Progressive Thoughts - Day 18

Today’s song is called Space-Dye Vest by the brilliant progressive metal band Dream Theater. Again, this is a mellow slow burning song that may make you ask:

“What do you mean “Metal?”.

The song is quite sad and dark and reflects the pain of a relationship being over from the perspective of the person who was dumped while he struggles to get over the fact that everything is over.

There are so many songs about the pleasure and pain of love, so many in fact that often they are quite shallow.

Some, however, are quite profound and this is one of the better ones, both musically and lyrically.

I’ve only ever been dumped once and, to be honest, I could see it coming. I was 18 years old and the girl in question was the daughter of one of my parents’ best friends, so the family connection was quite strong, which is one of the reasons that other people took the break up more seriously than either of us.

As usual, I shall protect the identity of the girl in question by calling her Gwen.

Gwen was my second serious girlfriend. My previous relationship had ended a few months earlier and had lasted for over a year and my parents, particularly my mum, had reacted badly to that one.

“You’ve dumped that poor girl?” she had said angrily and demanded to know why.

I think she saw wedding bells even though I had only been 17 years old. So when Gwen and I got together, I think my mum was totally delighted; not only did I have a new girlfriend, the bonus was that she was best friends with Gwen’s parents.

It was a win-win for her.

The truth is that Gwen and I kind of drifted into the relationship because of our parents. We saw a lot of each other because of them and were already good friends. I was hopeless with the opposite sex at the time and blindly tried to chat up women who were out of my league, making a complete arse of myself every time. I was also very stupid because didn’t really see it when a girl liked me.

This was the case with Gwen and she made all of the moves.

Sadly, for her, I had just discovered the joys of alcohol and was in my final year at school with A-Levels on the horizon and at the same time looking for a place at university. I was also an arsehole generally.

The problem was that I was changing, both my appearance, my outlook on life as well as trying to calm down and stop being an arsehole. Gwen and I got together at totally the wrong time.

I spent Saturday nights in Walsall town centre drinking with my mates and then knuckling down with work the rest of the time. Gwen wanted me to spend time with her and, to be fair to her, I neglected her. When we got together the first thing she used to do was moan about how selfish I was. She was working and not at school so she didn’t understand what I wanted and what was driving me.

Nor did she understand that I needed to spend time with my best friends on Saturdays.

It was doomed and the inevitable happened after about three months.

I called at her house and she opened the door.

“Hiya,” I said.

“I’ve had enough,” she growled. “Why don’t you fuck off back to your boyfriend, Stan!!!”

Stan was my best mate at the time (that wasn’t his real name by the way – I just want to protect the guilty).

“Are you dumping me?” I asked, incredulously.

“I thought you were clever,” she said. “YES I AM DUMPING YOU!”

And then she slammed the door in my face, leaving me standing there shocked. I remained there for about a minute then burst out laughing. I realised at that point that I didn’t really care that I'd been thrown onto the scrap heap and instead, went to Stan’s house (as she had said) where we went to the pub to discuss it over a pint.

Strangely, the next time I saw Gwen, she was her usual self and we actually chatted like the old friends we were.

Gwen will always stand out in my memory, however. A few months after we split up, my dad died. My mum wanted to tell Gwen’s parents but she was a complete mess, so I took that responsibility. I walked the short distance to Gwen’s parents’ house and knocked on the door.

Gwen saw me coming and assumed that I was visiting her.

She opened the door with a smile and said “Hiya! What are you doing here?”

I looked at her and blurted out “My dad’s died!” and then burst into tears.

Gwen grabbed me and gave me a huge hug as I rested my head on her shoulder and wept like a baby, soaking her jumper. She dragged me into her house as I sobbed and gave the bad news to her parents who also fell apart in grief. Gwen made me a cup of tea and sat next to me holding me as if I were going to run away forever.

At that moment, I felt closer to Gwen than I had ever felt to her when we were boyfriend and girlfriend.

Sadly, I lost touch with her after I left Walsall but that one memory of Gwen comforting me is far stronger than just being an ex-girlfriend who dumped me for being an arsehole (which I deserved to be fair).

I will never forget what she did to comfort me.

Thanks again, Gwen.

Progressive Thoughts - Day 10

Today’s song is one of my all-time favourites by yet another band from Birmingham, the Moody Blues. I’m sure you have heard the song before – Nights In White Satin:

The song is basically a beautiful and emotional love song, the kind of song that I normally wouldn’t like. It’s not that I’m not romantic – I think I am. The problem is that I find generic love songs a little too contrived whose sole purpose is to rip your heart strings.

If you are just beginning a truly wonderful relationship, and everything is new, then perhaps love songs can express human feelings -  that is unless the lyrics are extremely corny.

If you have just broken up, or had a failed attempt to win over the heart of a fair maiden, then such songs can become your nemeses. 

There are one or two that I still cannot bear even a couple of decades after the event.  I am in a long term loving relationship with the woman who is “the one” and yet when I hear these songs, I feel like Satan himself has ripped out my heart and taken a big bite with a grin on his malevolent face.

That’s what love songs can do for you, dear reader.

So, how do these songs get into your head? Let me tell you.

I regard music as a surreal kind of time machine. A song can propel you back in time to your life at the time it was popular or had meaning in your life. You hear the opening notes of the song and a box of memories is opened in your mind that remind of the time you heard that song or when it was important in your life.

I have a vast collection of 1980’s songs that do just that, propelling me back to the time when I was young and when life was truly exciting; songs that remind me of good times, friends etc. but most of all that remind me of my successful and failed attempts to acquire a girlfriend – and there are far more times when I failed.

Any love song from that time will cause what is left of my heart to lurch but one two in particular invoke a mixture of rage and pain. It’s almost like a phobia. 

One of the artists responsible for the song in question specialises in the sugary nonsense that drips from loving youthful relationships. But they don’t prepare you for the inevitable pain. As a consequence of one particular incident, which I won’t relate for fear of bringing back more pain, I now refuse to listen to ANY songs by this artist. It’s not that I hate them – it’s just that their performances evoke that nasty bilious feeling of rejection and heartbreak.

There must be millions of people who hate certain songs and artists for the same reason.

Of course, on the other hand, there are some songs that loving couples regard as “our song”, and such love songs serve a purpose. The problem is that you both have to like the song. 

Mrs PM and I do not share the same taste in music and the truth is there aren’t any songs that we could regard as “our song”.

I have associated one or two from my collection with my lovely lady, but I can tell you all this for free – she will hate every single one of them.

I am certain it’s the same case the other way round too.

Nevertheless, I still love Nights in White Satin and I thank the Lord that I was too young to care less about women when it was released in the late 1960’s.

I’d hate to hate it.

How Times Have Changed

When I was a young man, in those dim and distant days when I found myself desperately seeking female companionship, womankind had me in their clutches. They had power over me and I was a slave to them.

I fancied any woman who would talk to me and the more beautiful the woman, the more enthralled I was.

Sadly, in those days, society dictated that it was the man that had to do the chasing. It was the man who had to ask the woman for a date or make his desires clear. And that was why women had power over me. They had the ability to twist me around their little finger.

And they were cruel, dear reader.

I remember one occasion when my so-called mates goaded me into asking a woman out.

“She fancies you, Dave. It's obvious,” they would say, goading me into action by appealing to the optimist in me. “Shall we come with you to give you moral support?”

Being a fool – and too blindly in lust to realise that the gorgeous target of my affections was fancied by just about every other male in the vicinity – I marched over to her with my “friends” behind me. She was with her mates too.

In order to protect her identity, let’s call her Alison.

“Hi Alison,” I said with a smile.

“Hi Dave,” she said smiling back. Yes – she smiled – that means she must like me.

“Can I ask you something?” I said summoning up all the courage I could muster.

“Sure,” she said.

“Can we – erm – get together? Will you go out with me?”

In my imagination, she stood up, threw her arms around me and said “I’ve been waiting for you to ask!”

In reality, she said “WHAT? With YOU???? You must be joking!”

She laughed.

Her friends laughed.

My “friends” laughed.

I ran away looking like a complete arse.

Don’t get me wrong; she genuinely liked me – but because I was funny. She wouldn’t have even entertained the idea of anything more than just friendship.

Bless her, she later found me and apologised and asked if we were still friends. Of course, still being enthralled by her, I agreed. But our relationship had changed.

This was the story of my love life around that time.

Thankfully, something changed and all of a sudden women decided that it was time to turn the tables. I guess they became fed up of waiting for guys to ask them out. I don’t know when it started – I just noticed that women were actually marching up to guys and asking them out on a date.

And then it happened to me. My ex-wife W basically took control and made her feelings perfectly clear. Many years later, my beloved Mrs PM did exactly the same.

In fact, over the years, I have been approached a few times, and had to let the poor woman down gently in the nicest possible way (realising how painful such rejections can be).

I for one am really glad that it happened and it marks a significant power shift in the way women behave.

I had an interesting chat with Mrs PM’s mum the other week. When we go to the pub with her and her other half, she refuses to go to the bar or pay for any meals we have in restaurants because, in her eyes, it’s the responsibility of the man. Mrs PM is a modern woman and we share most of the responsibilities.

“Why are YOU going to the bar,” Mrs PM’s mum says.

“Why not?” says Mrs PM.

It’s the same at home. Mrs PM’s mum does all the cleaning, washing, cooking etc. and accepts that role. She even packs both suitcases when they go on holiday, selecting all of his clothes and everything else he needs.

And she accepts this without question. In fact, she positively revels in it.

There is no way I would let Mrs PM choose or pack my clothes for me. Besides, she wouldn’t do it.

Not all women have embraced the power shift. Mrs PM has friends who still want the man to chase them. She calls them “princesses” presumably after fairy tale princesses who are swept of their feet by handsome princes.

When I cast my mind back to the time when I desperately wanted to be that prince, I recall being let down almost every time, sometimes cruelly.

I used to think that I wasn’t “prince” material and I considered myself, with the aid of Captain Paranoia, to be a hideous villain who would never get the girl.

Of course, these days, the whole concept of dating has changed. People do not have to humiliate themselves by marching confidently up to a member of the opposite sex and asking them out. The internet and social media has revolutionised the dating game.

You can join a dating site and now even get a smartphone application to help you. Take Tinder, for example. This app allows you to find other people within a certain distance of your location and matching certain criteria and, if you like them, you simply tap a heart icon if you like them and a cross icon if you don’t. Obviously two people like each other then they can arrange to meet.

I wish there had been something like that around when I was about eighteen years old. It would have protected me from being humiliated and having my poor heart shredded by a female friend who had no desire to take our friendship further.

Unbelievably, there is also an app called Binder that allows you to dump people too if you are too scared or too much of a coward to do it yourself.

This is the kind of message you get:

If there had been an app like Tinder around when I was young and single, I wouldn’t have been told to “Piss off” when I resorted to desperate chat up lines.  

In fact, I would have been equally concerned by a crass app like Binder because in those early days I can only imagine my poor heart being destroyed by a text message.

At least I wouldn't have received it in front of a group of people, I guess.

Anyway, I for one am glad that times have changed and that there is more equality when it comes to relationships.

After all, we are in the 21st century now, and not in the 1950's.

Stupid Cupid

Let me take you back in time, dear reader. I am opening the door to my time machine, and together we can go on a short journey to my past. On the way, I shall set the scene for you.

Mrs PM has a friend, who I shall refer to as S. Quite a few years ago, probably around the year 2000, Mrs PM and I had been together for about two years and I spent a fair amount of time going out with  her and her friends most of whom were her age. I was in my mid to late thirties and Mrs PM in her late twenties. At the time, I was revisiting my youth a little, but with a more mature head on my shoulders.

I found myself in night clubs, watching younger people with interest. Mrs PM’s friend S was a bit of a target for young predatory men and quite often they tried to chat her up. Sometimes, these guys would not take "No!" for an answer and on the odd occasion, usually it has to be said, with Mrs PM requesting me to do so, I would step in and whisk S away to join our group, rescuing her like a knight in unfashionable armour.

We are travelling to a time when this happened.

Picture the scene; Mrs PM and I and a group of people all having fun in a night club in Manchester city centre, called South.

It was not really my kind of place, like most night clubs if the truth is known. The music was pretty dire, as it was in 99% of the clubs, and it was so loud that in order to have a conversation, you had to scream into the ear of the person with whom you were talking.

I often wondered why I was partially deaf with a sore throat on the morning after these events.

To be honest, I wasn’t comfortable in night clubs even at that age. I don’t really know when the cut-off point happened, but suddenly I stopped seeing the point of these places. Maybe I just grew up. The problem was, I had a girlfriend who was eight years younger and loved dancing, so I was a somewhat reluctant visitor to these establishments. I tended just to use the opportunity to people watch and chuckle at the antics of the youngsters.

On this particular occasion, there were around ten of us, mostly women, it has to be said. S, was on the dance floor, when a predatory male appeared and started talking to her. I watched with interest, as did Mrs PM and her friends. Mrs PM started laughing at S, and I took that as a cue that perhaps S needed to be rescued.

So I acted. I walked onto the dance floor and tapped S on the shoulder, and beckoned her to join us. She hesitated and then followed me. I was glad to have helped.

If you are a regular reader, then you will know that I am clueless when it comes to women. In particular, I have no idea when a woman genuinely likes me as potential boyfriend material or whether she hates me. In my youth, I have been utterly convinced that women have been in love with me when in reality they just liked me as a friend. And I have had my heart ripped out as a result. Equally, I have been unable to spot when a woman genuinely wants more than just friendship.

And I have never been able to read women well enough to know their feelings for other men.

You can probably guess what is coming.

When S went back to the dance floor a little later, the same predatory male appeared immediately and started talking to S. As I watched, he started touching her shoulder and talking in her ear.

Like a dumb knight I marched back onto the dance floor and was about to intervene when a hand settled on my shoulder.

“What are you doing?” It was Mrs PM.

“Rescuing S,” I said.

“I don’t think she wants to be rescued,” she said.

I looked across at S and the guy and something had clicked. S liked him.

Now then, let’s move back into the time machine and head forwards a month or so.

It was S’s 30th birthday and she was having a big meal to celebrate. Mrs PM is a really close friend of S so we both ended up on her table. I found myself sitting next to Mrs PM on one side and a guy I didn’t know on the other side.

“Hi,” I said turning to the guy. “I’m Dave.”

“Hi,” he replied in a thick Australian accent. “I’m R,”

“You’re an Aussie,” I remarked.

“No shit,” he replied with a grin. I laughed. I liked him.

He was a fairly big guy, well bigger than me anyway and we started chatting.

Mrs PM on the other side of me, butted into our conversation.

“Don’t you recognise R, Dave?”

“No,” I said.

“This is R. He’s S’s new boyfriend. They’ve been going out together for about a month now. They met in South. Remember?”

I looked at him and a second or two later, I recognised him as the predatory male who had been pursuing S.

“Oh yes,” I said. “You were talking to S on the dance floor. I didn’t recognise you.”

He smiled.

And then Mrs PM dropped me right in it.

“Did you know that Dave tried to split you two up? He tried to rescue S because you were chasing her.”

I had a mouthful of beer when she uttered those words and I sprayed beer over the table in shock. I turned to R and tried to explain.

“Well er I, I, er, I er, I, …” I stammered,  thinking that this man was about to punch me in the teeth.

R just laughed and clapped me on the back.

“Not a very good rescuer, then, are you mate?” he said with a grin.

I turned to Mrs PM, feigning anger and said.

“Look, if you want to finish with me, just tell me. Don’t get this poor man to beat me to death.”

We all laughed at that, but the truth was, I was mortified. Of course, when S came to the table we all laughed about it again, my face growing a deeper shade of red as every joke passed.

Let’s pop back to the present day, now, dear reader.

So, what of S and R, I hear you ask.

S and R are now happily married with twins and living in London. Whenever we see each other, Mrs PM still insists on reminding all of us about my failed attempt to split them up. These days, I simply shake my head in embarrassment as it turns crimson, and apologise profusely to R, who simply smiles and says “No worries,”

It has become a standing joke.

I hope you enjoyed this trip down my memory lane.

And as you can see, I was more of a match-breaker than a match-maker. R and S are happily married despite my initial attempts to thwart their relationship.

What have I learned?

I need to have words with Mrs PM about how not to drop me right in the brown and smell stuff.

I really need to get to grips with human behaviour and body language.

Perhaps then I will no longer be a Stupid Cupid.