Folk say that you can never truly know a person until you have lived with them, however a week is not long enough. I was helping Dave move house, he was living in one of his houses that he rented out and was preparing to move into a more customised spruced up palace.The new house was finished and he need to get in there and as he did me a huge favour when I moved house, I had agreed to help.
We packed up his car to the brim and then shifted the load from the old house to the new. It was all very military planned no time for breaks not including a drink break..literally pack the car, drive, empty the car, drive back and pack up the car again. It got the job done though.
The next day I spent my time packing his CD's. This chore was introduced as such a responsibility that it was almost believed to be a big job...it was not. It was so big that I managed to make myself a coffee and do the job in my underwear, they were all tightly packed so there were no stray CDs out of boxes and of course labelled, with my time to spare, I managed to wrap up some ornaments too.
A couple of nights later his friend Janine was coming over, apparently she had been told all about me, I figured it was in my best interest to wait and see if there was to be a vacant look on her face when she saw me, there actually was not, she did seem to have heard of me, unless she was being polite.
She did not hold much contact with me, she would not look me in the eye or bring me into the conversation, as a result I started to lose interest with what she was saying until she mentioned something about age. some one being young, so young which caused for her to turn to me and trill
We packed up his car to the brim and then shifted the load from the old house to the new. It was all very military planned no time for breaks not including a drink break..literally pack the car, drive, empty the car, drive back and pack up the car again. It got the job done though.
The next day I spent my time packing his CD's. This chore was introduced as such a responsibility that it was almost believed to be a big job...it was not. It was so big that I managed to make myself a coffee and do the job in my underwear, they were all tightly packed so there were no stray CDs out of boxes and of course labelled, with my time to spare, I managed to wrap up some ornaments too.
A couple of nights later his friend Janine was coming over, apparently she had been told all about me, I figured it was in my best interest to wait and see if there was to be a vacant look on her face when she saw me, there actually was not, she did seem to have heard of me, unless she was being polite.
She did not hold much contact with me, she would not look me in the eye or bring me into the conversation, as a result I started to lose interest with what she was saying until she mentioned something about age. some one being young, so young which caused for her to turn to me and trill
"but not as young as you, but still young"
I felt excluded: from the conversation, the situation and the room. This was a woman who had a decent job, with a decent position that was worth getting up for in the morning surely she was not envious of a person's age? She was definitely mildy ageist, there was no denying it, but it did not quite yet border on bitterness, although she did look good for her age she probably wanted the time again to go with it.
When the catch up conversation between David and Janine had finished it was tim to get shifting more stuff to Dave's new house. We filled up both his and her cars with stuff, just the one trip for Janine though. Dave shown her around his new castle as I unloaded some of the car as I was told to start on unloading the car.
after we had unloaded the cars into his garage, Janine said her goodbyes probably to rush off to a pending Self Importance Class... She shook my hand and said
"It was nice to meet you, I'm sure I will see you soon.
Bye Dave, I'll see you soon"
Dave replied from the kitchen
"See you soon Jan"
I was speechless for a moment... I know it is only a turn of phrase but all this 'I will see you soon' seemed a bit too much of a false saying. How will we know if we will see each other soon? and if it turns out that we do not see each other soon then the comment becoes even more redundant than it sounds in the first place surely?
Hold tight..."it is only just something people say" I reassured myself, just like when people say 'Hi' this comparison made my blood boil even more as 'Hi' is not even a word! I breathed and counted to 3 (I did not need to wait for 10) and then let Janine out, she walked straight past me like I was actually there to open the door, sure we had already said our goodbyes but surely at pretentious primay they do not forbid manners?
So I said a simple
"See you"
admittedly I found this diminishing to the soul but I met them halfway and dropped the 'soon'. Janine turned around as she reached the halfway mark between the house and her declaration of importance car and smirked whilst looking sideways and said sarcastically
"bye"
It dawned on me that maybe her cold behaviour was based on experience of Dave's friends, that maybe I did not need much of a reception as I my exsistance is not worthy of such a thing and I probably will not be around for very long?
After dave had sorted his things we had to go to Sally's house as he had said he would feed their two cats while she was away on holiday. I did mention that I had wondered if she was a bit cold with me, Dave did dispute it and moaned at me for being a negative "about everything". I was of course unaware that I was being paranoid and in relation to that why was I being paranoid? Was there anything to be paranoid about? even if there was then why am I feeling paranoid?
When we got back to Dave's house, we sat in his conservatory, we sat there talking mainly about pointless things including my comment on Ice Queen Janine Powerhouse. I was trying to redeem myself after my comments had led to his anger earlier on outside Sally's house. He said he did not realise why I was getting wound up by it and that maybe he could not understand why because he said he did not think about things in the same way nor take them as seriously, which then led him to replying with silly answers in silly voices to every comment I made in attempt to redeem myself, which did lighten the tone and eased me a bit and then I looked at him and just had to kiss him I knew that there was more in me than what we had spoke about before, the putting me up, free talking, coming to see me, picking me up and sometimes taking me to work, the laughs and the jokes as well as the other things we got up to that go hand in hand with everything. That is when I fell, when I realised that for me, this was not just a bit of fun. I could not tell him, not this night, I would have to eventually if it got in the way but at this time I did not want to stp seeing him and each time we parted, I definitely wanted to see him more...'soon'
