The Fourth Teaching
I feel it in my
fingers, I feel it in my toes, love is all around me…
Except it isn’t. Because it’s summer, it’s hot (for England) and no one falls in love with so much flesh on show. Love is a winter sport, like football and seeing just how many pairs of tights its possible to wear underneath one pair of jeans (I reckon three under loose fit, two under tight). In September, when the football season’s settling down for another year and all the kids are back at school, the boys and girls too begin to settle down (with each other), snuggling in front of the fire and exchanging Christmas presents whilst listening to East 17, Bon Jovi and all those other Christmas love songs, all caught up in their own little world.
It’s the other people I’ve been thinking about. Those who get pissed, conga round the tree singing THAT Slade song, get off with their mate’s brothers (Sarah) and wish they hadn’t drunk quite so much on Christmas morning. This teaching is going to reach its point soon, don’t worry it’s not just an opportunity to toast the ghost of Christmas past.
So, what does the opening have to do with the second
paragraph. Love and single people.
By single people you realise I mean the chronically single people, not
single as in
I-got-dumped-yesterday-but-I’ll-be-going-out-with-a-new-lad-next-week single.
Of these single people, I figure, about half of them will be looking for
someone (be it the perfect someone who’ll make your life complete, or that
certain someone who won’t be physically repulsed by the sight of you and will
still go with you when their sober.) and the other half will be suffering some
form of unrequited love.
Ah, unrequited love. Is it worse to suffer it or be friends with a sufferer?
·
As a sufferer you find yourself
thinking of that person all the time, even when you don’t want to.
You can picture every detail of their body – the way they smile, the
exact shade of their eyes, the way they walk, the sound of their voice, their
laugh, the way they clear their throat. You
know every little detail of their life. You
cling to every word they say. You
rerun conversations over and over in your head searching for the slightest sign
that they might be interested in you, even though you know they’re well out of
your league and your surprised they even bother to talk to you and smile at.
They’re firmly placed on the pedestal.
They’re the loveliest, most gorgeous person in the world and you just
know they’d make Don Juan seem like a crap lover, if only you were given a
chance to find out. You are well
and truly obsessed. They feature in
your fantasies more than Eddie Irvine (or Britney Spears, if you’d prefer).
This person has become the centre of your universe, how could you not
talk about them all the time?
·
But think of the poor friend of the unrequited lover.
Imagine all those hours spent listening to your friend waffle on about
someone you probable haven’t ever met. You
really don’t care about what he (she) said to her (him) last night , or how
good he (she) looked in his (her) shorts (dress), or how much they want him
(her). You want to talk about this
really weird film that was on channel 5, what’s just happened in your book,
the shock plot twist in Days of our Lives (Fay from Steps is Nicole and
Brandon’s Mum!!), or the argument you’ve just had with your parent / brother
/ boyfriend. But your friend’s
not there to listen anymore. Even
when they shut up long enough to let you get a sentence out, they’re not
listening cos they’re daydreaming and the object of there desire.
So, what can you do? After all this is only a teenage crush, a little obsession to help you explore all those wonderful feelings that you’ll be confronted with in adult life. You could always ask them out (no doubt that’s what all your friends reckon you should do, they love you, why shouldn’t he?). I mean, if he says no then what’s going to happen, you’ll be really gutted, you’ll die of embarrassment whenever you see him and you still won’t be over him. And your poor friend will still have to listen to you going on about how much you love him and how he doesn’t want you.
I’m on both sides at the moment, during the day I obsess over one of the loveliest blokes I’ve ever known, and at night I listen to my sister go on and on about whichever bloke it is this week that she loves. My advice, if you’re lusting over the perfect man, try and keep him in your head instead of pissing off all your friends. And if you’re sick of listening to your friend going on, find your own bloke to obsess about. When they start going on you think of him, nod and hmm in the appropriate places and they’ll never know you aren’t listening.
I know this isn’t really a teaching but it’s something we’re all faced with at least once in our lives and I feel it should be addressed. And it’s one of those problems that’s just left ignored in the hope that it’ll go away. I feel I should also add that it’s the bloke’s job to ask the girl out and if everyone stuck to this rule there’d be much less fretting about whether he likes you.
- The Most Reverend Dr. Jenna