Is it something to do with the way I look perhaps? Am I too ordinary? Am I not at all unique in the way that I aspire to be (doesn’t everyone?) Are my clothes too ‘everyday’?
I have a theory about these complete strangers who come up to me and ask if you are “anything to with so-an-so” or “whether you have lived in such-and-such”. No, I don’t think they are just using this as an excuse to try to chat me up (I wish;). They are just bored, or maybe living in fear that some horrible, embarrassing misdemeanour from their past is going to catch-up with them and seek out its revenge. Perhaps their insecurities force them to seek out any potential emotional damage in some kind of irrational self-inflicted obsession.
I had a weird experience of this on our latest holiday. I was aware of this guy staring at me every time we walked through the hotel and he was around. Sad git I thought – 50-something. You know, the kind of guy who sits in his too-small trunks and sunbathes all day until he (as J likes to call it) ‘lobsters himself’ and ends up the colour and texture of a very cheap over-cooked sausage.
“Did you get married in Thailand?” he asked me, out of the blue at the bar one night.
Bizarre.
“No” I said (please God get the message)
“Oh” he says, rather disappointed.
Small embarrassed pause….
Then, trying again..
“Have you ever taken drugs?”
(where is he going with this exactly? Who is this wierdo?)
How odd that, even when I explain (teacher-training patience firmly secured) that, No, my name isn’t Susan, that No, I haven’t ever lived in Bath and that NO! J isn’t a GP that I met 10 years ago – this idiot still insisted that I apparently might be someone that he lived with for a year and a half 17 years ago (when I was 20? MMmmmm maybe I would remember that? Just maybe?) Did I change my name then?
Then I'm reminded why J and I have this unwritten rule that we never - NEVER talk to people whilst on holiday (not unless we have to that is). We spend so much of our lives talking to people that we don't want to talk to - that NO! this is OUR week OFF! We will be rude if we have to be! But of course we're English - we have to be civilised. It's in our genes....
(View outside the hotel)Turns out this guy is apparently a teacher (yes, how did you guess) of RE in an ‘academy’ (oh, I wonder why) in Maidstone of all places (If only I’d kept my mouth shut about living in Kent).
Why is it that some people have to seek out people that might possibly have something remotely ANYTHING remotely (however insignificant) ‘in common’ with them. Why? Haven’t we all got something in common with each other – if we talked for long enough (and maybe got drunk enough) that is?
Anyway, I’ve posted my comments about this particular hotel on my Tripadvisor site (incase anyone’s interested. Not recommended really – but it was good to get away for some proper sunshine). Reading - that's what we did - we read and read and read. the best one was Paul Today's The Girl on the Landing. I love the way this guy builds such utterly boring but at the same time fascinatingly interesting characters.
Meanwhile, the good news is I’ve won another short story competition. Well, OK, not ‘won’ exactly – just an ’honorable mention’ (whatever that means). It’s to be published though – so another small victory. Ho hum, one day….when there’s more hours in the day….
