On redefining respect

Did you know that pretty much every episode of 'The Biggest Loser' is on YouTube? For those not in the know, it's an American show where they take spectacularly overweight people, yell at them for about ten weeks while they're in a gym, and get them to lose the pounds. Being American, there is a serious cheese-factor going alongside this too – everyone is on a 'journey' and has to 'discover themselves'. Yikes.

After a knackering few days, I collapsed in a heap at lunchtime with three episodes of this ludicrous yet worryingly addictive show. [Incidentally, it's fairly ironic that they drag episodes out to such an extent, while constantly making the observation that all the contestants previously sat around watching TV. I think they should introduce a little person in the corner of the screen who is working out in a sitting room, and all those watching can follow along. Makes much more sense.]

At some point this afternoon, I think all those ridiculous comments sunk into me. Hell, is there actually something in this American approach after all?? I had an epiphany, admittedly about 15 years later than I should have done, but still. It came.

An important point before I reveal this epiphany: the majority of you regard me as an outstandingly negative and pessimistic individual. I'm really not, nor have I ever been. I'm remarkably optimistic, in fact, and have a tendency to see the good in people far before I see the bad.

That's relevant, because with every single relationship I've had I have dismissed or overlooked major issues – purely by saying to myself, 'oh, but he gets THIS bit right.' Here are some things I have put up with from exes, and these are in no particular order:

he told me I was too fat and needed to lose weight
he told me I was too thin and needed to gain weight
he waited for me to go to sleep at night, and then talked with other women online. He met up with at least one of them
he became drunk and verbally abused me
he became drunk and was physically threatening, refusing to leave me alone even as I tried to push him away
he became drunk and tried to rape me
he slept with me, then told me he was getting back together with his ex
he slept with me days after I found out my mum had cancer, then told me he wanted nothing more to do with me
he went on a date with an ex while he was going out with me, and even asked me for cash to take with him on that date
he went on holiday with another girl while dating me, and somehow didn't think I'd find out (if you're going to cheat, make sure the person you are tarting about with doesn't have a blog where they detail anything and everything)
he made me do things I didn't want to do, by indicating that I was worthless if I wouldn't
he refused to tell mutual friends that we were dating, incase one of them in particular was 'hurt'

The scariest thing about that list? It's just the start of it. And hardly any of these guys have I walked away from when they did those things to me. I have never called time on a relationship immediately after any of those events. Rather, I have waited. I have waited and tolerated and been made miserable. I have always clung to the positives rather than face up to the negatives.

Not anymore. I don't think it's right to have a mental check list of 'what I want in a partner'; you'll miss out on some wonderful people if you do that. But it is right to have a list of things that are absolutely unacceptable to you.

As the corny, cheerleading Americans repeatedly say on that dratted TV show, you have to learn to love yourself first. If you do, you'll never put up with such utter rubbish from somebody else. I have spent my entire life living with the belief of 'not being good enough', and frankly it's time I clambered over that hurdle.

All those guys I alluded to there, I have loved to some degree or another. Some of those references are to the one I hinted at in my last blog post. How utterly ridiculous is that?

2014: I hope I make it the year where I figure out what I want as an individual, and where I can respect myself enough not to take this crap again. As the years have gone by I've felt increasingly broken by the incidents I've mentioned above – and the countless others I just don't feel like writing on here. I am going to make a promise to myself now, and if I inspire just one reader to do the same then I've at least achieved something this year.


“There is only one real misfortune: to forfeit one's own good opinion of oneself. Lose your complacency, once betray your own self-contempt and the world will unhesitatingly endorse it.” [Thomas Mann]

Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure

If the first two weeks of 2014 are anything to go by, it'll be a tiring year. I'm back to not being able to sleep properly. Over a decade ago I had to learn the trick of falling asleep to a flickering television screen; I had become so used to curling up next to somebody that the sudden loneliness at night after he went away was all-encompassing. A friend made a comment to me recently that he only gets to fall asleep through exhaustion these days, and I've realised I'm at the same point.

Silence becomes suffocating. My happy equilibrium has been destroyed and I've crossed over from the Peaceful Alone and taken up residence in the world of the Discontented Lonely.

There is a wonderful line in 'The Great Gatsby' (all the lines are wonderful, come to that) -

“Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that green light had now vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to her, almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.”

The end of any relationship invariably sees a smashed path of those enchanted objects stretching before us. Future moments are taken away. Memories are associated with a particular person and it is impossible to extricate them from the scene and replace them with somebody new simply because that is what we would like to do. Some music is lost to us forever. Phrases. Whatever meant something to us with 'them' becomes a barrier between any future 'us' that might be created. Everything from places to poems, scents to gestures, sends me tumbling back into a past I wish I could forget.

There are some people you'll meet who you know are playing a game. You blithely concede to become a part of that; some emotions are banished, and you are safe. Then there are those who catch you out – you don't realise until too late that it was all just a challenge to them, and once they are tired of the game they'll abruptly move on. Another 'Gatsby' thought:

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back to their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made...”.

It's almost easier to deal with those than the third category: those you are never quite sure of. Did it mean anything to them? Are they now laughing about you; using those same lines on somebody else? Or are they also awake at 4am, wondering what the hell just happened to their dreams?

The feelings will eventually creep away. You shut them into a loosely bolted casket and come to learn how to lean heavily on the lid. Yet again, though, I find myself wanting a sneak preview of the future – just to be sure that, once more, I emerge from the other side and manage to get a little peace again. During this past week, aided by distractions and friends and drinks, I have clutched a little desperately onto positive emotions and forced myself to organise some of the practicalities of life. And now, I am somewhat inevitably going through the opposing feelings; I'll be achieving a rocky but bearable equilibrium at some as yet unknown point. It's been done before.

Until then, along with Argentine lyricist Cadicamo, I want my heart to get drunk.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

Where the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”