Tuesday 31 January 2012

It's Good To Stalk

The Giant Boy is back, and having a shower. We know this because terrible noises of cascades and furniture being thrown around are emanating from upstairs. He has been on Work Experience, where he has not demonstrated exactly the willing can-do spirit for which one might have hoped. Hot-tempered texts saying "And this was BORING" "And that wasn't even MY job" came my way.Is there an emoticon for a sulky adolescent expression? Probably not. He had his W.E. in two different offices. The first one was with  a magazine. On Monday he was putting 800 things into 800 envelopes. By Wednesday, he was coming up with ideas for features. A steep "learning curve" if ever I heard of one. Fortunately he finished before appearing on the cover in swimwear.
The second week was in That London, where he accomplished  groovy technological things in a company so totally cutting-edge that nobody knows what they do, exactly. It was connected  with video games and phone apps, and he had a breakfast meeting at which he tucked away "bare"  bacon and fell asleep on a sofa.
And now we have to reconfigure his C.V. I didn't have a CV when I was fifteen, in fact I barely had a V. I discovered my diary from around that time when we were moving into Downturn Abbey. I seem to have spent my time meticulously cataloguing and reviewing what I had read and what I was wearing while I was reading it. Occasionally there would be a breathless account of a visit to T.J Hughes, or a family trip to Southport in the sarcastically-named Robin Reliant. Or a really big day when I went to the library twice. So hopelessly dreary was this journal that I didn't keep a diary ever again. I imagine that if one is actually HAVING a life, one is too busy to write it down. Anyway, I think it is foolish to write anything intimate or  unduly personal; some bugger will always unearth it and embarrass you with it. I cannot get on with the amount of searing confession that seems to be de rigeur these days. People come out with, and commit to text, Facebook, and blog, the most extraordinary information about themselves. A couple of friends of mine work in high-security settings, where leaking personal information could result in an unwanted visitation from a machete-bearing maniac. This must provide a useful discipline.
On the other hand, one should not get TOO carried away, and start thinking that everyone is after one's particulars for anything more sinister than trying to sell something. A few weeks ago I made a very general and vague enquiry about Sky TV, because the GB wanted some sports channel. I said I would look into it,and did. Now, three weeks on, I have had to bar various phone numbers, my voicemail is permanently bulging with desperately chummy messages from Sky People, and I must now go out in disguise in case they are lurking in a  rhododendron bush with a "Package" they want me to sign up for. So of course I shall never so much as glance at them again. There's efficient sales technique, and there's stalking. People tend to think more of one the less of one they can get. It is for this reason wise not to keep tabs upon one's beloved. I had a friend who had acquired a girlfriend, and who, as is in the nature of things, after a few months wished to end their association. She had not demonstrated previous signs of overt barminess, and in fact had come over as rather dull. But when scorned, oh boy..She took to sitting outside his flat, mostly in her car but sometimes on his step. She harangued him in shops, and pushed poems under his door. She startled him in Tube stations, followed him onto trains, weeping, visited him at work,and accused blameless colleagues of sleeping with him..it was perfectly dreadful. In the end, he had to change jobs,move house, and eventually, country. Now this is an extreme example, I am aware. But it has always stayed with me as an Awful Warning. I don't even like dogs because they follow you about.  Therefore I have told the GB that I shall arrange a marriage for him, so he will be spared the dangers and pitfalls of a hurly-burly romantic life. He seems fairly sanguine about this;they are so attuned to internet shopping, his peer group, that a mail-order bride will not seem at all odd. I just need to remember to keep the receipt.

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