A woman of contradictions

In my own head I'm quite a nice person. In my own head I'm outgoing but shy; clever but stupid, generous but thrifty; thoughtful but thoughtless. A woman of contradictions.


It's ironic that people, namely me, spend so much time worrying what other people think of them that they go and get it completely wrong. There are many examples that I could draw from my own life but here are just a few.

It was the weekend of my eighteen birthday, I was attending college and life was good. I knew that everyone expected me to have some birthday frolics organised for the coming Saturday night and to tell you the truth the thought of arranging such an occasion filled me with dread. As I said goodbye to my friends on the steps of the college that Friday afternoon, they asked me what I had planned, 'oh nothing much really,' I replied, convinced that they were only asking to be polite and that even if I had arranged something none of them would really want to come anyway. Even now I seldom organise gatherings that revolve around me, visions of me getting ready and preparing for the night ahead and then spending the evening sitting in silence alone on the sofa as one after another the apology calls flood in. I'd rather not know that I was unpopular.


But that night I got ready, my two best friends HB and Mrs. would be round any minute to pick me up; my two faithful friends, the three musketeers would always be there. We drove in to town in HB's much-loved maroon Peugeot and decided to pop in to see my boyfriend Gary who lived just around the corner from me.

To cut a long story short, they had arranged a surprise party for me. For me. In Gary's lounge stood all my friends who I had waved goodbye to on the steps only a few hours earlier. 'You don't think we would miss your eighteenth do you?' they beamed. To say I was shocked is an understatement, how could I have doubted my friends like that?

There was another time around my eighteenth birthday (clearly it was a poignant year for me!) Gary and I stopped at a Macdonald's drive through to get an ice-cream. The nice lady behind the window informed us that she was sorry but they had run out of ice-creams. I am ashamed to admit that I replied with a tut and muttered something about it not being good enough...it was ridiculous...or something along those lines. Gary was mortified that I had said this to the poor lady who was only doing her job. I knew I had done wrong, I was embarrassed that I had treated another human being in this way and I can most definitely say that if someone had spoken to me like that then I would have thought them to be ignorant and nasty.

So why did I do it? Why, when actually ultimately I just want to be a nice person, someone who has a good heart and good manners, did I say it?

The fact that I remember this Macdonald's incident nearly ten years on must say something but that still doesn't explain why in the ten years since then there have been further examples of words coming out before I've had time to process them in my head. Now, I know that it could be worse...I'm not a murderer, a cheat or a liar...I just say things sometimes and then don't realise the effect it has on others. But I know, as well as anyone, that often these little things build up and build up and that one day the mountain that has been chipped away at will collapse. I wonder sometimes, when I'm being particular self indulgent, that maybe the eventual demise of so many of my relationships has been to do with this. Maybe I thought I was a pretty ok girlfriend, when actually I wasn't. The fact that I've finished nearly every relationship I've ever been in perhaps says it all. I get in there first.

Being a woman of contradictions though, my biggest fear is that I will end up on my own, sitting in silence on the sofa, a lonely spinster. Ridiculous. Maybe.