He lost his umbrella. We got lost in Osaka and had an argument over which way to go. The internet cafe we eventually found was too expensive, so we slept fitfully on a sofa outside it, stealing the WiFi without ever going in.
And yet, it kind of didn't matter.
So, I'm sorry for not updating my blog sooner. I can't explain how, or why, but I'm stuck at Ise, with cheap sunglasses from Malaysia and a borrowed travel towel and a boy who kissed me under a parasol.
I'm now dating that boy. But I still haven't managed to write my bloody travel post about Japan.
Showing posts with label boys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label boys. Show all posts
Monday, 26 August 2013
Thursday, 27 June 2013
Anecdotally... 2: The manwhore
"There's one thing I should make clear," he said. "I am a total manwhore."
I couldn't see why he couldn't have just said whore. The gendering of it seemed frivolous, surplus to requirements. The effect would have been the same.
"What else?" he asked. I looked at him blankly. I didn't know what else. It must have been a rhetorical question, because he continued without waiting for me to answer. "Oh yes. I'll try anything one. Or anyone."
That was definitely more than one thing. That was three things which he had clarified. He couldn't count. That said, if a pretty girl was lying in my bed making very clear she wanted to kiss me, I'm not sure I'd be able to count either.
Our protracted make-out session lasted several hours, but there was surprisingly little kissing involved. They tended to happen in short bursts, interspersed with long lingering eye-fucking, and bizarre fragments of conversations. We discussed his scars. He had one in the back of his leg from an air rifle. The result of growing up in the countryside, he said. He told me about the girl he'd met on a night bus in London while out of his skull on champagne, and the holodeck he was building at work. I offered stories about my parents' education and why straight vodka was always a bad idea. We had an argument over the ambiguities of the English language which ended in stalemate.
He was a self-described universal pervert. I was an unspoiled flower. It was something he would "bear in mind". It must be strange, the inequity in sexual experience. I wasn't bothered, but I wondered if it made him uncomfortable.
"You are a universal pervert," I said, quoting his own words back at him
"I resent and resemble that remark."
"If you're a manwhore, I suppose there is hope for the least of us yet."
"I'm not sure how to take that. Are you calling me easy?"
I wasn't sure how I'd meant it either. It was more an observation. He was not the epitome of attractiveness, coventionally speaking - and yet, he was rolling in women. It could be lies, but I doubted it. There was no air of boasting or arrogance to his words. They were just words. Really, I had meant it as something of a comparison. If he managed to have lots of sex, then I figured my prospects were also fairly good. If I felt that way inclined.
We were awake most of the night, but he never tried anything untoward. He didn't push or make me uncomfortable. He dozed off with his hand on my thigh. Later, he turned over, and I spent a long time with my face buried in his bare back, breathing in his scent.
I had problems with trying to be sexy. Make out sessions inevitably involve me dissolving into a fit of the giggles (though whether out of amusement or nerves, I could not say), no matter who my partner is. Often, he would stop, and look at me.
"What?" he asked, and I would laugh and tell him the random, inane thing which had triggered my giggling. Sometimes they were to do with him. Sometimes they weren't.
At one point, he had broken away trying not to laugh.
"What?" I asked, a parrot, reflecting his inflection of the syllable.
"The things parents say," he said. "About not getting into strange men's beds."
He's right, I suppose. He could be a murderer for all I know. He could have chainsaws in the oven and an axe stowed under his bed. I said as much to him. Why else would he have two sheds, unless one was for storing corpses? But I also know that he drives a vintage MG, which doesn't have the boot space for the discrete transport of dead bodies.
"Hasn't done me any harm so far," I said.
I wondered if he was upset by my lack of reaction to his promiscuity. Whether he had thought it would phase me. If anything, I felt reassured: he was a safe pair of hands. He knew what he was doing. I supposed I trusted him, at least a little, or I wouldn't have been prepared to share his bed.
In the morning he woke up for work and had a shower. I lay in bed a little longer and wondered if I would do this again. I drove home, dropping him off outside his work on the way, and he pecked me goodbye in the traffic jam.
I wondered if I would see him again.
I couldn't see why he couldn't have just said whore. The gendering of it seemed frivolous, surplus to requirements. The effect would have been the same.
"What else?" he asked. I looked at him blankly. I didn't know what else. It must have been a rhetorical question, because he continued without waiting for me to answer. "Oh yes. I'll try anything one. Or anyone."
That was definitely more than one thing. That was three things which he had clarified. He couldn't count. That said, if a pretty girl was lying in my bed making very clear she wanted to kiss me, I'm not sure I'd be able to count either.
Our protracted make-out session lasted several hours, but there was surprisingly little kissing involved. They tended to happen in short bursts, interspersed with long lingering eye-fucking, and bizarre fragments of conversations. We discussed his scars. He had one in the back of his leg from an air rifle. The result of growing up in the countryside, he said. He told me about the girl he'd met on a night bus in London while out of his skull on champagne, and the holodeck he was building at work. I offered stories about my parents' education and why straight vodka was always a bad idea. We had an argument over the ambiguities of the English language which ended in stalemate.
He was a self-described universal pervert. I was an unspoiled flower. It was something he would "bear in mind". It must be strange, the inequity in sexual experience. I wasn't bothered, but I wondered if it made him uncomfortable.
"You are a universal pervert," I said, quoting his own words back at him
"I resent and resemble that remark."
"If you're a manwhore, I suppose there is hope for the least of us yet."
"I'm not sure how to take that. Are you calling me easy?"
I wasn't sure how I'd meant it either. It was more an observation. He was not the epitome of attractiveness, coventionally speaking - and yet, he was rolling in women. It could be lies, but I doubted it. There was no air of boasting or arrogance to his words. They were just words. Really, I had meant it as something of a comparison. If he managed to have lots of sex, then I figured my prospects were also fairly good. If I felt that way inclined.
We were awake most of the night, but he never tried anything untoward. He didn't push or make me uncomfortable. He dozed off with his hand on my thigh. Later, he turned over, and I spent a long time with my face buried in his bare back, breathing in his scent.
I had problems with trying to be sexy. Make out sessions inevitably involve me dissolving into a fit of the giggles (though whether out of amusement or nerves, I could not say), no matter who my partner is. Often, he would stop, and look at me.
"What?" he asked, and I would laugh and tell him the random, inane thing which had triggered my giggling. Sometimes they were to do with him. Sometimes they weren't.
At one point, he had broken away trying not to laugh.
"What?" I asked, a parrot, reflecting his inflection of the syllable.
"The things parents say," he said. "About not getting into strange men's beds."
He's right, I suppose. He could be a murderer for all I know. He could have chainsaws in the oven and an axe stowed under his bed. I said as much to him. Why else would he have two sheds, unless one was for storing corpses? But I also know that he drives a vintage MG, which doesn't have the boot space for the discrete transport of dead bodies.
"Hasn't done me any harm so far," I said.
I wondered if he was upset by my lack of reaction to his promiscuity. Whether he had thought it would phase me. If anything, I felt reassured: he was a safe pair of hands. He knew what he was doing. I supposed I trusted him, at least a little, or I wouldn't have been prepared to share his bed.
In the morning he woke up for work and had a shower. I lay in bed a little longer and wondered if I would do this again. I drove home, dropping him off outside his work on the way, and he pecked me goodbye in the traffic jam.
I wondered if I would see him again.
Tuesday, 30 April 2013
Some things he ruined.
So, in the manner of a girl who gets ahead of herself, it turns out my future planning has come to naught. My ambiguous manfriend is now just a "friend", of the "I think we should just be friends" ilk (and I catalogued my emotions pretty thoroughly on Thought Catalog).
It also occured to me that pretty much every post on this blog is about him in some way, seeing as I started writing it the day before our first date. It was the day he quit his internship, and yesterday was the day he started a new one. I'm just the stop gap amusement.
I think I'll have to make this the last post about him, as he's not The Boy any more. He's just a boy, who I thought I knew, but I guess not. I'm letting myself wallow for the moment, because I am upset, but I know I'll need to start feeling better sooner or later. It's not heartbreak, just heartbruise.
But for the moment, here is a list of things that remind me of him:
- Triathlons (because he runs them)
- Whole Foods in Kensington (because it was where we had our first date)
- My dress patterned with locks (because it's what I wore the first time we made out)
- Red-eared terrapins (because we watched them having a fight and laughed)
- Margherita pizza (which I am very annoyed about, because HE RUINED PIZZA. Because he described it as "naked pizza")
- The word "pugnacious" (because we argued about its definition and he couldn't believe I was right)
- My ceiling (because he made jokes about my posters)
- The Crane Wife by The Decemberists (because I spent ages trying to get him to listen to it, and then he didn't like it much)
- Picnics (because we promised to have one. Which never happened)
- Panda cupcakes (because he asked me to bake them as a joke, and I did)
- The music of Passenger (because he introduced me to it)
- London Aquarium (because it's where we had our last date)
- Scuba diving (because he insisted I should try it out)
- Nail varnish (because I painted my nails differently for every date)
- Fight Club (because we watched it together, and guessed the plot twist, and I fell asleep on his shoulder and missed the ending)
- Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 Prelude (because he was told to "play it to any girls he was courting", and didn't play it for me)
Every time I see or hear or think about one of these things, I get that feeling of being sucker-punched in the sternum all over again. He ruined them. But luckily time has a way of healing all wounds. It won't be long before they're fixed: it'll just be a while.
It also occured to me that pretty much every post on this blog is about him in some way, seeing as I started writing it the day before our first date. It was the day he quit his internship, and yesterday was the day he started a new one. I'm just the stop gap amusement.
I think I'll have to make this the last post about him, as he's not The Boy any more. He's just a boy, who I thought I knew, but I guess not. I'm letting myself wallow for the moment, because I am upset, but I know I'll need to start feeling better sooner or later. It's not heartbreak, just heartbruise.
But for the moment, here is a list of things that remind me of him:
- Triathlons (because he runs them)
- Whole Foods in Kensington (because it was where we had our first date)
- My dress patterned with locks (because it's what I wore the first time we made out)
- Red-eared terrapins (because we watched them having a fight and laughed)
- Margherita pizza (which I am very annoyed about, because HE RUINED PIZZA. Because he described it as "naked pizza")
- The word "pugnacious" (because we argued about its definition and he couldn't believe I was right)
- My ceiling (because he made jokes about my posters)
- The Crane Wife by The Decemberists (because I spent ages trying to get him to listen to it, and then he didn't like it much)
- Picnics (because we promised to have one. Which never happened)
- Panda cupcakes (because he asked me to bake them as a joke, and I did)
- The music of Passenger (because he introduced me to it)
- London Aquarium (because it's where we had our last date)
- Scuba diving (because he insisted I should try it out)
- Nail varnish (because I painted my nails differently for every date)
- Fight Club (because we watched it together, and guessed the plot twist, and I fell asleep on his shoulder and missed the ending)
- Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 Prelude (because he was told to "play it to any girls he was courting", and didn't play it for me)
Every time I see or hear or think about one of these things, I get that feeling of being sucker-punched in the sternum all over again. He ruined them. But luckily time has a way of healing all wounds. It won't be long before they're fixed: it'll just be a while.
Monday, 25 February 2013
Broken rules and bleeding hearts.
There are rules about how to act in every social situation. They may be unwritten, or contained in tomes nobody owns up to owning but everyone does; they might be whispered in corners or written about in op-eds for swanky magazines, but there are rules governing everything. If you transgress the rules, who knows what might happen? You'll get a sneaky side-eyed sneer, or maybe a public critique, or perhaps the whole of society will crumble and crash down around your ears - and it'll all be your fault, because you didn't obey the rules.
One of the things I'm aware of is how I play by these rules, even when I don't consciously mean to. I'll find myself waiting for hours to receive texts from people, and then - rather than replying instantly, which is my usual course of action - I'll instead leave the message, saved as a draft, on my phone. I won't send it until half an hour, an hour, two hours, have elapsed - to make it seem like I'm just SO in demand, I'm too busy to reply to texts instantly, and you should be glad I bestowed my pity upon you and typed out a few lines of banal conversation. It means I spared you a thought, when I could have just forgotten. Be grateful.
This applies to everyone - friends, family, crushes. I just get scared of being in a position of vulnerability. I don't want to admit I like someone, in whatever capacity, because that means peeling back a little bit of your skin and showing something raw; and once it's out there, anyone can come and prod it, and make you hurt. Better to keep your bleeding heart in your chest, rather than where it habitually rests on my sleeve. Better to wear a coat and stop your feelings from being seen.
When I do come out and say exactly what I mean, I tend to get hurt. And everyone's afraid of being hurt. That's why there's so much bullshit in who is supposed to say what when, where you're supposed to go and what you're supposed to want. If you stick to the rules, you are safe. You're working within an established framework. Even if things go wrong, they'll fuck up within a pre-existing situation.You won't be far away from where you're supposed to be, and it's not that hard to get back in the game, start a new turn, and let all the rules carry you along again.
It's why I feel guilty about my last kiss. It was the end of a first date (with a boy who makes me feel like I swallowed a dragonfly) and we were at Edgeware Road. He had to catch the tube one way, and I the other. He stood on the train, and I on the platform. There was a narrow gap in the roof of the station. We shared a quick, chaste kiss while the thin snow fell through the gap and powdered our hair. The tube departed, and I watched him go, suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling I had been left behind. That was one of the rules of heterosexual, traditional relationships - the girl is supposed to leave first, making the boy wait for her, his breath catching in his throat. It's not supposed to be the other way round.
I crossed the bridge to the other platform, to catch my own train, and had to avert my eyes from all the happy couples canoodling in the cold. Their laughter mingled in front of their faces, a soft-focus mist which could have come from either set of lungs.
I wished, one day, I could be that happy - even if it was only superficial. Maybe in the grey light of morning they would sit next to each other in bed - these laughing, kissing couples - and they wouldn't speak, keeping their unhappiness to themselves, maintaining a facade on the streets of London that they were bright and chipper and in love. But there's a reason you keep misery at home: the only thing worse than public displays of affection is public displays of unhappiness.
And that's just another rule. Keep the dirty laundry to your own washing machine.
If I were that unhappy, though, I would argue in public. I would make a scene, run onto the wrong train on purpose, lock myself in a bathroom and have a public official be called to get me out. I would make old women tut and young professionals avert their eyes in embarrassment and children stare, slack-jawed. If you're going to unravel, you might as well do it somewhere everyone can see. Maybe, just maybe, there would be a sympathetic stranger around to help patch your frayed edges back together and resew your hems. I have faith in the human race yet.
But I also have faith in myself. These rules might have been around for years, but I'm sure I know myself better than some anonymous set of social norms. So I might provoke the ire of traditionalists everywhere, but I will tentatively display my battered heart, and blame only myself if it gets broken. I will text back immediately and watch people leave me behind - because I am stronger than my anxieties, and I trust that everyone I love will come back - it might just take them a while.
One of the things I'm aware of is how I play by these rules, even when I don't consciously mean to. I'll find myself waiting for hours to receive texts from people, and then - rather than replying instantly, which is my usual course of action - I'll instead leave the message, saved as a draft, on my phone. I won't send it until half an hour, an hour, two hours, have elapsed - to make it seem like I'm just SO in demand, I'm too busy to reply to texts instantly, and you should be glad I bestowed my pity upon you and typed out a few lines of banal conversation. It means I spared you a thought, when I could have just forgotten. Be grateful.
This applies to everyone - friends, family, crushes. I just get scared of being in a position of vulnerability. I don't want to admit I like someone, in whatever capacity, because that means peeling back a little bit of your skin and showing something raw; and once it's out there, anyone can come and prod it, and make you hurt. Better to keep your bleeding heart in your chest, rather than where it habitually rests on my sleeve. Better to wear a coat and stop your feelings from being seen.
When I do come out and say exactly what I mean, I tend to get hurt. And everyone's afraid of being hurt. That's why there's so much bullshit in who is supposed to say what when, where you're supposed to go and what you're supposed to want. If you stick to the rules, you are safe. You're working within an established framework. Even if things go wrong, they'll fuck up within a pre-existing situation.You won't be far away from where you're supposed to be, and it's not that hard to get back in the game, start a new turn, and let all the rules carry you along again.
It's why I feel guilty about my last kiss. It was the end of a first date (with a boy who makes me feel like I swallowed a dragonfly) and we were at Edgeware Road. He had to catch the tube one way, and I the other. He stood on the train, and I on the platform. There was a narrow gap in the roof of the station. We shared a quick, chaste kiss while the thin snow fell through the gap and powdered our hair. The tube departed, and I watched him go, suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling I had been left behind. That was one of the rules of heterosexual, traditional relationships - the girl is supposed to leave first, making the boy wait for her, his breath catching in his throat. It's not supposed to be the other way round.
I crossed the bridge to the other platform, to catch my own train, and had to avert my eyes from all the happy couples canoodling in the cold. Their laughter mingled in front of their faces, a soft-focus mist which could have come from either set of lungs.
I wished, one day, I could be that happy - even if it was only superficial. Maybe in the grey light of morning they would sit next to each other in bed - these laughing, kissing couples - and they wouldn't speak, keeping their unhappiness to themselves, maintaining a facade on the streets of London that they were bright and chipper and in love. But there's a reason you keep misery at home: the only thing worse than public displays of affection is public displays of unhappiness.
And that's just another rule. Keep the dirty laundry to your own washing machine.
If I were that unhappy, though, I would argue in public. I would make a scene, run onto the wrong train on purpose, lock myself in a bathroom and have a public official be called to get me out. I would make old women tut and young professionals avert their eyes in embarrassment and children stare, slack-jawed. If you're going to unravel, you might as well do it somewhere everyone can see. Maybe, just maybe, there would be a sympathetic stranger around to help patch your frayed edges back together and resew your hems. I have faith in the human race yet.
But I also have faith in myself. These rules might have been around for years, but I'm sure I know myself better than some anonymous set of social norms. So I might provoke the ire of traditionalists everywhere, but I will tentatively display my battered heart, and blame only myself if it gets broken. I will text back immediately and watch people leave me behind - because I am stronger than my anxieties, and I trust that everyone I love will come back - it might just take them a while.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)