Low profile time again at Schloss Marland. I finally finished the cover picture for the Downs Wildlife book, and got a scan of it back yesterday, so I could see what it looks like when it's scaled down. And now you can too. Crikey, it seemed to take for ever, this picture.
I went out cycling with Annie yesterday; she's trying out my old bicycle, to see how well they get on together. We rode around the Downs and ended up in Clifton village, by which time it seemed like a good idea to have a drink. So we did.
We were intently talking about Stuff (you know, as you do) when out of the blue a bloke plonks his drink on our table and inserts himself into the conversation. Which is not so much of a conversation as him telling Annie (or, more particularly, Annie's cleavage) that she had lovely eyes. And so on. And on. Talking about her in the third person, as she subsequently noted.
I hadn't picked up on that, and I'm trying to deconstruct the personal narrative that he was living in during this exchange. Like, does he look at himself in the third person too? This is of particular interest as there's a rather heated discussion about autogynophilia going on, on a forum I use. It's a cruddy theory, but some TS women seem to self-identify with it. My take on it is that we all have a version of ourselves in our heads which acts out our imagined life on our behalf; personally, I experience this world of the imagination through my own eyes, but AG theory seems to argue that those to whom the condition applies see themselves from outside themselves. Living in the third person, as it were. As, it seems, this bloke was.
Must do some more thinking about this. And preferably not when hung over.
Anyway, back to the pub. Annie is polite to him (he has by now focused on her and has his back to me, and is no doubt wishing I'd go away) but firmly suggests that we would like to return to our conversation. So he finally goes away.
O well, another first. I missed out on all this sort of stuff pre-transition, as I didn't 'hit on' women, and obviously wasn't 'hit on' by men. Well, apart from a couple of times when a gay man tried it on... but this was like a shark attack, out of the blue and taking me by surprise. Slightly shocked, in fact. Even if the shark was toothless.
It's a lovely picture with a lot in it, worth all the time you took.
ReplyDeleteI’ve learnt a new word today and that it can be spelt two ways. I used to have a friend with huge breasts. When we used to got out for a drink and ‘talk intently about stuff’ we often met men who thought that it was okay to feel them – like she was carrying a pet dog around of something. They can get quite nasty sometimes when they are told to get lost.
My dad had a friend who advised his son to ‘live with it a bit and if you still like it, marry it’. There is still a long way to go…
Yes - a beautiful illustration. Well done for all your hard work.
ReplyDeleteThis business of talking about someone present (including oneself) in the third person has had some prominence recently given that the winner of The Apprentice, Lee McQueen was filmed saying something like "Lee McQueen is not happy".
At the risk of misrepresenting someone, that particular example suggests to me that he wanted to make sure everyone watching knew his name.
In the case of the man talking about Annie in the third person, it just strikes me as intensely rude behaviour - to her and to you. I suspect that the tactical genius was thinking that if he told you such nice things about her, that you would realise he was chatting her up and leave them in peace.
You and Annie handled the situation perfectly.
It's a beautiful picture...worth the hard work Dru.
ReplyDeleteThat forum on which you are having this debate about autogynophilia...I have tried to join it twice (if it's the one I think it is) and no answer from them :-(
I find the whole breast thing really weird. I remember coming out to a good (male) friend a few months back and as I sat down across this dinner table with him, I had my first taste of a man talking to my chest. What chest? But it seemed instinctive to him. As if he was sort of expecting my (pretend) breasts to actually do something, and he didn't want to miss it?
As for the whole 'third person' thing...strange...sounds like some kind of personality disorder?! I think we all have 'metaview' of our lives, an internal narrative we use to make sense of the world and ourselves (and that can be quite healthy), but to convert ones own experience, or that of someone you are talking to, into the third person sounds slightly delusional?
Annie says she very carefully kept eye contact with the man so he didn't actually talk to her cleavage. He wasn't unpleasent; he was rather drunk. He wouldn't have behaved like that if he'd been sober or rather he might of thought it but but acted upon it. He did it again when I was outside at the cash machine. As he walked toward me he said to his friends,'she is gorgeous' and when he went by me he said very politely, 'thanks for talking to me, it was lovely to meet you'. He didn't meet us really, he didn't know our names. If Annie had fancied him it ight have been a different story :-) P.S. She doesn't have huge unsightly breasts :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Anji. Which word was that, by the way?
ReplyDeleteThat's a useful take on the motivation behind it, Em. Though he hardly looked at me, so I didn't feel that he was addressing me.
I'm sorry you didn't manage to join, Jo; it might be worth trying again; the admin can be a bit rickety sometimes.
Dru says, Annie, that maybe part of the reason she felt miffed was that Bloke seemed to think that she was one too many in the group. From where she was sitting, his body language was mostly being spoken by his back.
'autogynophilia', when my daughter comes home tomorrow I will impress her with my new knowledge, then I'll ask her to explain to me why we have to classify every single thought into little boxes.
ReplyDeleteOh yes; the word which, if it didn't exist, we wouldn't need to invent... I propose "goatogynophilia" too, on the grounds that someone somewhere would probably put their hand up to it, or accuse someone else of it... :-)
ReplyDeleteSuzzy loves your picture. That peregrine is so real that she, omnivore that she is, just wants to catch it and put it in a pie :-)
ReplyDeleteThe male of our species [sigh] Long term, it can only lead to the evolution of human parthenogenesis, and a good thing too.
That is definitely the downside of being out on the town without a man. Still looking on the bright side. It wasn't that long ago (30 years?)that women couldn't go into a pub at all without a man!
ReplyDeleteI think you should've said that you were having a quiet conversation and wanted to be left along.
There's so much detail in that beautiful picture I can almost see my mum's house on the end of Dundry! :-)
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's why I never make eye contact with strange blokes when I'm out anywhere. Not that eye contact is possible with some of them, because of where they're looking.
One of my best friends in work is an older guy who earned the position by taking me out to lunch one day when I had made a fashion faux-pas, and worn a shirt with a way too low front on it for work! His eyes didn't drop down ONCE.. He scored a lot of points that day.