It could never have been any other way.
The multiplication of time and distance, eroding everything that we held dear, and bringing about our inevitable end.
There was no doubt we'd not be sustained indefinitely - the only thing worthy of discussion was the precise moment when the structure would break.
As it happened, it took until March of this year, but the news by then was old - a 'Pope's dead?' weak joke, months after the passing of another Pontiff. Like starlight, the information took its time arriving.
I long pictured the day when I'd need too much alcohol and too much significant music to restore the balance which had been taken away; appealing to cheap wine and to Crowded House to permit an infinitely-thin, infinitely-convincing covering of business as usual.
It could never have been any other way, watching on with increasing desperation as time ran out on us, as the magnetism we'd made our own became repulsion. I became increasingly blurred, melting into the background of your existence, until you couldn't see me at all - an optical illusion in which my own image drained away into the ill-starred background. With a re-focusing of the eye, and the untorsioning of the mind, everything disappears - a miracle!
It could never have been any other way, and I sit in an empty flat with an empty bed, the silhouette of never-to-be-future wife appearing in dreams, catching me by surprise: oh - you're back! Now, months after the event, the whole situation, the violent collision of need which made us both shudder, and the silent assassination of one by another, seems no more than a dream. It could never have been any other way.
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
Friday, 25 June 2010
Wedding.
It could never have been any other way.
The little church, frosted pink and so reminiscent of a cake that it took willpower not to bite into it, with a trickle of a stream adjacent. A footbridge over the stream, hanging like a rainbow above and sustained by the shimmer of water below.
If you listened hard enough, you could eavesdrop on the stream's monologue. Those who had married there imagined that it whispered of the durability of human love - an endless song of sweetness for the soon-to-be-wed; an assertion that the greatest obstacles to the beloved are translated into glances of adoration or long sighs of contentment.
It could never have been any other way, not for the Australian woman who had been uprooted from her homeland and emigrated because of the abstract idea of marriage, nor for the hotchpotch of symbols to whom she had committed herself - the near-autistic for whom the event meant breaking through the surface of normality for a brief period before the inevitable return to even greater depths.
It could never have been any other way rang out from the church bells, and was spelt out in the clouds above, and was audible on the lips of those gathered. The inevitable progression from a pair of online ghosts to the union of the flesh, under God, was almost complete, and it could never have been any other way.
Later that night, with darkness falling and the silhouette of his new wife receding into the umbra, the groom realised with heaviness: of course it could have been any other way - I must've come this close to losing you a thousand times, or alternatively not meeting you in the first place. Far from being infinity, we are nothing but a particular thin shaft of history which could have shattered irreparably at any moment you like. We exist on a tightrope, and an unkind breeze is more than enough to send us both screaming back to atomisation once again.
The little church, frosted pink and so reminiscent of a cake that it took willpower not to bite into it, with a trickle of a stream adjacent. A footbridge over the stream, hanging like a rainbow above and sustained by the shimmer of water below.
If you listened hard enough, you could eavesdrop on the stream's monologue. Those who had married there imagined that it whispered of the durability of human love - an endless song of sweetness for the soon-to-be-wed; an assertion that the greatest obstacles to the beloved are translated into glances of adoration or long sighs of contentment.
It could never have been any other way, not for the Australian woman who had been uprooted from her homeland and emigrated because of the abstract idea of marriage, nor for the hotchpotch of symbols to whom she had committed herself - the near-autistic for whom the event meant breaking through the surface of normality for a brief period before the inevitable return to even greater depths.
It could never have been any other way rang out from the church bells, and was spelt out in the clouds above, and was audible on the lips of those gathered. The inevitable progression from a pair of online ghosts to the union of the flesh, under God, was almost complete, and it could never have been any other way.
Later that night, with darkness falling and the silhouette of his new wife receding into the umbra, the groom realised with heaviness: of course it could have been any other way - I must've come this close to losing you a thousand times, or alternatively not meeting you in the first place. Far from being infinity, we are nothing but a particular thin shaft of history which could have shattered irreparably at any moment you like. We exist on a tightrope, and an unkind breeze is more than enough to send us both screaming back to atomisation once again.
Monday, 21 June 2010
Failure.
I wrote briefly about pressure before, but never really progressed beyond suggesting that it's the exertion of a force between an individual or group upon another individual or group.
Invisible, like gravity, but its effects are detectable on the faces of students at exam time, in the demeanour of journalists as their copy deadline approaches; in the scurrying of politicians during an election. It is, then, a function of the time remaining to reach an expected goal versus the likelihood of the goal being reached.
Such a simple model suggests that, as time reduces, the amount of activity increases without limit. As with Frank Tipler's omega point, an infinite number of things are accomplished in a finite amount of time - but unlike the expiring universe, this is not possible for us, even in theory.
As pressure increases, then (or, in other words, as time reduces) activity increases, too. From experience, I can declare that not all of this activity is useful: it doesn't bridge the chasm between where I am now, and the pressureless state of accomplishment I should like to be in. We all know how the body lets us down at such critical moments - I was the journalist whose vocabulary deserted him; who would type 'snd' for 'and' three or four times before I'd look at the keyboard and correct the position of my heavy, rebellious fingers; who suddenly couldn't remember whether it was 'acommodate' or 'accommodate' or 'accomodate' or 'acomodate.'
I believe I should be able to eradicate these sorts of things, these mistakes, but they prevail despite my best intentions. Could it be that there's something else afoot? (If there is, I speak from a personal point of view, and hope that anyone reading it recognises at least something of what follows. As ever, I don't expect to solve the world in a few paragraphs, because I'm not scientific, and numbers make me slump against the table, exhausted.)
What if there are psychological barriers to overcome, too; elephants that are not so much in the room as the room itself? What if, in short, the increase in pressure, and the frantic rush of panic is nothing more than an excuse?
I'm a working-class male from northern England. From an early age, I was taught that certain things are beyond me; that some achievements are not for 'the likes of us.' I hereby contend that when a person, having been so informed, has extra motivation to disprove the person making the statement (in this case, my father.)
Having set a stellar goal, which I declared I would accomplish upon pain of death, and flung everything at it, only to fail, is exhausting. Having tried, and not succeeded, it is then the case that everything subsequently attempted is corrupted by this same sense of failure.
I can get so far.... with writing a book, with studying a course, with a relationship, with a job.... and then no sooner does it approach something akin to the vision I have of it in my head that, scared, I relinquish it all. If the achievements beyond the stars are not for the likes of me, then nothing else is, either, and I sink relentlessly in, and then under, my own quicksand.
Invisible, like gravity, but its effects are detectable on the faces of students at exam time, in the demeanour of journalists as their copy deadline approaches; in the scurrying of politicians during an election. It is, then, a function of the time remaining to reach an expected goal versus the likelihood of the goal being reached.
Such a simple model suggests that, as time reduces, the amount of activity increases without limit. As with Frank Tipler's omega point, an infinite number of things are accomplished in a finite amount of time - but unlike the expiring universe, this is not possible for us, even in theory.
As pressure increases, then (or, in other words, as time reduces) activity increases, too. From experience, I can declare that not all of this activity is useful: it doesn't bridge the chasm between where I am now, and the pressureless state of accomplishment I should like to be in. We all know how the body lets us down at such critical moments - I was the journalist whose vocabulary deserted him; who would type 'snd' for 'and' three or four times before I'd look at the keyboard and correct the position of my heavy, rebellious fingers; who suddenly couldn't remember whether it was 'acommodate' or 'accommodate' or 'accomodate' or 'acomodate.'
I believe I should be able to eradicate these sorts of things, these mistakes, but they prevail despite my best intentions. Could it be that there's something else afoot? (If there is, I speak from a personal point of view, and hope that anyone reading it recognises at least something of what follows. As ever, I don't expect to solve the world in a few paragraphs, because I'm not scientific, and numbers make me slump against the table, exhausted.)
What if there are psychological barriers to overcome, too; elephants that are not so much in the room as the room itself? What if, in short, the increase in pressure, and the frantic rush of panic is nothing more than an excuse?
I'm a working-class male from northern England. From an early age, I was taught that certain things are beyond me; that some achievements are not for 'the likes of us.' I hereby contend that when a person, having been so informed, has extra motivation to disprove the person making the statement (in this case, my father.)
Having set a stellar goal, which I declared I would accomplish upon pain of death, and flung everything at it, only to fail, is exhausting. Having tried, and not succeeded, it is then the case that everything subsequently attempted is corrupted by this same sense of failure.
I can get so far.... with writing a book, with studying a course, with a relationship, with a job.... and then no sooner does it approach something akin to the vision I have of it in my head that, scared, I relinquish it all. If the achievements beyond the stars are not for the likes of me, then nothing else is, either, and I sink relentlessly in, and then under, my own quicksand.
Saturday, 19 June 2010
Recollection.
There were 248 Barnsley supporters at Selhurst Park for the game on October 18, 2008, and they would see their team eventually lose 3-0 to Crystal Palace.
With the persistence of time, which eats away at everything, I recall the players making half-hearted runs forward, lacking belief and confidence, and accepting that getting anything out of the game was impossible.
It was all too much for your author, who, gesticulating wildly with my free arm, joined in with the obscence calls for the manager to hand in his resignation: that's it, Simon, lad - fucking fuck off. All the words in the English language were boiled down to three: fucking fuck off.
Little islands of foul language amidst the rows upon rows of empty seats. I was one of the loudest protestors, to the extent that a man in front of me turned around and shook his head sadly.
That my left hand was otherwise occupied was the fault of the pretty, undemanding girl who held it so patiently as the rest of my body convulsed with anger. It so transpired that this would be the only time I'd see her - like a moment of inspiration, she was gone before I could even write down the bones of what she represented.
The persistence of time eats away at everything. It drains energy and reticulates images, eventually screwing them up and exiling them to the boundaries of recollection. I can remember trying to push my fingers through your hair, but not the sentiment which motivated it. I can remember you making a drink, but not the nested game-within-a-game-within-a-game whose denouement required you to do so. I can remember being called 'darling' in the back of a taxi, and I can remember the simplicity with which you appraised the world, but I can no longer pull together the strands of history which gave birth to those events.
You are the shadows of the mind, the arrow which flies even though I cannot picture the bow which liberated you. You are an evening kick-off in South London, under the lights, with one hand immobilised, and the other flailing here and there as it reacted to what unfolded around it. You are the thought which brings equality to all things - heavy away defeats neutralised, and great expectations returned to the void. You are the balance who matches the peak and the trough alike, for these two are the same when confronted by you.
With the persistence of time, which eats away at everything, I recall the players making half-hearted runs forward, lacking belief and confidence, and accepting that getting anything out of the game was impossible.
It was all too much for your author, who, gesticulating wildly with my free arm, joined in with the obscence calls for the manager to hand in his resignation: that's it, Simon, lad - fucking fuck off. All the words in the English language were boiled down to three: fucking fuck off.
Little islands of foul language amidst the rows upon rows of empty seats. I was one of the loudest protestors, to the extent that a man in front of me turned around and shook his head sadly.
That my left hand was otherwise occupied was the fault of the pretty, undemanding girl who held it so patiently as the rest of my body convulsed with anger. It so transpired that this would be the only time I'd see her - like a moment of inspiration, she was gone before I could even write down the bones of what she represented.
The persistence of time eats away at everything. It drains energy and reticulates images, eventually screwing them up and exiling them to the boundaries of recollection. I can remember trying to push my fingers through your hair, but not the sentiment which motivated it. I can remember you making a drink, but not the nested game-within-a-game-within-a-game whose denouement required you to do so. I can remember being called 'darling' in the back of a taxi, and I can remember the simplicity with which you appraised the world, but I can no longer pull together the strands of history which gave birth to those events.
You are the shadows of the mind, the arrow which flies even though I cannot picture the bow which liberated you. You are an evening kick-off in South London, under the lights, with one hand immobilised, and the other flailing here and there as it reacted to what unfolded around it. You are the thought which brings equality to all things - heavy away defeats neutralised, and great expectations returned to the void. You are the balance who matches the peak and the trough alike, for these two are the same when confronted by you.
Tuesday, 15 June 2010
Pressure.
Inspired, of course, by the ongoing World Cup, I pause the madness to ask myself about the nature of pressure and expectation between human beings.
I had been looking forward to watching Serbia in their first game as an independent nation on Sunday afternoon. Over the past 20 years they had evolved from Yugoslavia, becoming the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and then later Serbia and Montenegro, with the final metamorphosis seeing them become Serbia.
Shorn of the talented players from the now-seceded nations of Croatia, Bosnia etc., I nevertheless hoped for a performance from the names who ring through my head most days of the week.
That the Serbs never got going is of endless interest to me. I think about the combination of pressure (theirs) and delusion (mine) that made this the case. I have never been to Serbia; the closest I got was a Belgrade-bound train from, I think, Bratislava. I have never been to Serbia, but I nevertheless have a view of the place, built up from books and films and even dreams, and I also have a view of the footballers they produce.
In my mind, then, the Serbians are the most complete footballers in Europe: full of invention, able to keep hold of the football, disciplined and patient. After Sunday’s non-event, though, they are certain to fail yet again. The history of the sport in the Balkans is littered with failure - and here is just the latest.
I wonder how Serbia - or anyone else, in any walk of life - would cope without pressure; in this case without the vast eye of an entire nation waiting for a single mistake in order that they might condemn it as useless? When in a stressful situation, the old mantra is to behave as though it means nothing when what is being undertaken actually means everything, and this is a difficult psychological trick to pull on oneself.
If the significance could be sucked out of every event, then truly would we see natural talent and ability, unencumbered by the frozen bodies and frightened minds which are the characteristics of pressure. Every football match would end with double-figure scores, but the minds of those watching would be seared forever with the memories of this sport-as-ballet, the subtle shifting of weight, the variation in pace, the knife through the chest which doesn’t even break the skin.
I had been looking forward to watching Serbia in their first game as an independent nation on Sunday afternoon. Over the past 20 years they had evolved from Yugoslavia, becoming the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and then later Serbia and Montenegro, with the final metamorphosis seeing them become Serbia.
Shorn of the talented players from the now-seceded nations of Croatia, Bosnia etc., I nevertheless hoped for a performance from the names who ring through my head most days of the week.
That the Serbs never got going is of endless interest to me. I think about the combination of pressure (theirs) and delusion (mine) that made this the case. I have never been to Serbia; the closest I got was a Belgrade-bound train from, I think, Bratislava. I have never been to Serbia, but I nevertheless have a view of the place, built up from books and films and even dreams, and I also have a view of the footballers they produce.
In my mind, then, the Serbians are the most complete footballers in Europe: full of invention, able to keep hold of the football, disciplined and patient. After Sunday’s non-event, though, they are certain to fail yet again. The history of the sport in the Balkans is littered with failure - and here is just the latest.
I wonder how Serbia - or anyone else, in any walk of life - would cope without pressure; in this case without the vast eye of an entire nation waiting for a single mistake in order that they might condemn it as useless? When in a stressful situation, the old mantra is to behave as though it means nothing when what is being undertaken actually means everything, and this is a difficult psychological trick to pull on oneself.
If the significance could be sucked out of every event, then truly would we see natural talent and ability, unencumbered by the frozen bodies and frightened minds which are the characteristics of pressure. Every football match would end with double-figure scores, but the minds of those watching would be seared forever with the memories of this sport-as-ballet, the subtle shifting of weight, the variation in pace, the knife through the chest which doesn’t even break the skin.
Monday, 7 June 2010
Anniversary.
Exactly one year ago, Bluefish's plane was still yet to complete what amounted to more-or-less a full circuit of the earth.
Yet to complete, but I waited up all night nevertheless - it was still no match for the 24-hour flight she was undertaking, and I'd never have been able to sleep anyway.
The weight of months was upon us, for time hangs heavy when the person towards which everything is directed is located so remotely. The paradox is that a gesture made on a webcam or a voice softening the eardrum through a telephone is necessarily less intimate than its equivalent when experienced directly - yet for all that, I would argue that the former means more.
The anguish of separation - even from that which you have always been separated - is profound enough to magnify every action. I remember being heartbroken by the sight (through her webcam) of Bluefish dangling a leg off the end of her bed as she laid down to type to me. I could observe the movement of her foot, fractions of a rotation, and for reasons I've never been able to fully understand, this caused the most intense feeling of sadness I have experienced. Separation is the opposite of the law of diminishing returns: the less reason there is to become emotional over something, the more likely it is to happen.
I recall being hemmed into the London-bound train carriage - standing room all the way, at something after six in the morning, and then the chaos of the Tube through to Heathrow; clinging onto the loops of rubber suspended from the ceiling to stay balanced in the manner of an acrobat or a windsurfer.
Hatton Cross was the name of the last stop before the airport, and this location I felt was the point beyond which there was no return. In an example of linear time, everything behind Hatton Cross represented a break with mere history, and everything after it the limitless beauty and potential offered by Bluefish.
Now I realise Hatton Cross was no more than a dead end, and of course Bluefish herself would sink without trace after eight more months or so. Older and wiser, I mark the anniversary of her arrival as morning begins to emerge. Later I shall light a candle - as a species we represent past love with the hot little glow which is extinguished all too quickly - and watch intently as it burns itself out, because it doesn't know how to do anything else.
Yet to complete, but I waited up all night nevertheless - it was still no match for the 24-hour flight she was undertaking, and I'd never have been able to sleep anyway.
The weight of months was upon us, for time hangs heavy when the person towards which everything is directed is located so remotely. The paradox is that a gesture made on a webcam or a voice softening the eardrum through a telephone is necessarily less intimate than its equivalent when experienced directly - yet for all that, I would argue that the former means more.
The anguish of separation - even from that which you have always been separated - is profound enough to magnify every action. I remember being heartbroken by the sight (through her webcam) of Bluefish dangling a leg off the end of her bed as she laid down to type to me. I could observe the movement of her foot, fractions of a rotation, and for reasons I've never been able to fully understand, this caused the most intense feeling of sadness I have experienced. Separation is the opposite of the law of diminishing returns: the less reason there is to become emotional over something, the more likely it is to happen.
I recall being hemmed into the London-bound train carriage - standing room all the way, at something after six in the morning, and then the chaos of the Tube through to Heathrow; clinging onto the loops of rubber suspended from the ceiling to stay balanced in the manner of an acrobat or a windsurfer.
Hatton Cross was the name of the last stop before the airport, and this location I felt was the point beyond which there was no return. In an example of linear time, everything behind Hatton Cross represented a break with mere history, and everything after it the limitless beauty and potential offered by Bluefish.
Now I realise Hatton Cross was no more than a dead end, and of course Bluefish herself would sink without trace after eight more months or so. Older and wiser, I mark the anniversary of her arrival as morning begins to emerge. Later I shall light a candle - as a species we represent past love with the hot little glow which is extinguished all too quickly - and watch intently as it burns itself out, because it doesn't know how to do anything else.
Saturday, 5 June 2010
Liverpool (I).
With a little smile, I realise that casting off the views imposed on a child by its parents must be a sign of increased wisdom.
I'm only half-serious when the thought occurs to me (is it normal to joke with one's own mind, to deceive it even though the deception was cooked up in that same apparatus?) but nevertheless I have disposed of any number of 'facts' which coloured my formative years:
When I was four years old, it was the rite of passage in a boy's life that I should choose my football team. It didn't take long - a quick glance at the top of the old Division One told me all I needed to know - I'd follow Liverpool.
Thus ensued my father's ranting about the place, and everyone associated with it. I'm not taking you to Liverpool! We'll never get out alive! As soon as we open our mouths, that's it - well be dead. Dead!
I never managed to sample the dangers of Liverpool for myself until 2008, ironically when I went to watch a football match against the team I'd adopted when I was a child. FA Cup fever had hit Barnsley when Liverpool came out of the hat, and all six thousand tickets for away fans had gone within the space of 24 hours.
I was as angry as I ever become when I failed to get hold of one. What an affront - to lock me out when I've travelled all over the place for 13 years watching mainly dross! All those cold nights in the middle of nowhere putting my own ambitions on hold, only to get back home at four in the morning, disappointed and exhausted!
After weeks of wrangling with my conscience, when I'd already decided to break off my support once and for all, I hit upon one last desperate plan: a ticket tout! To cut a long story short, I eventually coughed up £92 for a £29 ticket - in the wrong area, that is the Liverpool section, of the ground.
Remember - open your mouth, and you're dead. Dead!
I'm only half-serious when the thought occurs to me (is it normal to joke with one's own mind, to deceive it even though the deception was cooked up in that same apparatus?) but nevertheless I have disposed of any number of 'facts' which coloured my formative years:
- if you buy a piece of music by a gay artist, he or she puts a percentage of the money into a fund to promote 'gay propaganda'
- every politician who has ever lived has got their nose stuck fast in the trough;
- it is not possible for 'the likes of us' (working-class northern English stock) to do anything of significance between taking our first breath and our last;
- that bastard Gerry Adams deserves to die;
- them what steal should 'ave their bloody 'ands chopped off, an' all;
- dun't ivver go to Liverpool. A tha listenin', mun? Dun't ivver go. The'll bloody knife thi when tha at cashpoint, an' then the'll laugh abart it. The' reight gets!
When I was four years old, it was the rite of passage in a boy's life that I should choose my football team. It didn't take long - a quick glance at the top of the old Division One told me all I needed to know - I'd follow Liverpool.
Thus ensued my father's ranting about the place, and everyone associated with it. I'm not taking you to Liverpool! We'll never get out alive! As soon as we open our mouths, that's it - well be dead. Dead!
I never managed to sample the dangers of Liverpool for myself until 2008, ironically when I went to watch a football match against the team I'd adopted when I was a child. FA Cup fever had hit Barnsley when Liverpool came out of the hat, and all six thousand tickets for away fans had gone within the space of 24 hours.
I was as angry as I ever become when I failed to get hold of one. What an affront - to lock me out when I've travelled all over the place for 13 years watching mainly dross! All those cold nights in the middle of nowhere putting my own ambitions on hold, only to get back home at four in the morning, disappointed and exhausted!
After weeks of wrangling with my conscience, when I'd already decided to break off my support once and for all, I hit upon one last desperate plan: a ticket tout! To cut a long story short, I eventually coughed up £92 for a £29 ticket - in the wrong area, that is the Liverpool section, of the ground.
Remember - open your mouth, and you're dead. Dead!
Thursday, 3 June 2010
Flirting.
What actually occurs when two people flirt with each other?
I ask not because it happens very often - or, indeed, at all - but because I wonder whether or not it is one of a class of behaviours which are similar to each other, even if their intended outcomes differ vastly.
When we flirt, the most important thing is the suspension of disbelief (those words again) with a view to breaking down a fictitious barrier. That is: I must convince somebody who is already aware of their attractiveness (to me) that I am attracted to them - while the attractive other similarly waits to be convinced of what they already know. Flirting is no more than going around in circles, testing boundaries, and withdrawing in shyness (or not) when the offer of a concrete sexual encounter is made.
Should the sexual encounter ever take place, then the two people concerned can never again flirt with the same level of intensity and pressure, for the encounter served to prick that particular bubble. Flirtation is, as observed by Kundera, the promise of a sexual encounter without the guarantee that the promise will ever be fulfilled - it is an anti-promise, but no less sincere than that.
Flirtation, then, requires us to dig for things that are already obvious; to exert ourselves by running on the spot forever in order to preserve the thing we cannot vocalise, but which has already been released with smiles, with the subtle brushing of fingertips against fingertips, in a hundred other similar ways.
What other behaviours are there that require us to hold back from expressing the (obvious) truth? There must be hundreds, but the one most obvious as I write is anti-flirting: if the goal of flirting is to fuse two people together, then its opposite is when a couple have sprung apart, and are at pains to keep the extent of their antipathy under wraps.
I see it with my father (the leaver) and my mother (left behind) and how the latter exhausts herself to keep him in 'ignorance' of her loathing whenever he pays her a visit. As soon as the door slams shut when he leaves for work, she'll hiss: thank God for that! I couldn't wait for him to piss off!
If flirting is a tentative light shone into the future, then anti-flirting is more than an assessment of the past - it is its repudiation and negation. It is a long sigh of deep regret; the dismantling of history; the enduring expression of disgust, disappoinment and betrayal.
I ask not because it happens very often - or, indeed, at all - but because I wonder whether or not it is one of a class of behaviours which are similar to each other, even if their intended outcomes differ vastly.
When we flirt, the most important thing is the suspension of disbelief (those words again) with a view to breaking down a fictitious barrier. That is: I must convince somebody who is already aware of their attractiveness (to me) that I am attracted to them - while the attractive other similarly waits to be convinced of what they already know. Flirting is no more than going around in circles, testing boundaries, and withdrawing in shyness (or not) when the offer of a concrete sexual encounter is made.
Should the sexual encounter ever take place, then the two people concerned can never again flirt with the same level of intensity and pressure, for the encounter served to prick that particular bubble. Flirtation is, as observed by Kundera, the promise of a sexual encounter without the guarantee that the promise will ever be fulfilled - it is an anti-promise, but no less sincere than that.
Flirtation, then, requires us to dig for things that are already obvious; to exert ourselves by running on the spot forever in order to preserve the thing we cannot vocalise, but which has already been released with smiles, with the subtle brushing of fingertips against fingertips, in a hundred other similar ways.
What other behaviours are there that require us to hold back from expressing the (obvious) truth? There must be hundreds, but the one most obvious as I write is anti-flirting: if the goal of flirting is to fuse two people together, then its opposite is when a couple have sprung apart, and are at pains to keep the extent of their antipathy under wraps.
I see it with my father (the leaver) and my mother (left behind) and how the latter exhausts herself to keep him in 'ignorance' of her loathing whenever he pays her a visit. As soon as the door slams shut when he leaves for work, she'll hiss: thank God for that! I couldn't wait for him to piss off!
If flirting is a tentative light shone into the future, then anti-flirting is more than an assessment of the past - it is its repudiation and negation. It is a long sigh of deep regret; the dismantling of history; the enduring expression of disgust, disappoinment and betrayal.
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