Privacy

I think I just overstepped the mark with GM. We decided to tell two of our close mutual friends our news.. The girl in the couple has wanted a baby for ages, and we thought it would be good to get it out of the way while we had an exit strategy, as these kinds of situations tend to cause a lot of arguing in that household.

The exit strategy being that if a fight appeared to be ensuing, I would claim to have to give GM a ride to work and therefore we could both slip away unnoticed together.

Basically the girl started chatting about another friend of hers who is also pregnant, and GM and I both started giggling uncontrollably. When GM said I was pregnant, our male friend's jaw dropped to the ground almost audibly (he has a pretty square and solid jaw). The girl managed to be courteous and say congrats etc. Male friend said nothing, the poor thing.

Male friend and I plus another guy went for a guys' beer in town after GM dropped us off to go to work. The guy plus male friend were both full of great advice to me, though neither were particularly reassuring. They seemed both bemused and, as male friend said as he reluctantly let me go for the 10 min walk to GM's flat on my own instead of getting a cab (Him: "I would never let my girlfriend walk there alone." Me: "Neither would GM let me. However he is not here, and you're not my boyfriend, so I'm walking."): "It's been a happy and befuddling occasion this evening."

But that is really all besides the point.

The point I wanted to make is that I could actually see GM getting uncomfortable with having to share this really rather personal news with our friends, albeid close ones. I am not a very private person, and to me, there's no discomfort in it whatsoever. I could see him crossing his arms protectively.

I don't know what he's worried about, but I feel with hindsight that we shouldn't have told them. OK, so I'm the one who is actually pregnant, but really, holding back news for me is clearly more comfortable than letting news out is to him. I will hug him and hold him in the morning and tell him this.

It is weird, we are still learning to know each other, and all these great big issues are arising and we have to handle them in the best way we can. He says he is fine, and I think he is, but right now I think that being with me, just the two of us, is all he really wants. He has no urge to involve the whole world, like I do. It is my basic instinct to unfold in front of my friends to include them and reassure myself of their support.

GM doesn't need them, not like I do. He only needs me.

It feels like a large responsibilty, but at the same time it really is an honor.

Fallout

It is raining outside today. Large drops falling almost straight, hardly any wind, and the harbor is rippled only by the impact of water on water.

The city is still sleeping, though I hesitate to call it a city, because it is not much more than a town really.

I have thought about whether I feel lonely. Whether I always felt lonely and thereby became a serial monogamist. It is weird. I never planned on having a boyfriend when I was younger. Sure, I liked guys but I've never really liked committment.

And I've never managed to form a relationship form which I got as much or more than I gave. With J and I, I guess we both gave more than we got. Our relationship turned into some kind of vortex that just sucked the life out of us both. The kind you read about in romatic novels, at the beginning, before the heroine realises that actually, the dashing guy next door is her true love. Like the opposite of gestalt theory, the whole is lesser than its parts.

So what am I afraid of? I, who barely know what fear is, unless it slaps me across the face with a fist, which it actually only did once for a brief moment during this last trauma.

My mother, always the pragmatic, told me several times to stop calling people, because she worried that they "would get tired of me". Experience of course showed that people didn't get tired of me, though they probably got used to me showing initiative and therefore rarely rang me first.

And maybe they didn't ring me first because there was something aloof about me, I had no fear. I might say no.

But I remembered my mother's words, and now I am worried of getting in touch with people, even though I do it, I don't feel entirely comfortable with it, except with my few very close friends whom I know I could call at any time of the day and they really would not mind.

Then there is the moving. I have moved around so much that I have never had time to settle into someone's social group. I am always welcome, never expected. Have I moved so much because I was afraid that if I tried to settle in, I wouldn't be accepted? I don't think so. I think this is just what I've had to sacrifice on the altar of my restlessness. Among other things. Though in a sense one could also say that at least they never have time to get tired of me.

So therefore, having a partner was always comforting to me, to my insecurity and partially my laziness.

It is fantastic to always have someone there, someone who will entertain me or that I can engage with my random thoughts about life, someone to have sex with. Sex on tap is extremely underrated, and I can tell I'm getting pretty cranky now though I'm too lazy and still feeling too tender to do anything about it.

I don't actually mind being on my own. I just mind not knowing that someone won't come rushing to my side the second I do.