The winds have certainly changed, from a mild breeze that made the hot, sticky days of July bearable, to blustery, damp gales that seem to have heralded the arrival of autumn when it really still ought to be summer. Perhaps this explains what has happened to me this week. Perhaps it is the shift in the winds, or maybe Jupiter has moved into my thirty-ninth maisonette, but over the last seven days I have miraculously - inexplicably - developed some sort of...irresistible sexual allure.
Over the years, I have had an average amount of luck with the opposite sex. A few long term relationships; a handful of undulating flings and plenty of casual encounters to keep my morale and the numbers up. I am nothing spectacular to look at; indeed, until I turned sixteen, I was quite repulsive to look at, having as I did the baffling belief that rocking a combination of short ginger hair, bad skin and puppy fat swaddled in ill-fitting flamable fabric was an acceptable way of presenting myself to the world at large. Had it not been for St. Tropez and my ability to sink a triple in seventeen seconds I would have never have got laid. I carved out a niche for myself as cute and bubbly and targeted the boys who like their girls to look just on the cusp of legality.
In the last couple of weeks, however, I seem to have excelled myself (though please note its self-deprecation from here on in). Firstly, there is Ben: fun, sweet and utterly unsuitable Ben, whom I met off the back of the car-wreck that was Me and My Housemate and who is now inching towards becoming a permanent fixture. He is sweet and charming but also has a full sleeve of tattoos that will give my father an aneuryism should he meet him (he won't, ever) and a lifestyle that is predicated on his having a large amount of disposable income and the impetus to enjoy it. I had better decide quickly whether something serious is what I want for us before it is too late, because after Ben, there came Chris. I met Chris whilst I was waiting for Ben and he somehow ended up coming along on our date, which was less bone-achingly awkward as it sounds. Then, at the pub on Thursday for Joanne's birthday, when I had minimal make-up on and un-straightened hair piled up on my head like a Saxon burial mound, a guy we had been sitting next to all night appeared at the bar and asked for my number. This sort of thing never happens to me - it barely even happens to my much more attractive friends (a definition that applies to pretty much all of them). This remarkable phenomenon was capped last night by an old-flame proclaiming lingering feelings for me and a pleading text from a good friend desperate for me to come to his party. Very, very bizarre, the whole thing.
Flattering as all the attention has been, I have become savvy enough, even in my meagre twenty-four years, to realise that this is an anomaly in my otherwise generally barren love-life. It is the flash of a star before it burns out and disintegrates into dust or whatever stars do when they combust. I am certain that, given a few days, the texts will dry up and the suggested happy-hour hook-ups will remain as concepts in the ether, never to be finalised. Still, I shall be able to tell my grandchildren that, for a couple of weeks in 2010, Grandma was a stone cold fox and the guys couldn't get enough.
Aside from its being so incongruous to the normal, natural state of affairs, romantic involvement with any one guy is particularly tricky because I am actually already in a firmly established relationship. Alas, I am not Dermot's bit on the side (though I retain hope); I am involved with kidney failure and this Christmas we'll be celebrating our three-year anniversary. I think its getting serious.
If this sentiment makes me come off as mildly unhinged...fuck, I probably am. I believe I must be suffering from some hybrid narcissistic Stockholm syndrome. Let me clarify: I do not relish having kidney failure; I do not enjoy the treatment it necessitates and whilst it has certainly has some positive implications on my life and my character, these are offset by the overall horrors of it all. However, my relationship with my illness is incredibly intimate, like sharing an important and guilty secret. I carry it around with me every second of the day and will continue to do so for the rest of my life whether I have a functioning kidney or not. It is inside me; it runs through my veins; it comprises me. Kidney failure and I are one and the same. It is my constant companion whom I understand in its entirety; it keeps no secrets from me, tells me no lies and the only time I misconstrue it is when I make the ill-advised choice not to listen properly to what it is trying to tell me (get more sleep, or eat less potassium rich taramasalata, usually). I have come to perceive it as a force greater than myself - like God, or Communism. Having a chronic illness can be so often be like having a religious faith: there is nothing tangible about it, no evidence of it that I can see floating about inside me, but the effects of it are obvious and it is a sensation, a knowledge, that you carry with you always. My illness has certainly been verified, just as Jesus' face is always appearing on pieces of toast and on the side of rocks.
My illness is already a lot like a boyfriend, which makes me wonder whether I have room in my life for a real, fleshy one. All my decisions have to be taken with the whims of the illness in mind: if I should go out, how much I can drink, what I can eat...indeed, I have plenty of men in my life who have moaned at me for getting too drunk or tacitly hoped I wouldn't have that third muffin because it really is starting to show on my thighs. My fistula dictates what I can wear; similarly, my first boyfriend once demanded I change the vest and knickers combo I had fashioned for a cheerleading social, if I didn't want to find myself newly single - can't think why he might have had a problem with it. The illness has a say in my social life and it really loves to take precedence over everything and everyone; it would happily usurp all my attention, all the time, if only I would let it. Unlike men, it doesn't require me to watch Match of the Day; I don't have to rack my brains to figure out what I did three days ago to make it so grumpy; it doesn't steal the duvet and it doesn't buy jewelry for my birthday that I actually kind of hate but have to accept graciously with a tight smile and wear anyway. Kidney failure asks an awful lot of me, but it never tries to hump me when I'm trying to go to sleep.
So I wonder what hope there is for Ben - or Chris or Brian or God knows who else. More importantly, what hope is there for me if I continue to choose the company of my kidney failure over that of a good-looking human male who actually cares about me? As with so many things in life, it comes down to fear of rejection. Kidney failure will never let me down; it is consistent and reliable and predictable, three qualities distinctly lacking in a large percentage of men - the ones I've dated anyway. Kidney failure will never, ever leave me - it is my companion for life - but how many people can confidently say the same is true of their husband or wife, their boyfriend or girlfriend? I hope that, sometime in the not too distant future, a successful transplant will free up some space in my life and my head for a full-time relationship...but whilst I wait, I'm pretty happy playing the field. Fortunately, kidney failure is not a jealous lover and is happy for me to see other people; but kidney failure would never cheat on me - it knows it could never do better.
Over the years, I have had an average amount of luck with the opposite sex. A few long term relationships; a handful of undulating flings and plenty of casual encounters to keep my morale and the numbers up. I am nothing spectacular to look at; indeed, until I turned sixteen, I was quite repulsive to look at, having as I did the baffling belief that rocking a combination of short ginger hair, bad skin and puppy fat swaddled in ill-fitting flamable fabric was an acceptable way of presenting myself to the world at large. Had it not been for St. Tropez and my ability to sink a triple in seventeen seconds I would have never have got laid. I carved out a niche for myself as cute and bubbly and targeted the boys who like their girls to look just on the cusp of legality.
In the last couple of weeks, however, I seem to have excelled myself (though please note its self-deprecation from here on in). Firstly, there is Ben: fun, sweet and utterly unsuitable Ben, whom I met off the back of the car-wreck that was Me and My Housemate and who is now inching towards becoming a permanent fixture. He is sweet and charming but also has a full sleeve of tattoos that will give my father an aneuryism should he meet him (he won't, ever) and a lifestyle that is predicated on his having a large amount of disposable income and the impetus to enjoy it. I had better decide quickly whether something serious is what I want for us before it is too late, because after Ben, there came Chris. I met Chris whilst I was waiting for Ben and he somehow ended up coming along on our date, which was less bone-achingly awkward as it sounds. Then, at the pub on Thursday for Joanne's birthday, when I had minimal make-up on and un-straightened hair piled up on my head like a Saxon burial mound, a guy we had been sitting next to all night appeared at the bar and asked for my number. This sort of thing never happens to me - it barely even happens to my much more attractive friends (a definition that applies to pretty much all of them). This remarkable phenomenon was capped last night by an old-flame proclaiming lingering feelings for me and a pleading text from a good friend desperate for me to come to his party. Very, very bizarre, the whole thing.
Flattering as all the attention has been, I have become savvy enough, even in my meagre twenty-four years, to realise that this is an anomaly in my otherwise generally barren love-life. It is the flash of a star before it burns out and disintegrates into dust or whatever stars do when they combust. I am certain that, given a few days, the texts will dry up and the suggested happy-hour hook-ups will remain as concepts in the ether, never to be finalised. Still, I shall be able to tell my grandchildren that, for a couple of weeks in 2010, Grandma was a stone cold fox and the guys couldn't get enough.
Aside from its being so incongruous to the normal, natural state of affairs, romantic involvement with any one guy is particularly tricky because I am actually already in a firmly established relationship. Alas, I am not Dermot's bit on the side (though I retain hope); I am involved with kidney failure and this Christmas we'll be celebrating our three-year anniversary. I think its getting serious.
If this sentiment makes me come off as mildly unhinged...fuck, I probably am. I believe I must be suffering from some hybrid narcissistic Stockholm syndrome. Let me clarify: I do not relish having kidney failure; I do not enjoy the treatment it necessitates and whilst it has certainly has some positive implications on my life and my character, these are offset by the overall horrors of it all. However, my relationship with my illness is incredibly intimate, like sharing an important and guilty secret. I carry it around with me every second of the day and will continue to do so for the rest of my life whether I have a functioning kidney or not. It is inside me; it runs through my veins; it comprises me. Kidney failure and I are one and the same. It is my constant companion whom I understand in its entirety; it keeps no secrets from me, tells me no lies and the only time I misconstrue it is when I make the ill-advised choice not to listen properly to what it is trying to tell me (get more sleep, or eat less potassium rich taramasalata, usually). I have come to perceive it as a force greater than myself - like God, or Communism. Having a chronic illness can be so often be like having a religious faith: there is nothing tangible about it, no evidence of it that I can see floating about inside me, but the effects of it are obvious and it is a sensation, a knowledge, that you carry with you always. My illness has certainly been verified, just as Jesus' face is always appearing on pieces of toast and on the side of rocks.
My illness is already a lot like a boyfriend, which makes me wonder whether I have room in my life for a real, fleshy one. All my decisions have to be taken with the whims of the illness in mind: if I should go out, how much I can drink, what I can eat...indeed, I have plenty of men in my life who have moaned at me for getting too drunk or tacitly hoped I wouldn't have that third muffin because it really is starting to show on my thighs. My fistula dictates what I can wear; similarly, my first boyfriend once demanded I change the vest and knickers combo I had fashioned for a cheerleading social, if I didn't want to find myself newly single - can't think why he might have had a problem with it. The illness has a say in my social life and it really loves to take precedence over everything and everyone; it would happily usurp all my attention, all the time, if only I would let it. Unlike men, it doesn't require me to watch Match of the Day; I don't have to rack my brains to figure out what I did three days ago to make it so grumpy; it doesn't steal the duvet and it doesn't buy jewelry for my birthday that I actually kind of hate but have to accept graciously with a tight smile and wear anyway. Kidney failure asks an awful lot of me, but it never tries to hump me when I'm trying to go to sleep.
So I wonder what hope there is for Ben - or Chris or Brian or God knows who else. More importantly, what hope is there for me if I continue to choose the company of my kidney failure over that of a good-looking human male who actually cares about me? As with so many things in life, it comes down to fear of rejection. Kidney failure will never let me down; it is consistent and reliable and predictable, three qualities distinctly lacking in a large percentage of men - the ones I've dated anyway. Kidney failure will never, ever leave me - it is my companion for life - but how many people can confidently say the same is true of their husband or wife, their boyfriend or girlfriend? I hope that, sometime in the not too distant future, a successful transplant will free up some space in my life and my head for a full-time relationship...but whilst I wait, I'm pretty happy playing the field. Fortunately, kidney failure is not a jealous lover and is happy for me to see other people; but kidney failure would never cheat on me - it knows it could never do better.
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