Roses are red

Violets are blue

If you want to know the answers ……..

Then turn to the back page of this book immediately.

Incredibly I slept with a girl who did just that. She would read the first few pages just to get to know the characters, who they were, where they were, what they were, and then turn to the final page. Her justification was logical, made lots of sense and totally infuriated me. Why waste precious time reading a story that you weren’t going to like, or one that would make you feel anything less than wonderful? Why read a piece of fiction that wouldn’t make your life finer? It didn’t really matter what I said about plot development, denouement or surprise. She didn’t want to be surprised, she wanted to know that her time was being properly invested. She hated waste.

If you read the first paragraph carefully you must have noted that this was a girl I slept with. Clearly it wasn’t a one night stand, you don’t generally pick up the book laid casually by the side of the bed the first time you’ve casually laid someone in the bed. No this was a long term commitment. We had time to make love and not turn the lights off immediately. We could bring cups of tea to bed and read great literature as part of the post-coital experience. Amour and Amis, striving and Irving, bonking and Tolkien, the literary allusions began to get silly. After a time the habit began to get to me. If she wanted to know the conclusion before the story evolved, what did she want from me? Was our affair going to be planned, spelt out, neatly wrapped up and the butcher brought to heel in 20 easy chapters like a bad Christie?

She hated waste. The tissue was always there to dry up any telltale signs of bodily fluids. Clean it away quick. I wanted to lie and luxuriate, she needed to mop up and move on.

Apart from that there were the differences in our literary heroes. How could I make it with anyone who didn’t think Stephen King was a great storyteller? I could be a pretty magnificent storyteller myself for a free ride. But that’s another story.

Part Two

Believe it or not we didn’t break up over reading habits, but a tie. It’s strange how ties can become important to some men. The sort of guy who wears the same suit every day for twenty years suddenly starts wearing bright blue silk and red Mickey Mice round his neck. Grey socks, grey underpants and gaudy, loud, (screaming) neckwear. I never thought I was one of them, but I had one tie that seemed to be perfect. It always knotted neatly ((not too big, not too small). It nearly always ended up the right length, past the belt but not hanging round my crutch.

I always had a fear of looking like the sad old men whose ties never quite reached their belts. Six inches of shirt between tie tip and waist band. My tie, being a pale pinky, bluey sort of thing went well with most of my fairly limited collection of shirts. The obvious white one from M&S, the button down denim one, the stripey one that had two front pockets and so on. It really is amazing how important those breast pockets are. Is it because they are called breast pockets – does it ring some sort of carnal bell? I just can’t cope without a pocket for my credit card and cash; it is my link with control. I am in charge if I have the MasterCard over my nipple. I do not need a wallet; everything I need is there next to my chest, ready to be flashed in any situation.

However, she found a top class shirt going really cheap and decided it was the one for me. It was a marvellous, wonderful, fabulous shirt. Beautifully made with extra buttons and folds, and pockets, and everything was double stitched. It had creases and linings, spare buttons for button holes I could never really find uses for.. All the trappings of calibre, of quality. A prince among shirts. Trouble was it only came in bright red. My tie just didn’t match up. How could I sacrifice my faithful friend for this fickle, flashy newcomer?

I suspect you are waiting for me to trot out all the obvious cliches about knots and ties for this relationship. Did I tell her to get knotted? Was she after an emotional tie that I couldn’t cope with? What do you expect of me?

Our lust couldn’t endure the strain of the tie affair. We stopped sharing a bed and literary conversations. Stephen King was safe, another sale at least every six months to add to the other 2 million.

That shirt was a present and so was the tie. Every time I buttoned up the shirt I reached for MY tie and every time I did that the metaphors started to drown me. That tie reminded me of the past when I didn’t need to wear one, when I was free to do what I wanted and I wasn’t trapped in a job that kept me tied up. The new shirt told me what a successful man I was, in a job that deserved such a pristine example of well-made formality. The tie that I left on the rack back home made me remember all the things that I had wanted, to be and to do.

Freedom in a tie? The girl who gave it to me had made it herself. She ripped an old one to pieces and worked out how the whole thing fitted together. When she gave it to me I was touched but confused. I didn’t wear ties then. Perhaps when I went home for a family wedding, or a funeral, but not as part of my daily life. But somehow she had known that I would be needing one for an interview not much later and it had gone with my one decent shirt. It fitted; it worked and pretty soon so did I. The tie became a symbol of how I could take the past me into the future and still remember him.

But this new shirt kept telling me where I am and where I am always going to be. As I said a little while ago – ties tell you a lot about a man. Ties don’t lie.

Still I’ve started my own little rebellion. I just refuse to button up my cuffs. Already I feel unshackled, I am marching to freedom! Glory, Glory! Give me another year or two and I might undo the top button on my shirt. Somewhere I lost myself and all I’ve got left is that tie. Maybe she should have read the last page first.

Be careful about giving your man a shirt for his birthday. What are you trying to tell him? Whether it is buttoned down, has the most spacious pockets and really impeccable cuffs, it doesn’t really matter. It just won’t tie him down. It’s the neckwear that counts.

Especially if his head is in the noose already.