We sat, I smoked.
I told you that you were beautiful.
You didn't know that this was an opening gambit.
You said you hated your nose and that no one had ever told you that.
I was surprised.
I know you're not a beauty queen
But there's a certain elegance in your face
An intelligence
And a sweetness in its angular set
I'd have thought someone else would have recognised.

So you were happy about that, and I was too.
I was happy to be the first to tell you the truth
Then I leaned in
To kiss you.
You leaned back
And I remembered through the bacchanalia
That you had told me you adored another
Though I was hoping that he'd be a foil
An elaborate ruse
But you didn't want me.

You never told anyone. We headed off through the crowd to dance again,
You didn't even mind holding my hand
And I was so grateful that you still would.
We never discussed it.
I used to hope that I'd simply shocked you
And sometimes I still tell you,
When you tell me about your witch tooth that crosses the other one
Or complain that your voice isn't native enough here,
That you're lovely
That it's wonderful
That I couldn't imagine the river deep cadences of your homeland any better
And why would you want to alter yourself?
Though I omit the third.

We are still friends without awkwardness;
And that is all.

I wonder what would happen if I ever did have the courage to approach MH. The Austrian was, theoretically, the most plausible choice for me. She is around my age and was most likely to possibly entertain the thought of me. What would a woman more than twice my age, with a child, say? A woman who, most probably, likes men. Who has never gone out of her way to speak to me; I think she thinks I'm fairly pathetic, which is exactly how I currently feel about myself.

I have told her that she is excellent and thanked her for letting me do things that others usually wouldn't, as regards her job. She made my job easy because she's so brilliant at hers; she allowed me to be this other person. She must know she's amazing, and even if she doesn't then it means very little coming from an absolute novice who learns at a snail's pace like myself.

I adore straw blonde hair with a kink at the back
and capable wrists with hands that fit
strolling up and down a room
indicating with sussuration.
You were teased about your speech
though it's soft and lovely with a hint of steel
and that hurt you, I can see
though it shouldn't.
And, like CW, you sometimes confide in me. Not far,
but enough. I have never told you that you are beautiful.
It's a step too far. You wouldn't want it.
I simply have to hope that someone else is saying it to you anyway.

Compromising compliment.

I admire people for their excellence, but I haven't got anything specific that I am excellent at. Maybe it is for this reason that others don't want me. I am half embarrassed by myself. I worry that I am like the woman that continually wears purple. She compliments me and yet I couldn't care less. It's nice, but when I'm feeling utterly desperate it doesn't help. Her compliments centre on the things that she herself is atrocious at, so I feel that she's really no accurate judge. A compliment, a real compliment from someone I admire, would make me happy, but those are hard to come by. MH never has. CW sometimes tells me things about herself or 'offloads' onto me. I don't know whether this is because I'm so utterly unimportant that it doesn't matter or because she trusts me. My hope lies with the latter option, but my sense tells me it's a compromise between the two. DB admires the fact that I can speak shit French. That's the only real boost that I've got at the moment, and that happened at Christmas. "I can dine for two months on a good compliment". Mark Twain, I think.

I don't always adore the people that I admire, but there's a strong correlation between the two. I admire the Austrian, but I don't feel particularly buoyed when she compliments me.

Awful.

I feel awful.

I went to Cambridge for the weekend and I fear that I've got a small spiky fish bone lodged in my throat. That sums up my feeling about the place. Pathetic fallacy is always wonderful.

I did not succeed in getting into Cambridge. Seeing it at close quarters for an entire day, walking round the colleges that I should have been able to gain entry to but was too thick and stupid to do so, to make the correct decision at the correct time, was nothing other than painful. I could think of nothing to say. I felt embarrassed and ashamed of myself; firstly because I hadn't succeeded, and secondly because it has been six years since I was rejected, and going there still holds the same feeling that I had all those years ago upon receipt of the letter.

I'd like to pretend that only well connected people get into Cambridge or Oxford, and this is partly true. Sadly, so do many state school pupils, and having gone to a private school, I was probably better prepared than most. I was simply too thick.

I feel as if I've always made the wrong decisions even though everyone seems to aid me in making the right ones. I should have studied languages instead of English. I should have done a gap year and then reapplied. I should be moving out now, I should be abroad, I should be successful and doing exciting things and living my life instead of watching other people be wonderful at their chosen careers and feeling as if I'm the person that everyone pities and speaks about in hushed tones when she's not there.

I feel a stultifying thickening of my wit and general self occuring almost daily; imperceptibly, but gradually. I cannot find anyone to love me whom I love in return, because I set my sights on people that are impossible, and even if not then I turn away. I have not been to see Lady of the House for an eternity, though she is soon moving away, and I forget and let things go where I should make a point of doing them.

I have articulated and set out the reasons wherefore I am one of the people that almost always receives a 'no'. I am whiny and sulking. I petrify like bitumen when anything remotely disappointing happens instead of getting over it and moving on. I simply wish that I was brilliant at something, or at the very least had someone whom I think is brilliant to tell me that they thought the same about me. I need someone, somewhere- professionally, personally, it doesn't matter- to say yes. To something I really want, not just something that is given to me because it's unimportant, or because no one else wants it.

If that is to happen, then I simply need to be better at what I do in every way. And to stop being so utterly and completely pathetic.