sundays in the city.
with daylight savings.
a combination which means any brunch plans go straight out the window.

in fact, out the window, down twenty stories and onto the head of a little old lady pedestrian causing her to collapse following which her hot-shot lawyer son sue you for a new hip or something.

so i was running late meeting michaela way across town.

michaela was in great spirits. she'd gone to a party the night before and managed to rolling out of the bed of some hot young designer, re-arrange last night's party gear and met us with a huge cup of coffee . i guess she had her za za zu in full swing last night. she was 20mins late, which is average for her, and i guess he wasn't significant enough that brunch with girlfriends up the road from his pad could be rescheuled.

in a burst of the spirit of sisterhood, michaela had invited two of her friends, caitlin and lucy,a along for brunch. i'd met both of them briefly once on a night out (and after 3 cocktails nothing is memorable) but it was a case of three strangers making conversation. i have to say michaela has taste in girlfriends and after the awkward first five minutes we were on the way to bonding over double strenght lattes. lucy was from australia, and had just moved out of an apartment she shared with her boyfriend of six years. she was your better-looking-girl-next-door, bubbly and friendly without being over the top. caitlin was a new yorker who had the right mix of cynicism, humour and realness. it's rare to meet girls like these in london.

jessica and her boyfriend are thinking of leaving town.

she's thinking of leaving her corporate lifestyle and being a lady of semi-leisure, teach english, and have babies. they are thinking of persuing opportunities in a non-european developing nation where, if you play your cards right and have patience, you could build a comfortable existance in less time than slogging it out in a non-city job.

jessica's a few years younger than me and it makes me wonder if i lack the clucky gene. i love little kids - they are adorable. and frankly, so much easier to be around than adults. they say exactly what they think and if all else fails there's something under a pound that will bribe them for the short duration of time you hang out with them. maybe that's my problem. an inability to maintain long term relationships, fueled by a lack of e.q. it's just sometimes i'm overwhelemed by how hard this world is. how fake everyone really are. i feel like holden caufield, and something tells me i'm not alone. i like to think i'm keepin' it real but i probably appear agressive. or submissive. or angry. or maybe just passive. it's hard to tell when you're you - you don't have the previledge of seeing yourself from the outside.

other people's kids are like buying from a large departmental store. there's a returns policy and similarly unless you damage the goods you can return them within a brief comfortable period. just the way i like it. (the returning of the kids, not clothes. i always feel this sense of entrapment when i buy from a small boutique or a sale in which a returns policy does not exist. or somewhere like harrods when once you commit, that's it. the money's gone. a wimpy little credit not, whilst better than nothing, will not bring your hard earned cash - which you never see as you pay by card anyway - back.)

all this talk with jessica makes me realise how serious she and her boyfriend are, and how when she left her ex it was really the right decision despite the controversy of it all. i still judge and frown upon (inside rather than expressed outwardly through facial expressions to keep botox to the minimum) any form of cheating, but if you are besotted with the one you cheat with then there is a point to the whole shenanigan and it makes it a little bit justified. it's like all the collective pain was worth it. maybe it's like a pro basketball team going to the olympics. you slog hard, you ache, and someone accidentally trips over their team mate who's in physical and emotional pain for weeks leading up to the game. so you have injured guy watching the game with the rest of the guys on the bench. but then your team comes home with the gold and you realise that despite you missing out on actual glory (and the sponsorship deals), they wouldn't be there without you.

sunday night and the one who got away and i were both invited to a soiree in a trendy london suburb. i just happened to be across town at a dinner beforehand and was fashionably late. so fashionable that the one who got away left a long time before i got there. our mutual friend, unbeknownest to our situation, tried to detain him with news of my imminent arrival.

the one who got away could not have left soon enough, and i'm convinced it was due to my imminent arrival. i almost apologised to our friend, but to do so would mean explaining the whole sad story and frankly that would be a party pooping activity.

so like a real lady, i just shrugged and danced the night away.
which is not good when one has to work the next day.

i was out with a bunch of people last weekend. we were all passable for sub thirty, in reality physically and mentally hovering on or just past the edge of three decades of existance in this crazy sexy cool world of ours. and all single.

which meant in reality we were really so disheartened with the bullshit out there we were truely glad to be single because there was no one out there that really was worth getting into bed for.

take phillipe. at 29 he was a cute and vibrant complete with a sexy accent, a twinkle in his eye and a bravado that suggests a roll in the cab on the way home would be a pleasant distraction, one to pull out of the album when the clouds hang over the mundane periods of your social calendar. but we spent most of the time talking about how we truely could not be bothered trying to pull. and there is 99% of truth in that proclamation. the other 1% was spent sussing out if the other person would be pliable after that little pill kicked into effect. which truth be told had we not left the joint before midnight. would probably have enticed us both a bit more to a one nighter. phillipe and i spent the night sparking up malboros and downing fine larger with the other muskateers, jessie and richard. phillipe, jessie and richard met in a hotspot asian town as expat kids in the nineties whilst daddy was making his fortune and mummy was society hostest about town.

jessie is 28, but looks 24 thanks to her oriental mother, with a sophistcated air that comes from growing up in various capital cities around the world. she was roped into the soiree by our mutual friend bob, a larrikin aussie who despite being completely sloshed is your proverbial social butterfly and an excellent host in ensuring his guests were all given proper introductions and established enough commanalities to continue the conversation when he begun to circulate. i last saw him canoodling in the corner with a p. y. t, but then again bob being 26 technically robs the cradle less when he is championing a 20 year old girl.

back to jessie. she and richard were a couple in the 90's, and i'd go as far to say richard probably was her l'amour premier, which to see them with a true affection for each other warms even cynical old souls like me. and jessie is hot, and at 7pm was looking for a bit of fun with a young thang. even after the alcohol and drugs kicked in at 8pm, she was girl enough to realise after a survey of the joint that this was not a feasible goal unless she dropped her standards. and i am proud to say she did not. it's just we were better company. great conversation, nicotine and other toxins just makes one realise that once you could prove to yourself you can pull on such factors to do so without that va va voom was just plain pathetic.

does the one equal the end?
how do you know if someone is 'the one'?
here's a theory.
maybe those who have met 'the one' are just people who exist better as a couple than if they were an individual, and thus want to be with someone. which predisposes them to meet the one. whereless those of us who enjoy singledom despite the loneliness it can bring find it much harder to meet 'the one', because our criteria for the one impinges on true happiness.

at least that's the theory a friend and i came up with recently. said friend has partner and they are very in love and happy, but this friend of mine over a few beers was relaxed enough to suggest that even that may not be enough. what does it take to commit? his partner is visually stunning, scores full marks on a personality and intelligence test. but on a commitment level i do not know how she fares. i would imagine that she would be a loyal partner, but a chance meeting three years ago does not confirm anything to an outsider. yet they are a truely golden couple. the prom king and queen. but i sense he has a bigger thirst for adventure than she does. the slap a pack on your back and to hell with everything sense of adventure that makes him alive and attractive because of a spirit that is true. the more sensible girls i know would say that is a sign of immaturity and insecurity at not being able to settle down and face life like a man, which i must say i totally disagree with. if something isn't yours, you will never be able to keep it no matter how luxurious and disguised the cage is.

but, my friend's true scenario aside (of which i am truely ignorant), i think he has a point.
maybe those who meet the one and proclaim they've met the one are those who are looking to meet the one. they aren't idealistic like my friend michaela. they are truely ones who do not want to be alone. so mr or ms average becomes the knight in shining armour. the maiden who has to be saved.

maybe my friend is right. some of us just value being alone and having our freedom so much that we will always wonder about what else is out there. maybe it's because our thirst for life and love and adventure means we will never be satisfied - not even if we meet a true soul mate who shares the same thirst. or maybe we are just insecure and trying to find ourselves and confusing this insecurity and wall around our true feelings with independence. maybe we were hurt so badly once upon a time we put it behind us and forever are closed off to the people who we can truely love wholeheartedly because we know their ability to hurt us - an ability of which they are ignorant - could destroy us for a long time. who knows.

my friend caitlin once thought she found her soul mate. we were young. 20, 21. i didn't really trust this guy. he was shifty looking, but she loved him so we welcomed him into the family. not as well as some partners we truely liked, but enough and genuinely making him one of us.

then caitlin takes off for the ski season. and looser boyfriend misses her, but is so cash poor he needed to borrow money from her for a ticket to visit. and she, blindly and stupidly in love, agrees. he says he's wired the money into her account to repay her. but guess what? the money ain't there and he's blaming the bank. i'm sorry sista, you're a smart girl but no bank these days will loose a transfer - no, correction. no man is so stupid he does not take proof of a transfer - or take the effort to press the bank to confirm his actions.

and caitlin breaks up with him - or maybe he breaks up with her - a year or two later. to the point where caitlin's rough and tough brothers (if you can imagine park avenue rough and tough men) threatened to castrate this guy if he ever got close to her again.

but i can't believe caitlin's guilibility. that she believed him when they stood on a cliff looking onto the ocean when he said 'our souls just touched'. maybe i'm a cynic. but if you've only know a boy for a week or two and he tells you that on your second or third date, ain't it a sign to run?

maybe i'm just hard. or scared of getting hurt. but i can't buy into the bullshit. and something tells me i'm not alone.

is there such a thing as relationship karma?
not in a 'my name is earl' way. i don't think you're going to win the national lottery if you're a good relationship participator.

here's the thing.
jessica moved to london. but her boyfriend who thought she was the one realised he couldn't live without her and moved over and moved in. like a good wife, she just happen to have found the flat before he got here. jessica did the countdown. she was excited.

it turned out to be a case of too much, too soon. so jessica left him. to move straight in with someone else. someone she had a connection with over the years. they met randomly a few years ago, kept in touch despite the fact he lived miles away, and bingo, it's fireworks city. fireworks that rocketed across the atlantic, with one casualty along the way.

now jessica is truely happy. you can see it in her eyes. but if she was tempted to cheat on her old boyfriend, does that mean she will cheat on her new boyfriend one day? is cheating like coccaine - you start of with just this once, just this line, and end up having your dealer as number 5, the middle button which requires minimum effort to push, on your speedial?

if you have a connection with another person - does that mean the connection will last forever?
or is it something you hold on to because the potential of what could be was never realised, so you hold on to that dream?

i've recently ended a two year relationship with someone whom i thought i may end up with. or rather, he ended it because he felt we lack a connection. that hurt. you feel a bit dumb. a bit naive for thinking that you liked this person a whole lot more than they liked you. it's the age old fear of letting go and then getting burnt. your pride screams at you for letting go. maybe you deserved this fall because you were stupid enough to let go in the first place.

was it worth it? maybe. if you never let go, you would never have experienced the intimacy and fun. but then you're left to pick up the pieces and build your ego up again.

the thing is, even when i was in love with this person, there was someone else in the back of my mind. i think everyone has that person - the one you think about when things aren't rosy in your relationship. you ask yourself what it would have been like with the one who got away.

the one who got away because the timing was never right. you were both with someone else when you met. you valued relationships enough to not even declare or show your feelings to the other person. you think for some reason they are out of your reach. so you put it out of your mind.

then one day, three years later, you happen to be drunk. he happens to return to town for a few days. and you mention something to him, in a drunken relaxed stage, about how you felt. and he replies in a druken or otherwise enhanced state that he used to feel the same way. and you feel so hopeful, yet so beaten by the bad timing. especially when he tells you that if he was not leaving town he would give it a go.

so in the next two years you see each other three times. the first time you're both unattached so you give in to your feelings - knowing this time it's you who's leaving town in a few days time. so you may as well enjoy every moment with him and push it as far as you can. the next time he's visiting town with his girlfriend - and you're with the guy you loved who ended up being mr. wrong (but of course at this stage you have no clue about it all) - so you meet as friends.

still, your heart beats faster when you see him. even though you also truely realise that deep down you do love the one you are with. you're not too worried about the heart accelaration. it's just like seeing a celebrity or a really scary roller coaster.

then another year later you see each other truely as friends, for an impromptu lunch in the park. munching on delicious mexican from a secret hole in the wall from a corner store, in a sun drenched garden on a bench surrounded by flowers tended lovingly by the local block community. it was perfect in that honest, real way.

then one day five years later you find yourselves living in the same town.
one with a dented ego, the other with a partner across a wide ocean in another time zone.

and no matter how much you fantasise, you can't bring yourself to distrub a relationship. because, despite your own experiences - or perhaps because of other women you've encountered who do not value someone else's relationship - you still believe that each relationship deserves respect and should not be distrubed.

but you walk together down a quiet street one saturday morning. and you just want to put your hand in his. you stand in the cold against a bus stop poster with your arms around each other for warmth. and for once in your life you don't care if the cab ever comes even though you're about to become an ice sculpture. and it's taking all your willpower not to push it, not to look up at his face in case he too feels the pull towards your mouth, because he has a partner. because you also don't want to ruin the friendship with awkwardness. (and you know you're growing because you're thinking of all these things instead of pure rejection).

you spend the next few days wondering what would have happened if you did. maybe deep down inside you respect him enough - or know his values enough - to not want to go there because you don't want to cause doubt. and despite his naturally coquettish and flirtatious nature, you know that he's not the kind of guy to let his girlfriend down.

but you still think about how right it felt to hold him. and you wonder if it's wrong to feel that way about someone else's boyfriend. if you are truely in love with someone, but you still have a connection or chemistry with someone else, what does it mean? is it something that will happen between the two of you forever? are you both just chemically conditioned a certain way that you will forever feel that with certain people out there no matter how happy you are with your partner? what does it take to ignore it? are we always tempted to give in? is it worst for your partner if you give in, or if you don't give in out of loyalty?

or maybe this connection is not there anymore, but you think about it and imagine it's there because he's a genuinely friendly guy who makes everyone - men and women - feel that connection?