How the introvert came to be snatched from the clutches of bachelorhood
May 17, 2003 ~ 6:16 p.m.
Just like last weekend, the wife went away to her mom�s house for the night. If you read this entry, you�re probably thinking, �gee, this is becoming a regular occurrence for her.� Before you start thinking it has something to do with me producing room-vibrating dragon noises (snoring), being too argumentative with her, or having trouble controlling emissions from underneath my arrow-tipped tail, you�re wrong on all three counts. (And, no, I don�t really think I�m a dragon, it�s just that my moniker lends itself to rather poetic turns of phrase at times, eh?)
It seems Mum�s friend Bryn, the dude we all spent a weekend in Wales with a month ago, has done something totally irrational, which upset her. So the wife was paying sort of a comfort call to her. They�re both coming back to London tonight and Mum will be staying until Monday.
I didn�t have much trouble with being alone as I seemed to last time. Last week, perhaps it was something to do with the fact that she was gone on a Sunday and I had to go to bed at 11 p.m. (as opposed to 3 a.m.) and I was facing another workweek. I mean, I like my job and all, but it�s still work. You still have to get up and commute. So I was probably just mildly depressed about the end of yet another weekend and it felt strange being alone that night. I�ll admit it, I felt insecure.
Last night, however�completely different story, I must say. I stayed up until 3 a.m., cooking pasta, surfin� the Net, drinking red wine, all that good shit. The thing is, I have never minded being alone. I always maintained, before coming across the wife, that I was committed to bachelorhood.
A lot of young people go out clubbing, to see films, to hang around. I never did that. Nope, I was never more happy than when alone in my room, with a map spread out on the floor and a cup of tea�which soon became wine the older I got. And when I was old enough to drink�whoa! You�d have thought there was a party going on in there. I�d drag about five books down from the bookcase�atlases, history books, books about language�and just pour through them. The drunker I got, the more I seemed to absorb, which just proves that, hey, learning can be fun. I could lay a map out on the floor and stare at it for friggin� hours. I still can. Only now, the computer and the PlayStation vie for my long attention span.
You see, I�m in introvert. I�m interested in what I want to do. I didn�t need friends and any that I did have would more often than not be turned down��Nah, dude, I think I�m gonna spread a map out on the floor, look at my books and drink a bottle of wine instead.� John and Rob, my two nearest (well, at that time, anyway)-and-dearest friends seemed to accept this peculiarity about me. Others said, �bugger off.� I didn�t care. I drank, I absorbed knowledge, and listened to tunes on my Sony Discman, and I had a fucking brilliant time of it too.
At 33, I haven�t changed much at all. I learned the art of compromise, as one must upon entering the institution of marriage. Through four-and-a-half years of marriage, I have learned to deal with the constant company that having a wife entails. And I like it. I like being looked after and nagged, I suppose, because I not only had a mother very concerned about my welfare, I had an older sister who was no less concerned about my upbringing. Now I�ve got a wife who�s five years older than me and it just goes to show that I must be addicted to nagging, despite the fact that I positively loathe it. I need an older female concerned to bits about me in my life, simplest way to put it.
What I won�t do is pretend for one moment that my long attention span and easily entertained nature doesn�t cause conflicts when crossed against the wife�s short attention span and easily bored nature. It is like the warm, humid air mass clashing with the cold, dry air mass (and, boy, is my bookish nature revealing itself here). Storms erupt in either case. I can�t remember how many times I�ve shouted at the wife, �Will you go do something with yourself!� And, how many times in return that she�s interpreted my inclination to play five ballgames in a row on the PlayStation as proof positive that I�m not interested in her. But we do talk. It�s just that I like to be snug in bed and on the verge of sleep when I do all my talking, because in that situation, there�s not much else to do anyway. I just lie there, with my hand on one of her gorgeous legs, and talk about anything and everything. I think that is probably the happiest part of the night for me.
To this day, I still guard my private downtime, my escapism, my maps and books�and, of course, my wine�very seriously. And I am often a very moody guy to be around when I want to be alone with my thoughts, which is often. She puts up with a lot from me.
But I couldn�t exist without the wife. I�m in this marriage for the long run.
� M.E.M.
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Copyright � 2001-2007 by M.E. Manning. All material is written by me, unless explicitly stated otherwise by use of footnotes or bylines. Do not copy or redistribute without my permission.
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