Friday 20 April 2012

R is for Romance (supposedly)

R

My romantic life pre-Budleigh Salterton was a disaster.  There was some serious talent at work.  With a radar-like instinct, I would home in on the most needy lame-dog bad-for-me bloke possible and fall in love with him.  Badly.  It took a very long time for me to break this habit.

My relationship with the Pianist was typical.  He was ridiculously talented.  A post graduate at Warwick who looked like a rather sexy Flemish saint who seduced me by reading Samuel Beckett aloud.  Just remembering how pretentious we must both have been is deeply embarrassing.


Rogier van der Weyden's Reading Man.  Bears a resemblance to ex love of my life.

We spent hours and hours in pubs talking mainly about him and his problems.  These were many, varied and required serious medical treatment.  Naturally I was going to save him.  My friends thought he was a dangerous weirdo, which should have been enough of a warning.  Inevitably, I made all the excuses one makes at these times "Oh, he's quite different with me" after he'd been brutally rude yet again. 

The Pianist spent quite a bit of time in and out of the local psychiatric hospital and I found it wildly romantic to visit him there.  We would walk the grounds together, reciting gloomy poetry and on rainy days he would play Liszt on the piano.  It was all very Byronic and I'm cringing as I write this.

The end was less Byronic and more Marx Brothers.  The Pianist was duly discharged and we went on holiday to Padstow with his psychiatrist.  As bizarre a menage as you can imagine.  A week later, he ran away with her and was not seen again.

My mother did not even bother to hide her relief.  "I thought you might marry him just because you're so stubborn" she admitted a year or so later when I'd stopped tramping around clutching my broken heart.

There's nothing like a 19 year old innocent for being a total idiot.

25 comments:

  1. I hope you forgive me for laughing all the way through this post. But I promise you that I can see myself being seduced by someone who read Beckett to me (although they and I may have an easier time with, say, Saki or Neil Gaiman, two authors absolutely made for reading aloud).

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    1. Saki or Gaiman wouldn't have got me into nearly as much trouble as I'd have been laughing.

      I find the whole thing hilarious in retrospect, but rather grateful that I don't have a daughter.

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  2. I shouldn't laugh, as I only just met you, but oh haven't we all been there? And how rude to run off with the psychiatrist.

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    1. Feel free to laugh - I do :)

      Nice to meet you, too.

      I also found it rather rude of him. Probably completely unethical as well, but that thought didn't occur until a bit later.

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  3. 'Just remembering how pretentious we must both have been is deeply embarrassing.'

    Cute.

    Wow, nineteen. I have to say I'm very happy the ending was not Byronic. Too much tragedy, there!

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    1. It was not my finest hour, certainly and it took a while to get my sense of persepective back.

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  4. Epic. Sounds like a movie script dying to be written. DO you have enough distance to do a script justice, I think? Sounds wildly entertaining...

    Still waiting to fall in love m'self... sounds like fun...

    Dave the Goof

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    1. That's a dashed fine idea, sir. I may look into that :)

      Oh yes, plentiful distance and I now find it hilarious.

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  5. Hi Amanda .. I can feel the disastrous tension - that's risky visiting a psychiatric hospital .. crumbs talk about tempting fate - and then go to Padstow en menage a trois .. no wonder you laugh - well I sure hope you do .. a good hysterical tale to tell occasionally .. probably at Halloween ...?!

    Cheers - but do remind me of your Castle - Suze over on my blog mentioned it .. and I can't remember .. is it Richmond, Ravensworth or Ripley .. OR?!

    Many thanks for popping back to clear that one up ..

    See you soon .. cheers Hilary

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  6. So very, very true. Any differences 20 plus years have made are purely cosmetic.

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  7. What a story. Quite poetic. I've been lured into playing the role of "Paladin" once or twice. It always ends the same way. You can't save anyone else. They have to save themselves.

    Thanks for stopping by Main Street Arts!
    R is for Role Playing Games

    http://mainstreetarts.blogspot.com/2012/04/role-playing-games.html

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    1. You are most welcome.

      Paladin is a great term for that sort of behaviour.

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  8. I think I was only the nutcase once. Usually I was ignorant and unfeeling. Glad that all got sorted!

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    1. I suspect we all go through something similar even if it's not always on such a over-the-top scale.

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  9. I wonder what happened to the pianist and the psychiatrist. You might have avoided a full blown Byronic ending, but that doesn't mean there wasn't one somewhere ;)

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    1. Don't know, but it might be fun to speculate in fiction at least.

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  10. That is awesome. Seriously. Those experiences make us who we are and they give us writer types something to work with. I wrote an essay called "Hey, Nineteen" about a disastrous love affair with a 30 year old man when I was 19. Hopefully it will be published soon.

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    1. Let us know when it is - clearly this is a familiar story to a lot of us.

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  11. When I think back on the utter obnoxiousness of the person I was, I can't help but cringe. My bastards of choice were always uncaring cads. None of them did anything nearly as fabulous as run away with their shrinks, so I can't even make good anecdotes out of them.

    A-Z @ Elizabeth Twist

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    1. It is to his credit that he remains anecdote-worthy. The rest were just rather boring.

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  12. I chuckled because I've had my share of crazy. I think those of us that have survived dating the psychotic imbeciles can appreciate the gems when we find them. And I agree with David, a movie is waiting to be made. (:

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    1. The movie requires some scriptwriting skills that I don't have yet, but otherwise, I'm in total agreement.

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  13. Brilliant. Made me giggle that did. I bet though, everyone you know has a similar tale! I know I do...

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    1. Glad you enjoyed. As a lot have noted, we all have stories like that stashed in the "never again" brain folder.

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  14. Hi Amanda .. gosh lucky you to escape that way .. very interesting menage a trois ... those sorts of guys are a pain - so interesting and stimulating, yet from whom we really need to get the hell out of there! A lesson learnt ... Fun (now) part of your life to post - cheers Hilary

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