Back then, the wearing of leathers may have been a given for regular,
true bikers but I can’t recall feeling enough of one to warrant buying
or wearing leathers. I had pursued the skinhead, suedehead, smoothhead
culture so was more into my Levi jeans /jacket, DM’s, Ben Sherman
shirts, Harrington tops, tonic suits, loafer shoes and classic Crombie
coat.
John, I recall, often wore a Belstaff jacket and full face helmet but
yep, jeans were usually the order of the day when off duty. (My 1970’s
leather bomber jacket was my way of homaging and giving the nod to the
motorbike culture … but only really by proxy, at some distance.
Yes. In hindsight, it may have been crazy … but then so many things
were different when we were younger, weren’t they?
Ha, My calculations regarding the statitistics in meeting someone
compatible?
Very rudimentary. Very basic … but pertinent and correct from my point
of view none the less.
It is easy. I used a web based ‘count the days between dates’ tool and
just entered 1st Oct 1999 till todays date. The sum represents the first
day of me becoming single … until today!
As an aside, my original love story didn’t need waypoints, markers,
comparisons or even much thought … and anyway, already in that
relationship, the whole world became oblivious as the two of us became
some singular new being … together striding onwards through our happy
lives.
So there was never any ‘tick list’ as such with Jackie or even any girl
prior to her. There was no wish list for a girl to have a bright,
intellectual side, to be an outdoor type, to love philosophy, nature or
pursue some esoteric brief OR a desire for any physical attributes to be
thrown into the mix … though historically most of my dates or
girlfriends have been C cup upwards to GG, (yes, usually with a small
back measurement), and rarely more the other way. (B cup or downwards).
I guess I just prefer a girl with curves, being womanly, being cuddly
and attractive at that raw, animal level.
So really, in finding myself … err … alone, I guess, (especially in
having the Internet), I’ve always said to myself …
“Look Chris. It’s the net. That means that you have an opportunity to
‘dial in’ ALL your wishes, all your dreams, all your expectations and
fantasies and just hold out for that ‘perfect girl’.
This whole idea was kind of alien to me at one level though because it
would be an entirely different approach than just hitting it off with
someone …
By this time though, I had created Beach and Beach was already diving in
and enjoying exploring the more ‘deep and meaningful’ forums on the net,
trawling the sites for this new kind of fantasy figure that the net
offered as a potential next mate.
It was a change to ‘build’ the perfect image of a superwoman … and
then go to the kind of sites online where she might hang out.
That was the theory anyway but, in truth, there have been perhaps three
girls, (or women), in that 12 year timeframe that might have qualified
or held attributes that, at the time, would have been on my superwoman
list.
One was the K I mentioned … but really, that so called wish list was a
short one now I look back on it. (She just had to be a ‘like mind’, eye
pleasing and busty!). That was what Beach ‘dialed up’ at the time.
The second girl was another ‘E’ … from Kent. She is now one of my most
trusted friends and yes, we do have an affinity with each other and,
though I missed this following point, she has the kind of figure I might
have only ever dreamed of.
I ‘blew’ any potential romance with ‘E’ though because I ‘judged’ her
entirely by one poor, unrepresentative photo she sent me and because it
failed to meet Beach’s ‘quality control’, I allowed the romantic aspect
of our communication to wilt. (I know, I know … how seemingly
shallow).
Well, not entirely correct. “E” remains very close to my heart and her
to mine but I lost the opportunity to see if we might gel because I
dismissed that photo and put off meeting her.
It wasn’t until several months later that I caught sight of a photo of
‘E’ with her new man and boy was I wrong to have judged her single
photo.
That hit me quite hard though, over the years, we drop each other the
occasional line and I always mail her on the anniversary of her family
member’s death. (He was killed by an IAD, blown up in Afghanistan).
That was a couple of years ago and I kind of slid my internet wish list
under the clock on the mantlepiece, (along with the crass judgemental
outlook too),and from then on and started to believe that this whole
internet communication was and is an almost un-natural way to meet
someone.
Then … something awesome and profound happened …
WET ROT in my flat … on the ceiling. It threatened to see the 3 storey
building above come crashing down through rotten beams and floorboards.
Unceremoniously, over only a few months, I found myself propelled from a
cool but limiting town centre studio flat, (lacking a garden and much
space), to ‘Beach’ Cottage, an idyllic new home that has enabled this
bird to escape from that old cage and glide and climb and dive, (JSL
style), over the land that occupies my fabulous new home these days.
I didn’t know it until the new situation kicked in but that move
transformed me, awoke me, released me.
… AND … with the recent second life threatening DVT, I was delivered
this amazing new outlook … on life, I mean.
Well, it wasn’t entirely new. I had and have been pretty zen like and
philosophical all my life but … when you feel or taste death brush by
you a second or third time, it doesn’t half help deliver a real meaning
about stuff.
So … all lists went out the window, all fears and fretting got tossed
aside and this enormous 20ft high metaphoric double oak door swung open
in my mind and vision and I began to experience the whole world as if
looking through the filters or lens of the cameras that filmed that
classic movie, “Its a Wonderful Life”. (Oh yeah and it is a bit freaky
that some folk say I look a bit like James Stuart, the star that played
George Mally in that classic Frank Capra production).
So … You have turned out to be a bit of a curved ball … a ball I
hadn’t expected or hadn’t been waiting, contriving or even hoping to
have an opportunity to ‘catch’.
And, in some weird, stranger than fiction way, in stopping my fruitless,
pointless pursuit of what imagined I was looking for, I discover … err
… you! 🙂
But … well .. we’ll have to wait and see where things go …
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