Sven's life in Oz

We cannot always do what our heart desires; but if we always do what our head tells us then what is the point in having a heart at all?

When I was a boy I used to complain about doing things without any choice in them. Little did I know then that making choices means living with them. You can’t blame other people when you make the decision freely. You can talk to people and ask for opinions, but you must decide who listen to, and whether you think they are right. Sometimes you should listen to their advice. Other times not.

A choice is always a gamble: living with the right ones always easier than the wrong ones. Hardest of all are the ones where your heart was right, your brain was wrong and there’s nothing you can do about it. Sometimes you can go back and change your mind. Other times not.

I need to remember to trust myself more: I am best when I lead with my heart. I’m lucky like that: my heart is usually right and my trust or love or caution is usually rewarded. But sometimes my brain takes the lead, and sometimes it agrees with my heart, and other times not. Regret comes after your brain betrays your heart, even for noble reasons; and you have no one to blame but yourself.

Over the past few months I have made some bad choices. I have to live with them now. That’s the deal you make when you listen to your head and not your heart. For better or worse, we’re in it together. I’m not dead, but I don’t feel stronger.

Maybe, after a while.

Oh, man, was I ever into him! “What happened?”, you may well ask. Well, he moved to China. There’s always something, isn’t there? After digging myself out of the iPhone debacle he went off and passed his exam, then decided to take a career break and travel around Asia for three months or so. I saw him once before he left. He told me in the first two minutes, and I spent the rest of the evening wondering why he hadn’t just told me over the phone and saved me $50 on dinner out. Naturally I was my charming, witty self throughout and by the end of the night I was satisfied that it was definitely his loss. Quite honestly, he was hard work.

How did I get so crazy over this guy? Yes, he’s hot with moments of fun and excitement, and yes, he had the most gorgeous fingers I have ever seen. However, I let all that go to my head: I put his timidity on our first date down to nerves, but really he just didn’t talk very much. He was a profound conversational recalcitrant; I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and ended up creating a complete fantasy personality. We had great dates because I didn’t actually go out with him – I was having dinner and drinks with my imaginary Dr Boyfriend-in-waiting. It was doomed from the start.

After the China revelation, I was working so hard on maintaining my enthusiasm for his trip that I couldn’t keep the make-believe personality going too – there’s only room for so much crazy in my brain. Without the pretend version, the real Dr Lego was exhausting. I’m not exactly verbose – I prefer to listen lots and speak when I have something to say – but next to him I was verbally incontinent. My efforts to keep the conversation going led me to more and more desperate topics. At one point I may actually have asked his preference of mattress manufacturer. Eventually I realised that my dignity was worth more than his comfort and I just gave up. I may never find out what material surgical scrubs are made from.

At the end of the night we went our separate ways and promised to stay in touch. Start submitting conversation topics now – I may end up needing them.

Last week I announced on Twitter that I neither relished nor resented Valentine’s Day this year. I have been working so hard and avoiding the shops lately, so it has rather flown under my radar, but as the big day approaches it is slowly seeping in through the virtual windows of my life: updates are appearing on Facebook, tips on buying flowers are dropping into my email more regularly, and the Valentine hashtags are becoming a permanent feature of my TweetDeck. The day itself, thanks to the wonders of time differences and universal connectivity, will last about 36 hours on Twitter as the sun rises on 14 February around the world, long after it began to shine on Australian lovers.

This will be my first Valentine’s Day as a single man in over a decade. I keep my old Valentine cards – not as an ego trip, but to remind me when I’m down that people have cared. It’s good to remind yourself that your are lovable, especially when you don’t feel it. And if this post sounds melancholy, it really isn’t: I’m actually quite chipper. Things are going well – work is good, I’m making new friends all the time and laughing more and more each day. I’ve been on a second date with the blind date – Dr Lego, as he has become known – and the latest one (last night) was great. So why am I sitting in bed, typing paragraph after paragraph about a date on the calendar I really care nothing about?

I was pottering about, doing things that needed doing, when I caught myself wondering if Dr Lego would call. Of course I knew he wouldn’t, but sometimes these thoughts just pop into your head. It’s frustrating and distracting and after a while it can drive you crazy, but underneath all the “will he, won’t he?” and the “I’m not thinking about it”, there’s a tiny light of excitement, a little glee in your heart that says “this is what it is like to be alive”.

Now, I’m not mad enough to think that two dates is any kind of basis for a relationship – he might turn out to be an axe murderer or seal clubber or a mime artist – but the beginning, the trepidation, the exicitement and the unknown are all the things that Valentine’s Day celebrates. Even when I check my postbox on Sunday morning and find it predictably empty, and even if he hasn’t called me back because he’s drowning puppies in a sack under a bridge somewhere, I won’t mind too much. Landing on your ass with egg on your face is the tails side of the coin, and sometimes it comes up heads.

As I eat my french toast alone on Sunday morning, I will remind myself that I can feel the things we all feel, that they are waiting for me when I least expect it, quite suddenly, without warning, and not just on one day but on any day; and they are all just wonderful.

Heart like a swinging brick? Whoever heard such rubbish?

Sometimes writing is good to get things off my chest. Other times, it can be good to put off writing about something until I have thought about it some more. At these times getting it down on paper is more like ordering my thoughts; like running them through a sieve to get all the crap out before I can make anything out of them. This is one of those times.

I am having a good time being single. However, lately it seems that the whole world wants to settle down and get married. Every man I meet is looking for a boyfriend, which is fine, but when I say that I’m not that guy things go decidedly sour very quickly. Most recently a guy actually told me off for leading him on because, I can only assume, I didn’t tell him right at the start that I wasn’t looking for a long-term relationship. (The idea of ‘looking for a long-term relationship’ is odd to me anyway – I always thought these things happened organically. It appears I was wrong.) This latest episode got me wondering whether everyone is looking to settle down, or if I am the cause of my own problems. Turns out it might be a bit of both.

Last week in the pub, I lamented my sorry tales to the NEC, who told me that my problem was being too nice. “You are friendly,” he said. Ordinarily it would be a compliment. “You need to be more shrewd. You can see why people get the wrong idea. Don’t text back straight away; leave them hanging for a while. They’ll get the message.” The problem is I’m crap at that kind of thing. I like to text back straight away or I forget – just ask my sister. I adore her, but I’m rubbish at keeping in touch. If I don’t do it immediately, you’ll be waiting till Christmas to hear from me. Whatever the relative merits of playing games, I hate it when people do it to me and I’m dreadful at doing it to anyone else.

When I discussed it over cocktails with my friend, Sarah, we came out with quite a different answer. “You’re not too nice: you just can’t help it. It’s not your fault you are charming,” she said. Of course people would want to settle down with me, the conversation went, I’m freakin’ fantastic. I’m a victim of my own loveliness, it seems. Whether it’s true or not (and there are days when I assure you it most certainly is not), friends who can take your crushed confidence and turn it into ego-restoring compliments like that should be treasured forever.

Finally I talked about it with James, and he looked at me incredulously. He often wonders what planet I live on, and this was definitely one of those times. He cut straight to the chase.
“People are looking for love,” he said. “Maybe you aren’t, but most people are. It’s what people do.”
He could always tell me what I needed to hear when I didn’t want to listen – in this case: “it’s not all about you”. I’m not too nice: if anything I’m rather selfish. But he made me see that there’s nothing wrong with that, so long as I remember that the rest of the world doesn’t necessarily see things my way. So you want to date me? I’m flattered, not faulty. Thanks but no thanks, and that’s all there is to it.

Right, what’s next?

The internet is on the fritz this evening so I thought I would make a head start on a couple of entries that I know I will probably need to think about before I click ‘publish’; this is the first of them. As you may recall, I went for a drink with the Nice Enough Chap a couple of weeks ago and discovered that there is still some attraction. Last Sunday we met up again for some afternoon drinks and, it turned out, a spot of dinner. Whilst I would be lying if I said I was no attraction at all, it’s certainly not the kind of thing that will set the world on fire, and he is actually becoming a valued and lovely friend. As normal, we chatted about life, friends and other things until eventually we got around to love lives. I related a tale that has repeated itself with me a few times – the NEC notwithstanding – where most of the men I have met lately all have one thing on their mind: a long term relationship.

If you could bottle my reaction to those three words and sell it on the shopping channel, any fool with a tv set and a credit card could be an Olympic sprinter. For the record, I’m not running a mile because I’m afraid of commitment, which is the usual accusation, but because I’m not going to waste my time or yours pretending that I’m interested. Life is too short. I’m not suggesting that I’m about to hang a sign on my door welcoming you to Babylon, but I’m also not going to poke anything with a ten foot pole that looks or sounds like it might be monogramming the wedding invites in the back room already. Oh, hell no.

The NEC had two comments: first, I am friendly. Too friendly. And nice. Wayyyyy too nice. I can hear some of you guffaw at the very idea, but hold your titters. I will explore that in another post. For now, let’s stick with the second point: how can I be sure that I don’t want a relationship?

“What if Mr Right were to walk in here right now and you just thought, ‘wow’? What would you do then?” It’s a fair question, and for a moment I thought I might be stymied. I tried to imagine what Mr Right would have to have to be worthy of the title, and that’s when it dawned on me: at the moment, there is no Mr Right for me. Not in a bad way, of course. I’m not planning a lonely demise in my underwear with only my pets and my hardened, bitter heart for company. I’m sure that I’ll meet someone somewhere down the line and things will be wonderful; I just don’t think that Mr Right is an extant individual waiting to be found. There might be more than one Mr Right, and they might only be borrowing the name for a while. There might be just one and it will be the stuff of legends. But I don’t think any of them are out there waiting to realise a destiny with me. Interest and surprise and romance and love all help you grow into Mr Right for the person you meet who is worthy of it; if you are lucky the same thing happens in them, too. Mr Right isn’t born for you: he is you.

Perhaps this is all hopelessly romantic – a selfless devotion that you enjoy and get back in return is pretty Brothers Grimm – but it’s the way I believe it works. Everything we need to make us happy is already inside us, and we just need the right person to make it grow. And this is why I know I’m not ready for that yet. I’ve got things to do on my own, and for the time being I am my own Mr Right. For now, there’s only Mr Right Now or Mr Right, Who’s Getting The Drinks In? And everyone else will just have to wait.