MISFORTUNE IN THE 1980s
9187 Affairs
The first thing to say is that I had never had an affair, as defined in the conventional way.
On the other hand I have had passionate relationships, which stopped well short of sexual relationships, with a number of women in my life.
At Imperial College, where I was already engaged to Pat, I was very close to at least one girl who I worked with in the anti-apartheid movement. I also, in a very platonic way, was close to one of the few girls on in the Physics faculty. She sat by me in lectures for the last two years, and I regret that -- where I got a third -- she got a first!
At the advertising agency I had frissons of excitement with a number of girls, but never amounting to much more than 10 minutes of eye contact. The nearest I got to anything more was on the market research society residential school at Oxford. There I surely had some interesting sexual possibilities, since I was pursued by one girl who made it very clear what was on offer. Regrettably, years later you do regret missed experiences, I instead I became enamored of another. She was very bright but I suspect somewhat troubled. I have always been a sucker for troubled girls - especially if they are skinny brunettes! Thus, I remember spending the whole evening in her bedroom talking about life in general. I almost fell in love. I was hoping to progress further the next day, only to discover I had been ditched. We both went on a tour of Blenheim. It was a miserable experience, for she was there, almost within touching distance, but steadfastly ignoring me.
As I explain elsewhere, very occasionally I have had close relationships with female assistants. Equally, though, there has never been any question of anything remotely sexual in this
I look back over the years and perhaps regret that I never had anything more than these platonic relationships. Thus, I loved my work -- and nothing more!
As a footnote, like many of my contemporaries in the business of selling who miss their 'home comforts', I have very occasionally - perhaps half a dozen times or so across four decades of working life - resorted to the services of prostitutes. Equally, though, I would report that those services were totally unsatisfactory - except in the most basic of ways - and certainly were unfulfilling. Not least it was obvious, with one exception who was I think a first timer, that to them the whole process clearly was a financial attraction; and the faster it was over the better! In a few cases I indulged in escort services. In these cases the sex was much the same, though the girls did seem to try harder. But the talk over dinner, before the act itself, was fascinating; not least because - knowing what was to come - the girls saw no need to hold anything back. It gave a absorbing insight into the lives of single mothers, which they invariably were.
hits