Every time I find myself holding up a corporate job, I pretend I’m Ralph Fiennes in Strange Days.

[secret because, hey, it works, but the toll it takes on the spirit? Massive.]

True story: last year I contemplated flirting – ok, flirting more than I already was – with an ex boyfriend’s ex girlfriend.

And the only thing that stopped me was a moment of clarity.

How does a Lesbian Moment of Clarity sounds like, you ask?

Like this:

You just had an improptu coffee and cigarettes session in a nice bar.

Phone numbers were exchanged, as were promises of meeting up in the near future.

There might have been some fairly clear looks involved.

You walked away planning your next move, as it happens.

And then you went:

OMG, this one here’s an actual human being, 3-D and all that, not a doll I can spin around whenever I feel like “trying something new”. Wheee!

I did, however, feel all noble, like I had just saved a kitten from drowning or something.

And soon after that I felt unbelievably dumb for allowing myself any pride about such a small, ugly thing.

It was last month. A sunday when I was happy and with my head full of wind.  The first cold day in september. Summer was over on that sunday, a sunday when I wasn’t thinking of you. Up to that moment, anyway. Because after the song was id’ed and laid gently on the kitchen table we looked for it on YouTube. We watched the video. In my head I kept hearing the line “You don’t even know how to say goodbye”. Over and over.  I keep hearing it now.

And that’s what I would like to say to you. It’s better than anything I could ever come up with. I’d write it on a postcard. I’d send it to you. Would it be too cowardly? I don’t even know your address anymore, so it wouldn’t matter. It’s just an idle thought, really. There’s no harm in thinking about this all, now that I finally pinpointed what is it that you did to me, the exact notion. You went away by not going away at all. You couldn’t handle one simple task as letting me go, once and for all. So I’m doing that for you, I guess.

It’s both maddening and a relief. Weird, uh?

Last time we met you were 12.

Last time we spoke you were 16.

When somebody asks if I ever “lost somebody”, all I want to say is, I lost you – not to addiction but to poverty, to not having a father.

I hope you’re good. I hope you’re safe.

Darling,

You’ve got a job.

You’re ridiculously needy, self-absorbed to the nth degree and prone to treat anybody as your personal assistant.

Now, I wouldn’t even mind that much (pot, meet kettle), but the blatant disregard of other people’s mere chance of having trials and tribulations of their own? Hell to the no.

Of course, if we wanna get all respectful, I hope you’ll come to your senses and start acting human again, because nobody knows the trouble you’ve seen, and maybe you just haven’t dealt with some issues properly.

There is, after all, a way of putting yourself first and still retain some specks of common decency.

… Until then, though?

I shall not hope for somebody competent to get fired – but I’ll break out the pom poms in case you do.

I left a girl that I loved because I was obsessed with her mother’s death.
and because I thought she was waaaaay more intelligent than me.
I kept thinking of the fact that a phone call would have come while we were making love.
I’m still not sure which reason was worst.

[submitted anonymously]

For emotional, biographical and plain old ethical issues, I cannot condone any sexual contact whatsoever between teenagers and grownups.

I don’t even find kids attractive.

Imaginary kids, though?

That’s a whole different area.