When you start writing to-do lists that need paginating you know you’re in trouble. Also, a good to-do list should only ever have one major item on it. A bad to-do list looks something like this: Remortgage house, negotiate lease extension, buy car, book skiing holiday, remodel spare room, get pregnant, climb Kilimanjaro.
I don’t know which of these fills me with more panic. The order troubles me, too. I spend a long time shuffling the items around, the last two in particular, for obvious reasons. I cannot work out why some of them are even on there.
I have simply no idea why I told a friend I would join an expedition to climb the highest mountain in Africa. But climb it I must, apparently. The apocalyptic-sounding objective is for 11 of us to arrive at the snow-capped summit at 11 a.m. on the 11th November 2011, which is a concept that scares the bejesus out of me just looking at it on paper. (I’m worried we might make the world end, although I’m prepared to accept this may be a tad self-obsessed.)
‘Your problem is you can’t say no,’ said my friend Stephen, after calling me late at night for one of his really long gossips. ‘You’re a people-pleaser,’ he continued, as I stifled a yawn and tried to think of a way of telling him I was too tired to talk.
‘Being a people-pleaser isn’t laudable. In fact, there’s nothing pleasing about it. It’s extremely displeasing for all concerned,’ he said, which I thought a bit rich, considering he was enjoying my people-pleasing largesse at that very moment.
He’s right, though. People-pleasing might get you a few minutes further forward without an angry confrontation but in the end it always lands you in even worse trouble.
The other night, for instance, I went on a date purely because I thought it would be impolite not to. A nice young man I met at dancing asked me out. We clearly had nothing in common but I didn’t feel I had any right to point this out.
So at ten minutes to nine, ten minutes early, and with me still running round the house with wet hair screaming about how I hadn’t done a single thing on my to-do list, he knocked on the door.
It was one of those really, really soft knocks, the sort that immediately makes me want to go and hide. Anyone who knocks on the door like that, I reason, is never going to survive an evening with me in one of my feisty moods, so it might be better to try to get away with not letting him in.
To my utter shame, I nursed this delusion for minutes, standing really still with one leg in my jeans and one out, half a jumper on, silently brushing my wet hair thinking, ‘If I don’t make a noise he might go away.’
The problem was, he didn’t make a noise either. Possibly, he was standing on the other side of the door thinking, ‘If I keep really quiet maybe she won’t hear me and I can go away…’
After a few minutes the spookiness generated by us both standing in silence pretending not to be there was too much. I threw my clothes on and answered the door. After some perfunctory, half-baked apologies along the lines of ‘I’m sorry I didn’t hear the door,’ and ‘No, I’m sorry I’m early,’ etc., we drove to a bar where we sat in silence staring straight ahead as I drank a fruit cocktail and he sipped a bottle of beer. Neither of us could think of a single thing to say.
The look on his face said, ‘I could be watching Fulham v. Newcastle.’ The look on my face said, ‘I could be re-paginating my to-do list.’
In the end, I was so tongue-tied I had to tell him about my list just to break the silence. Naturally, his face assumed a horrified look as he concluded that I was a nutcase. ‘Maybe you should just chill out,’ he said, sipping his beer fractiously. ‘Yes,’ I said sarcastically, ‘maybe I should.’
After which we sat in silence for a long time again. By now we were both bitterly resenting the sheer cheek of the world for throwing us together. Could this have been a more insulting or upsetting experience if I had refused to go for a drink with him in the first place?
I really must practise saying no. And not no, plus lie. No, plus truth. No, I can’t go out with you, because I don’t want to. We have nothing in common and will irritate each other half to death then go home doubting the benevolence of the universe.
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