Further thoughts on Brighton/depressed musings on own inadequacies

Here. I will buy you a fan. The noise will help you sleep at night.

I think Brighton - you did the correct thing. And re: the ladies - it will come.

the various acquaintances i know who moved to eg herne bay/whitstable/dungeness seem to be flourishing

i also thought of hastings, though it is a bit run-down really (ie v.v.cheap but somewhat desolate on a low day)

the point abt those kind of BB/narnia doors is that very often they look exactly like ordinary doors when you're approaching and going through them, and it's only after you realise how different they were

also, today has been a nice morning to sit quietly and read CoM at my sunny kitchen table – let's meet up soon

The trouble is nearly all the other feasible options are no-go areas because they are places both Laura and I knew intimately. So that rules out, for example, York/Yorkshire, Lincoln/Lincs, most of Norfolk, all of Suffolk, Cornwall...because I would be surrounded by reminders, just like I would be/am in Oxford/London.

And anyway it's me who needs to change, not necessarily the environment. I need to stop being so intense about people/life. I fear it's an inherent characteristic in me and not something that can realistically ever be changed. I've pretty well regressed to the state I was in pre-Laura; you can smell the desperation, and that repels everyone.

The thing about Jimmy Corrigan (all three versions of him) is that throughout the book he loses at least a dozen potential friends because he's so damned intense, reluctant to speak out (frightened to speak, even) and incapable of letting go of a dead past. As D Rascal sums it up: "I don't ask for much, so I don't own much"...

nah, I don't buy that Marcello/Corrigan reading. You are just trying to make yourself cooler. ; - )

seriously - have you looked into spain and leaving this godforsaken country altogether - down in spain, they enjoy 'intense' men.

Besides which that's also out of bounds: L & I went to Madrid, Barcelona, toured the Goya country, Seville, Aragon, etc.

It is my misfortune that we were so well travelled...even typing this is making me well up inside; to remember what life was like five or ten years ago - never tired, out every night, endless trips abroad, when I was able to afford to maintain two flats - these days are well and truly gone now, that's for sure.

JEEZUS MARCELLO. I know that everybody needs a whinge but you are not the black day that you paint yourself to be. It will happen. Your worst trait is actually IMPATIENCE!

Cambridge -> Northern Soul allnighters at St Neots -> East Anglia -> also off the menu :-(

it's so lame but the two long-standing relationships that i've had - both came out of nowhere. in the meantime, make yourself happy, by doing exactly what you need to do with your life. write/listen to music/see movies/read books ...

have you taken up any courses? thought about that? we talked about that. have you thought of doing some writinig for careless talk, etc?

if it's a break from london, you need TAKE IT.

When you consider how many hours a week one spends at work, this has got to make a difference....

15 years in the NHS is a turn-off for the publishing world. I know; I've tried it. They don't want to know.

Here's how the situation typically goes:

1. Get on well with/receive kind words from people on ILx/email.

2. Meet up. Always a disaster because I'm over-intense and too impatient for things to happen. I either gabble away at 200 wpm or say next to nothing. They always look at their watches.

3. Friends only. They decide to go off with someone else much less bothersome/handsomer/richer. Eminently understandable but frustrating, and another little bit of me dies anyway.

4. Repeat cycle for remainder of one's life.

So I think I would get on better with someone from outside the ILx community altogether, because that's kind of where the problem starts - I'm a known quantity, so they're naturally wary, thus nothing ever happens.

marcello - it's working - but it's highs and lows. you know i'm always there for a chat and so is mark s. vomit it all that shit from your head *before* you meet up with the ladies. that is what people are here for.

but ilx is defintely not the real world. but what is? just don't insulate yourself becuase you are a) funny b) intelligent c) good company. and i, for one, will be mightily pissed if you did any of that.

it was catalysed by something comically ridiculous and trivial by comparison with what you've been through, but the result was similar: an absolute collapse of confidence in my own sense of worth, at any level (including, after a while, a near-total writer's block on the long-term projects i had committed myself to) — or perhaps more accurately a chilling fear that my surface confidence (always considerable) was absolutely deluded

i still get flashes of that sense of misery and futility — i actually had one last night, for some reason — but i also know that things pass and change, and that things are changing in you even when you can't see/feel that

ilx has been a HUGE help/fillip to me — i think the way going off to college shd have been but actually wasn't — but yes, mileage totally varies cz not everyone is going to need the same things at the same time (but it's the fact that this place is a silly diversion/occasional cartoon for others which has been important to me in working out who i am and what i can be)

anyway, it is so NOT too late for you!!

: - D

and put away the jimmy corrigan books (off topic: i find corrigan relaxing to read??? am i weird?)

(ilx = a completely unexpected and unforeseeable narnia door for me, that's the point i'm making — if someone had tried during the worst days of 1996-98 attempted to outline how it wd impact on me, well, it would just have made no sense whatever to me, i think...)

Cambridge is great and i would urge you to consider it - the same could also be said for many other places in England - although i would hit the coast or Devon (if cornwall is out). As for the women issue think positive and enjoy the chase.

Pretty much anyone would be better off looking for love outside the ILX community.

best of luck with everything Marcello. I have no sensible advice to impart.

Er, except yourself? And Anna, Toby, Emma, Alan, Sarah, Nick, etc etc.

Marcello, I guess I know you as well as most here - not as well as Mark or one or two others do, but we've met several times and talked quite a bit, sometimes seriously. Also, I think I have more in common with you than most: two years ago my marriage of 23 years ended, badly. That's clearly not as horrible as what happened to you, but the aftermath has been full of nastiness, and I think I've gone through a lot of the same things as you. The despair about relationships is one. Now you know what I'm like: I'm older than you, shorter than you, I'm a worse shape than you, less attractive than you. I have no money either. I'm less talented than you, and less knowledgeable. I grew up with a mother who tried to teach me to hate myself, and largely succeeded. My ex-wife has treated me with vicious hatred recently. I've been suffering from severe clinical depression for years, and it has come within a whisker of killing me (that is not an exaggeration - dumb and surprising luck, according to the doctors at the hospital), and equally close to costing me my job.

I've almost given up and killed myself a few times in the last two years, and I'm not remotely going to tell you to stop feeling sorry for yourself, because I do that a hell of a lot. I'll never advise you to stop thinking about Laura either, though I hope gradually the wonderful years you had together will come more to the front of your mind than the awful ending.

But despite all my rotten things above, I have survived. And the time off sick has reduced enough that they are talking promotion at work rather than the sack. I've made new friends, including a bunch through this. I've had a sex life, intermittently, that I would barely believe possible. I've had a few great relationships - they've not lasted beyond a few months each, but they all mattered, and I'll always remember them fondly. All this has made me accept, a little bit, on a good day, that maybe I am reasonably likeable, that some people do find me attractive, that some women do want to be with me.

I know you have had the kind of terrible tragedy that no one should ever have to cope with. I can understand how that can constantly overshadow all else. But I also know that you are a funny, creative, intelligent, interesting and charming man. I know that you have survived something terrible, and come through striving for new successes (the music writing) and that you are deservedly finding some. All this is to your immense credit. You are making things better for yourself, and the fact that you can do this means that you will get some success out of it. I'm not promising you a great relationship on any particular schedule, but I know that if it's what you want and you continue to show the bravery you have in going after what you want, you will find it. You've got a lot going for you, Marcello, and you will learn to marshall all of that better and better as time goes on, and that will make things better for you.

Finally, you know my email, you know I'm around, and you may even have my phone number. ANY TIME!

In so many words, that's how the cycle repeats itself. I suspect that the only way I'm ever going to get any physical affection in the future is if I pay for it.

"there's one other person who's just that little bit better than you so he's the one I'm going to spend my life with"

then that person is not for you. which, is actually BETTER finding that out early than wasting time with that one person, ONLY to start over again... keep it casual.... see if you enjoy that person's company, build it slowly, she's there, you can't stop looking because of a few false starts!!!!

"the fact is that is what in 99% of cases attracts people in the first place" = you return to this a lot, but it is really NOT a "fact" marcello, and you mustn't let it petrify into an excuse for not working on yr social confidence, which is WAY more an issue, and FAR from insoluble — ie if you can be confident in certain circumstances, you can be confident in others; if you charm in print, you can charm in the world

instant attraction (however you explain it) is WAY more random and unexpected than sexiness-as-ordered-by-fashion-mag (ie this is as likely to play for you, or or anyone here, as against them)

you HAVE to decouple your confidence issues with your thing abt your looks: your looks are JUST NOT A PROBLEM

insofar as "first few moments" attraction figures in "blind date" encounters or whatever, it is anyway exactly NOT tied into "attraction to conventional beauty types" (which is a social corrective which kicks in later in the encounter: "i fancy that but i daren't be seen to bcz my friends will mock me") (and yr job in the encounter is the undermine the corrective by making the person think "so what if my friends disapprove, this person is amazing!")

(also: there's some famous american socialite of the 50s — considered by the world to be unusually ugly, though i forget who it was — who said that in five minutes he could "talk any woman past his face": he was of course constantly surrounded by women...)

Then again the ability to charm in print is often inversely proportional to the ability to charm in the world - usually people do the former because they're incapable of the latter.

What happened to my confidence? See my pseudonymous post in the "10-year-old you" thread...

marcello, cheer up. yer a cat.

i have a story for marcello that will cheer him up - after lunch, though.

Marcello I will swap you gladly on this. These people won't even talk to me and it really knocks the crap out of me coz I really did believe I was good enough to work for them once (and in my more objective moments still do). But now I've just had so many knockbacks (actually not many knockbacks it mainly just being completely ignored) that my professional confidence has gone totally down the shitter, hence the being actually really fucking scared to write lately. Maybe we could help each other out(!?). Dunno quite how that would work, but, well, hey... Anyway, the bottom line is you're an interesting guy with stuff to say (cf CoM) and that counts for a lot as far as meeting the right person for you goes...

when i recently went to barcelona, one of s's friends invited this girl, b. b was attractive, yes, and s said: she's got a very beautiful face and it's hard not to stare. and when we all met up at the train station, i thought, blimey, she's attractive... (or whatever cod-english accent you may want to believe in). the only thing is: b was a nightmare. to the point where we had ditch her several times because she was endangering any fun to be had on the vaction. she was bitter about life and let people know it. she was rude to waiters because it was her 'right', whatever, she moaned the entire time: i want to be independant from the group - but refused to leave hte group alone. near the end, i could barely look at her without feeling revulsion. looks = nothing, mate. sorry. you are barking up the wrong whatever, there. you believing so much in looks and dating people who are believing in looks is so wrong. of course there should be attraction but ... there is attraction in otherways.

The four rejections earlier this year are proof of NOTHING wrt your 'attractiveness'. I'm guessing here, based on bits and pieces that you've said on ILX, at FAPs etc, but I reckon it's more likely that you came over as a mixture of awkward, too intense, too keen etc. Also did all four of the other people know all about yr unfortunate recent history? I'm not saying you should hide anything of course, but I strongly feel you'd be successful in finding new friends/love etc if you met loads of people in less 'loaded' situations. Let things develop naturally.

when the levels of comfortablity depend on each person involved.

obviously going on a date and thinking 'this is the one' whilst fanciable and fun, is not very helpful - every relationship should progress naturally.

but assuming that the only way that this is achievable is: but I reckon it's more likely that you came over as a mixture of awkward, too intense, too keen etc.

i.e. change personality traits so that overall, the effect is more pleasing for everyone - marcello is not a channel four television show in crisis - with everyone, the levels of intensity, keeness, change. fluctuate.

thus, i think that is bad advice. i.e. marcello is not boys and girls - all static noise all the time.

two months later i found my first girlfriend, mad, beautiful and wild. she appreciated me for who i was. it's going to happen, marcello. it's sometimes a maddening wait. but it will happen. and when it does, it's natural and beautiful - like the first time you experienced love.

it works and it's incredibly shallow!

My point is that M doesn't get into situations where he rubs up against lots of people/gurls who he could chat with/have a non-loaded coffee or beer with/. It's either total gloom alone OR full-on intense e-relationship followed by crushing disappointment. SO - my advice is - add some new contexts to meet folks. That's all. Maybe it's humdrum advice, but hardly bad or dangerous. I'm not suggesting M should change!!

AND - I apologize for talking about you in the third person in this post, M. I'm fairly uncomfortable about these really personal advice threads - it's better off board or even better face-to-face.

In this respect we are all in the same canoe, or a million analogous ones.

Bryan F was great. No big red carpet/stand to attention entry - I just looked over my shoulder and suddenly there he was, looking amazing. He is now 58! but looked 38. What a nice man he was. In an odd way, when you ask him a question, he tends to glaze over for maybe 10-20 seconds, and you sometimes wonder if he still realises you're there, but then he comes out with a good and considered response. He asked me what else I did in the way of writing. I told him about Church of Me and how the title was inspired by Stanley Spencer - that got his interest and we chatted away about Cookham for a while. I gave him CoM's URL and he said he'd definitely have a look at it when he's got a spare moment. Even if he doesn't, it was still a nice thing to say. Andy Mackay and Rhett Davies were around as well and I got to have a few words with both of them. Good chat with Rhett D about production trends - he agreed that Buckingham's job on Say You Will was remarkable and ahead of anything else at the moment.

Anyway, we then went into the audio room to listen to the playback and got progressively more pissed. Met lots of good people, most of whom I'd only spoken to the 'phone previously, and thought that perhaps I should be looking to the music industry for my day job, rather than the NHS - such a big difference, people you can actually talk to about music/etc. and people I can get on with. Standing on the balcony, looking out into Dean Street in the sunshine, I thought: this is the sort of life I want.

The Roxy people eventually left and Roberts/me/sundry IPC/EMI/Virgin people adjourned to Shuttleworth's in Charing X Road for yet more incautious imbibing. Staggered out of there blissfully after midnight. It was the best time I'd had in ages. Fantastic conversation which came naturally to me, fantastic company - I guess it all comes down to the fact that socialising isn't always that much of a problem provided that you find the right environment for it.

And tonight I do my broadcast on Resonance 104.4 FM! And tomorrow I am picnicking by the Serpentine with friends I have not seen for far too long.

Doesn't life sometimes work out that way?

yes!! yr social life will grow out of yr writing, marcello — that's what i wz being unnecessarily coy abt upthread

doom-e, nobody has as yet solved THE finley quaye problem, so why should your own specific one be so special!?

I'm happy for you and good luck with the broadcast tonight :-)

2 things, though. It's predominantly guys who are telling you you look okay (or better than okay, in most cases) because women (not that I can really speak from them, but I have hopefully known enough to know this to be true) simply DON'T have as much of a hang up with looks as you (think they) do. Step outside at lunchtime - see all the couples going past - what proportion of them are conventionally beautiful? But they love each other, or maybe they're just having brutal sport sex - no matter, they're together despite, or possibly because their looks aren't all that.

Can you honestly say you've never formed a crush on someone *after* you've started talking to them, as their charm and warmth and humour comes through? And isn't it more satisfying than just thinking "nice tits"? It's my experience that women do this even more than men, putting you in a pretty strong position as you have so much to offer emotionally and intellectually. These aren't empty platitudes, this is how the world works. It's all about compromise, idiosyncracy and unexpected feelings.

Good luck with it all.

I'm glad you had a brilliant day yesterday and I'm sure tonight will go wonderfully (I just hope my fucking PC at home doesn't crash so I can listen to it all). x

hasd something completely passed me by here? or am i being dim? Or both?

The Outer Reaches of the Blogosphere
http://www.exclaim.ca/index.asp?layid=22&csid1=1686

(btw thanks for yr wonderful email mark - immeasurably appreciated)