This morning I saw something disgusting. I know I've been poorly recently, and it was early and I hadn't eaten, but this genuinely turned my stomach.
A couple.
But not just a couple. A couple who couldn't leave each other alone.
You know the type. They can't just hold hands, they have to fiddle. And cuddle. And tickle. And stroke. They can't just talk to each other, they have to whisper sweet nothings with barely an inch between each other, interspersed with regular snogging and giggling. And yet, despite the whispering, you can still hear every single sickly sweet intimacy that actually says nothing they haven't already said to each other a million times before as well as in a million other ways.
Now, I know I'm dead in the heart. The truth, though, is that I'm not. I can actually be very romantic with the right person and in the right place. I can do the poems; hand-written notes to leave under the pillow for my partner to find getting into bed when I am not there (are nor, hopefully, is anyone else); intricate meals involving precision to make them look almost as perfect and the person who is to eat them; and late night cuddles, whispering nothing because it is almost too much that they are even there with me.
See? I can do it.
But platform three of Leicester station at 7:45am is not the time and the place.
Now, I am unremarkably British about this sort of thing. Stiff upper lip and no display of emotions at any time. I see the 'public outpouring' stuff that are seen at massively seminal events as blips on the reputation that may be overlooked in the extreme stresses of the circumstances, but that certainly shouldn't be repeated with any frequency.
However, aside from this being something so unusual to occur on platform three of Leicester station at 7:45 am so as to make it stand out as somewhat remarkable, I did consider it not just unnecessary, but excessive.
But then we don't know why it happened. There could be a number of reasons.
They could, very simply, be over-affectionate. They could be unaware of social norms and the discomfort this view causes other people. They could, in short, be foreign.
But there could be any of perhaps three other reasons:
Inexperience
They weren't young, but they weren't pretty, so maybe this is the first time they've been in a relationship. Well, a proper, non-imagined relationship. They're still getting used to social norms and expectations. And chemicals. They're feeling things they've never felt before, and may never feel again once these feelings get dulled and dented by a bitter break-up and a reluctance to ever let their guards down, ever let anyone so close again, preferring instead simple, immediate, non-commital intimacy that ends when you say goodbye the following morning. Or maybe that's just me.
Insecurity
Again, this could be related to the inexperience, thinking without reason or with delusion that each other is absolutely irresistable to anyone else who may see. Or there may be proper reason behind the suspicion: he may have just reluctantly accepted her back after her desperate pleas when he cast her out after finding her giving a blowie to another man in a nightclub toilet in Birmingham.
Maybe they already know they are on rocky ground and figure that everyone looking at them is judging them, calculating how many weeks, days, seconds are left until he calls her an ugly munter, storms out of the train station (once he's managed to get through the ticket barrier which always interfere with a good 'storm') and inexplicable beds her considerably better looking best friend who only sleeps with him as payback for some equally callous act, then devastating puts him in his place by teeling him how small and ineffective his penis is and how she retched every time she kissed him.
Desperation
Maybe they actually realise how ugly they each are an how impossibly unlikely it could ever be for anyone else to find them attractive and therefore they desperately have to hold on to this senseless individual who finds them "jolly" instead of just plain fat. Lightning never strikes the same place twice (well, it does, but there is still a greater chance of lightning striking the same place twice than there is of him finding someone who can't smell his body odour, or who finds his inability to socialise an 'amusing qurk').
Obviously I can't accept that people do this type of thing out of pure natural affection. They wouldn't perform if there wasn't an audience, so they clearly believe we as the poor innocent bystander are more than cassual, accidental witnesses. They probably think that they are reaffirming faith in humanity, in love and goodness and all things anazing. They probably think they are breaking down barriers, moderning perceptions, changing the soicism of the British. And, in fact, they are managing to do the opposite. We are retrenching. If that is feelings, we can more than do without them. People getting overly sentimental? No, we have no time, inclination or desire for such things. They are so out-of-place and discomforting that they concrete our resolve that it is a bad thing, exemplify cold, ruthless nothingness as a perfect, normal functionality. They are a scarf: useless, eccentric, flamboyant, unnecessarily complicated, not actually warming to the heart/neck and frowned upon.
Well, maybe not quite a scarf...
AN ASIDE
I am on an extended holiday from Tuesday. It may be that I get to post once more before I go (I do have a long train journey to and from London over the weekend) but equally I may not (I have a LOT to do before I go). I don't return from holiday until May (I did say 'extended') and may then be too jet-lagged / busy to post that week, but will hopefully get back to it soon after.
A couple.
But not just a couple. A couple who couldn't leave each other alone.
You know the type. They can't just hold hands, they have to fiddle. And cuddle. And tickle. And stroke. They can't just talk to each other, they have to whisper sweet nothings with barely an inch between each other, interspersed with regular snogging and giggling. And yet, despite the whispering, you can still hear every single sickly sweet intimacy that actually says nothing they haven't already said to each other a million times before as well as in a million other ways.
Now, I know I'm dead in the heart. The truth, though, is that I'm not. I can actually be very romantic with the right person and in the right place. I can do the poems; hand-written notes to leave under the pillow for my partner to find getting into bed when I am not there (are nor, hopefully, is anyone else); intricate meals involving precision to make them look almost as perfect and the person who is to eat them; and late night cuddles, whispering nothing because it is almost too much that they are even there with me.
See? I can do it.
But platform three of Leicester station at 7:45am is not the time and the place.
Now, I am unremarkably British about this sort of thing. Stiff upper lip and no display of emotions at any time. I see the 'public outpouring' stuff that are seen at massively seminal events as blips on the reputation that may be overlooked in the extreme stresses of the circumstances, but that certainly shouldn't be repeated with any frequency.
However, aside from this being something so unusual to occur on platform three of Leicester station at 7:45 am so as to make it stand out as somewhat remarkable, I did consider it not just unnecessary, but excessive.
But then we don't know why it happened. There could be a number of reasons.
They could, very simply, be over-affectionate. They could be unaware of social norms and the discomfort this view causes other people. They could, in short, be foreign.
But there could be any of perhaps three other reasons:
Inexperience
They weren't young, but they weren't pretty, so maybe this is the first time they've been in a relationship. Well, a proper, non-imagined relationship. They're still getting used to social norms and expectations. And chemicals. They're feeling things they've never felt before, and may never feel again once these feelings get dulled and dented by a bitter break-up and a reluctance to ever let their guards down, ever let anyone so close again, preferring instead simple, immediate, non-commital intimacy that ends when you say goodbye the following morning. Or maybe that's just me.
Insecurity
Again, this could be related to the inexperience, thinking without reason or with delusion that each other is absolutely irresistable to anyone else who may see. Or there may be proper reason behind the suspicion: he may have just reluctantly accepted her back after her desperate pleas when he cast her out after finding her giving a blowie to another man in a nightclub toilet in Birmingham.
Maybe they already know they are on rocky ground and figure that everyone looking at them is judging them, calculating how many weeks, days, seconds are left until he calls her an ugly munter, storms out of the train station (once he's managed to get through the ticket barrier which always interfere with a good 'storm') and inexplicable beds her considerably better looking best friend who only sleeps with him as payback for some equally callous act, then devastating puts him in his place by teeling him how small and ineffective his penis is and how she retched every time she kissed him.
Desperation
Maybe they actually realise how ugly they each are an how impossibly unlikely it could ever be for anyone else to find them attractive and therefore they desperately have to hold on to this senseless individual who finds them "jolly" instead of just plain fat. Lightning never strikes the same place twice (well, it does, but there is still a greater chance of lightning striking the same place twice than there is of him finding someone who can't smell his body odour, or who finds his inability to socialise an 'amusing qurk').
Obviously I can't accept that people do this type of thing out of pure natural affection. They wouldn't perform if there wasn't an audience, so they clearly believe we as the poor innocent bystander are more than cassual, accidental witnesses. They probably think that they are reaffirming faith in humanity, in love and goodness and all things anazing. They probably think they are breaking down barriers, moderning perceptions, changing the soicism of the British. And, in fact, they are managing to do the opposite. We are retrenching. If that is feelings, we can more than do without them. People getting overly sentimental? No, we have no time, inclination or desire for such things. They are so out-of-place and discomforting that they concrete our resolve that it is a bad thing, exemplify cold, ruthless nothingness as a perfect, normal functionality. They are a scarf: useless, eccentric, flamboyant, unnecessarily complicated, not actually warming to the heart/neck and frowned upon.
Well, maybe not quite a scarf...
AN ASIDE
I am on an extended holiday from Tuesday. It may be that I get to post once more before I go (I do have a long train journey to and from London over the weekend) but equally I may not (I have a LOT to do before I go). I don't return from holiday until May (I did say 'extended') and may then be too jet-lagged / busy to post that week, but will hopefully get back to it soon after.
