Sometimes one overhears phrases and snatches of conversation that makes one laugh. Usually, because you know there is a story behind this. I think someone who was a natural storyteller would use these triggers to launch a best-selling and/or critically acclaimed novel. I know that proper writers sit in cafés writing descriptions of those around them. I don't; I like to speculate on the whys and wherefores but never get very far. Or deep!
Most of us have a range of telephone voices. I have one I reserve for situations where I want to make a good impression and ask for something, in a situation when I'm nervous.
I overheard a woman on the phone one evening. Her voice was restrained and excited simultaneously. she formed proper sentences of fully enunciated words. "It will be exciting to go out with someone new and different". A blind date! I thought. And I chuckled with happiness. But there is little I can add. Other than that this woman is going on a blind date!
In a pub two men were talking. The conversation was about an unknown and absent third person. He has negative-charisma. When you are talking with him, you want to be in another room. There is something about him that makes you feel yeuch. It's not just that he's boring, but he's one of the very few people you really want to hit. You feel unclean after being with him.
I empathised. Been there! Negative-charisma? I like it!
At a bus-stop, in the middle of the day, in broad daylight, in public. Two women exvhanging the caresses that can only be shared between lovers. My eyes were drawn. Not onlyis it very unusual to see open affection between two women, and in daylight, it was particularly unusual because one was Asian and one was Afro-Caribbean. Mixed-race heterosexual relationships are so common that I don't even notice them as such. Although, I tend to see a lot more white-Asian or white-African/Afro-Caribbean than Asian-African/Afro-Caribbean.
Intellectually, I don't give a stuff about who is with who, but I have a failing that my eyes are drawn to the unusual: be it 'odd couples', people with obvious facial disfigurations or tics, or stunningly beautiful people or those who wear simple inexpensive clothes with elegance. In no such cases is my fascination judgemental, it's just a fascination. Indeed, I had had a similar fascination less than an hour earlier in seeing David Trimble walk down the street. As we approached each other to pass-by it was obvious that he had realised that I had recognised him as 'someone off the telly'. I should grow up and stop being so rude as to stare. A few weeks ago I was in the lift chatting with a woman of about my age* (no, not that one, she's five years my senior). We discussed the lifts, as one often does with colleagues. It was only as we parted that I realised she is one of our ministers and I had a celeb-spotting moment.
The bus came and we all moved to get on. I approached slightly from the right. They approached slightly from the left. The Asian got on, the Afro-Caribbean paused to let me go first, and we exchanged eye contact and a smile. I was immensely disappointed to realise that 'she' was in fact a 'he' albeit a very metrosexual one who probbaly only has to shave weekly, if that.
* A year and a week younger, actually
