Saturday

Well as you may or may not know, sometime ago Perlilly and I had booked a holiday to Spain and Morocco, leaving this Sunday for a week with our chums in Alicante, and then a spot of freeform touring pinned only to a return flight from Marrakech on November 6th. It was sort of a spontaneous booking, not at all thought out or planned, which I’d somehow come to wonder about over the weeks – especially when the command to write came through! Suddenly the plans were thrown into jeopardy and Perlilly was not a happy girl at having her holiday messed up. I said I’d probably have to come home after the Spain week – or not even do that – and she said she really, really wanted to go to Morocco and that she’d go alone then.

            I was a bit worried about that: I’ve been to Morocco and I know it’s a getting hassled sort of place, even if you’re a guy. I told her and she thought I just didn’t want her to go and have a good time without me. I said, no, I’m just worried, I don’t want anything bad to happen to you or you to be unhappy there, I just want you to know what you’re getting into. In the meantime, despite needing to focus my energies elsewhere, I tried to do what I could to rescue the holiday. I said we could go but I’d have to spend eight hours each day in the hotel room, at least until the end of the month. Or I said maybe we could stay in Spain. None of this was agreeable. And I must say, I didn’t feel very supported given that I’m working on my life’s dream.

            In the end, though, I thought a solution had come: a Spanish friend of mine has offered a beach house where I can be alone and just write and write and write. I got so thoroughly excited at the prospect I can barely tell you. And I don’t know why, but it felt like there was some magic in the air, possibly a Mother Meera connection. Suddenly it all seemed possible: I could write my book, and when done I could go to Morocco and meet Perlilly and we could still have something of her holiday. She’d have to amuse herself for ten days but – well, that’s what she wanted to do anyway, right? Wrong. She wasn’t pleased at all.

            Seems like in the meantime she’s been reading up about Morocco and now doesn’t want to go on her own. Also, she couldn’t stand the thought of me having “a good time” in this “amazing place” all on my own while she’s out there being miserable. Jesus, I thought, how selfish can you get! Oh, for a woman that would say, Christ, Rory, this is the opportunity of a lifetime, you just get to work and don’t you worry about the cooking or the shopping or any of it, I’ll do whatever I can to support you. Is that too much to ask? But instead I get hassled because her holiday’s gone down the pan and even interrupted right there in the middle of a sentence to be told things like, “you’ve left the glass door open again.” I know she’s upset about the holiday but…Jesus.

            Now what? She keeps telling me this and that and I keep doing my best to fix it. I know, theoretically, that I’m not supposed to fix it, that I’m just supposed to listen and acknowledge, but I just can’t help it. It’s almost impossible for me to not start working on a solution when a woman starts telling me her problems. Self-help books would say that’s for me to work on, to just listen and not offer fixes – and I’ve tried that lots, and seen that it works, but I still don’t seem to be able to get it into my head that that’s what I should do. And, in a way, should I? By doing that I’m denying my inherent nature. And what the hell’s wrong with solutions anyway?! lol No, I’m not sure about this but I think there’s a better way: a way where men can be men and women can be women, and we don’t have to always be second guessing and suppressing and trying to be something we’re not. So how about this?

            Woman, you’ve got something on your mind, some feelings you want to express: go tell another woman. Get together with your circle of friends and yack and yack and yack until you can come home and feel better. Get it off your chest. Have a laugh. Do it in a place where you know you’ll get all the empathy and sympathy and validation you need. But know that if you try this with a guy, you’ll get solutions. And if that’s what you want then fine. But if not, go to your woman’s group. That’s probably how it was done traditionally and I don’t see why it shouldn’t work. Except this girlfriend of mine doesn’t have a woman’s group, so I get it all instead.

            And man…? Well, man, I don’t even know. That’s probably horribly chauvinistic, isn’t it? Oh well. S’just my solution to what I see as a problem – and I don’t give a flying monkey’s arse what that wet blanket of a lettuce, Dr John Gray says. Be a man, for fuck’s sake! Provide solutions! Hit things and chase balls and build muscles and be a strong and comforting shoulder for your woman in the time of need – but don’t be a woman.

            I do have a feminine side: it’s just that my masculine one is winning the battle right now.

            So who knows what’s gonna happen? Probably, ironically, she’ll be the one coming home early and I’ll be out there on my own, needing to make a bee-line for Marrakech on November the sixth. A big part of me thinks that she should do a spot of solo travel, whether in Spain or Morocco – especially now that I’m actually writing about my own solo adventures, and remembering and loving it. There’s a magic out there when you do it on your own: things come to you, that wouldn’t otherwise in any other way. But will she, won’t she? That’s up to her to decide; I think I’ve done all I can. It’s just a shame that the excitement I was feeling for this time of solitude of mine in Spain has been soured by her jealousy and selfishness. And probably that’s a bit harsh – but that’s what I feel.

            I get the feeling I’m going to have to do some serious thinking about this relationship once this book thing is over and out there. My life, after all, will not be the same – the thing that has been in my head for six or seven years to do, and which has tied me to one thing or another, will be gone. I will be, almost literally, a new man. And I have no idea how it will effect me. I may even want to go back to the road, back to travelling, in pastures and adventures new. I may want some more material. I may, God willing, even make a career out of this. We just don’t know. We just don’t know.