Chantal - Have Laptop Will Travel

There is a psychotherapeutic expression, ‘Act As If…’ Act as if things are not the way they actually are. Hard advice to accept if you feel your world is falling apart, but if you truly feel like a frightened, threatened little child without a road map inside, then the only thing you can do is pretend that you are completely in charge and need no further assistance. For one, you are a prime candidate for mugging or assault, for another you might be trying people’s patience unnecessarily. Those you interact with will retain the image of the hypernervous little child you might have been, leaving no traces of the adult you are.

I’ve been a magnet for the insecure for as far back as I can remember. Particularly short, balding, aging, murmuring men who I call munchkins. How many of you have heard of Charlie? When I was on the acoustic music circuit, as musician and dancer, I attracted endless men who would mumble and look at me in awe. Oversociable and perhaps, at the time, underdiscriminating, I was rather too free with my business cards. My long-suffering flatmate screened my calls for me. For several months I would return home to see a note that Charlie had called. I had no idea who he was. Ellie and I would talk, and mostly laugh about this; she’d get fed up and tell him I didn’t know who he was, please stop calling, but he persisted. ‘Who’s Charlie?!’ became a catchphrase for us. I actually spoke to him once, for maybe twenty minutes; at the end, Ellie looked at me questioningly and I shrugged back. Still no clue. The calls finally died down, and then died altogether. I was walking through Chinatown with a friend at Chinese New Year a few months later, when someone tugged my arm and wouldn’t let go. I’d never seen him before in my life. It was Charlie. Thankfully he only called for several weeks that time before giving up.

I don’t think people are forgiving enough by nature to accommodate another’s insecurities or disorganisation on a regular basis. One of the things I notice Londoners complaining about the most is how busy their friends are – or how much they value what spare time they have, only allowing for narrow windows for each friend. Myself, I used to complain about the mentality of going home straight from work and spending the evening watching TV, rarely going out during the week. I’ve not actually thought about that in a long time, but I realise that I appreciate my home enough to be extremely protective towards it: only two people outside of immediate family know my landline number, and I’m increasingly grateful for the division that’s been created between my home life and social life. (In case that sounds weird, that’s what you get for living in New Cross. If you haven’t had the misfortune to hear of it, all I can say is this: more people get killed in Peckham.) Quality time is something of high importance to me, and I hardly imagine I’m unique in that respect: I don’t want to waste what little time I have listening to someone’s excuses, self-recrimination or indeed silence if they have gone missing in action. It’s also extremely disrespectful and discourteous, as it indicates a lack of regard, respect or awareness of your friend’s feelings or plans. I can tolerate friends who want to moan about the turn their life has taken, but my heart sinks at the thought of a session devoted to fluffing up someone’s non-existent ego or having to bite my tongue every few seconds. Not my idea of quality time and, ultimately, not the type of person I want to be wasting my time and energy on.

Strength can have its drawbacks, however, if accompanied by the same lack of regard, respect or awareness of others, and I’ve dropped more than one friend for this reason. I know that the world is a terribly overcrowded place, and belief in ‘survival of the fittest’ remains firm, but I think it needs modification. Even the fittest can find themselves isolated and ostracised without understanding why. Perhaps they were bullied at school and have sought to remake themselves, not realising that all they have done is exchange one source of exclusion for another. They will undoubtedly also attract the meek, who will only stay long enough to see through this person and hastily move on, grateful that at least their own integrity is intact.

One thing I am conscientious about is the impression I make on others. I haven’t stopped glowing since I left Dublin (sorry Aidan!), and I’ve been struck by how pleasant all the people I’ve encountered have been. By contrast, my last day in Dublin was memorable for the two heated arguments with complete strangers. Perhaps somewhere there is a cosmic database of all the thoughts anyone has ever had of you – a modern-day Santa’s list, or a more real prospect if you’ve worked on helpdesk. The opinions of those you know matter more, but that doesn’t devalue people thinking what a tart you are when you’re dressed up to go out, or how rude you are when you barge through them unseeingly or snarl abuse at them randomly. By the same token, I don’t want to be the person either who encourages a wealthy pacifist to mug. Perhaps you find the attitude of those around you unbearable and aggressive – to use my mother as an independent example, fights would spontaneously break out wherever she went, and bus drivers constantly swore at her or slagged her off – but how much of that is due to what you are feeling and what attitude you project? Perhaps people bully you because they sense that they can; perhaps they are openly hostile because they are picking up on the aggression rolling off you in waves. Or perhaps they smile and chat, because both of you can appreciate it. I remember how downtrodden I felt when I came back to London after a month in Central America at the start of the year, and how every encounter I had only reinforced that. Not only are you what you eat, but you’re also what you create.

More relevantly: the opinions of your friends. I don’t really know what my friends think of me, although I can probably make some educated guesses. I’m also observant enough to pick up on signs from them, even if I don’t always know the reason why. Robert Burns once wrote something along the lines of ‘Give us the power to see ourselves as others see us’; I’ve often fantasised about mini computer monitors in people’s foreheads which show us what each person is actually thinking. It would clear up so many unnecessary misunderstandings. If you don’t know, then, perhaps this is a more relevant question: how do you want others to see you? And do you know the answer to that? Are your friends still fuming over some things you said in all innocence, or criticising you for past behaviour – are there things that have bothered you too which you have not brought up with them? You don’t know when friends will decide that they have had enough and start to evade you, nor will you learn – or want to learn – the reasons why. So it’s more important to work on building a quality relationship without wasting valuable time taking their patience for granted and repeatedly abusing it.

In the IBM training course, we were asked to consider four personality types of customers. I can only remember two: aggressive and timid. My group decided that they would prefer the timid variety, without considering what extreme hard work these people can be. They need coaxing, reassurance and more coaxing simply to obtain something that doesn’t resemble a straight answer at all; most helpdesk staff are too jaded and fed up to manage more than monotones and autopilots, not allowing for the extra work that is needed to be put into someone of this type. If someone says something like how silly or stupid or ignorant they are, then you can almost guarantee the person on the other end of the phone will be agreeing with them. If you make that kind of statement, you won’t be receiving reassurance, only further confirmation. You’re the expert on yourself, and you’re also the one who determines how others see you. If you choose to mess them around or outstay your welcome, then you have to ask yourself what your motives are for this and what impression you are trying to create. And more importantly, how you would feel if others treated you in the same way.

I don’t have a summary, only a very strong urge to get back to my video. ‘Moulin Rouge’, about bloody time, yes I know.