Boxing Clever

It is definitely love. At various points over the last few months I've tried to reason myself into believing that it's an extreme crush that's got out of control. But last night it became apparent that it is actual love, the symptoms being:

* Not being able to take one's eyes off Him

* Coming home after seeing Him and throwing oneself against the wall with a whimper

* Aching at the memory of little shared moments with Him

* Waking up and instantly thinking of Him, falling asleep whilst thinking of Him, and spending the intervening awake and asleep times thinking of Him...

The first of these symptoms was particularly notable last night, since I was also in the presence of Claviers and Bâiller, and genuinely cared not a jott that they were there together. In fact, when Mon Amore came to talk to me, no-one else was in the room as far as I could tell.

Furthermore, the simply gorgeous Archange was flirting heavily as usual (which he has done ever since Claviers and I split up - not a man of subtlety...) and pretty much every straight girl I know would be weak at the knees in that situation - he is actually that beautiful. My knees were perfectly fine until Mon Amore came over and kissed me on the cheek.

When I say cheek... over the months we've got to the official double-kiss greeting stage. I always love it when you finally make a mutual decision with someone as to how you greet each other - English people don't really know what we're doing on that front, so it's a relief when you eventually make an unspoken agreement and stick to it. Anyway, the kisses have become less about quick pecks on the cheek and more of an experiment as to how close to the lips one can go without actually kissing on the lips. Turns out, pretty damn close...

With my foot still causing me problems, I had taken a taxi to the pub where the band were playing. The taxi driver (a lovely old Greek Cypriot man who told me about how he'd come to London to escape the war in Cyprus and wanted to go back but hates moving) was musing on the difficulties of testosterone. I'm not sure how we got there, but it was via "the traffic's bad because of the football" and "male customers think I'm gay because I don't like football". Anyway, he was remarking on the trouble that testosterone levels in young men cause, and it made me realise that, for all the hormonal woe that we go through as women, I am really f***ing glad I don't have a cock to contend with. Having said that...

I got to the pub and it was rammed. Absolutely rammed. I've been there quite a few times and, even on a Saturday night, never seen it with half the number of people that were there last night. It turned out that there was some theatricalised display of violence known as 'Heavyweight Boxing' on the TV screens and it had drawn a massive crowd. So there I was, having fought my way (with a crutch and a hobble) through to the back of the pub where the stage was, doing my flamingo act and standing on one leg since there was nowhere to sit, watching two men who were frankly old enough and ugly enough to know better, trying to beat the crap out of each other. And I was surrounded by a sea of testosterone filled men (and their mostly weary, patient, sometimes surprisingly enthusiastic girlfriends) egging them on and cheering whenever David Hayes (British, if the über camp sparkly Union Jack hot-pants were anything to go by) landed a punch against his opponent.

And it occurred to me: violent and unpleasant though it may be, the testosterone-fuelled act of physical aggression is at least honest and simple, whereas the arguably more 'female' trait of mind-games and manipulation is actually more dangerous and nasty.

I was bullied a lot at school and I found the bullying tactics employed by the girls (being socially outcast, having rumours spread about you, false niceties followed by betrayal) to be far more hurtful than the boys' approach of calling me fat and pulling faces. Clearly I would have preferred not to have been bullied at all, but you get my point.

In that pub there were two very different battles going on; two very different approaches to conflict. On the one hand you have an organised punch-up, a blatant and honest display of competition manifested in the form of violence. And on the other hand, you have an altogether more subtle and manipulative representation of the competitive spirit within us all - me sitting on the corner of a sofa as elegantly as possible, revelling in the fact that I was garnering more attention from random punters (and the band themselves) than poor little plain-Jane Bâiller, who was in turn marking her own Claviers-based territory (albeit in a typically mediocre fashion) Likewise, Claviers himself brought out underhand tactics in the form of giving me hugs and kisses (not-so-coincidently at times when I was engaged in conversation with Archange or Mon Amore...)

By the time I got home I was reeling from a combination of the final realisation that I am in love with this man, and the complex political nature of the whole business.

And I rather wished that it could all be sorted out with a nice friendly boxing match...