Suzanne Portnoy

It’s easy for me to forget, living the mad life that I do, that I might actually have made a dent in someone’s consciousness from time to time.  Over the years I’ve tried to adopt a modified Buddhist belief system whereby I live for the moment, with no expectations for the future.  It’s not always easy to do.  I’m not sure that humans were built not to have expectations but, like knitting or cooking or sex, it gets easier with practise.  I’m not ‘fully realised’ as the Buddhists might say, but I’m certainly getting there.  Life is far more fun when I grasp the moment, savour it for what it is and then let it go.  Most men seem to do this quite naturally and I envy them for their ability to be romantic on a Friday night and then off to the play footie with some mates on Saturday, with not so much a lingering thought to the night before.  Women love to rehash their relationships and liaisons over and over, trying to derive meaning where often there isn’t any.  A good Friday night date can keep some girls going for days, wondering just what it was all about and practically thinking about the place settings for the wedding.

This week I had a bit more love thrown my way than I was used to.  Not the shaking the floorboards kind of love but a few sweet words from former lovers that really seemed to come out of nowhere and really shocked me.  One was from a man I drove very far to see one weekday afternoon because I liked his smile.  I had been writing ‘The Not So Invisible Woman’ and, looking for some distraction, logged into a chatroom.  Most of the webcams were of naked guys wanking but one just stood out for me.  He wasn’t wanking.  In fact, he had on jeans and no top and he was laughing.  He had a cheeky smile and was terribly cute with a bald head, slim bod, lots of tattoos and piercings and god knows what.  But what really stood out for me was his laugh.  Well, we got to chatting and he was funny, really funny and I’m a complete sucker for funny.

The next day I got in my car and drove the 100 miles to meet him in his small house in Warwickshire and bizarrely, everything just clicked.  We spent the night together and the next morning I went back to writing and he went back to his day job working as a fireman.   From time to time he would come on messenger and a few times I even thought we might get together, but it just never happened.  Then yesterday he popped on MSN to say hello and now it looks like he may be taking a job just a few miles from my home from September for 3 months.  Obviously quite excited, I suggested that when he comes down we could get together.  The conversation got more and more fruity before finally he confessed that I ticked so many of his boxes that it actually frightened him.  That actually he had wanted to get closer to me for a very long time but didn’t want to get hurt and that he really cared about me.  Coming from someone I had only met the one time his words were unexpected and while I know that people do lie from time to time, there really wasn’t any reason for him to do so.  I knew when I drove the 100 miles to see him that it was likely to be a one off.

At virtually the same time, another man from my past has come back on the scene, someone I’ve known and fancied for years suggesting that he wouldn’t mind being more than the occasional shag. He’s looking for some real intimacy, not just a series of one-offs and I’m missing the sleep-over.  It’s too early to know whether it will actually materialise into anything but like the fireman it surprised me to hear he was thinking about me.

And finally there’s the biter from last week.  We may hit a movie together on Friday and I’ve told him I’ll hook up with him again providing he can leave his teeth out of my skin.  The bruises are now yellow and purple and I’m anxious not to have any more.

August is looking like a good month for love or at the very least feeling loved.  I wonder who else will crawl out of the woodwork…