volcanic's Diaryland Diary

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watch me fuck up

Is there a name for that particular brand of science that devotes itself to exploring whether or not it was the chicken or the egg that came first? There should be, and thus, in the spirit of making a worthy contribution to etymology and nosology, I hereby give you avisovumprimology. Catchy, huh? You can use that all day to win friends and influence people.

The significance of avisovumprimology here is a little more poignant, though, because since I penned last night’s entry I've been pondering whether or not it was my stinky mood which precipitated the crap I'm about to divulge, or if the impending threat of crapness was what caused my shitty mood in the first place?

Essentially, I'm trying to work out whether or not I've done a bad thing.

Blether blather- where do I start?

Let's cut back to round about 11 or so last night. George and I were on the phone for a couple of hours, chatting happily about all kinds of things. For the first time in a week or so, it felt a lot less stressful, because George wasn't worrying about money.

I need to just clarify a few things here: George has got good reason to worry about cash; he's a student nurse, and at present, the British government has so much respect for the nursing profession- which is desperately short staffed and heading for a recruitment crisis- that it pays nursing students the princely sum of around £100 a week. That's for working a full week on a hospital ward, doing pretty much the same job as the other staff. For George, this has included taking sole charge of mentally disordered offenders on trips into town, restraining the same during what are euphemistically called "untoward incidents" and pretty much all the same crappy things I used to moan about here when I was nursing full-time. So yes, £100 per week is a bit of an insult, really. And more to the point, it means that until he qualifies in March, George doesn't have a lot of cash.

And I can empathise, no- sympathise, truly. I have, after all, been there myself.

So anyway, me and George weren't talking about money. We were actually talking about sex, which is fun to chat about, especially with George, who was divulging all kinds of fascinating information about the male sexual response which I didn't know about. I do feel like I'm in possession of some kind of secret knowledge now. Although, it has to be said, there was a recurring motif of "girls having it better than boys" that started to run through the conversation. First it was "girls have better orgasms than boys", which was quite funny, but then it started feeling a bit more personal. George re-iterated several times how cheesed off he was that he's got three weeks off work and not enough money to enjoy this time, and the inference that I got from that was that I was ok, and he wasn't.

Now, bear in mind that if George didn't have a lady friend who's just moved to Wales, there'd be one less financial worry for him to rant about when he's been drinking. I started to feel quite bad, because my main aim when I'm in a relationship is to spread a little joy in my wake, and it felt, on this occasion, like maybe I was actually having the opposite effect. The way George was explaining things, it was like everything was going to be on hold until he qualifies in march, from his libido to his capacity for joy. I jokingly said I'd see him next spring then, and go and enjoy myself in the meantime.

Oh, I don't know- it starts to get confusing now. I basically explained how I was concerned that if he was essentially holding back from letting himself enjoy life until he had some money, that maybe when he does get richer, he'll still be dissatisfied. We both agreed that whilst money doesn't buy happiness, he does indeed buy options and choices, both of which can be life-enhancing.

So, so far we're together. Then it all gets a bit fuzzy. Mainly, I think because I still believe that at the end of the day, money isn't the be-all and end-all, and that love and trust and joy and beauty are priceless in comparison.

Anyway, whatever I said, George must have felt that I hadn't taken his point or his extreme feelings on board, because he proceeded to reiterate his point. Now, a couple of days ago, me and George had a humorous conversation about arguments, where we'd both laughed about the fact that we don't lose arguments, because we won't back down and all the rest of it. This was all very fresh in my mind last night. I suggested that at this point I was more than happy to agree to disagree, because it wasn't a big deal at that point. But George insisted I defended my views. I went for a wee, and while I was on the loo, I decided I was going to stop having the conversation, because it wasn't going anywhere, and because to me it felt like the conversation had the potential to turn into one of those point-scoring things where we both try and make out we're poorer/ lonelier/ more hard done by than each other.

George wasn't having any of it, and because I was feeling a little bit under attack, and a bit like my principles were being called into question, I tried to defend myself.

It got a bit ugly after that. There wasn't any shouting or abuse or anything, but George got offended that I'd felt like I was being goaded into an argument. I got offended when he said I was being "silly"- for obvious reasons.

So yes, I got to bed at about 2am, and I feel like shit. There was no big slamming-down-the-phone finale or anything, we just both got too knackered to speak in the end, and we agreed to speak today...

but

what the fuck was all that about? Was it me? Was I the chicken or the egg? I'm especially interested to hear male points of view on this one*, if only because it felt like some kind of gender war, one of those evil "Mars & Venus" moments which I'm loath to admit even exist. I feel horribly deflated and shitty today. I know we'll speak later, but I'm scared, right now. I'm not ready for logic and good reason (although they'll probably have set in by teatime); I'm just scared that I've fucked things up.

* Big shout-out to Mike of MIKES_LAPTOP fame here: I assume you're male, Mike, so why not let me know YOUR thoughts on this, eh? It'd be lovely for our relationship to go beyond this anonymous stalker-esque thing that's going on, don't you think? Failing that, I could always pop your photo and a link to your homepage up here...