Oops I did it again...

Posted by Katy Regan at 11:56 on 18 Feb 2010

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Last night Egg invited me and Matt Black around to his for dinner.
"Do you think that's a bit weird?" said Egg, (seeing that MB is my ex).
"Nah" I said
"No it isn't, is it?" Agreed Egg " Matt Black's cool, isn't he? It will be cool."

And it was of course. MB is very cool. Although sometimes I feel like he has been involuntarily embroiled into mine and Egg's somewhat unconventional life! He may disagree with that. He says that he was doing this ‘friends with the ex" thing long before Egg and I with the mother of his child, so maybe we're not that special after all! Aside from the fact that Egg and I were never a couple first. Mmm...it's still a fact that amazes me.

Egg was being interviewed by The Times for an article on ‘modern dads' when MB and I turned up. "Can I be in it?" shouted MB from the kitchen - him also being a single dad. (Only if he was a sperm donor, it turned out. So that was that one over...).Although he did get a mention in the fact that him being at Egg's for dinner in the first place, kind of enforced the point about ‘modern dads'.

We talked about fatherhood, about Art, about Egg's trip to Haiti and the argument MB and I had had a few evenings earlier about a Terry's Chocolate Orange (this is not a lie - another blog entirely). We also talked about the argument Egg and I had had that day when he stormed into my house, enraged that I had not told him the right place for Fergus to go to his half-term art event and therefore he had wasted an hour of his day. MB (Who I had emailed earlier that day to tell him about this) pointed out that you can't just barge into someone else's house in a rage and not expect them to react like I did (shouted a lot in my dressing gown). Egg pointed out that I don't always allow him to be himself and that he's allowed to be in a bad mood occasionally if he wants, I sure inflict my unreasonable pre-menstrual moods on him.
"Does she slag me off to you? I bet she does?" Egg asked Matt Black (it was said in humour)
"Er yes, she does" Matt Black replied. "Does she slag me off to you?"
"No, but that's because she hasn't known you for eight years yet!" was Egg's response. Nice.

Oh Lord, what a weird little threesome we are.

This is what I love about these two friends - I feel they know me more than anyone, my faults (and there are many. Many, many) and it seems we're all very good at this friends thing, anyway - not that good at the relationship thing, with all three of us single in our thirties and Egg in his forties.

Needless to say,  I've done it again, though readers:  I've ended up having a close relationship with an ex, who is no longer really an ‘ex' but a close friend with whom I once had a more coupley relationship (albeit a rather messy one). Andrew G Marshall, a marital therapist and author of "The Single Trap" writing in last week's Guardian's brilliant, brilliant guide to better relationships (well done to whoever compiled this, because I devoured it. Who'd have thought a newspaper guide could give you so much guidance on life...?) said, in his five point guide to improving your romantic fortunes to "Identify barriers: "You may be using strategies for coping with being single...these include having friends who are surrogate partners..."

Mmm. This sounds like someone I know.

The thing is though, what does one do? I love my friends. I love Matt Black and Egg and they enrich my life in different ways, they make me happy.  Does one have to be lonely and deny themselves the company of male friends in order to make space for lasting romantic love? I fear so. They have a say in this too, of course and maybe they think the same thing.  

The thing is though, I feel like I need and want the people I love more than ever at the moment. I feel like my life has shrunk to my dining room and this computer. Writing this second novel has undoubtedly kicked the stuffing out of me. It's the hardest most gruelling thing I've ever had to do and I feel often like I need my hand holding. I am finding bringing up a child as a single woman and trying to earn a living harder than ever and I spend a lot of time alone, just thinking. And feeling really scared.

I know that these thoughts will not be a surprise to either MB or Egg since we talk all the time - this is the thing, nothing is off limits.  The fact is, I feel at a total loss at the moment, as to how to make myself happy, as to what I want out of a relationship. Hell, I've even turned to astrology (yes, that brief foray into the world of my stars in the library that afternoon has turned into a ridiculous obsession) The other night I spent an hour on the phone to MB reading out our compatibility charts as he a Virgo and me an Aries - alas it seems we are the most incompatible signs! Something about me being a fire sign and him all earthbound, oh God, there I go again.

So what to do? The right thing I suppose. But what is that?  To be brave in love - that seems my hardest task at the moment.  I worry what that might mean for my friendships.

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