I was astonished to read that, out of 2000 people in their 70s, one in seven still harbours regret about a relationship that failed – “the one that got away”. Some of them, the survey said, had been married to someone else for, on average, 30 years. What sad old romantics they are, still pining for that elusive Mr or Miss Right who dropped them like a stone – or they had dropped them like a stone – years back.
As a 72-year-old myself, I’m the reverse. I come out in a cold sweat of relief when I think of how many narrow escapes I’ve had from the so-called Mr Rights of yesteryear. Recently, I met one who I had been in love with for three years and, sweet as he was, a more pretentious, self-satisfied chump I haven’t come across. I realise now that the only reason I had loved him was because he said very little, sensibly keeping his barmy views to himself. Delightful man, now living on the dole and writing bad poems, but certainly not the Greek god I’d made him out to be.
Recently, I bumped into a bloke I was obsessed with 40 years ago – although I didn’t recognise him, because he has turned into a pleasant, but frog-like old pudding, his hair far darker and more sinister than when I thought he was the bees knees.
I’m delighted that the ones that got away did, in fact, get away. And those that were worth hanging on to – well, I’ve hung on for dear life, and they’re now some of my best and closest friends.
I see old relationships rather like chickens. Don’t throw away the bones, but make stock out of them, so you get something more out of the bird than just the flesh.
Rather than a lost love, what I regret now is that I had no idea, when I was young, just how insecure everyone else felt. I thought I was the only one who felt tongue-tied, unattractive and hopeless. Now, when I meet friends from my past, I’m astonished when they reveal that, on the contrary, they were terrified of my poise, intellect and general air of self-sufficiency. In other words, everyone I met was just as much a gibbering wreck as I was. And I particularly wish I’d known this about men. I used to think that all men were assured, suave and only out for one thing. How I wish I’d known that, just like myself, most of them were emotionally about 10 years old and shared nearly all the anxieties that I myself had at the time.
