An old friend flew in and blew me away with her glamour and success. I feel so dowdy
Dear A&E,
A little while ago a friend I hadn’t seen for 30 years got in touch via social media and said she would be passing through with her husband, and would I like to meet for a drink? She moved to Europe, and then the USA, three decades ago when we were both in our late twenties and has barely been in touch since.
The drink turned into dinner then her (incredibly good-looking) husband showed up. I was completely blown away by their globe-trotting, energy, high-octane jobs and salaries. Ever since, I have been measuring my perfectly okay, Strictly-watching life with my husband against theirs – and I have been questioning where I missed the boat. I feel disturbed and gloomy about what this encounter has made me feel about my own life. What’s going on?
– Dowdy
Dear Dowdy,
Goodness! Your meeting with the long-lost friend sounds like an animated version of those Christmas cards with newsletters inserts that certain people used to send out. You know the ones…With the portrait of the family, all clad in coordinated outfits and blow-dries, alongside updates about so-and-so getting into Oxford and the charity work and prize-winning dahlias. Imagine, for a second, one without the flashy headlines: “Peter is still getting old, the dog had diarrhoea for a month (he’s fine now but the carpet will never be the same again) and I have developed a limp.”
At your dinner, you got the full mega-wattage of the highlights reel – all the good stuff that people want to broadcast. Emilie experienced this recently at a 30-year-university reunion – she noticed that with a 30-year period to select from, people will just syringe out the shady stuff. No mention of the redundancies or the bad boyfriends or how lost you felt when your mother died, and focus on how you want to be seen at this moment, across this table.
Your friend has beamed back into your life at a very particular time. Those middle years, when you know you can’t just drop everything and find streets paved with gold elsewhere. You are on your own, familiar, accepted path and, with your friend shining her torch into the cracks and wrinkles, you find yourself wondering if that is enough. We know so many people – happy people – who are questioning everything; who are looking around and thinking: “Is this it?” And they didn’t even have “the dinner”.
So, your friend landed back in your life with her vibey humour and her hot husband. You say, in your longer letter, that she was full of flashy name-dropping and financial confidence. She took you out to dinner and blew you – your life – away. She sounds to us like a professional dinner guest, adept at the relentless sales pitch. After years in America, she is expert at the highlights reel; making no apology for enjoying the fruits of her labours and holding forth like a CV come to life. She is clearly good at closing the deal, which in this case was to convince you how fantastically everything was going.
She may have been visiting from the States but actually in this smart, West End hotel restaurant she was on home turf as part of that strange class of people who bounce easily from one polished place to another, talking up whatever it is they need to, while sucking on truffles and an extensive wine list. You saw a performance. Who knows if it reflected the real thing? It may well have been, but you do not know if there is secret sadness or struggle there. You do not know what happens behind closed doors in a marriage. You do not know anything, really.
That is not to say that we wish your friend any ill – it’s just cause to be cautious. If you are going to take her successful life as information about some lack in yours, remember that you do not know what her inner emotional landscape looks like. You do not know that if she came to you, sat on your saggy sofa with your cosy husband and watched a brilliant blind man foxtrot across the TV screen, her heart strings wouldn’t tug in an unfamiliar way.
There may be many reading this who think that a Strictly-watching husband and the kind of comfy security you are describing is extremely enviable territory. And yes, we are aware that might sound like something our mothers would have said when we wanted new Doc Martens. Sorry.
That is not to say you should ignore the gloomy, naggy feeling, but instead maybe think of it as an opportunity. A wake-up. Perhaps getting dressed up, heading out of your comfort zone in high heels and sinking a couple of cocktails was part of the thrill. So why not do it again? Perhaps it is worth looking at how you could zing up your routine; tiny little changes that might make you feel as if you weren’t on an escalator going in only one direction. There is no shame in wanting a little electricity coursing through your life. Compare and despair, they say. And that is of course true. But compare and then go and buy a pair of f***-me heels and show your husband some new moves? Well, that sounds like it might have legs.
