I’m just an ordinary, simple kind of bloke.  I like food, beer and wine, the sun, relaxing, reading, watching a good film, having good times and conversations with friends, etc.

I don’t like football, ignorant and bigoted people, bad food, driving, smelly people, etc.

I don’t have hidden depths.  Scratch the surface and there’s just more surface, nothing else.

At least that’s what I think.  Of course, buried deeply (but nowhere near as deep as I would like) there is a box containing my darkest secrets, occasionally opened, for a brief moment, by some involuntary, triggered memory – but, surely, everyone has that box?

So, why is it then, that, from time to time, people get the idea that I’m secretive and not entirely open?  That there’s some well-concealed, hidden ‘me’ that they want to try and unlock but that I’m deliberately trying to keep from them?

It happened again the other night.  And when confronted, what on earth do I say?  ‘No, actually, I’m really just this shallow’ or ‘Yes, but I can’t talk about it in the interests of national security’.

In fact, my response is, generally, to say nothing.  If people believe this crap then anything I say will confirm what they already believe.  A denial will confirm that there really is something there and if I were to agree with them then it must be true!

Sure, there are things (many of them in the box) that happened, both to me and by me, that have shaped the person that I am and I’m not going to discuss them here or, in fact, there.  And, yes, I can be quiet and not say much, preferring, instead, to listen to and watch others around me.  To me, most people have more exciting and interesting lives than I do.

Perhaps I am too stoical and that leads people to believe there is something more, something that they’re missing or I am deliberately withholding something from them.

The first occasion that this ‘accusation’ was made was about 20 years ago.  I was secretly pleased.  I thought – ‘there’s something more to you, after all’.  But, I found in the following months, it was hard to live up to that person’s idea of me being something I was not.  You can only do that if there really is something else.  In my case, I had nothing else.

And, since, in the last few years, I have done something that is stranger and, from others viewpoints, interesting or, at least, intriguing, (i.e. moving here) the subject has never come up – until, that is, the other night.

I shrugged my shoulders and just laughed.  Then I added that, really, there was nothing that I was not saying.  I don’t think I was believed.  Perhaps it is people’s desire that, having seemingly given up so much to come here and then, kind of, making it work, there should be something else about me other than good fortune and being in the right place, at the right time.

I can add that, when I first mentioned to V, not only should we go and do something different but that we should do it somewhere else – and by that I meant Italy – my goal was to find some passion, some inner being, something in my life that was exciting, different, more real than just the normal day-to-day slog of life.  From the very first time I landed in Italy, almost 30 years ago, I remember, it felt like coming ‘home’ and that feeling grew with every visit.  So it seemed reasonable that, if I was going to find this ‘something’ it would be here.

And now, occasionally, I think that I have swapped only the place of activity and nothing has been ‘found’.  It’s just the same-old-same-old but in Milan.  Except, it isn’t, quite.  But I’m not sure that I’ve found that elusive ‘me’ that some people think I have made invisible.

The difference, this time, was that I felt uncomfortable about the whole idea.  I’m not sure why.  Perhaps, I felt that, once again, someone had some higher opinion of me than was warranted.

Anyway, sorry for the ramble.