The Hopeless Romantic

[This entry was inspired by my awesome blogger penpal Amanda. See the post that started it all here.]

I have never considered myself a romantic. Romance. I’m not even sure what the term means. When I hear it, the first things that pop to mind are clichés: heart-shaped boxes of chocolate; clasped hands and deep, meaningful gazes across candlelit tables at restaurants shot in soft focus featuring burgundy velour and dark wood paneling; long walks on the beach at sunset; pina coladas; getting caught in the rain.

None of these things are inherently bad. I like chocolate, especially the salty kind. I suppose, given the right context and circumstances, clasping hands with my … my lover (another troubling term) and staring deep into his eyes could make sense (although preferably not in a place with décor reminiscent of a fancy steakhouse, I remain firm on that point). If I were in the vicinity of a body of water and the sun started sinking into it and if I were with a guy, I wouldn’t be all like “Whoa, we’d better take shelter somewhere until the last vestiges of pink and orange have been blotted out by darkness.” No. No way. And pina coladas are delicious. And getting caught in a summer rain shower could be fun if you’re not on your way to a job interview, or halfway home from the market lugging five bags of groceries.

So what’s the problem? The problem is that lately I’ve been asked whether I consider myself a romantic, and to what extent romance is important to me.

How romantic are you?
1. I love lots of romance, it is a necessity for me to feel loved
2. I am romantic, but do not require it
3. I am occasionally romantic
4. I don't consider myself a romantic person
5. _________________________________

Every time I’m hit with this question, I cringe. True, option #4 corresponds with my opening statement, but it still seems wrong for me. I imagine it is the choice a robot would make, or a fish. I don’t like #3 because it sounds too much like option #4, but with brief, lucid flashes of sweet thoughtfulness emerging from an otherwise cold, limp norm. Option #2 has a hint of resignation about it. Option #1 sounds too demanding. My tendency is to go for #5 and try to unpack as much as I can in 200 characters or less.

The other day I was discussing my romantic misgivings with a male friend who is like a brother to me. Part of what makes him like kin is that we can only discuss matters of the heart via electronic communication even though we could just as easily do so face-to-face. After angsting about all of the above and then some, he replied:

Marvin says:
Do you like flowers?

Kim says:
Oh yes! I like those.

Marvin says:
Then you are romantic. Have you ever given someone flowers?

Kim says:
Well, yes. Although we were kind of fighting at the time.

Marvin says:
If the flowers were to make up for something, then you lose points.
In any case, I pity the fool who tries to romance you.

Granted, that last comment is in keeping with the often savage tone of our banter. But it still made me question myself. Am I really that emotionally stunted? Cold? Empty? Brutal?

I would like to think that I am none of those things. I mean, I’ve been brought to tears by TV commercials, never mind full-blown narratives with actual character development to further lure me in and crush me. I am consistently undone by Elbow’s rendition of The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver performed with the BBC Concert Orchestra. I once moved to Australia to be with a guy I’d known for a week. It didn’t work out, but there were no hard feelings in the end. As with most men I’ve been involved with, we were two good people who weren’t so good together. And yes, I have a little cache of mushy fantasies that I never tell anyone about. They’re all swimming around my head as I write this, but don’t ask me to articulate them.

I’m convinced my upbringing has something to do with my ambivalence towards romance. As any armchair psychologist will tell you, our blueprint for relating to others comes from our parents. And mine never really exhibited what might be commonly considered romantic behavior. Not in front of us kids anyway. As mentioned in an earlier post, candlelight didn’t figure prominently in our household. I have no memories of them slow dancing in the living room after dinner to the strains of “Three Times a Lady”. I don’t recall my father ever bringing my mother flowers, although one year for Valentine’s Day he did buy her hubcaps.

This year they will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. And from what I can tell, they are happy. There is love between them; love and a bunch of other stuff that accumulates after four decades of togetherness. My friend Kurt refers to his parents as The Bickersons, and I’ve started doing the same with mine. They drive each other nuts, but at least some of the squabbling is comedic. My father is the instigator, and my mother’s role is to react. It’s this tendency towards needling that has influenced how I behave with those I like, as well as those I love. In the monkey-see-monkey-do fashion of children, I have learned that ribbing and zinging are signs of affection.

This hasn’t always served me well. People don’t always get my jokes. Admittedly, a fair number of my attempts at humor fall flat. For example, an ex of mine had interesting hands. They were kind of meaty and I liked them. He once showed me a shot of himself taken in an exotic locale, shortly after emerging from a long session in a hot tub. He was wearing a long-sleeved white shirt and his hands appeared swollen and red, dangling as though photo-shopped from a different body. I took all this in, laughed and said something like “Look at you: Fat Hands McGhee!”

I was only teasing. His last name isn’t McGhee, and his hands aren’t really fat. But he was so hurt, because as a child he’d battled weight issues and there I was, apparently suggesting some kind of residual chubbiness. Not at all my intention. I was eventually able to convince him of this, but there are few things as unromantic as vigorous backpedaling after a joke gone wrong. (Interestingly, he later started referring to himself as Fat Hands McGhee, and took to enthusiastically slamming tabletops as the signature move for his adopted moniker.)

Yet humor isn’t in and of itself anti-romantic. Laughing together can be sexy. I guess humor becomes problematic when used as a shield against vulnerability. And maybe that’s what gets me about romance: being vulnerable. When you get past all the prepackaged Hallmark sap and Hollywood cheese that I find so easy to mock, romantic gestures, be they grand or small, are always about pinning your heart to your sleeve. We’ve all been on the giving or receiving end of a failed romantic offering, and it can hurt like blazes.

There is more to a relationship than romance, of course. If someone offered me the choice of writing me a poem, or helping me to paint my apartment, I’d be shoving a paintbrush into his hands faster than he could say, “Roses are red, violets are blue.” Mutual respect, trust, friendship, loyalty, teamwork, shared vision and goals and whole lot of other stuff are, as far as I’m concerned, necessary components for a lasting relationship.

But … all right, yes … romance can make it all that much sweeter. And yes, I’ll admit it: I do like flowers and holding hands and thoughtful gestures both grand and small.

Just don’t tell anyone, okay?

Image source

A Different World

Today was my first day back at the office after ten days spent mostly eating and drinking in the company of friends and family while looking spiffy, or eating and drinking in the company of my cat while looking like I just rolled out of bed.

The holidays are a special time.

Anyways there I was this morning, going through the contents of my inbox when I came across the following from a colleague in Bangalore.

(Note: Some personal and corporate details have been removed in the interest of not getting fired.)
 
______________________________________

From: DJT
Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 4:14 AM
To: DL ST2
Subject: FW: {URGENT} Bangalore Office to close early today


Dear Team,

Today I will be leaving early due to the anticipated unrest in Bangalore city due to the sudden demise of a famous actor. See you tomorrow.

Have a nice day

Thanks and Regards

D
______________________________________

Intrigued, I proceeded to the original forwarded message.

______________________________________
From: Info @ Labs India
Sent: Wednesday, 30 December 2009 2:35 PM
To: DL SLI BLR ALL
Subject: {URGENT} Bangalore Office to close early today

FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY

Dear Colleagues,

As you would be aware, earlier today one of the legendary actors from the Kannada film industry, Dr. Vishnuvardhan passed away due to a cardiac arrest.

We anticipate unrest in many parts of Bangalore city, with the actor's fans taking to the streets and disrupting normal life today. Hence as a precautionary measure, we have decided to close the Bangalore office early at 2:45 P.M.

All colleagues are requested to take the shuttles starting this time. We also request colleagues who have their own vehicles to leave by this time as well. The regular evening shuttles (5:15 PM, 7:05 PM and 9:30 PM) and the late evening cab services stand cancelled.

We will continue to monitor the situation closely. For further updates, please call the hotline.

Best Regards,
Crisis Management Team
Labs India
______________________________________

Here is Dr. Vishnuvardhan:

R.I.P.

No Canadian performer could elicit such a response. If Donald Sutherland dropped dead on the sidewalk outside my office, we’d still be open for business up on the fourth floor. If Anne Murray, Elvis Stojko, Michael J. Fox, Pamela Anderson, Alex Trebek, and the original members of Steppenwolf were in a private jet that exploded over the Lachine Canal, it still wouldn’t be enough to paralyze local industry. If the Montreal Canadiens and Team Canada simultaneously won the Stanley Cup and the gold medal respectively, during business hours, I’ll wager the ensuing frenzy would take place mostly on Ste. Catherine Street, with a few yahoos disrupting the celebrations.

But over in my neck of the woods, projects would continue to be managed, code developed, and documentation written. 
 
In any case, I'd be into tracking down a few Vishnuvardhan titles. Apparently the guy was good.


UPDATE: Since posting this entry, my friend and co-worker Molly has suggested that a big Habs win could actually provoke a fair bit more mayhem than I've described. True, but I still say that it wouldn't be enough for the Montreal office to shut down pre-emptively.

Sign of the Times

A few weeks ago I was addressing Christmas cards, and was again faced with the fact that I have the handwriting of an old lady.

Actually, that's not true. I am selling the elderly short. Well into her eighties, my surviving grandmother had handwriting that was measured and controlled, demonstrating a manual dexterity learned early and exercised over a lifetime. Only in recent years has it faltered.

I feel self-conscious sending her cards. Even when I use my best pen and try to carefully shape my words, the letters "h", "m", and "n" still come out squashed, and "b", "v", and "w" are misshapen. A few years ago she admonished me for my barely legible scrawl, and since then I've made occasional, half-hearted attempts to improve it. When stuck in meetings I sometimes practice: aaa, bbb, ccc, ddd.  But then I get bored and I forget about it until the next time I sit down in front of a blank birthday card, pen in hand.

I do have a special skill, though: I can write backwards with my left hand. It's not something I ever set out to master. It's just something I can do. With my right hand, sentences move from left to right. But with my left hand, the letters all flip and flow in the opposite direction. My right hand passes everything it knows to the left and while the script is shaky, it's still legible when held up to a mirror. If there's anything I should practice, it's my mirror writing. It makes for a decent party trick. 

I've always struggled with handwriting. I remember trying to make the transition from printing to script. The teacher had us use pencils until she deemed us skilled enough for ink. I was one of the last to advance beyond lead, and I suspect I was given a pass only because my teacher couldn't extend the restriction past fifth grade.

For years my writing was long and thin, slanting to the right. I would angle the top of the sheet to the left while writing, and from that perspective it looked okay. But when I straightened the paper again I was always disappointed with the outcome. Nowadays my writing is less slanted, but it's disjointed, alternating between print and script. If handwriting is indeed indicative of personality, then I am inconsistent and difficult to read.

High school typing class was the beginning of the end of my already weak penmanship skills. While slow to develop, I am now a crackerjack typist. I type fast, and I type hard. Childhood piano lessons likely had something to do with this. When completing a sentence that pleases me, I lift my right hand from the keyboard as though playing the final note of a concerto.

I couldn't imagine going back to writing everything longhand. It takes so long and makes editing such a sloppy process.

Still, handwriting can come through in a pinch. Back when I was doing my MA I was one of a half dozen students to volunteer at a communications conference being held here in Montreal. Our job was to register attendees. We worked with a computer system set up to automatically print nametags, and the printer would frequently malfunction. I remember watching one of my fellow volunteers curse and fight the machine, until the waiting attendee leaned over the desk and asked "Wouldn't it be easier if you just used a pen?" Appropriately enough, the man asking the question was Neil Postman, a well-known critic of society's increasing dependence on technology. It was the perfect quip from the perfect source, and it made my day. We handed him a writing utensil, he wrote out his name, and went on his way.

Postman's question came to mind on my last day of vacation in France this past July. My gracious hosts Guy and Mimi wanted to give me a jar of fresh homemade jam. Mimi scooped jam from the pot and into a jar, and Guy tasked himself with creating the label. He went to the computer, called up a word processing application, entered "Confiture de Peches, Mireille et Guy 2009", and initiated the print job. When the label came out, part of the text along the top was cut off. Guy fiddled with the word positioning, tried printing again, and again it came out incorrectly. So he tried again. And again. And again and again and again, his frustration mounting with each failed attempt, ruined sheets of labels littering the floor. After a half hour's struggle, he got it. The result was lovely, but the effort and waste involved was ridiculous.

Wouldn't it be easier if you just used a pen?

Such instances aside, I don't have much call for putting pen to paper nowadays. Aside from greeting cards, the only things I write out are grocery lists, the occasional cheque, and my signature on credit card receipts. Now that my credit card is chip-enabled, the opportunities to practice signing my own name will continue to dwindle.

And once Grandma Diggins passes away, there will be that much less incentive for me to try.

In the years before my Grandma Berube's death in 2001, her decline was visible in the cards she sent. As her motor control and mental faculties weakened, her letters became more spidery. This year my aunt Cathy wrote out Christmas cards on behalf of Grandma Diggins.

I've kept some of what they've sent over the years. The sight of their script means as much as the messages they convey.

(Note: Both cards are from 1995. The first is from Grandma Diggins, and the second from Grandma Berube.)

My awkward handwriting is not indicative of a loss of mental faculties. Not yet anyway.

But it does signal a certain kind of forgetting.