I like you I like you I like you

“I must be quite trashed to tell you this but actually I don’t find big cocks that much of a turn on. Sometimes they just hurt. I’m quite happy accommodating average’ says my gorgeous gay male friend.

‘So what do you think – Catherine: shaved or just trimmed?’ says my once upon a time briefly kind of friend, who is now relegated firmly to acquaintance. To the other guys, as their colleague gets just out of ear shot.

“Campari and soda!?” says this someone who I think I might have once been kind of dating. Platonic dating. My peverse specialty? (more consternation on this to come). “You ordered it once that time just up the road – remember? And I thought wow, no one drinks that - that…’ ‘That’s such a nanna drink’ I finished for him. He tells the story to the others, of what I’d ordered, how remarkable he’d found it, how it reminds him of me even now. I let him go to the bar and get me one and note how this feels to have someone wheel out their image of you, based on nothing but some random moments. He also loves to tell me how analytical I am, what an intellectual, and I smile and nod and wonder what part of my naked flesh spread bare he might conjecture about when I leave the room, what flip line about his musings on my style in bed he might off handedly throw to the man standing next to him. I think ‘that’s not who I am – I’m not some demure and quirky intellectual who habitually sips campari and soda’ . I can vaguely remember the time I ordered that, on a low brown leather couch, me flushed and nervous (dating always unsettles me, I can never remember who I’m meant to be) and I find it amusing to think of this triviality which he thinks of as some defining feature was probably some posery gesture of mine towards sophistication, or maybe just a response to a hot hot day, maybe it was me trying not to get drunk too quickly in my nervousness. He returns with my drink. I thank him, I drink it and then go to beer.

This same man once said ‘are you sure you’re not a lesbian?’ to me, one on of our last dates. Which I thought was amusing – not because the notion of being with women is so foreign to me, not at all – but just because the way he framed it was very much ‘well, I’ve tried everything and we haven’t been to bed yet but you still keep agreeing to meet me for drinks and conversation so surely you must be a lesbian’. I was single at the time, and he had recently left the relationship he ended up returning to and ringing with a band of gold and newly renovated walls. Did he have a point? Was it strange that I met him, acessorised and flushed and talked for hours but didn’t have sex with him? Didn’t even kiss him? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe if one is lonely and more casual with ones physical space it is strange to not consummate any passing interest with sex. But you see, I think I knew even then the difference between squirming in the heat of someone’s gaze, and moving to the warmth that your own cells make when you like someone. Even if I didn’t know I knew it. And I didn’t really like him. Like him even less now.

Which brings me to muse on a question that I find interesting to roll around like some slow dissolving boiled lolly. What is it we like in other people who we fall for? Sometimes I conjecture that the most important thing, the things that makes someone appeal most (but not that ensures lasting compatability, not necessarily, I think that’s a different suite of characteristics), is not what you like about them – but what they like about you. You see, I am quite open to liking lots of people, I mean I can often see good and attractive qualities in people. I feel strong fondness towards certain characteristics like gentleness, or earnestness, or patience and of course, good humour (and yes attraction to eyes, and hands and arms and a laugh and the way someone touches or smells or kisses). But that isn’t enough, I seem to need to like the things that they like about me. For example, if someone professed to like me mostly because they think I’m ‘pretty’ that would be a major turn off. Case in point – a few years ago at a party, in the dark depths of the night outside on a milk crate, an ex-lover sat opposite me and said (slurring mind – it was very romantic) and said ‘you’re still beautiful’. To which I replied, indignant ‘still?!’ as if to express my disdain at his implied notion that I had withered up and disappeared since he had last seen me or we had been together. But then, and more relevant to my point here, I said ‘and that’s not even my best quality!’ huffily. Because it’s true – if someone likes me most for some random configuration of my facial features, it makes you wonder whether they’ve failed to notice all the qualities that in fact I hold dear, that I strive to embody. I have even been guilty of scoffing off handedly when someone tells me in bed that I’m beautiful – just scoffing at the cliché of it, of the tired old notion, and in some ways the irrelevance. I was feeling rather cynical back in those days though, maybe I could accept that more graciously now.

Other words that people have draped around my shoulders to give me form are: clever, nice, interesting, mysterious, confident. None of these grab me much as reasons for someone to like me. I would be cautious about anyone telling me they liked me because I was ‘interesting’ – it just means they haven’t read the same books as me, give them time, they will – I will stop being interesting. ‘Nice’ is so bland – I would rather be seen as simultaneously overwhelmingly saintly and outrageously devilish rather than nice. Nice suggests they don’t know me well, and will only like me being moderate, well behaved.

‘Confident’ is so one-dimensional, and often inaccurate. The first time they see me weeping with snot running down my face at some childhood hurt triggered randomly, or see me anxious at the international airport, still a little overwhelmed at the idea that I can leave the country and embark on jourtneys to places unseen, or stressing before some steering committee meeting where I feel underprepared and exposed, ‘confident’ will be shown up as the flappy little awning it is. And then what? Someone takes away their respect and admiration because you weren’t the 2-dimensional all singing all dancing shadow puppet they had conjured up for you? No thanks.

And so on.

A friend at work came up to my desk last week and smiled and told me in a kind of amazed voice that whenever he comes over to my desk it feels all clean and fresh, and his feels all dirty and messy in comparison. He stood there for a while like he wanted to stay, and I was flattered because as far as I could see my desk was as messy as anyone's - things in piles and stuff, but there were plants I guess and pictures, and I liked this strange compliment a lot. I went over to his desk later and told him that it wasn't messy and dirty, it was just cosy and unselfconscious. Which I thought it was, which I think he is.

What I think I would like someone to like about me is everything – or nothing in particular – maybe not even knowing, maybe not even liking my qualities that much, but just liking me anyway, despite themselves. Some attraction that can’t get reduced to some boxes to tick, some intrigue and fascination which is as much about flaws as perfection, some commitment to giving it a go and being honest with each other over the lumps and bumps of the relationship terrain. That’s what I’d like.