Thursday, January 05, 2006

Coming back to earth

It usually takes me a few days to get over the Yuletide holidays. I suppose that after all the activity, getting back to work is about as exciting as a wet Sunday afternoon. I have one or two projects to work on that should keep me busy for a while and activity is the best cure for boredom I know!

In the last blog, I described how I met a strange, quiet girl at a friend's party in late December one year. I happened to bump into her again at a New Year's party and I began to learn a bit more about her. She had worked at the same place for the past fifteen years in an all-female environment. She had had only a few male friends and only one recent boy-friend who had treated her abominably. This had ended only a few months ago. Since her mother died two years previously, she was living alone and she only went out when invited by friends. She would never dream of going out on her own.
It was a lively party and we danced and shared a few drinks. I learned that she was 34 and her name was Iris; I was 38 at the time. I took her home afterwards, stayed for a coffee and asked if I could see her again. She agreed and with that, I left.
For the next couple of weeks, we were going out regularly but she was a little reluctant to take the friendship any further. She had been let down badly recently by her ex. and she was in no mood for anything other than a casual, friendly association.
It was now over a month since we’d first met. Unfortunately, I had fallen completely in love with her. Those next few weeks were agonizing for me. Here I was with a girl I loved, who, although she liked me, made it perfectly clear that she didn’t want a serious relationship. She was still so very scared of being hurt again. I thought that if I pushed it and told her how I felt, she would have run away like a scared rabbit. She wasn't used to going out regularly and certainly not used to the sort of attention I was giving her. I suppose that I was different from her previous ex. inasmuch that I always treated women, whoever they were, with consideration and respect.
We would go out to clubs together and quite often with my friends from work. They weren't the sort of clubs that attract young people of today, ther were Social Clubs where entetainment was the order of the day. At that time, I was working the clubs myself as a stand-up comedian and Iris was really pleased when I introduced her to my fellow artistes who were apearing on the same show. She was happier than she had been for many a year.

It was January when we started our relationship and those first days always come back to me at this time of the year. I find that talking and writing about Iris and our life together is good for me. I hope that any regular readers (if I have any) will not be too bored with this narrative.

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