All OK

Part 2

I raised the first of these countless and ultimately doomed plots 2 days after SG left Australia while she was soaking up Fiji’s subtropical sun. I proposed coming to visit her in the UK on my mid year uni break but SG made it clear that various circumstances would likely render that impossible. Instead she said that she was thinking of venturing back down under in late September for my birthday. Craving certainty, I tried to get that locked-in before she could change her mind, but the topic was then involuntarily put on ice during the aforementioned period where she was MIA and I was left sweating on the possibilities until I brought it up again in June. Now viscerally aware of the need to toe the line dividing pest and persistence without stepping over it, I gently insisted that I had the time and funds to fly over in July; essentially ignoring the fact that she’d already said that wouldn’t work. SG then broke the news that, principally due to the lack of crossover between UK's school terms and Australia’s uni holidays, a July reunion was off the table; as was the September option!¹¹ In fact, as SG regrettably admitted, the first available opportunity for her return was April the following year, and even that was doubtful. Clearly distressed by the cold hard dose of reality she’d been forced to face and relay to me, SG concluded the message with this:

"I think i was living in a dream land when I was in Oz thinking i'd easily be able to come out an see you...But as for this year, there isnt any time for me to come to you, or you to be able to come here…. i've been dreading telling you for the last week, but had to tell you at some point. Let me know your thoughts x x” 

Needless to say, this was not what I wanted nor expected to hear. The initial shock of the prospect that I might not see SG for 9 months knocked the wind out of me. I believed we were meant to be together but felt that the longer we were apart, the more chance there was of her forgetting us and moving on. I simply couldn’t let that happen. I had to see her again and time was of the essence! Determined not to go down without a fight, I replied a few hours later with 3 incredibly unrealistic counter suggestions, told her exactly how I felt about her/us¹² and proposed a phone call to make a final decision.

When it became clear that plan was dead in the water, I publicly put the topic on the back burner and returned to the winning recipe of flirtatious, playful, charming chat.¹³ Privately, however, I kept reunion at the top of my to do list, so I was delighted when SG proclaimed a couple weeks later that she was “DEFINITELY coming back to Oz in november 2012” for one month of a 6 month trip she was planning. Unable to contain my excitement I broke my cool once again by swiftly pointing out that I would have graduated by then and could tag along on a leg of her adventures, maybe South America? Her reply shut down that idea with an air-tight, multi-tiered excuse: "i'll be going to south america before stopping in australia so you wont be able to join for me that! plus as well, i'm going with a friend and make it a general rule to not travel with any sort of romantic others.. dont think u get the most out of the experience. Haha sorry!”.

Reading back through that message and the others that followed it with the perspective granted to me by all the time that has passed since then, I now see the subtle yet unmistakable hints and signs that clearly indicated that we were on very different wavelengths. Seeing SG again ASAP was my number one priority and I would have done absolutely anything to make it happen. No matter the obstacles and odds we faced, I was determined to make it work, and was initially given every indication that this is how she felt too. But barely 2 weeks after we'd laid our first failed attempt at reunion to rest, she was planning a 6 month trip with another “friend”. And in contrast to a few months earlier, when I told SG that I'd be wide open to join her she made no attempt to work around, no alternative plans, just stated the reasons why it wouldn’t work and then she moved on. I plain and simply wasn’t part of the equation but, blinded by love, I just didn’t — or chose not to — see it. 

Ignoring the writing on the wall, I kept my rose coloured glasses on and did everything within my power to keep the connection strong. I sent her a cute little postcard which arrived shortly after she got home from the States, a birthday card with purple tulips (her favourite) on the front and a bunch of flowers so big she needed 5 jars to put them in! I wanted so desperately to be her Top Man man¹⁴ but there was only so much I could do from the other side of the world. We were essentially glorified pen pals, and this became ever apparent when SG started dropping mentions of her ex into conversation. At first I brushed it off because he’d come up before and I felt that she was just confiding in me; a sign of trust and our closeness. Besides, an ex is and ex for a reason and, therefore, not a threat. But I was forced to reconsider my position when the fucker found out that SG had spontaneously decided to go see Matchbox 20’s Rob Thomas (hyperlink) — one of her all time favourites — on the last night of a family trip to Florida, got in touch with Rob's management and somehow persuaded him dedicate the song ‘Unwell’ to SG for her 23rd birthday! How’s that for smooth?!

Before I had a chance to figure out how on earth to compete with someone capable of such feats who also lived in the same country as she did, 10 days passed and SG sent this cryptic message: “… Erm.. I cant really email you properly right now, bit stressed out, busy head, need to sort some things out.. sorry. Told you it was a bad idea to get involved , things are far too messy this year…” She then explained that she went to visit her ex in London the week before and he said he wanted her back. She said she didn’t know what to say to him, or to me, because although we “weren’t in" and "couldn’t have" a relationship, I was still her "friend” for whom she cared about and wanted to talk to, but… 

Hold up, hold up, hold up. “Friend”? Last time I checked i.e. when we sat down and had “The Talk” before she left Sydney, we decided we’d try being “together”? But now she’d planned a 6 month trip without me, started hanging out with her ex again and put me in the Friend Zone?! I was gutted, confused and I expressed this all in no uncertain terms, along with a half-hearted offer to give her space in the hope that doing so would allow SG time to come to her senses and we could just go back to the way things were. But that’s not quite what happened. 

29/7/10, 7:43am - "Ok.. but..how can we actually be together? we live (on) complete opposite sides of the world! I dont know Cal, being in Oz was like living in a fantasy land. I mean, we'd have to wait 2 years, at least, to even try and see if we could be together properly? And i dont know if i'd want to leave everything and move out to oz, and you dont know if you could do it for here either. And in 2 years, we will have both changed lots!... You know how much I like you, but, the more i think about it the more insane it is… i just dont get what you think we can do? email and skype for the next 2 years? i already know the next time i could afford/ get the time to come back to oz is april next year.. thats 9 months away. So what do we do in between? I had the best few weeks in sydney with you, and...We did said we'd see how things went… we made great memories in those few weeks but now cant make anymore cos its all phone calls and emails… even though i dont want anything really this year, i will do in a few months. I like being with someone, i like getting to know someone inside out and doing things with and chatting to every day and having little jokes, going for walks at 2am and all those little things.. but i dont want to wait 2-3 years. I hate that you live in sydney. I hate i live here. In a weird way i hate that i met you because everything but the location is perfect.”

There it was. Clear as day. The bitter truth I’d been dreading. When faced with the question: based on what you felt when during the brief time you had together, would you be prepared to effectively put your life on hold for 2 years for a shot at living happily ever after? — as if it were asked by some almighty arbiter — my answer was yes, but hers was no, and it damn near broke my heart. In fact, even reading it all these years later still sorta makes my spirit sink for past Cal. 😢

Mushiness aside, I hated everything about that message. But the thing I hated most is that she was right. Everything SG said made painfully perfect sense. How could we actually be together? Yes, what we had was incredible, special, maybe even unforgettable, and yes, I would have endured anything for any length of time to make it work. I could see a future for us in my dreams and I believed we could turn it into reality, all I needed was for her to believe it too.¹⁵ But she didn’t. And there was nothing that I could say or do persuade her; no amount of memory-sharing, long-messaging, gift-giving or songwriting could stand up against the cold hard fact that even merely entertaining the idea of doing long distance 2 years with no guarantee of a fairy tale finish was neither practical or realistic; nor would it have been fair. I knew she was torn and she clearly wished things were different, but they weren’t and couldn’t be. She wanted more; she needed more. She deserved more. So having learnt my lesson from the road trip freak-out a couple months earlier, I used every last ounce of energy to do the only thing I could do: I let her go. Well, sort of. 

Suppressing my burning urge to try and change her mind, knowing full-well that doing so would likely push her away forever, I folded like a piece of paper. Clearly just writing what I thought she wanted to read (in line with the Appeasement arm of my APOANS Policy) I agreed with everything she said, communicated the thoughts you just read in the previous paragraph and essentially resolved to maintain the current level and style of communication as “heaps good friends”. 

On the surface this made it seem like I’d accepted the reality that we’d never be together. But rather than giving up all hope of reuniting with SG someday, I instead chose to tweak my approach ever so slightly. Taking a leaf right out of the CCP’s international policy playbook, I decided to play "The Long Game".¹⁶ I’d still employ all the tactics I’d used up until that point; the messages, the jokes, the references, the gifts and joking-but-totally-not-joking travel suggestions to ensure that I stayed on the radar, but I’d settle with the title of “friend” for now and bide my time like Blastoise.¹⁷ She could do what she needed to do with whomever she wanted to do it. When it was going well I’d feign support, pretending to be happy that she was in the arms of another man when it actually made my skin crawl. If I detected the slightest hint of trouble at home, I'd sew subtle seeds of dissent. Then when it all inevitably began to fall apart I’d be the ear to listen, the shoulder on which to cry, the one who’d always been there. Finally, when the timing was right, I’d sweep her off her feet and we’d ride off into the sunset. 

Now, I know how this all sounds: deceptive, disingenuous, cunning and calculative in a realm of life where none of those things traditionally belong. But it’s the truth, and I think it illustrates not just how totally crazy I was about SG, but also how I would have stopped at nothing to actualise my rock-solid belief that drove the whole thing i.e. that we were meant to be together. To me it was a fact. A law of nature on par with gravity. So although things did not at that stage appear to be going according to plan, and a very large obstacle was put in the way the day we “mutually decided” to continue as friends, my underlying optimism never really wavered for more than a moment. 

I believed more than anything that it would all work out in the end and nothing could convince me otherwise. Despite having my suggestions to reunite repeatedly shot down and reading her write openly about dating other guys, I only saw evidence in support of my belief and filtered out anything that challenged it. Classic confirmation bias at work. Sure, at times I had my doubts. It sucked that she lived so far away; and didn’t want to commit to us; and I missed her terribly; and it was sometimes hard to stop this all from catapulting me into an endless cycle of anxiety.¹⁸ But if I simply thought back to the memories of our time together, the connection we forged, SG's angelic features¹⁹ or drifted into a daydream about how amazing it would be when we were finally together again,²⁰ my faith would be restored. 

In short, she made it ‘All OK’, and when putting together this mixtape — so many years after — it only seemed right to write a song about this very important part of the saga.

11. SG was/is a high school maths teacher, I was a 2nd year Physiotherapy student. Our holidays never matched up and that was one of the main things that plagued our efforts to reunite time and time again

12. 2/6/10 - “(I think) you get the flow of what i am trying to say. without sounding too mushy (coz im not, a top man is never mushy) you are worth any effort, cost, distance, to see. if there is any chance to make this work i will take it regardless, not sure if we're on the same page there but that's where i think i stand at the moment…” - how was being chill going for me?

13. Which, I might add, was 100% reciprocated! Like, her replies were just as long, detailed and cheeky as mine. She engaged in the banter. Relived the memories and entertained the fantasies. Took interest in my life and told me about hers in great detail. Ultimately gave me every indication that things were on the right track. Which made things rather confusing for reasons that will become clear very soon

14. She thought I looked like a Top Man / Top Shop model, referenced in the lyrics of 'Do You Want Me' (3rd line chorus)

15. 2nd & 3rd line in 'Run Away’ “There’s a future for us, I’ve foreseen it / All i need is for you to believe that."

16. The Chinese Communist Party is known for working towards goals over relatively long time spans

17. “Bide” was a move that Blastoise could do in the Pokemon games on Gameboy and N64’s Pokemon Stadium where it "waits for several turns. At the end, it returns double the damage” https://www.serebii.net/pokedex/009.shtml - $50 to anyone who got that reference without the footnote 

18. 'All OK' - Bridge

19. 'All OK' - Verse 2 

20. ‘All OK’ - Verse 1