I was sitting comfortably on the tube earlier today when I realized that just next to me there were two Romanians: a man and a woman. They were talking quite loudly and I was able to hear their every word. Though I really wish I couldn’t. The man was kissing and touching his girlfriend in a very inappropriate way while saying the most obscene and disgusting things. I will refrain from giving any details here but all I can say is that I couldn’t believe my ears. I am not a prude nor one of those girls with a Virgin Mary attitude towards sex, however, I would never share my sexual fantasies on the London tube. Especially if they involve S&M or sodomy. But this isn’t about sex, it’s about human decency. A trait almost completely forgotten by most people.
Freedom of speech is such a misunderstood and abused liberty. Just because those two horrible people (who happened to be Romanian) were in a foreign country, they assumed no one could understand what they were talking about and thus released the beasts inside them. Which is perfectly fine in a more intimate environment. Sadly, more often than not, people just don’t know how to behave in society. They don’t care and won’t make an effort to show respect or to be well-mannered. But how would they know the first thing about manners when they probably don’t have an education? I know people whose parents didn’t bother educating their own children, yet they somehow managed to do it themselves. Therefore, I can’t think of any excuses- for acting like the subjects of my story- other than sheer stupidity and ignorance.
You could say this only happens with certain ghastly lower class people: the gypsies in Romania, the chavs in London and so on. However, the two Romanians were not gypsies. They were just two people who not only made me feel so embarrassed for being a Romanian myself, but also for living in this world. These kind of people suck all the optimism and positive energy out of me. They make me think of all the madness in the world: of those who aren’t satisfied with whispering sexual offences in each other’s ears but actually put them into practice. As most people, I usually ignore the newspaper headlines that scream about rapists and killers and the rest of crazy people out there. I too do my best at trying to look at the bright side and to find the good in people. But sometimes I just can’t. Not when I am forced to witness such loathsome behaviours. In the light of these events, you may wonder why I didn’t say anything to my confreres. Well, that’s because I am as scared of people who don’t know decency as of a wild beast who doesn’t know reason.
‘Hi, I would like one ticket to We Need To Talk About Kevin at 7.’
‘How many, sorry?’
(smile) ‘ONE”.
It’s been over 4 years since I last went to the movies by myself. I used to do it all the time while in high school and it never bothered me or made me sad. But today, while walking to the cinema, I could feel my heart beating faster and for a minute I thought I might have an anxiety attack. Then I stopped and realised it was all ridiculous: I had more courage when I was younger, where did it all go? I guess it went away together with those silly expectations other people and society in general have from you. You should be a certain way, you should act like this and not like that. Going to the movies alone is for freaks and people are meant to live together. That’s all very nice except from time to time people need not to be with other people.
I was quite a solitary kid who preferred the company of books and movies to that of other kids. I had a few friends while at school but spending all my time with them was too much. Things have changed and I’ve started to seek companionship more often and I am not one hundred percent sure this is because I truly feel this way or because I just know it’s right to do it. Yet I didn’t ask anyone to go see the movie with me tonight. And as I took my seat and looked around, I noticed there were quite a few other people with small popcorn buckets. Two of them right next to me. This might actually be one of the main avantages of going to a movie by yourself: you buy the small bucket so you don’t stuff your face that much and you don’t have to share. Small as it is, it’s all yours.
One other advantage is that you don’t have to negotiate where to seat so I got one of the last rows, just as I like it. But probably the best thing about it is that there’s nothing wrong with going to a movie by yourself and you actually end up enjoying it so much. If there are 2 things I learned today, one of them is that ironically, when we are at our lowest, are sad or heart broken we find the power to be kinder than ever- I smiled at the girl who made me repeat ‘ONE ticket’ and I didn’t feel resentment for one second. The other thing is that I truly feel sorry for those who can’t stand to be alone. For those who constantly need other people and sometimes choose quantity over quality because they are terrified to discover they can’t be happy or enjoy life by themselves. Maybe that’s because when we are alone we are forced to look into our minds and souls and we might not like what we see. And I guess you can’t be lonelier than by not knowing yourself.
Yesterday two of my friends got married. When the ’till death do us part’ moment arrived there were tears in my eyes. I still don’t know whether I was crying because I am not sure I will ever get married, because I am so impressed that they believe in commitment and marriage when less and less people do or just because the moment itself is quite emotional.
I don’t really believe in marriage and this has to do with the fact that my parents got divorced and there aren’t too many couples around me who didn’t anyway. Even the word ‘love’ makes eyebrows raise and people exclaim ‘oh please, you don’t really believe that, do you?’. I also think there are those too complicated, difficult and not so easy to satisfy who can never settle and those who are simply the marrying kind. You surely know stories about people who met in high school, stayed madly in love for 50 years and lived happily ever after. Then one of them dies and in less than one month the other one dies as well. I classify these stories as fairytales.
Yet just because literature, movies and art taught us that the great loves are the crazy ones where everything is twisted, complicated and impossible that doesn’t mean for some love can’t be enough when it’s easy and simple. I often wondered whether a love where there aren’t any tears and slammed doors in act two it’s worth waiting for to see what happens in act three. But there rarely is an act three or an epilogue in l’amour fou.
Right now I can’t picture myself promising I will love and cherish a man for as long as I shall live but I can imagine living beautiful love stories. As I was telling my best friend a few days ago, the one thing I believe in is beauty. And both getting married and not getting married can and have to be beautiful because that’s what life si about. That’s what I wish for my friends as well, to have a beautiful marriage and for the sun to warm them for ever as it did yesterday in the church. Since in my life I am always looking for beauty, maybe one day it will come my way in an unexpected form and I might then change my mind and say those vows. But not knowing for sure, well that’s what makes it beautiful.
A good friend from Romania is visiting London for the first time. As we were walking in Kensigton yesterday, I was really annoyed with a group of teenagers who were moving too slow and taking over the sidewalk. She, my friend, couldn’t understand why I was bothered and I tried to explain that I am not a calm person and my nervous system is quite sensitive to all sorts of stimuli. Plus it’s her holiday, not mine and I am really far from being relaxed.
When I told my mother about that and how I wished I was more even-tempered she asked me to stop being so hard on myself and always think my behaviour is inadequate. I admit, I always criticise myself and often make the mistake of judging things in terms of what’s right and wrong. But isn’t this what we are all told from an early age? That is good to be calm and bad to be irritated or stressed out. My mum also says that the reason why we tend to repeat experiences and behaviours that are’t healthy or have a pattern when it comes to people we deal with is- according to quantum physics laws- the result of our tendency to only see what we already know. We reject something different because we don’t know what it is.
And in the end, isn’t it all about this? Truly accepting rather than tolerating our differences- my friend not judging me because our tempers differ and me not being irritated by some teenagers who think the whole street is theirs. It’s sounds quite simple and really logical but somehow I find it so difficult to put it into practise. I never thought of myself as a person who is afraid of change because I packed my bags and moved to a foreign country when I was 19 and am never reticent when it comes to trying new food. Yet it seems I am not capable of meeting people on a neutral territory where I can stop seeing everything through my own eyes and make the effort to empathise with them. But then again, I’m not alone in this.
Maybe if we could stop being one way or another and just be instead, the world woud become a nicer place and people would enjoy more happy moments. I am not even near doing what I preach but I believe in our ability to always question and try to understand why we act in a certain way in order to learn and grow. My friend said to me that if now I’m so stressed in 10 years it’s going to be so much worse. And I joked telling her I would probably be on Valium by then. But I allow myself those 10 years to get better at physics.