Politeness and the British Way

I just came across this article the other day, which came as quite a surprise actually. I didn't really think that Americans, much less New Yorkers, would think British English is either cool, or good to use to try to sound, 'posh'. Most of the time, it just sounds poncey to use such unfamiliar language. But then again, if you travel back and forth between the UK and US it could seep in and start to get all mixed up. I have had compliments lately from a couple of Americans that my British accent is lovely to listen to, but mostly because they were exposed to other kinds of regional British accents that they had found incomprehensible. I suppose the standard RP accent (what most people consider 'BBC English') is the preferred kind of British accent but it makes you wonder how others are perceived if they can't even be fully understood. I read in the Guardian, that had a whole round up of 'comedy news' yesterday (whatever that is) that the actor/comedian Rob Brydon will play a Welshman living in LA. How ever will Americans understand him? Will he purposely have to talk more slowly?

As an interesting follow-on discovery from this NYTimes article, I came across the blog 'Separated by a Common Language' where one of the latest articles deals with the issue of politeness. I'm quite interested in this because the word 'politeness' brings up all sorts of connotations for me. It reminds me of my childhood and having it drummed into me as though the world would collapse under a sea of despicable, immoral conduct if not used, that 'please' and 'thank you' were the most vital elements of any conversation at the dinner table. Quite rightly, my Mum wanted us to be grateful children, who always respected the people around them and would be polite at all times in either requesting or receiving something. On the other hand, this stretched to asking permission for all manner of things that perhaps went a bit too far. Was it really necessary to ask, "please could I leave the table now, as I've got homework to do?"  And worse still, was it necessary to decline kind offers from neighbours or family friends, when you really wanted to accept, just because it was the polite thing to do, not to take 'too much'?

This last point leads into the idea of self-worth. Too much politeness or an overly self-deprecating manner can cause its own problems. Perhaps these are not readily recognised in the UK, but I've noticed the differences I've experienced in both the US and here in the Czech Republic, not to mention comments from Russian and German friends. Elizabeth Gilbert in her book, 'Committed', (that I've been avidly reading and have just finished) explains the uncomfortableness of finding herself caught in a 'permission-seeking' situation with her own partner. She knew what she wanted to do, (go to Cambodia on her own without her partner) and she wanted to check that her partner would be ok with the idea, but she didn't want to put herself in the position of making her partner some kind of authority figure from whom she had to seek permission. As she puts it:

"When it came time to discuss with Felipe my idea of going off to Cambodia without him for a spell, I broached the topic with a degree of skittishness that surprised me. For a few days, I could not seem to find the right approach. I didn't want to feel as though I were asking his permission to go, since that placed him in the role of a master or a parent - and that wouldn't be fair to me. Nor, though, could I imagine sitting down with this nice, considerate man and bluntly informing him that I was heading off alone whether he liked it or not. This would place me in the role of wilful tyrant, which was obviously unfair to him."   

I recently struggled with learning the protocol of polite language usage here with some friends of friends who were Czech. First of all, there's the question of whether to use the 'Ty' or 'Vy' form, i.e a friendly form of 'you' or the polite, respectful one. And then, there's the question of how often to use the more polite conditional forms, such as 'could I help with something?' instead of a straightforward, 'can I help?' and you can forget about adding 'please' to any simple request to pass something over or ask where the loo is. That would just seem a typically apologetically British approach that has no place in this country. 

So it's something I'm still battling to learn. Having been accused of being too polite by ex-partner, who often said, "you don't need to apologise for breathing, you know!" about my tendency to say sorry too much, and yet at the same time being brought up to avoid asking for too much because that was rude, I'm in a bit of a pickle really. Maybe I just need to be British-ly polite in the UK and assume a certain sense of 'everything's ok' in places like the US and here in the Czech Republic and try very hard NEVER to get confused and mix them up.

Jimmy Savile and other revolting characters

Having read and researched the allegations about Jimmy Savile in the British press recently, it is hard to shake off the sense of disgust that I feel about him and the kind of uncomfortable, 'icky' feeling he elicits. I remember watching the Louis Theroux documentary about him and sensing that he was not an affable eccentric type at all, but rather someone who was mentally unstable and had only built up a greater defence of that dysfunctionality as he had got older. There was just something about him, a certain readiness to stand his ground and defend his strange behaviour as his right, that seemed somehow 'off-kilter'.

The sad truth is, that there are probably a lot of women who have come across someone in their lifetime who has been this kind of character - seemingly kind and gregarious, avuncular and well-liked by lots of people, but who underlyingly, sometimes imperceptibly to others, definitely has a problem. Most of the time, other people around them sense this odd quality about them and know to be careful or to monitor this kind of person more closely. Other times, young women or even girls are subjected to uncomfortable situations such as a hug that goes just that little bit too far or a congratulatory pat on the back that lingers too long and settles too low. Coleen Nolan describes this situation that she experienced with Jimmy Savile here. This is the type of thing that somehow goes on without anyone ever calling the perpetrator up on what they're doing because there's no outright crime to be accused of and, the worst thing in Jimmy Savile's case is the fact that he believed himself to be above recrimination. He would have laughed anything off as 'a bit of fun', no doubt, and nobody could argue with that. Until evidence emerges to the contrary. Which in that day and age, with no video-enabled mobile phones, would have been hard to produce. The fact that there were rumours, at the time, made little difference because Jimmy Savile had so much financial influence and because, as Janet Street Porter attests here, the rumours would have been laughed off in such a male-dominated industry if the only complaints emerging were from women.

In other cases, for women anywhere where there is no further act than a little 'over-enthusiasm' that physically manifests itself as an ambiguous touch or lingering hug, there is no way to take the matter any further, but the feeling a young woman has to deal with is at best, very unpleasant. It's a rite of passage that no-one would wish on a young woman but one that often takes place one way or another due to the nature of the confusion around new emotions and sensations experienced as a teenager and the lack of confidence in one's attractiveness or worth. A young woman unsure of herself but in need of affection is such an easy target for people like this.

And the other consequence is that these kind of sleaze-bags give the decent, kind, respectful guys a hard time figuring out how to negotiate the beginnings of a relationship when women have been subjected to so much deceit, so many instances of a 'smoke and mirrors' subterfuge of a sexual advance, that starting a relationship with someone becomes a frightening thing to do, where nothing feels safe. Add to that the humiliation involved in being a victim of someone like this when no-one will believe you or else they'll think it was your fault, and you've got the perfect breeding ground for a terrible wound to be carried by that young woman throughout her life.

This kind of experience, of the sort Coleen Nolan describes, is something that is hard enough to explain and describe as a fully fledged adult, let alone a young woman. The complexity of the confusion of conflicting emotions, such as 'Did I cause this?' to, 'how could I cause it - I'm not even attractive?', to, 'I feel violated but nothing happened' would give anyone pause in voicing their complaint about an isolated incident. All I can say is that my deepest sympathy goes to the victims who may not even consider themselves as such, because the word victim has such disenfranchising connotations, but who surely must feel that flood of conflicting and confusing, skin-crawling revulsion all over again just seeing his picture all over the media. The man had a screw loose and there's nothing anyone can do to compensate for that now, how ever it occurred, and how ever he chose to override or indulge that. Though Mark Lawson's beautifully written piece in the Guardian offers the poetic justice of the graveyard slot programme consigning Jimmy Savile's reputation to the scrapheap, it offers no real comfort for the women who know there was a nasty, horrible, screwed-up man who lived the high life, hurting and humiliating teenage girls along the way, who got off absolutely scot-free.

Forces beyond one's control and other existential crises

I've been reading the latest Elizabeth Gilbert book, "Committed", which is largely about her plight of having to get married in order to resolve an issue with immigration that sent her and her boyfriend into a horrible limbo of travelling and waiting for permission to marry in order to be accepted back into the US, despite the fact that she and her boyfriend had sworn off marriage for life after their painful divorces. I'm gripped by it, not only because of the similarity of opinion that she expresses throughout the book about how she sees marriage as something that has always benefited men, while robbing women of much of their previous strength and autonomy, but also because her situation of a kind of exile in a lifestyle she doesn't want reflects my current predicament so profoundly.

I admire her writing style in amongst what could otherwise be quite dry subject matter of statistics and research findings about marriage across various time periods and locations. I'm also humbled by the way in which her relationship endures this incredibly demanding challenge. In having to stay out of the US and keep travelling, and having to face doing the very thing they said they'd never do, just to be able to stay living together, I feel every bit of her struggle to comprehend how debilitating it is to be at the mercy of a power greater than you. In her case, the US immigration system. In my case, the recession, or maybe it's not the recession, it's just some outer force that has decided that for me to ever progress in my life, I have to be thrust back into the very surroundings and circumstances that not only I said I'd never want to be in, but also that reflect everything I have tried to avoid in my life since leaving home. I cannot understand how I have got to this age, travelled this far, (ok, not that far from the UK really) and ended up in a place that reminds me of everything I hated about my childhood.

I do not want to live in the suburbs, far away from connection with the vibrant city, but that is where I grew up, and where I am again now, albeit in another country. I do not want to be judged and held in shame for mistakes I've made or things I want but can't seem to get, yet that is what countless sarcastic comments and repeated stories jokingly retold in both my childhood and in my current relationship seem designed to do. I do not want to be dependent on someone else's income and unable to afford to buy the kind of healthy food I really long for, the kind of quality clothes I really desire because I want things that make me feel good and last a long time, the kind of books and magazines that keep me informed about the world, the kind of technology that enables me to pursue my creative projects freely and efficiently and yet, this is the position I am in. 

Whatever force is at play here, I am certainly aware of the irony, the amusement, the shame in all of this. I can hear the voice of my uncle poised to say, "She speaks all these foreign languages and studied so much and she still can't earn enough to live on her own!  Ha ha!" I also know that he is a pretty messed-up individual with 'issues' of his own that are none of my business, as mine should be none of his. I am willing to learn whatever it is I need to learn here, but it is painful. It is not easy to live with someone who gets angry with me for not being able to drive because, "that's what normal people do" and I don't fall into the category of 'normal' adequately enough for him. I am perfectly 'normal' for anyone living in a busy, capital city with an integrated public transport system, and what is more, I did drive, I got a licence when I could but I have since had little opportunity to practise seeing as I haven't needed a car, nor would it have made much sense to have one, central London parking costs being what they are. But I am being picked at for my failings as a suitable suburban housewife, with no compassion for the fact that the last thing I am or will ever be is a suburban housewife.

So I soldier on. One day at a time. One writing assignment at a time. One advertisement applied to at a time. I am counting every penny (or rather crown) and trying to keep 'going without' things, such as still not getting my hair cut since March, still not buying any new jumpers or leggings even though I need them, still not being able to afford a flat because I have to keep the money my sister lent me as emergency money for income loss, not as flat deposit money. I will not be able to afford to move into a new flat until I get some regular work that pays me enough to cover food, phone bill, travelcard and still have some left over for all the other costs and some left over to save up with because not only have rents gone up while my salary has plummeted, but I will soon have to pay healthcare, taxes and national insurance here in a bid to gamble on getting more work as a result of having the documentation clients need to get their bosses to release funds for their training, that as far as I can ascertain will cost me a third of what my rent will probably be, which means, not only do I need to earn more than I am earning now (clearly) but I need to be earning more than I was when I was working for lots of clients in order to cover higher rent and more charges on top of the usual stuff.

Hence, I need a miracle. A job offer that brings me a liveable wage, a series of high-paying clients and a regular writing job that pays a wage someone in London could actually buy their grocery shopping each week with (at least) or else I have to contemplate moving into a shared house, which totally defeats the object of being in Prague altogether, because that was the only thing I hoped to gain by coming here.  And I had it. That lovely central, really reasonably priced flat all to myself. I had it for two years and I am enormously grateful for it. I would dearly love to start making some gains now, instead of fielding more losses. I would love to have an opportunity to show how much better I am at living when I actually get to do it in my own private space. Whatever force is at play holding me here, I hope it will teach me whatever it is I have to learn as rapidly and solidly as it can because when I leave here, I do not want to have to come back. Ever.

Catching up, thoughts and "hard alcohol"

Thoughts on a day when I ran out of time to post this (26/09/12):

Voluntary ban? Pah! We've got the real deal here.

Having just read this article on the Guardian site this morning, I was quite surprised that it was about shops being asked to voluntarily stop selling the stronger alcoholic drinks mentioned. I myself, have failed to mention that here in the Czech Republic, (that's right - right here, right now in the 21st Century) there is an actual ban on all alcoholic drinks of 20% alcohol or higher (referred to as "hard alcohol" in Czech).  Some people died from the sale of alcohol that had metallic alcohol not the digestible type (I still don't know exactly what this means, not being a scientist myself and not having the advantage of being able to read this news story in English and I suspect the actual difference itself, when relayed in English, wouldn't mean a whole lot more to me anyway) so they've banned it from being sold in shops and supermarkets.  Though the ban is already lifting now, for any drinks manufacturers who can produce a certificate to confirm the date and method of production.  Or something.

So just as I finally have time to write about this (I'm sort of pleased to say that paid writing work has taken priority this week, though also disappointed to say that it really isn't paying more than half the minimum wage for how long it actually takes to write the articles I have to write and subtly include the links they want, ho-hum) it's a story that's almost over. Mind you, that doesn't stop the news here talking about it all the time. Still. After a grand total of about 21 people died. The fear is that more will follow from people who bought vodka or rum or that sort of drink months ago and might not open it to drink until a birthday or other celebration comes up, by which time they'll have forgotten the time they bought it and the ban that followed because it will then have slipped off the news agenda.

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After re-watching the film 'Stranger than Fiction' on Saturday night (while away with no internet access):

I think I would have loved an old style typewriter to write on, just like the novelist in 'Stranger Than Fiction'. The light of the room she writes in. The peace and quiet. I wish I could have that peace right now. It's beginning to get to me. To settle into my brain. The background noise of a constantly on TV spewing out Czech exclamations incessantly. Offering sometimes a welcome variety of vocabulary and a delicately accented Czech that I don't hear here in Prague. The gorgeously bristling sound of the 'ř', the carefully placed emphasis on the first syllable of a word or preposition that precedes it. But sometimes the TV merely replicates what I hear at what is for now my 'home'. A series of exclamations of disgust, despair and disappointment that become reduced to expetives and casual language that can sound even lazier and weighed down in apathy when given the right, Prague-style dull intonation.

I know I will need an exit strategy, no matter how grateful I am for the lessons I have learned here.

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I don't seem to be making much progress lately. After a wrangling with Barclays on the phone yesterday which ended when they put me on hold so long my £10 credit ran out, and a battle with a form I just cannot fill-in in Czech without help, losing meet-ees again and barely earning enough money to keep me fed and able to travel (and top-up my phone after talking to the people at Barclays) I'm in the heart of the recession I think. Just like everyone else. I really, really miss my flat now more than ever and the thought of going into the thick of autumn, possibly even winter without my own space to work and put up pictures and fairy lights and generally feel snuggly and at home, is just upsetting. I've got to find a way to be ok with the way things are though, because we all know - "what you resist, persists". I should know that one by now.

I must make, "it's ok, everything's fine, this is exactly what I want right now", my inner mantra and see if that shifts anything. It's worth a try. Everything else failed, so why not try a totally insane kind of 'self-help' practice and see if it works? Failing that , I'm simply going to get out the big Sesame Street book again and resort to singing the Cookie Monster version of 'Call Me Maybe' over and over: "Me just met you and this is crazy, but you got cookie, so share it maybe..."

New Rules

It's been a long break of not having time to write anything for myself, but, for today at least, I'm back! I've been caught up not only with some demanding paid writing work (it's terrible pay but I'm building up my portfolio of business, finance, politics and health/fitness articles, so hurrah to that!) but also with the trials and tribulations of living with a Czech boyfriend. Emphasis on the word 'boy'. Oh, how I long to be with a person who can be an adult at home as well as at work. My survival here depends, I have realised, on being able to negotiate enough time away from him or to myself to be able to cope with whatever is thrown at me and an unwritten rule to never, I repeat, never, expect or hope for kindness, understanding, love and affection given without prompting, or washing up completed by anyone except me.

These are the new rules in my current living situation:

1) Do not expect anyone to do any of the following: make tea in the morning, make meals at any time, do food shopping, washing up or any general cleaning unless it is you.

2) Get to bed before the other person so that you don't have to get into late-night difficult conversations that destroy all hope of sleep.

3) If you leave nice, loving post-it notes, thank you notes to accompany a red rose you bought, or buy special little things while food shopping just for the other person, do not under any circumstances hope for reciprocation of any kind.

4) Buy your own red wine and drink it while the other person is out.

5) Have a 'coffee fund' to escape the flat more often when suburbia and the quiet isolation of being in a flat you didn't want to live in in the first place begin to grate.

6) Make "acceptance, acceptance, acceptance" your new 'political party of one' manifesto.

7) Wear nice clothes while you can because you never known when the next Czech bank holiday might creep up on you and force you to accept a prolonged trip to the mountains to wear a hiker's uniform that makes you feel frumpy. (That would be the coming weekend.)

8) Be supremely grateful for rent-free living because this is the huge advantage that makes up for it all while income is slow to materialise.

So, in the meantime, I've developed a terrible YouTube habit of watching Kermit the frog interviews about all sorts of Muppet films, DVDs and TV shows past and present, as well as a cafe bill that is close to the sum total of my meet-ee income, bar one meet-ee who pays me directly into my Czech account, which serves to slowly be allowing me to save up. A bit.

And I've taken to re-training myself in the area of shopping. Seeing as I now live right next to a shopping centre, which I have to walk past to get to the metro station, it is no longer viable to cry, weep, pout or otherwise feel sorry for myself in the face of hundreds of things I would love to have but cannot afford. So I have purposely been attempting over the last couple of weeks to constantly think of things I love, such as, red roses, books, magazines, iPads, posh knee-length boots, YSL red lipstick, Wine-coloured dark lipgloss, dresses found at random on Net-a-porter (my addiction of the future I predict), Côtes du Rhône red wine (or the Rosemount Shiraz/Cabernet wine when French wines are not available even in the local big supermarket because this is the Czech Republic), tight-fitting warm Victoria Beckham-range type dresses that go over black leggings and feather earrings/hairbands of all kinds of crazy colours, and flights and hotel stays in London, Paris, San Francisco or NYC and imagining myself having them. Some of which is possible, some of which is a stretch to even imagine being able to afford. (The flights to NYC in particular, though I know I could stay in a friend's flat if only, if only, if only I had the money to sublet her flat or give her almost the cost of the rent at either Christmas or in Spring and I've NEVER been to NYC at Christmas...)

Anyway, the upshot of all this fantasising is, I am learning to not wince in lack-of-funds thinking whenever I see a lovely soft jumper or gorgeous dress or sparkly big handbag, and instead imagine that one day I could indeed afford this stuff or even walk into the L'Occitane shop without feeling like I'll be singled out as working class scum, and thus unworthy, at first glance. And I am writing lists in my head of what I already have, which I am enormously grateful for: Macbook (hallelujah!) iPod (hurrah!) red, Kurt Geiger shoes (Kermit the frog-like "yay!") and Nokia slide phone that is reliable and still works, bless it (Gott sei dank) and all of this is helping. Bit by bit.

Here are the pictures I printed out of dresses I loved on Net-a-porter (and I purposely didn't look at the price) and stuck in my scrapbook:

Happy perusing. The cowboy has just come back armed with a bag of freshly picked (giant) mushrooms, so we're having salmon and mushrooms and spinach tonight which is not only a culinary experiment, it is an experiment in sharing the cooking duties. Hmm. Strange new worlds...

Mushroom picking and other preoccupations

It's been about a week now since I moved in with the cowboy and we're managing ok, but I'm beginning to develop a Jeff Goldblum-like twitch that becomes apparent everytime I get too much exposure to company and not enough time on my own.  I'm wondering whether this will gradually develop into a full-blown illness, much as Jeff Goldblum's character turned into a disgusting mesh of fly and human and I'll end up a gibbering wreck on the floor in about a month's time. It looks like I'm going to be here longer than the month I had hoped it would be limited to, because former meet-ees expected back in September have failed to materialise and new ones are few and far between and the writing work I've got pays so little for the amount of time it takes, it could take about a month before I earn a week's rent.

And in the meantime, I feel slightly more isolated than I did before, in a surreal world of Mums and babies because this area seems to be full of them, or at least the local shopping mall on the way to the metro (where the nearest shop is located) is. And it feels very disconcerting to be in the suburbs again, just like I was when I was growing up, having to accept yet again that I must do exactly the thing I don't want to do and hope that it's temporary. I hope there is a lesson in all this that I can learn just once and move on from, because otherwise this has been a series of years now of going to live in places I don't want to be (Prague) and doing things I don't want to do (have meetings with meet-ees) and not earning enough to get me out of here and onto something better (my whole earning life in a nutshell).

But I shall not dwell on this. The re-spinning of this whole experience would be: I'm now doing better paid work, I've actually got some ongoing paid writing work and I'm living rent-free with a boyfriend who's fairly easy-going. These are all pluses. Another plus would be, that one of the new skills I'm picking up here in the delightful Czech Republic has now stretched to identifying useful flora and fauna and indeed, fungi. You can't be a proper Czech if you don't have a good knowledge of which mushrooms you find in the countryside are good for eating and which will kill you. I have now got to 'mushroom picking 101' level by at least identifying viable edible mushrooms, but I couldn't tell you if they happen to have any close relatives that look very similar that might actually kill you. So, not quite Czech standard yet.

I was the first to spot the ripe hide of a huge mushroom in the field 

that started our search on Saturday. It looked like a giant toad from the angle I first caught it at, but then I realised it was a mushroom that was a little too old for eating, but by going over to inspect it, we actually stumbled upon younger, edible options, which was rather good. And the meadows that followed (aren't they pretty?)

yielded one or two more, 

along with lots of beautiful flowers and every so often, a sign showing the other wildlife we might be able to find here. From otters, to harvest mice, to vipers and little deer, I got to learn some useful names.

The harvest mice [myška drobná] in one of the other pictures looked so small and diddy that the cowboy decided this could be my nickname for the day.

We hadn't planned on picking mushrooms and we didn't have a paper bag to put them in, but we made do with tissues and a plastic bag and took them home relatively intact in order for them to then undergo the slicing and drying process that the cowboy always does. 

Once they are properly dried, they go in a jar and can be used at any point in the future to make a kind of mushroom sauce that goes rather well with chicken and rice, which I must admit, is rather a yummy specialty of the cowboy's now that I particularly look forward to.

Having spent this weekend away in the mountains, yet again, without internet access and without much opportunity to read or write things because we went by motorbike this time which limits the number of things we can bring with us, I feel a great need to stay in Prague this weekend. But the cowboy wants to go and see his brother in another part of the countryside on the other side of the Czech Republic.  I'm not sure I can do it. If nothing else, I need a break from weekends spent doing things according to his agenda and above all I need some time to myself. I think I'm going to have to look like the super bitch, horrid girlfriend he suspects I am, and just say no. In anycase, if I want to earn any money at all from this writing lark, I need to up my productivity, work all weekend and make sure I write about 10 articles in a week in order to hit the higher rate of pay allowed for anything over 8 articles from one Friday to the next. And with that, perhaps I should get going on the next one for them today.

Moving out, moving in, but moving on?

I made it.  I actually got all of my stuff out of my former flat, cleaned the whole flat on the Friday following the final box-exodus and even went to Šumava for the weekend, just to do what the cowboy wanted to do after a long period of him having to help me with tedious stuff.  But I'll have to make up for being utterly useless that weekend because I had period pain of epic proportions and had to stay in bed, drugged up to the eyeballs on painkillers just to survive, by going there again this weekend and being a good Czech-girlfriend substitute and going on a long walk in the mountains.  And then I'm done.  

Then, universe, let it be known, I need a big change.  I need enough income to flood in that I can realistically look for a new flat.  I need enough income to cover getting an iPad because I need access to publications and books without having to rely on the incompetent Czech postal system, which is fractionally worse than the UK postal system.  But only fractionally, and I've been away from the UK now for so long that in the meantime, for all I know, the UK postal system could have become even more incompetent.  Maybe there aren't Saturday deliveries anymore?  If there are, that's the one thing that makes the UK postal system that tiny bit better than it is here.  That's all.

On a lighter note, I've so far survived being in the depths of suburbia out of a sense of novelty, I suppose, although the cowboy is currently in his teenager mode of pointing out how this is what marriage is, boring and hum-drum and pointless.  And he's right.  If it's with someone you don't have enough in common with and if you live together in a flat you both don't particularly like.  But I never expected this to be anything but hum-drum and mildly, if not spectacularly, irritating for all concerned.

I know not to expect sweet little post-it notes left for me, nor random acts of kindness such as  a cup of tea brought to me on a day when I have to wake up early.  The cowboy seems not to appreciate things like this even when they do happen, though.  He didn't even see the little note I left stuck to the lock on the door yesterday.  Which is hard to believe.  But I guess he just shut the door behind him and didn't look in the direction of his hand as he was doing so.

I imagine this is exactly what marriage is like if you marry someone you don't love with a passion.  And it's clear that the cowboy and I have affection for each other, and even at times, a deep connection with regard to our backgrounds and the things we've been through but we don't have enough in common to enjoy each other's company for any great length of time, nor for day-to-day comings and goings.  

Here's a list of ways in which we do not match:

1) I hate watching TV without knowing what programme it is that I want to watch.  Most of it is rubbish anyway, and here it's rubbish dubbed into Czech, which has some small entertainment value and is fun when watching something like 'The Simpsons' but beyond that, I can totally do without the background drone of a TV.  The cowboy, however, always has the TV on.

2) I have two parts to my morning/breakfast routine.  First, a cup of tea and cereal.  Then, after showering and getting dressed, I like to have a cup of coffee and a croissant or pain au chocolat or just a yoghurt and fruit.  The coffee bit is essential though.  The cowboy scoffs down any breakfast all in one go, and doesn't like coffee.

3) I like reading.  Books, magazines, newspapers.  The cowboy hates reading anything except the National Geographic and a plethora of car magazines.

4) I like taking care of my own fitness routine and being disciplined about sticking to it, doing it on my own, in the privacy of my own home preferably.  The cowboy never gets round to planning an exercise routine, yet complains about having developed rather a big tummy and moans about the idea of going on walks in the woods on his own because, "people in the Czech Republic don't go for walks on their own."

5) I like to eat a few squares of a bar of chocolate in one go, then put it back in the fridge for another day.  The cowboy prefers to eat it all in one sitting, in big bites.

This does not bode well, obviously, for a future together.  

On the other hand, here are some important things we do have in common:

1) We both hate corruption and the politicians who make a living telling poor people they need to work harder, while keeping quiet about the bribe they just took.

2) We both know what it's like to grow up in scuzzy working class / communist (very similar, believe me) accommodation with thin walls you can hear everything through, eating cheap food that has never come across the word Mediterranean or, in my case even, 'garlic'. 

3) We both like action films for a laugh and a bit of welcome distraction from the bureaucracy of day-to-day living.

4) We both have an innate perception of others and sensitivity to people's feelings to the point of being able to predict what they're thinking.  We both also need to be careful not to take this too far and start telling people what they think, because that's robbing people of their own opinion.  (I'm working hard to get rid of this bad habit.  The cowboy is not.)

5) We both like nature documentaries.  Especially ones about the wildlife in parks like Yosemite and Yellowstone.

So, there you have it.  Is that a relationship?  Of sorts, I suppose.  Isn't it statistically researched that men benefit more from marriage and/or cohabitation than women?  So why is the cowboy moaning about how bad this temporary set-up is?  Especially as I've just done the washing up.  Again.