From the window

I live on a busy road in Brighton. My front window looks out over the road and beyond the blocks of flats, I can see the sea. It's awesome. At some point every day, I stand in my bay window and watch the street, unseen, unnoticed by the people below, which is fine with me, I'd rather keep myself to myself. The street is full of shops and interesting people, why would you look up?

Just now, however, I was closing the heavy sash window with a loud rattle, and a guy on the street heard the noise and looked up. A cool, long haired, indie muso type (thinking about it now, he looked a bit like Eric Balfour). He met my eyes and, unlike most people, didn't look away. So I smiled. A bit. He smiled. A bit. And gave me a little wave. So I gave him a little wave back. He didn't stop walking and after this two second exchange, he looked back at the street and I turned away from the window.

We'll never see each other again, and even if we did, would we remember? But that little connection, that unexpected moment of 'hello', it made me smile :)

Corporately social

I am the least sporty person I know. I don't play sport, watch sport or read about sport. I tune out when people talk about football, I start fidgeting if there's a game on a TV in a pub, I have been known to rant about how much of a news broadcast is taken up by reports of a sprained ankle or a disappointed manager. I'm overweight, uncompetitive and not particularly physically adept. These things, along with the utter, utter boredom I associate with sport, don't tend to make me a great contributor to the near-mandatory involvement in the vastly tedious organisation known as the Work Social Club. Which I am beginning to learn, is not really about socialising, it's about sport. And drinking. And more sport.

My firm recently decided it was time to start a Social Club. We've more than doubled the number of staff in four years and such rapid growth is starting to breed the inevitable 'silo' effect of departments not communicating, cliques forming and gossip rumbling. So the bosses felt that social events would get people to meet in a non-stress environment, bond and strengthen their working relationships. Nice theory.

One of the girls in my team was put in charge of setting up said Social Club. She's about to turn 30, she's bright, vibrant, healthy, enjoys a glass (bottle) of wine, goes to the gym every day, rugby on the weekend and dressed as a Playboy Bunny or Sexy Lady Cop for at least three hen parties last year. So, after the meeting with the new Social Club Committee this afternoon..

Me: So what activities did the social club decide on?
Organiser: Oh loads! Cricket, softball, boules, rowing, sailing, hockey, football, rugby, korfball...
Me: Anything for non-sporty people, like me?
Organiser: Of course! You can come and watch!

When I (gently) pointed out that spectating was not exactly an inclusive activity for non-sporty folk, she sniffed and said 'Well, what else is there?' A few minutes later, she piped up with 'Oh, someone suggested pottery classes. GOD, I can't think of anything more boring!'

If I'm honest, I was stuck for responses at that point. Mostly because I don't actually care, the idea of spending any more time with these people than I have to makes me a little nauseous. But on the way home, I came up with: film club, book club, chess club, music night, opera night, theatre night, photography shoot day, art classes, cooking classes, sewing club, glass blowing, singing group, talent show, craft club, model railway club and hell yes, pottery classes. I considered giving her my list, but as I'm not even vaguely interested in being the one to organise such things, I'm not going to put the idea out there.

Which brings me to my point. My bosses wanted to set this up to encourage people to ge to know each other in a non-work environment. To get people to open up, share, bond. But by making the 'social' aspect entirely about competitive sport (and, as a byproduct, drinking), the people who will want to be involved are those people already engaged at work: the fit, active, extroverted, confident, competitive, socially competent ones. Those of us who are physically less secure, introverted, shy or just plain bored, are not going to express any interest in joining in and, from my point of view at least, will avoid it like the plague. And I think the rest of the sporty types could be missing out on an opportunity to get to know us.

One of the girls in my office, let's call her Mabel (not even close to her real name), is one of the great Socially Inept. She's in her late 20s, but dresses like a 50-something librarian. She is slim, but in an ironing board way, doesn't style her hair, or wear makeup. She works hard and my guess is that she's a genius at what she does. When I speak to her, I get the impression she's not really interested in small talk, but indulges me because it's polite. I'm not a finance geek, so can't engage her on that topic and don't know anything about her to engage her on other subjects. She comes across as stiff and aloof, but I suspect it's either shyness, or, like me, just plain boredom.

A couple of years ago, however, I had a brief insight into what might be going on under that tight ponytail and those dowdy print dresses. I didn't go to the firm Christmas party (never have), but saw some photos of the event afterwards. It was a fancy dress party (one of the reasons I didn't go) and the theme was animals (the venue was the London Zoo, get it...?). Mabel turned up dressed in a skin-tight leopard print catsuit. No makeup and hair in her standard ponytail, flat-chested, flat-bottomed Mabel, in a cat suit. And no-one had explained about appropriate underwear for such a tight outfit either, ouch. She's been the talk of the firm every Christmas since then.

But what made me wonder was that, even though it was a terrible outfit for someone shaped like her (I can't do catsuits either, but I rock a vampire beer wench outfit), she had wanted to show everyone that she was interesting. Exciting. Scandalous. Sexy. She was more than the person they saw at work every day.

I suffer from it occasionally too, the ego-trip of 'wait, there's more to me than pie charts and telling you the font is wrong!'. But I kerb that instinct more and more often now, as people are unnerved, confused, taken aback and sometimes downright shocked at anything outside what they consider the norm. I think about how they talked (talk) about Mabel and her catsuit and clamp down the urge to start a discussion about Amanda Palmer's (who?) latest (naked) video, how much I fancy Benedict Cumberbatch and just how badly I want to write TV shows the way Mark Gatiss does. Because that kind of talk in a corporate environment will get you Labelled As Weird.

The downside is I struggle more at my job because I'm not 'bonding' with the other staff over Fantasy Football (really?). There are moments where I can garner a glimmer of a connection - brief opinions on the Lichtenstein exhibition at the Tate, an Oxbridge English Lit graduate noticing I'm reading Cormac McCarthy, someone wondering why I haven't been watching Game of Thrones (I don't have Sky). But for the most part, I bite my tongue, push down the passion and keep it to myself, or risk dilution, derision, confusion.

I like the work I do and I really like the money I earn from doing it, but after nearly five years in an increasingly corporate environment, I find myself questioning my reasons for spending so much of my life in an environment that's slowly excluding me. And it does make me wonder if I'm not the only one.

Weepy

I was watching Inside The Actor’s Studio this afternoon and James Lipton had Liam Neeson on and toward the end of the show, asked him the ‘standard’ questions. The last one was ‘Finally, if heaven exists (and I’m sure you have no doubt of it), what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?’

Liam responded with ‘I gave this a lot of thought James.’ He paused, his eyes filled, and his voice cracked ever so slightly as he continued…

‘Your wife’s inside… with a big chilled bottle of pinot noir’.

I’m still weepy.

Ketchup for one

When I was 17 years old, I left home for university and moved into my first flat. My parents were paying my rent and I had a small allowance for food and expenses until I got a part-time job. I had been waiting for a place of my own since I was 14, I was so excited to be making my own rules, decorating with my second hand furniture and charity shop crockery and doing my own grocery shopping. That task alone signified my journey to independence. I had accompanied my mother on countless expeditions to our local supermarket, I knew what you bought for five people and how to make your dollar go far enough (mince, not steak, ice confection, not ice cream). I still waver between the budget range and the posh range at supermarkets to this day (though the posh range wins  more often now that I'm earning proper money).

On my first visit to the supermarket as a not-living-at-home teenager, I realised I not only had less than one-fifth of my mother's grocery budget, I also only had to buy things for one. I don't really enjoy cooking (though I'm told I'm quite good thanks to parents who insisted I knew the basics before I left home) and I'm often happy with something-on-toast. So I was pretty much after staples. Coffee, sugar, bread, butter, ketchup. I bought the cheapest coffee on the shelf. It was instant coffee and the absolute worst, worst, diabolically worst coffee I've ever tasted. Pablo brand coffee if you're interested (and here's an equally bad TV ad for it http://youtu.be/m3uSVIZEuvM), I don't think they make it any more. Probably because it's carcinogenic. But I bought it because it was cheap and it came in a tiny little jar, which I thought was quite sweet. I also bought a bag of sugar, a small tub of butter and the smallest bottle of Heinz tomato sauce I could find (we don't call it ketchup in Australia). I was so proud of my first purchases for my new life. These small items, so insignificant, so mundane, so ORDINARY, were symbols of of fearless independence, of making my own decisions, of freedom. And I couldn't wait to embrace it all.

Twenty-two years later, I have just come out of my only serious relationship, eight years with a good, kind man, who remains my friend, even though he's decided he needs to make his own choices about his future. It's been three weeks since I moved into my own place, a tiny flat by the seaside and I'm not going to pretend it's been anything but difficult to adjust. Once again, the insignificant, the mundane, the ordinary, have been the momentous emotional triggers - seeing the dishwasher open in the 'wrong' kitchen, making toast for one in my four-slice toaster, scanning the supermarket shelves and the disappointment of remembering I don't need to think about what he'd like for dinner. Coming home to an unfamiliar place, without my friend there to talk to - it's been hard.

But tonight, I went to the supermarket with only two purchasing goals - dessert and ketchup. There were individual chocolate sundaes on special (I'll let you know how they turn out) and I found the ketchup at the end of one aisle. I saw the big bottles first, the kind I'd always bought two of, because we tended to get through them quickly and they were often two-for-one. I frowned. I didn't need a bottle that big and they weren't on special. Then I saw the little ones beside it. At half the price. So I picked one up and suddenly I was in the kitchen of my student flat in 1989, putting the tiny jar of Pablo into the empty cupboard - MY empty cupboard - the vague smell of Formica and carpet cleaner in my nose and the thrilling anticipation of my independent future ahead of me.

And for the first time since my relationship ended, I realised I was excited about making my own decisions again. I realised that I could go back to being the strong, creative, vibrant person I was before I decided taking care of another person (even though he'd never asked me to) was more important. I realised that desperate, aching pain underneath my breastbone might not stay there forever. For the first time in weeks, I felt good about something, without the sharp, bitter taste of loss tainting it. I was going to be okay. Not all the time, not every day, not even every hour, but I was going to be happy. Happy about my decisions, happy about my plans, happy about my future. Happy buying ketchup for one.