The incredible difficulties of not knowing what’s right

Where is left and where is right, is something that doesn’t come naturally to me. It never has. I have failed in recalling those little tricks: look at the L shape your hand makes – that is left.

I experience a mild form of panic on a daily basis that a situation will arise where I have to instantly stipulate a left or a right, in fear of being exposed as the village idiot.

Tourists on Oxford Circus standing still, questioning maps and looking eagerly for a friendly eye to offer directions sends my stomach on the spin cycle. I am afraid I cannot fulfil my duties as a welcoming Londoner; I must look rudely down and walk on. I am of no use to you – my visitors.

A far greater pitfall is a trip to the optometrists. It is a rapid-fire drill of look to your left, down, right, up, and now left again. Oh my, does my brain go AWOL on these occasions. Needless to say my drill sergeant was left bemused as to how a fully functioning, adult member of society can fail such a basic task of knowing their left from their right.

Further 'mental issues' arising from this malfunction of basic knowledge is giving directions over the phone to friends. The point of reaching X often results in a snake-like journey and sporadic conversations involving random landmarks to pull off mission impossible.

As you can see I am grossly disadvantaged in life.

And much to your surprise and mine, I am discovering I am not the only one. It is a healthy dose of naturally induced ecstasy to stumble upon a ‘non-comprehendus sufferer’. In a flurry of excitement and relief we divulge our tales of horror and battle wounds. It’s not easy living a life where right and left is just so impossibly hard to grasp.

So, I believe I am the first member of the LR anonymous support group. I am here to share, support and nurture any other fellow individual with this similar shortcoming. Come forth and expose yourself in moving forward with haste. We will get some direction to our lives whether it is a left or a right turn we must take.

Double, double standards

The feminist movement has done so much, but it can only move so fast. So in my generation there still exists a few nasty residuals of living in a man’s world.

Never do these effects resonant so loudly as the work place. I think this is a consequence of the women who work within these four walls.

We have become the perfect illusionists of creating a sense of equilibrium amongst the sexes and supporting our fellow gender on the pursuit to rewrite the boy school’s rules.

We know, the balance of equality is as fragile as the agility we exhibit in manoeuvring around office politics, egos and double standards.

So therefore, as we should, we must tolerate a woman’s prerogative to exercise her own free will within this risky minefield that is the office environment.

To undermine this choice is to go against the principle of trailblazing: a woman is a person who does her job well within that organisation.

To say that it is acceptable for a man to embark on an office affair with a junior female member of staff but intolerable for a woman to mirror the same scenario is double, double standards to me.

Why are we in this place?

Has competition turned so sour that a woman has lost her right to empathise or to enjoy that the pull of lust is not exclusive to one gender.

What a pity that we are not forward-thinking enough for our fellow generation of women.

In our generation, yes we have had to compete. We’ve had to fight for our worth, salaries and the appreciation of a battle-hardy soul that is still in tact despite our monthly hormonal challenges.

But now is the time to let go and educate. It’s our legacy to educate and adopt open thinking.

A woman getting off her face on a Friday night shouldn’t be gossiped about by the girls during their Monday morning latte. A man has done it many times before. Nor should office meltdowns, one-night stands or grotesque displays of grandstanding.

Because bet your bottom dollar you’ve already seen a man do it yesterday. So why today do you see it as somehow wrong for a woman to do the same?

It definitely ain’t the man that’s talking about it. It’s you.

And you are double trouble. You are the woman that wants it all, but can’t allow for some slip-ups along the way.

Where did you go so wrong?

Grey matters

If life gave me a manual I wouldn’t be the confused person I am.

The closest I’ve ever got is a driver’s manual… and still I was confused. Giving way? But what happens if you think the person that got to the intersection second looks nicer than you, or is in more of a hurry?

I always let them go first; even though in black and white print it told me not to.

I wonder if my parents who embraced hippie-love would be mortified to know that our generation, in some weird kind of rebellion, have embraced the black and white rules that they fought against.

For a lot of people it just seems easier.

The code of conduct – morals heading into the 2000’s got a lot more complicated. No wonder rules are an easy and comforting security blanket.

Morals are a minefield of newfound liberty, equalising of the genders and uncertain freedom walked by an unsteady foot.

For example – relationships.

Being the middleman in a break-up is never a busy bar you would choose to buy a drink.

Finding yourself in the middle of two friends about to call it quits is never going to be ideal. It is hard not to hear both sides of the story and not pass judgement. And then you have last orders when one party decides to tell you that they have moved on.

Is it my responsibility to tell the ‘other half’ that ‘one half’ has moved on?

Questions of morals and loyalty interweave a detailed web of introspection and self-evaluation. If the shoe were on ‘my foot’ I would want to know the ugly truth – even if it is last orders.

Maybe that’s why with a bit of Dutch courage, I thought about my sense of morals first.

It would be easier to stay for another drink and see their relationship on paper for the black and white rules that we cling onto. Maybe it could work? Maybe over time? Maybe with a bit of post-rationalisation it could be all right? But would it really?

I think that rules can be broken. And in relationships it is the only time we can thrive in the grey area. But, sometimes…. Just sometimes looking at the black and the white it is the only way forward.

So I said to my friend the best piece of advice I have ever had given to me: do whatever you can to get over them. And if it means calling them up to 20 times a day – do it.

There are no hard and fast rules to breaking up. It is just the grey area of leaving someone behind that you have to get through.

Coming out of the closet, without actually being in a closet to begin with

There are many taboos I’ve seen broken and accepted: tattoos, rehab, same-sex relationships, sex before marriage…

The list goes on. They are more like 'by the by' kind of things now. If you haven’t broken some kind of taboo in your lifetime, you’re seen as a little dull.

And furthermore what seems dull is these broken taboos no longer have the drama to go with it. I simply don’t want to be out-shocked anymore.

I still like my innocent moments of gasping: the reveal of a tattoo, the disclosure of an affair and coming out of the closest.

Recently, I don’t think I gave enough drama to a friend who came out. I knew she was. I just thought she wasn’t comfortable telling me, and I was too polite to ask.

But don’t rob me of my ‘gasping moment’ when she does. It is fun.

Fun why?

Because I don’t ever want to be some cynical, jaded old know-it-all who can’t appreciate that being gay even now is hard to say. I don’t ever want to just take it all in as something that is as normal as the inflation of milk, bread and the papers.

It has resonance for the people I care about. There should be some healthy drama to go with it. It is all about celebrating their decision to do things differently to what their parents did.

So we all knew she was a closet lesbian, so when she steps out of that closest, I want her to have her finest threads on and see it as her moment to shine.

And furthermore, she was never living in a flat-packed Ikea closet, it was absolutely bespoke to her.