What's love got to with it? Not much Tina, not much at all.

"You've got to stop reading into everything that she says"

This statement has been playing around in my head for most of this week, mostly while I've been running. It is fair to say that I am a master of the art of 'reading into things' or 'actually working out the truth' as I like to call it. A gift handed down to me by my father, with the express wish that I use this power only for doing my own head in, with Dad being the Overlord, Emperor, and King of being mortally offended by near enough anything that you happen to say to him, the uncanny ability to take real offence to a light hearted joke, and to not forget that joke for a number of years. Exactly like this paragraph basically*

I am my fathers son, so I have been blessed/cursed by this power too. Nothing gives me greater joy/pain than to listen to something someone says to me, convince myself that the statement hides what they REALLY mean, then letting what I think it means take over my rational head. It's not all my own doing though, we all do it. And it will only ever really take control when it involves affairs of the heart, when you want something so badly that you completely convince yourself of what you want to hear, rather than the glaringly obvious.

I fell in love with Lisa Davis on a school trip to Big Pit when I was 8 years old. I knew it was love because she'd sat next to me on the way there. I should have known it was over when she sat with Gareth McCarthy on the way back. I didn't want to believe what was happening in front of my very eyes, and I convinced myself that it was still me that she wanted. So I did the only thing any proud man could do in that situation, I sent her a note saying,

"Is it over between us?"

2 agonizing minutes I waited as the note was hurried up the bus,

"Yes" came the resounding reply.

You'd think that this would be the end of the matter, that a 'yes' in capital letters would make me understand that it was not destined to be. No, I'm afraid that I don't simply stop at the first sign of rejection, I like to have it hammered into to me time and time again, like being viciously beaten by a group of gypsy bare knuckle boxers. A few weeks went by and my family and I went on holiday to Holland, where I found a little craft fair selling traditional Dutch pottery. Looking back now it was clearly Chinese made tat being sold at a tourist trap market in Holland, but at the time the little china windmill was a beautiful ornament. I bought one for Lisa, convinced that she would finally understand the deep, never ending torch I held for her, and that she would realize that I was in fact the man she should spend the rest of her life with, or at least until we got to high school. On the first day back from holidays I walked up to her friend and asked her to give it to Lisa (bravery with the ladies has always been my strong point). During the next break Lisa's friend came back and gave me the windmill back,

"Lisa says thanks but she doesn't want it, she really likes it but she can't accept it"

The only part of this I even hear is 'she really likes it' and I was ecstatic, completely assured that my taste in shit pottery was the same as hers, and that in that case we'd eventually be together forever!

It was this bad when I was eight, 25 years later and I'm still having to deal with this madness!

I've become so adept at it now that I read into what people don't say, and how they don't say it. I can read into peoples actions or lack of actions, and make sure that it comes out on my side. I read into what my friends say about things, then I ignore it and believe what I think they said. I read Emails and change the words around so instead of it saying,

'we've decided that we'd rather you didn't come to Ibiza with us, what with you being bat shit crazy!'

I read it as

'it would be bat shit crazy if you didn't let us come to Ibiza with you!'

It's out of control, and a borderline mental health issue, but I've got the cure. You stop. you just stop trying to read into what people say and just hear what they said instead. Easy. You also completely stop speaking to anyone about anything important at all. Ever.

I go out to run 20 miles with my friend Tom. Tom's planned the route and we head off. The best thing about running somewhere you've never been before is that you don't know how far you've run, or how far you've got left. Unless you've got a fancy watch like Tom has, which bleeps every time you reach a mile, and then tells you how slow you did that mile. Otherwise you're just free to jog along and take in the sites. Brixton, Clapham Common, Putney, Richmond, Morden, and South Wimbledon all glide past. We start off pretty quick but the pace drops off after a while and I take the chance to just enjoy it a have the banter with Tom. It's a good 3 and a half hours or more before we hit the 20 mile mark and the slow pace has gifted me a burnt, red, face.

Even at a slow pace the body needs a few days to recover. The next day my legs feel good with no aches or pains but I can feel a slight heaviness. I take a 2 day break from running. During this two day break I fly to Germany and back in a day for a job interview and to give a presentation. After the interview I am sitting in the canteen waiting for my taxi when the woman who'd interviewed me walks in, sees me on the other side of the room and waves. I wave back and carry on reading my book**. I look up and she is walking towards my table,

"Are you waiting for your cab?"

"Yes" I squeak in reply, I am incredibly nervous, this job is a huge thing for me,

"That was really good. really, really, good. Thank you. It will be completely my decision, and you'll be hearing from me next week, have a safe journey home" then she kisses me on both cheeks and walks off.

Obviously I can't read into what she says so I've assumed that the interview went badly, she didn't think it was very good, and she is going to give the job to someone else. Because that's what she meant right?



* - caru ti yn fawr iawn Dad xx

** - Mr Briggs' Hat - the story of Britain's first railway murder. Amazing book