Sex and the City has LOT to answer for. I didn’t actually consider this to be an issue until I moved to a Power City like London. Once you get more than five million people into one place, thinks are bound to get toxic. Melbourne, Berlin, Vienna, these are small enough to remain ‘normal’. Now that it has warmed (slightly) with the summer months, London feels like a sexual serengeti. At work yesterday, The Clever One wore shorts which would better be described as glorified underwear. That The Clever One has the most beautiful legs I have ever seen on a woman makes this acceptable. But I was still surprised to see that much of them in the workplace. And on the street, one can hear Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’, underscoring a palpable en-masse ‘going into heat’ which allows a fellow-commuter’s accidental touch to send confusing signals to all the wrong places.
I can’t wait for Autumn.
Yesterday, with The Boyfriend, went to Rex Bar a members only club I have managed to get friendly with after doing a co-promotion with them some weeks back. It has an ideal location in Rupert Street, a cocktail list which goes on and on, a pretty good food menu, bar staff of what appears to be Swedish Extraction…oh and a cinema. Full size screen, comfy chairs, every night a different film and you can take food and drink in. The Boyfriend and I were to be joined by The Designer and her new(ish) boyfriend The Banker. At the designated meeting point, The Designer met us, but minus The Banker, who was busy bailing out a work colleague, much to the dismay of The Designer who was, as she put it, ‘VERY fucked off’. The Boyfriend and I went into full comedy mode and between the jokes and the cocktails, in 15 minutes, The Designer was laughing. Then I went to pick up The Banker who was now available. I left the two emotionally extrovert people at the Rex while I went to pick up the other man. Suddenly the group seemed to split, The Banker and I, cool, rational and emotionally controlled. On the other side, The Designer and The Boyfriend, unpredictable, emotionally explosive and utterly irrational about conflict and the resolution of it. Will an apology please them? No…it needs to be ‘truly felt’. Problem is for men (who actually act like men) is that to us, apologising IS the only thing we know how to do. When girls (or the men who act like them) choose to be upset about something (and BOY is it ever a choice), there is no way to make it better. Asking what the problem is does NOT work. The answer is generally a version of the ultimate in nonsensical insanity:
‘well if you don’t KNOW what the problem is, there’s no point in my telling you’.
WHAT?!?!
Over the course of the evening, The Designer and The Banker returned to their accustomed lovey-dovey-ness, or something approximating it. We all watched the film (Where in the World is Osama bin Laden, a ‘preaching to the choir’ piece explaining that most Muslims are perfectly nice moderates who want peace) the couples paired up as God intended it (or didn’t according to certain deeply boring people) and then, as the bar turned into a nightclub, we left, with myself feeling far too old for a late night out on a Friday. Then, as we all went up to the street (the bar is two floors underground) a bizarre split occurred. The emotionally irrational, fiery female (The Designer) and I and I started conspiratorially complaining about our boyfriends, while the emotionally controlled, calm guy (The Banker) and the emotionally irrational unpredictable gay guy (The Boyfriend) started talking about The Golden Girls. When did gender and its predelictions become so interchangeable?
I could have sworn that before Sex and the City, we weren’t like this? Am I wrong? Of course, before Sex and the City I was 17…
