Separate Ways

One last word to say about envy and irony.

I spent a Friday teatime at my ex-wife's house last week. She made supper for me, our son and her current boyfriend. Despite the fact she'd temporarily dumped him while trying to get back with her jealous idiot ex-boyfriend, he's taken her back in good heart.

"I've been wanting to meet you for ages," he says, walking across the hall with his hand outstretched. "I haven't seen you since your birthday."
Ah, I was quite pissed - so I don't remember. This is going to be a new conversation as far as I'm concerned.

Turned out to be a very pleasant couple of hours. The grown ups talked, my son and his mate hung out with us. Ex wife's boyfriend couldn't be a nicer bloke. And they seem genuinely fond of each other.

Which is all well and good. Better she's happy than not.

Even so.......

Even so, bollocks! It's so bloody unfair. The irony of envying HER! I carry her through fifteen years of depression, rejection and illness and now she's happy - HAPPY! - while I feel so tired and beaten down by all those years of making-do and soldiering-on and putting on a brave face that the rest of the world sometimes seems to carry on its business on the other side of triple-glazing - I register it, but through a glass, quietly.

I know what I need to do. Keep myself fit, stay on top of domestic chores, don't stay up too late, don't drink too much, get into the flow of my work - and most importantly, seek out my friends. They're the ones who bang on the glass and shout Oi! when I need bringing round.

Coincidences - ain't life just full of 'em?

My best friend at Manchester Poly made me deeply envious twenty years ago when she got a well-earned place as a trainee journalist for a big news organisation. So envious that it made me get my finger out of my arse, buy an Amstrad word-processor and start banging out book reviews and features for a local magazine. My career started there.

Fast forward to 2009.
I meet up with same friend after 17 years. We get on like it's yesterday. She invites me down to her place in a little village down south. She's got a lovely husband, three lovely kids, still enjoys her job, lives in a sixteenth century farm house. With a fucking turret, for god's sake!

I'm envious again, but this time there's no coming back. I'm not ever going to ease comfortably into middle age with the mother of my son, leaning on each other while we watch him reach adulthood. I'm not going to enter my child-free mid-forties with someone I've known and loved through my twenties and thirties. And I'm certainly never going to live in a house with a turret, not unless I marry a rich widow.

We hate it when our friends become successful, so says Morrissey. I don't hate it, but I do feel an irrational, tired, resigned envy - let's call it Turret's Syndrome.

I am in a turmoil of exes.

Went out to meet last ex-girlfriend for a drink on Thursday (this is the one I dated for three months over the Summer before deciding there wasn't enough spark). A few beers in, there was still no spark, but it was nice to see her. We can be friends, she says. Another beer in and I was telling her about my ex-lover (the one I went out for lunch with recently, the one who makes me sad but who I can't seem to get out of my head).

Her advice - toughen up, move on, even if that means you have to think less of her to do it. If she was that great she wouldn't have walked away from someone like you.

Swaying home drunk on the bus, I was halfway through a text to 21 year old student girlfriend (the one I slept with last month but have hardly seen anything of since) when I hit send accidentally. It was a not-very-well-written "what's going on? I'd rather you dumped me than strung me along" sort of text. I'm not sure I was going to send it. It must have seemed quite abrupt. She was a bit miffed. She dumped me.

Three exes in one night - see what I mean about a turmoil of exes. Maybe that's a new collective noun.....

I never said whether that lunch date came off, the one my ex-lover asked for after twelve months of barely saying a word to me.

Well it did, and it was a lovely hour in her company.

We talked about work stuff, gossip, future plans, slagged off bosses, ribbed each other's foibles and failings. We laughed a lot, smiled about times we'd spent together. Her eyes sparkled, looking tenderly at me. She touched my hand, ruffled my hair. I talked about my last girlfriend, made fun of my inability to hold down the relationship. It was like the last twelve months never happened.

I didn't ask: why did you want to meet me now?
I didn't ask: do you know how much it hurt when you stayed so distant for the last year?
I didn't ask: are you dating?
I didn't ask: are they still trying to find you someone to marry?

We walked back to the office still laughing and gossiping, leaning sometimes on each other's arm. A few texts since. Nothing said that shouldn't have been said, no limbs gone out on... yet.

I met up with a recently-made friend today - a mate's girlfriend who's only known me a year or so. We walked through windy streets, sat in the park and drank coffee while I ran through the five... christ, nearly six... year history of me and my ex-lover.

"So what do you want?" she asks me. "You can't go through all this and just want another affair?"

No. About a year ago, last time we were close, my ex lover said "we could never have another affair, it would mean too much to both of us."

I doubt her situation's changed. I'd be no more welcome in her family now than six years ago.

So what do I want?

Well I know what I don't want. I don't want to be left hanging, texts unanswered. I would give her my love and affection but couldn't stand if it weren't returned.

I want to ask those questions I didn't ask over lunch. Why did you re-establish contact now? Are you seeing anyone? What do you want from me?

One worry - how selfish is she? Behind that smiling, sweet, easygoing conversation, hand laid on mine, does she just want a friendship because she's tired and needs cheering up, even though she knows I would have so much more?