Me and My Musician

I was half an hour late for the meal at The Musicians house. As I ran through the streets of Fulham in a highly strung state, weighed down by three bottles of pinot (two for the price of one, so why not?) and the next day’s clothes I couldn’t help but think this was all a little more trouble than it’s worth.
I arrived at the house in a sweat, and was met by the heat emanating from the kitchen as well as all the guests sitting patiently waiting to eat. Oh the shame. The evening progressed very well though, and even though I got a bit drunk and probably began to get a bit loud, nobody complained. The food was edible and we ended the evening with a gram, which now seems to be the espresso of choice.

Sunday came. We awoke and The Musician spent a good hour entertaining himself by trying on various horrific outfits (and when I say horrific, I mean it- this boy has a wardrobe that begs belief. Oxfam wouldn’t accept the majority of it) and enjoying watching me squirm. On the tube ride over to Hackney my body was suffering intense hot and cold flushes, I could feel my head reaching for the stars and couldn’t wait to get in the fresh air. When we arrived my mother said I looked ill.
    In the end I got drunk to block it all out and sat chain smoking and being monosyllabic in a corner whilst The Musician was charming, polite and engaging. It’s the last time he meets them, I just can’t handle the pressure.

I’ve estimated that I humiliate myself on average three times a week. Once quite seriously and the other two are just cannon fodder humiliations, that are only really recounted on the bus when I’m having a little think and end up beetroot red.

I should have laughed it off, played it cool and then made my excuses and left. What I actually did was go home with him and have sex until my legs wouldn’t work properly and now am sitting at my desk in yesterday’s clothes. More fool me.  

There’s an email sitting in my inbox. It’s terrifying. I think of it like I would a mousetrap, if I were a mouse; Parts of it undeniably tempting, parts are ready to sever my head. I’ve been invited by The Musicians’ friend to a dinner with him and his wife and another couple. I’ve never met any of them before and I have the social graces of a Tom Cat in heat faced with a randy bitch and fresh salmon fillets. The situation is dire- not to mention we haven’t even got through the first ‘couple’ dinner yet, that’s still happening on Friday. I never replied to that email either, but it’s assumed I’m coming. The latest email came yesterday before I left work, and I suppose I should reply now but I appear to have frozen under the hypnotic spell of impending tragedy that glows from the reply button.

Lover text me, saying he needs to see me as soon as possible, as he has “lots of stuff to tell you.” Worrying. I hope it has nothing to do with those pesky genital warts…

I’ve now started getting panic attacks, along with my anger blackouts. As you can imagine this is a barrel of laughs, and I just love it every time the slow trickle of sweat and fear runs down my back. I feel like I’m slowly being hemmed in by something, and am suffocating slowly with abject terror that kept me awake till one o’clock last night. I hope The Musician doesn’t notice I’m slowly going insane.

On the bright side, I’ve got appointment with the doctor this afternoon for more freezing of my genital warts I got given as a commitment present.

Facebook has been a wonderful invention; enabling you to add on ‘friends’ you’d never otherwise bother to have anything to do with again just to update the friend quota and reassure yourself that if you did die people may notice that you hadn’t updated your mood status from ‘sick’ in a while and therefore something might seriously be wrong. It’s a way to reconvene without meeting anyone face to face- and If you’ve recently lost your Secondary School puppy fat it’s the perfect opportunity to flaunt photos of yourself all over the web without looking like a vacuous vain waste of space. It gives the opportunity to get a good look at your boyfriends ex-girlfriend, a good thing most of the time unless of course you’ve built her up mentally as an oversized troll that resembles Britney in the later years and then discover she’s actually sort of cute, fairly intelligent looking and doesn’t appear to resemble someone who eats Heinz spaghetti in front of the TV of a Friday night. This is unfortunate.

Leaving aside anger blackouts and extreme violence, I’ve discovered there’s a few ways to deal with this. The best by far is my friend Mancini’s example- she and Mr Recruitment both check phone messages, texts and emails. Not every day, but every so often they just both decide to have a little check-up, like going to the STD clinic of relationships and weeding out any prospective diseases. It’s genius, but of course you need a boyfriend just as irrational as you to make that one work, which can be tricky.
Another friend of mine just confronts it head on, by actually asking her boyfriend if he’s currently playing in a different field- and whether it’s worth carrying the relationship on if he is. For this you have to be fairly brave, especially if you’re pretty sure the answers not going to be the one you want. You should also think up some ‘women time’ activities just in case you find yourself stuck for company for a while.
I have chosen neither of these things, both involving a certain degree of honesty and strength of character- I’m sure they’re not for me. I instead will seethe with resentment, provide compost for misery and just generally work myself into a complete and utter state until I explode with highly strung emotions that stab at him, cause him to run back into the safe and un-sliced arms (the Stanley knife may well have made an appearance for me by this point) of my predecessor. Only then will I be truly content- after all, I was right all along.

It seems I’m unable to stop sleeping with The Musician. This means I now have to be in a relationship. Not only do I have to be in a relationship, I’m trying my hardest to be in an honest relationship-which I’m finding tricky.
As far as I can make out, being in an ‘honest relationship’ means that you have to remember you have a boyfriend at every occasion- apparently you’re not just in the relationship when, physically, you’re with them. Tricky.
You also have to tell the truth, which is another abnormality for two-faced, lying little moi. Couples (unless both blessed with alcohol problems) tend to drink less together as well, because it’s assumed that you both fancy one another enough not to be completely plastered when you have sex. Again, tricky.
Another little relationship enigma is the bit where you talk to him or her more than anyone else, sometimes even more than your girlfriends. Mostly you just listen to the man talk, so it can hardly be constituted as an actual conversation- but the concepts the same.
The experience is certainly taking me down some previously un explored paths, and as exciting as I find it- some of it interminably fills me with a slight sense of impending doom and dread. For example, yesterday there was an email in my inbox from The Musician entitled, Dinner. It went a little something like this:

I have not replied to the email (am I even allowed to reply as a CC? Who knows) and am just going to ignore it and hope it goes away, though this is doubtful as Mr Recruitment has already said he’s “up for it”. I might have to sneakily pop some Valium in the toilet and hope the subject of my newly acquired genital warts doesn’t come up before we open the wine.   

I’m an early bird at work this morning, arriving an hour before anyone else due to the fact that I’m so behind with work I think I might faint, and deadline is tomorrow. Oh the fear. Yesterday was a nightmare in my hangover-induced state, and for most of the day I was unable to focus on my computer screen let alone type anything moderately interesting. When I was jumping on the 242 at six, I was in heaven and so excited this would be the one day since I can remember that I’d be going home- and staying there.

There is little that beats a night out with close friends. Yesterday I travelled home from Covent Garden to return a few hours later in St. Christopher’s Place for dinner at Carluccio's with Chuckle and Mancini, where we sat huddled around a table set for six- considering I had a meat platter for two it almost made sense. We then continued our drinking in a Moroccan-esque bar (i.e. a place filled with ‘authentic’ tat I could have bought down Dalston for a fiver) where Mancini almost spilt the entire table and contents over her lap and we discussed the raging power of Karma and it’s ability to bite you hard in the bottom when you least expect it.
We then wondered about a bit, rambling with both mouths and legs until we came to the Pigalle Club (Piccadilly) where we escaped paying an astronomical cover charge by Mancini recognising the male host through a previous modelling job, and I think the clincher was, “ I remember you running around a Narnia replica set without your clothes on.” He hurried us inside to escape the bouncer’s sniggering.
The Pigalle Club is an incredibly surreal place, especially if you arrive half way through a performance by a sixty-year-old Scottish solo artist with Dolly Parton breasts singing My Heart Will Go On and then braking into ABBA intro’s whilst you order a bottle of wine in silence by excessive gesticulating.
We were the last to leave, our conversation had run on the subject of bad sex and worse bedfellows, naming and shaming horrible exes and unfortunate one night stands. Chuckle had recently ended her relationship as they’ve both finished university and ought to go their separate ways, but it was clear for most of the night he had situated himself at the back of her mind and gotten cosy. I firmly believe she’s better off without him, if your ever unsure they say the best path is the solo one. I’m also very interested to see what she comes up with next- being a complete nympho she’s a great catch.  
I behaved shockingly toward the end of the evening, upsetting Mancini and Chuckle by actually (and I can’t believe I’m going to use this word) gushing about The Musician. I’m going to have to write them both a long letter of apology…or send a sincere text telling them never to repeat what I said. I blame it on the wine, and all those subliminal messages that I’m convinced are carried with the music he sends. Today I have Fleetwood Mac – Second Hand News.
I’m furious, I knew this would happen if we had sex, and now I’m all chemically attached.  

By Friday afternoon I was completely exhausted, having gone at got my teeth cleaned and spat in the hygienists face-a mistake I assure you, and then gone home to attempt to look impressive as I possibly could: I finally got to Liverpool Street Station to witness my Lover chomping down a McDonalds burger before he met me. Charming. No romantic candlelit dinner for me, then. But at least he’d turned up.
It was wonderful to see him, which meant for the first hour I was completely tongue-tied: obviously in great awe of his expanding Buddha stomach, balding head and his annoying habit of excessive name-dropping.  The evening got off to a slow start but after a few Caipirinhas conversation became easier and we slipped back into our usual banter. I remember sitting on a bar stool in a crowded pub feeling distinctly tingly and overwhelmed with the need to wrap my whole body around him and just stay there until last orders. It was a lovely evening, but for the most part felt like a first date, so long had we gone without seeing each other. His family are away for the summer and he wants to see me as much as he possibly can during the end of July and August, which is lovely but then what happens in September? I don’t know how long I can do this- nothing will ever change and never will there be a beneficial outcome. It’s pretty much just me impatiently pushing my self-destruct button.

Incidentally, the sex was great. God damn it.

I’m exhausted. I haven’t spent one night at home this week, and I’m slowly loosing the will to keep my eyes open. Luckily due to my dentist I’m finishing work at one to go and have my teeth cleaned, hurrah. And Its Friday which means tomorrow I won’t be getting out of bed for love nor money. But maybe for some choice TV.

Enjoy your weekends everybody xx