Navel-gazing

A head full of good music, a full tummy of yummy risotto, and a couple of beers in the sun, watching the world go by… life is pretty good!

If I’m honest (and I try to be that, if nothing else), I check out the people as they pass by my street-side table. The women, the men, the couples.

I figure they have something I’m lacking, and I’m curious about what that is. I look at the couples and wonder what it is about them that attracted one to the other, and vice versa. I look at the men that attract me, and wonder what that initial thing is about them that makes me want to take a second glance. And I wonder what kind of man might find me attractive, and there I falter…

Unless you count the creepy cab driver I had on Thursday night, or the security guard at the local cd shop, whom I suspect has suffered a brain injury in his lifetime, both of whom are well into their 60s, well, noone else has shown the remotest interest in knowing anything more of me than dealing immediately, and decidedly, in whatever matter it was that caused us to cross paths.

I can’t say that I’m surprised, and I don’t blame people for not wanting to do a ‘double-take’ when they meet me. I am many things that would not count favourably in the attraction stakes.

The first thing noticeable when meeting me is that I’m fat. Not a little chubby. Not a slight tummy over my jeans causing ‘jelly belly’. I am heavily overweight. It sits over a muscular and relatively tall frame, so I’m not even a ‘cute’ fat. I am physically intimidating. It would take an All Black front-rower to not fear me in full flight.

Of course, it’s not just the weight. It would be unfair to put the blame on the world for not seeing some inner-beauty in me because of my thunderous thighs (although I sometimes wonder whether I hang on to the kilos because it makes me ‘safer’).

That leads into the second seemingly noticeable impression people have of me. I’m self-reliant. That sounds like a good thing, but if it gets to the stage where you simply don’t let anyone near you because you don’t want to take the risk of disappointment, well, that’s becoming an issue too. Compounded with a lard-arse, the odds are quickly stacking against me.

It’s not that I actively push people away; I simply don’t expect them to be interested. And maybe that explains the people I’ve chosen in my past as both friends and lovers. They’ve been people very comfortable in centre stage, very comfortable as the subject of interest, and it has allowed me to happily [?] sit in the position of audience, not having to worry about too much attention being paid to me. If any attention came my way, I could deftly redirect it back to my friend or lover.

I was accused, during the last gasps of my marriage, born witness to by a counsellor years too late, I was accused of being emotionally withdrawn. I laughed at the time because any time I’d tried to share my fears with him, to be vulnerable with him, he’d turned it into an accusation that I wasn’t trying hard enough and that I’d upset him to have to hear these things from me. So even from my husband I learnt to keep myself hidden away where I wouldn’t embarrass, wouldn’t inflict myself on the outside world.

If someone where to try to ask me about myself now, it would take a lifetime of effort to stop myself from running away. I know I still do it, but now there’s another consideration: I don’t want to be the audience any more. I find those friendships becoming more and more dissatisfying and as I’ve tried to shift the balance, I’ve seen those friendships wither.

So, to recap: I’m fat. I’m shy. I’m withdrawn. I’m no longer willing to be a starry-eyed reflection for someone else’s ego.

It would take so much effort for someone to break through my defences, and I’ve laid so many brilliant boobytraps, that I doubt anyone will make it, even if they were to try.

And what sort of person would want to be around someone like me?

They’d have to be even more fucked up than I am, and do I really need that? *wink*