there’s this thing I do

There is this thing I do that has, as all things do, a good side and..
I guess you could label it under the ‘rescuer’ syndrome, a tendency to be hyper-aware of people’s need. I’d make the perfect butler.

The psychologist says it stems from an over developed need to be accepted, a natural development for a child from the seen-and-not-heard generation.

Whatever.

I quite like it. I get a kick out of working out who needs what, then keeping a mental eye out for anything that would be appropriate.

Last night I attended a 60th birthday party. In the swirling ebb and flow that makes a conversation, words are filtered and a catalog of needs drawn up unconsciously. Any known history is added and assumptions are made. Somehow, call it what you will, this process is astoundingly accurate.

Most times.

I see the lady reach out for a cake, and already have a side plate to hand her, I notice someone studiously avoiding alcohol (this in an Italian wine-as- water family) and then keep an eye out for fresh supplies of juice to deliver anonymously, I count the number of chairs, and the number of people, the plates, the .. Well you get the drift.

The benefits of this are enormous. I get such pleasure out of a job well done, a job seen to be better measured amongst other things by how anonymously I can do it.

This is so much me that it happens instinctively.

Getting back to the good-side-bad-side thing, you can just imagine the good.

Where it goes horribly wrong however is when it is mistaken for being with amorous intent.

get a coke for the ladies – must be hot work
{taken at the BMW East Cape Street Party at Pig n Whistle Hotel in Bathhurst, near Port Alfred}

Once this is happens that kick becomes an agony, and I find myself reviewing a hundred ways to repair the situation, knowing by painful experience there is nothing one can do. Suddenly every move becomes suspect, and my quietly ticking, carefully stacked every-need-met house of cards begins to fall.

The young lady in question – young (far too young), beautiful in a porcelain doll kind of way – reacts badly. Suddenly its difficult to look anywhere, the family’s eyes are studiously avoided, conversations become strained.

roses and thorns
{picture taken in Orania, home of the free, near Hope Town}

ho hum!

Add to this the long drawn out explanations needed to reassure the date that of course I’m having a good time, I’m just a little tired. What a complicated mess!

This has happened before, it will happen again, that’s what instinct is, but today, the morning after the night before, oh how I wish this wasn’t me.