Exciting Times

by Naoise Dolan

The way he said ‘it’ made me uneasy, but there wasn’t any point in taking things up with Banker Julian. He was too self-assured to notice when I criticised him. He registered that I’d said something, then continued a parallel conversation.

The answer I’d been hoping for was that I made him nervous. I hadn’t thought he’d had the power to ‘impose’, and was startled that he’d felt he had.

I was forever minding things in Hong Kong, but I couldn’t always construe in what sense.

That hurt my ego. I wanted other people to care more about me than I did about them.

This reminded me that nothing I said could hurt him.)

Once I’d modelled out every possible way the message could hurt me, I went somewhere quiet and opened it. Then it didn’t say anything I’d worried about and I felt I’d got away with something, but that I’d be found out next time.

To show me the regions of China, she scribbled on a napkin. I kept it. I liked her enthusiasm. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d met someone who got excited about things.

And Edith was becoming something to look forward to.

But I often thought about things that were silly to think about.

you still put more time and energy into showing you don’t love me than anyone has ever put into showing me they do.

I enjoyed conversations where I wasn’t attempting to persuade anyone, where I just said precisely what I thought. I got tired of making myself acceptable.

I just want my mum to be proud of me. Which is stupid, because the things she values aren’t the things I value, but she’s my mum. I care what she thinks.’

‘You keep describing yourself as this uniquely damaged person, when a lot of it is completely normal. I think you want to feel special – which is fair, who doesn’t – but you won’t allow yourself to feel special in a good way, so you tell yourself you’re especially bad.’

The truth is, you like Julian because he enables this perception you have of yourself as a detached person. Plenty of people are willing to offer you intimacy. That terrifies you. You prefer feeling like no one will ever love you.’