Love Hurts
The trouble with puppy love is that it runs away with all reason. When it’s the very first time that you’ve been pierced by Cupid’s arrow it sprints. To say my judgment was clouded was like saying that the world’s being affected by global warming. It’s only a smidgen of the truth. I tell myself this everytime. I know I shouldn't get attached but I can't help myself.
I was besotted. It interfered with my appetite, my sleep, my emotional incontinence. Even my dating schedule in the lavatory was thrown into turmoil. I had new material to process. She kissed me. Correction she snogged me. Lips, tongues and a full-on erection. Vis a vis she likes me. Clearly finds me rather attractive. Correction she fancies me. In fact she probably loves me. Clearly full-on snogging with absolutely no chat lines, or in fact any conversation whatsoever, can only mean one thing. She finds me devastatingly irresistible. Case closed.
The only problem was that I had hardly spoken to her and more worryingly had very little intelligence to go on. I was clearly too inexperienced to have asked for a phone number. Though, fortuitously, she did tell me her name……Gillian. A nice name for wedding vows I thought. But, beyond that she was a stranger. But my indisputable girlfriend.
It’s not entirely satisfactory being hopelessly in love with no partner. I’m betrothed to someone who lives in my village but I’m not exactly sure of her identity. Beyond knocking on every door with a search warrant it was hard to know where to start my investigations. Conducting house to house enquiries seemed like a slight over-reaction, especially as I’d have to tell the whole village about the snogging. I wasn’t entirely sure that Gillian would be happy if the whole village knew about the snogging even if I thought it might boost my rather slender (in fact non-existent) local reputational credentials.
It was my mother who came to my rescue. My lovelorn teenage angst quickly made me intolerable to live with. I had no ability to deal with love. I needed someone to throw a rope down my well of intranquility and rescue my faltering soul. She manfully picked up the baton clearly motivated by the thought that a romantic dalliance might put an end to my increasingly furtive lavatorial indiscretions. She knew the mother of a Gillian rather well and even had her phone number which was provided. My heart exploded with joy and euphoric exultation at the lifeline. All I now had to do was ring her up and our relationship would be cemented. Wouldn’t it? Of course.
The trouble was that words had to be spoken during this phone call and while my feelings were indisputable, my ability to express them to a girl, let alone a fellow snogger, was far more questionable. In fact the more I thought about it the more daunting the prospect became. Words. What words? It would be so much easier if we just snogged. Surely no words are required when you’re in love. Just snogging.
What followed was slightly discouraging. Every time I looked at the piece of paper with the phone number on it I stroked it. It was my most treasured possession. The fact that I’d learned the number off by heart and engraved it onto the inner recesses of my burdened soul was irrelevant. Stroking the number was caressing her. I practiced dialling it many times. I confess I dialled it a thousand times. A hundred of these I allowed to proceed to a ring tone. At first just rehearsing, then with the avowed intention of actually saying something. Anything. Panic ensued. What happened if the words came out in the wrong order? What happened if I froze and forgot my lines? What if she blew me off course from my laboriously rehearsed order of service by speaking? What if she didn’t remember me.....? Every time I hung up unable to summon the courage to be the man I wasn’t.
At Gillian’s end of the phone there must have been consternation. A continual bombardment of two ring phone calls which terminated before anyone could reach the cradle. This went on for at least a week as the assailant became more and more desperate and speechless. At least, he thought, this demonstrated ardour and commitment. Damn harassment and nuisance value. This was love. Love hurts. I should have just booked an escort instead. I guess that way with a London escort I can't get my heart broken.