Category Archives: General Rambling

For posts that just go on and on and on and on and ……

Keeping it under control.

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I don’t really know how to tell you this.  I am, in a way, obsessed.

Well, I’m not even sure it’s ‘in a way’ but rather that it is an obsession.  It’s not the same as the washing my hands thing, which I do a number of times a day, even for no real reason, other than I feel I should, like now that I’ve written this, I feel that my hands are incredibly dirty.  No, this one is based on something real, I think.

I didn’t come from a demonstrative family.  I mean, obviously, we had cuddles as kids but my parents weren’t ones for holding hands with each other or, really, touching in any way.

And, so, whether because of them or something else, I don’t like to touch people.  I used to hate having my haircut for a similar reason.  Someone I didn’t know was touching me.  It was almost sexual, even if it really was not.

So, I don’t do the big hug thing, even with Best Mate – and yet we do, sometimes – and I want to – it’s just that I feel so self-conscious about it.  And, when it comes to men, well, this I find more difficult.  I do kiss men on the cheek here, as it is the norm but it still makes me feel uncomfortable – unless they’re gay, when it’s, sort of, OK – more like kissing my girl friends, really.

So, the obsession.  It’s not about NOT touching people but rather that, with my partner, I feel the NEED to touch him.  OK, you may say, nothing wrong with that.  And, indeed, were that all, then that would be fine.  The problem is that I want to touch him ALL THE TIME!  And, should you be thinking that I am, in some way, exaggerating this, I can assure you, I am not.

I realise that this will wear off in time, although I still touched V quite a lot, even towards the end.  In fact, without big arguments, it was one of the ways he used to be able to register his anger at me – but moving away from me and, therefore not allow the ‘touching thing’ to occur.

It’s almost as if, being starved of human contact, I do all my touching to the one person, in this case F.  And, in itself, this is not the problem.  Although, it is the problem of course.  Let’s take the situations:

1.  In bed.  He doesn’t like to be hot.  He has warned me that we simply cannot touch in summer and, more or less, I am the same.  I burn up (in all seasons) and may be a nice radiator/hot water bottle in winter but in summer it is unbearable.  Unfortunately, he didn’t realise this was the case in winter also.  So, touching him becomes more of a problem after a while.
2.  In general.  Since I won’t leave him alone, it becomes ticklish or uncomfortable for him.  And so he tells me to stop.  And I do…for a while.  And then, because I am not thinking, I find I am doing it again!
3.  And this leads to……  well, sex.  Which is neither always necessary nor welcome, of course.  I mean, it doesn’t always lead to sex.  It can’t as it’s not really physically possible – not that many times, anyway :-)

So, the other night I realised that I have to stop it before it just becomes very annoying for him.  Last night, with much concentration, I did manage to stop it.  We lay on the bed watching television (Le Vite degli Altri – The Lives of Others – great film) and I didn’t touch him.  He held my hand and lay on my chest, but if he turned away or whatever, I didn’t automatically reach out for him, nor rub his belly or chest, nor legs, nor anything.

But it is some kind of obsession.  As soon as he is in the same room as I am I want to touch him, put my arms around him, etc.  And it needs to stop or, at least, be kept under some sort of control!

Sometimes, I find Italy a little frustrating.

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Of course, I should have known better, really.  There are the three rules:-

1.  Siamo in Italia
2.  Customer Service.  Sorry, what was that again?
3.  Siamo in Italia ancora.

My phone was ‘broken’.  I really believe that they set a ‘useful’ life, at which point, the phone stops working, making it imperative that you buy a new one.  The reason for this?  I had a phone. Nearly 4 years old.  Suddenly, it stops making any sound or giving any screen display to show that a new message has been received or a call missed.

It’s just my phone, I thought.  Someone with the same model lent me theirs as they have no use for it any more.  It does the same.  And yet, if the sim is put into a newer model, it works fine.  Hmmm.

So, the choice was to go and get a new phone or change provider.  Since transferring to a new provider gives you a much better rate and a cheaper phone (special deals for new customers), it seemed the wisest thing to change provider.

First there was Wind (part of Infostrada).  I didn’t want it to go on my credit card (you don’t have the consumer protection thing here like you do in the UK – if a mistake is made you have to prove that it’s not your mistake an, in the meantime, the money is taken from your bank anyway), so asked to set up the equivalent of a Direct Debit.  We spent a few hours in the shop, taking copies of my passport, noting my Codice Fiscale (similar to a National Insurance number and absolutely necessary here if you want to do almost anything), etc.  Then came the fun part of typing it into the computer.  After a number of tries they said I must have either the actual card for the Codice Fiscale or the Health Card, neither of which I have.  So that was that.

Then I tried TIM.  TIM were great.  The situation would be sorted in about 2 weeks and when the number stopped working with 3 I was to go back to the shop, pay a small amount and get my new Blackberry.

After two weeks had passed I went to the shop.  Apparently there was no problem but it would be another week.

Another 2 weeks passed.  This morning I found that my 3 (spit spit) sim didn’t work anymore.  Great, in that the transfer was made.  Bad in that the new sim from TIM didn’t work in my (crap anyway) 3 phone as it is locked to 3.  Never mind.  This would all be fixed this evening when I went to the TIM shop and got my brand, spanking-new Blackberry.

Luckily, I borrowed an old phone to try out my sim – it’s working fine – but it’s not my phone.

As I sit here now at the computer I look at the phone a colleague lent me, very grateful that he did.  I drove from work, rushed straight to the TIM shop.  They were very helpful.  They found the Blackberry and proceeded to fill in forms; enter stuff on the computer and, as is normal here, generally take half an hour to do something that should, in reality, take about 10 minutes.

However, the problem, it seems, is that although TIM have moved the number, it takes 24 hours for the contract to appear on the computer system.  And the other problem is that the ‘special offer’ that applies to my contract has ended.  The brand-spanking-new Blackberry is sitting in the box but I’m not allowed to have it.

‘Can you come back tomorrow?’ she asks.

There was no solution – and, trust me, I tried everything I possibly could.

Tomorrow, I must go again.  That, plus get my suit altered, take the test, do Nan’s Trifle to take with us tomorrow night to R&Al’s, etc. etc.

Sometimes, I find Italy a little frustrating.

The Moment will last

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The 3 words were spoken and it took me a moment to register them.

I was surprised and delighted.  It was unexpected.  It was almost in passing, hence the fact that it took me a second or two.  I said that it was the first time but, apparently not.  He insisted that he had already said them a couple of weeks ago.  I don’t remember and I thought I would have remembered.  Maybe I was asleep?

It doesn’t matter anyhow.  They’ve been said now.  It means he feels comfortable with the ‘us’ that is.

This evening he returns to Milan.  I want to be with him.  I want to hold him and smother him in kisses.  The ‘missing’ of him becomes greater, not lessened by availability nor by the act of living and the mundane.  Obviously, this won’t continue for ever, I know, but I will enjoy it (and suffer it) whilst it lasts and be grateful for it and counting my blessings and realising that I am, as always, it seems, an extremely fortunate (or lucky) person for whom life has a way of working things out.

And it makes me think of the first meeting; how I was convinced that nothing would happen but that he was, in fact, the person from the chat, exactly, and that all the time I was searching and looking and going out with others, he was in my mind as ‘THE GUY’, even if I thought he was unobtainable.

And I think that life is full of strange twists and turns and surprises and, yet, is it true?  Has everything been leading to this moment, the ‘moment’ that occurred and was so fleeting but makes me happy and content and relaxed and fills me with so much joy, so much love, just …….. so much.

A moment is all it was

Yet, the moment will last.

Waiting is both agony and ecstasy!

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In an hour from now, I shall be on my way to pick up F.  As the day has worn on, the feelings I have became more intense.  It’s one of excitement, of longing.  Just to see him but also to kiss him, to feel his body next to mine.  This is the Karl Spark, I just know it.  I think he feels the same but you can never be sure.

He’s coming in an hour earlier than he had told me, so the meal I had planned is not done.  However, we’ll see how it goes – maybe I’ll do it anyway – at his house.  Or maybe we’ll go out to his favourite Sardinian restaurant, or get a take-away pizza or something.

To be honest, I don’t really care.  Just to be with him is enough.

My stomach churns with the excitement.  I can’t eat and yet I feel so hungry.  And I can hardly sit still.  I can picture him and the picture is perfect.  His eyes, his mouth, his hair – there, right in front of me.  I want to squeeze him so hard; I want him to know that I’ve missed him, although I think he might get it anyway.  I hope so and I hope he feels the same.

The excitement is so bad I want to leave now, as if by being there it will make the plane early!

Waiting is both agony and ecstasy!

Yes, it’s OK, I know I’m crazy

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As I have dyed my hair since I was about 25, almost all the time, I make no secret of it. Hence, when I started getting grey hair, it was no problem to use the dyes that cover the grey. Since, when I met Victor, I used to dye it jet black, I tended to go for a darker colour than was natural and, should anyone ask me, I would confirm that I dyed it. Why not?

And so, every time I had my hair cut, I would also dye it.

F asked me on our first meeting if I dyed my hair and I confirmed that. He said I should leave it grey as that would be nice and he thought it was sexy. I promised that, the next time I had my hair cut I would let him see it before I dyed it, so he could understand why I dyed it!

And so, Friday night, I had the haircut. I have it cut short now as it is also getting so thin. He liked it both short and grey. He said it really looks good. So I haven’t dyed it this time. I was going to do it yesterday but ended up without time as we spent nearly all day together. Last night G came up and we went to the Brasserie Bruxelles. We were joined by A & F2 (and, of course, my F). G said that I looked younger (I’m sure it’s really that I look happier); F2 said it looked better without dye.

So, maybe, I shall leave it after all. It felt a bit strange until last night, really, not having it very dark brown. Let’s see what it’s like when I go into work.

After all, it’s a little thing, really, and if F likes it, then, maybe, I should just leave it as it is. I think it makes me look much older – but then the wrinkles and the lack of sleep don’t really help. In a strange way, I’m quite looking forward to next week……..but I’m sure that will change after one night without him!

And, of course, there will be the paranoia that will set in when I’m not with him. The one where I think that I’m too old for him; that we have nothing in common, etc.

Humph. Even as I don’t think this now, I know that’s what will happen after a day apart.

Yes, it’s OK, I know I’m crazy

…..it’s just too effing hard! (Tu sei un bastardo!)

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“But why aren’t you speaking Italian?”, he asks.  “Have you forgotten last night?”

“Oh no”, I wail, using my pathetic, feel-sorry-for-me voice, “but it’s too difficult on the phone”.

“No it isn’t” he states, adding “it’s easier.  So, are you going to do it or not?”

Of course, he is speaking in almost perfect English.  I want to say ‘but it isn’t fair’, but I don’t.  I can’t tell if he is slightly angry or frustrated with it or it’s just put on but I don’t want to take the risk.  I want him to come round tonight.  I miss him.  I want him badly enough that I say, albeit reluctantly and with a heavy voice, just in case he hasn’t got the message, “Va bene”.

Then we start the conversation again.  “How has your day been?” he asks.  He’s wrong, it really is difficult for reasons I will explain in a moment – and, so, he gets a one word answer “Male”.

“Why?” he asks.  I burst into laughter.  “Bastardo” I say through the laughter.  As I say it I realise it should have been “Tu sei un bastardo” but it’s not important, he knows what he’s doing and he knows that he is!

“I clienti” I add.  And then he says something in Italian that I didn’t catch.  He says he will phone me later.  I say OK.  I love that Italians use English words, thank goodness!

But it is difficult.  I have to really concentrate to speak Italian and there are too many distractions here.  Plus, there is no way that I want my colleagues to know I speak Italian.  I lose my advantage that way, even if some of them do know this (Pietro!) and I need all the advantage I can get!

But now, it seems, he wants me to speak Italian all the time?  I have to have some breaks from it…….it’s just too effing hard!

- and I quote -

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Before we actually met – the day of the meeting, actually (10/10/2009)…..

“This one actually seems important but will, in all probability, end up like the rest.”

“because I had moaned at F (via chat) about Italian men and how difficult it was for me to handle them, I am now preparing to go to his flat as I write this”

Taken from I don’t know what to give as a title

The day after we met (11/10/2009)…………..

“I cannot explain how different I feel about him”

“At one point, as he is refilling my glass, he comes over and kisses me”

Taken from What really counts….< And V and I were chatting last night…………..and, yes, this scares me too.  After all, it’s only been a month!

So much to explain

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I keep meaning to have this serious conversation.  But it would be better in bed.  It would be better when I am holding him, loving him, looking into his eyes, so that he can see that I am ‘true’.

And then, when I am not with him, I think about how I can talk about it.  How I can start it.  It’s not easy.

“I want to have a serious conversation about x”.  That seems easy but far too direct.  I need to be more subtle, I know.  But, as V reminded me the other day, I’m not always so good at being subtle.

Of course, there is more than one of these conversations to have.  And there will be more to come, I guess.  I am procrastinating for sure but also because I don’t want to spoil the mood.  When I’m with him, we kiss (often), cuddle (often) and generally just like to touch each other.  I don’t want something I say to make him pull away.

As I’ve said before, as if, by touching we can get closer still, as if the closeness that we feel is not enough, as if it might go away if we do not touch.

He made dinner.  He doesn’t cook often, he says.  It was lovely, of course.  It would have been lovely whatever it was.  We drank wine.  We talked about his ex and what used to happen and about how, now we are older, we are both more set in our ways but how it will be important to ‘close one’s eyes’ or compromise.  We aren’t stupid.  It’s like a ‘grown-up’ relationship and I like that.

He wanted me to get up at the normal time I do as I had told him that I was getting up later when I stayed with him.

“But it’s OK”, I said, “I can get in later”.

“Yes, but I don’t want you to finish late” he said.

I wonder if that’s because the time I get home, if I go in early, suits the timing for him too.  I smile at that, pretty sure that it’s partly selfish on his part that I get up earlier.

Still, let’s not run, shall we?

“I’ll cook Christmas Dinner”, he says during our conversation.  I’m finding it difficult to react in the right way.  I’m staying impassive.  It’s not a good thing either but I’m frightened of scaring him, wanting everything.  It’s another of those ‘serious conversations’ that we must have.

Later still I say the three words again.  I don’t think he’s so scared by them now.  I’m still here, the next day – unlike the last time they were said to him.  I understand why he’s scared.  He doesn’t trust me yet.  He doesn’t know me, of course.

But, there’s just so much to explain!

Neck Height and still digging!

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Sooner or later I really should tell F about this blog.  I mean, it’s not good to keep secrets from each other, is it?  And this is a big part of who I am, possibly, probably.  Which makes this post more dangerous than others because, not only is this blog not known to him but neither is this other problem – which wasn’t a problem – until last night!

And I ummmed and ahhhed about this and whether I should post this but, since I had decided this blog would detail all of the ups and downs of life after V, I feel I owe it to you, dear reader, to tell all – well, almost all.

The question is – how to post this without sounding a bad person when really, it’s not because I’m bad, it’s because I am too soft.  And I know that you will have opinions and have advice over this.  Don’t think, for a moment, that I haven’t already been through all this in my head already.  I know what I should do.  I know what is the right thing to do but………

The problem came only last night.  Before that it was controlled and controllable and no problem, since it was only chat and nothing else.  And the problem with last night was that the three magic words were uttered and now I feel a cad – and, yet, it’s really not my fault, even as it is entirely my fault.

I am a bastard but a kind and loving bastard, albeit a bastard all the same.

And so, you need to know the story.  On this one site, where I was meeting some men, there was this kid (and I say kid though he is 30 and at that age I had a company and a new boyfriend (V) and the start of a 20-year relationship).  We had chatted a lot.  Some of it of a sexual nature, him liking certain things that I also like.  But not always about sex, in fact, often not.  You may remember, if you were reading at that time, he had a boyfriend in Spain.  He kept on promising to meet me but never did.  He also has other problems and, being the person I am, I felt that I might be able to help him.  And so we chatted.

Then he came over one night but only because he was in Milan anyway for some friends dinner and we had like 20 minutes.  And then there was F.  And so, with all the other men and the forthcoming arrangements I had made, I sent a standard chat message to say that I couldn’t really see them any more as I had started a relationship.

See, I was being good and not hedging my bets – after all, F was the ‘one’.

Except this one.  I don’t know why (and it’s not that I find him particularly attractive or anything and nor that I thought we had any future (the boyfriend in Spain being a major part of that thinking)) but I felt that I should tell him face-to-face; to break it more gently; not to dismiss him without him seeing that I was sorry it could not be more even if it was destined not to be more in any event.

And so, for a week or so we hardly chatted.  And then, over the last few days, we chatted some more.  The day before yesterday no sex chat as he was feeling really down, then yesterday afternoon, the sex chat as before, which does nothing for me but seems to do quite a lot for him.

And, yes, I know – I should not have replied, or kept it off sex or something – but it’s harmless, right?  I mean, it’s not like we shall meet any time soon, right?  And even if we did I would be strong and make sure that nothing happened, right?

Well…..yes….but……………………

And then, at the end, he wrote those three words.  And I thought: ‘Oh shit’.

It was unexpected.  I couldn’t reply for almost an hour.  I mean, we’ve had chats and seen each other for 20 minutes.  I replied that he didn’t even know me.  He said he knew that.  I was at a loss for words at that point.  I thought: ‘If only I had told him like the others'; ‘If only I had done this or that’.

But I didn’t.  And I thought of those three words and the fact that I had said them to F and that it had made him scared.  I don’t feel scared by having them written to me – only………

Only what?  Only something. I don’t want this guy to be hurt and I know by my failure to tell him the real circumstances originally, when I should have; when I told everyone else, I WILL hurt him.  But I cannot just leave him hanging…….after those words…….

I am a bastard.  And now?  What am I to do about it?  He is young enough to be my son and, kind of, I wanted to help him that way, but this thing is blurred by the fact that this thing was not clear at the beginning, became less clear as time went on and is now so unclear as to leave him in complete darkness.  And to tell him?  With the shit that he is going through anyway?  This will make it worse?

And so, I have dug this hole and I am in it up to my neck and, it seems, I am digging deeper.  I have to find a way out.  Seriously!

You may judge me if you want; you may comment if you want; I will put them through although I may not reply.  I have to sort this thing out – I want to sort this thing out.  I want it to be ‘right’.

To be honest, I have been saying all the way along that he should just move to Spain.  To be with the boyfriend who, apparently, loves him like crazy.  Before those three words were written last night, there was nothing, really.  But now?

I am a stupid bastard.

Oh, yes, and in case you were thinking that this was the problem I mentioned in the post before last….it isn’t.  I am a stupid, seriously fucked-up bastard.

But, it wasn’t meant to be like this.