A <pedant> writes </pedant>

invisible man

i'm ok, i guess, but i think i'm a little confused at the moment. i just had this hallucinatory experience on the tube which has made me more than a little paranoid, and i really don't know what to do about it. it's a long story.

how can i explain this. i am incredibly lonely and vulnerable at the moment, having just split up with my girlfriend of six years - i say just split up, although it was five months ago - the day before new years eve, and now it's the end of may - and i am finding it hard to come to terms with being single again.

i'd like to think it wasn't so, but i keep getting more and more proof that it is. the other day on the tube i was sitting there, one saturday night, on my way to somewhere i can't remember, and was alone on the carriage at brixton tube. by the time the carriage started moving i looked up to find that two of the most attractive women i have ever seen were sitting just across the carriage from me. one was black and the other oriental - the black woman in a long dark leather coat; her friend was wearing shorts and had the kind of legs that you don't normally see except in pictures. as i looked up, the oriental woman smiled at me warmly and, i think, with sexual intent.

maybe. i don't know. i kind of crumpled into a small heap and stared furiously at my crossword. nothing came to mind. i didn't know what to do. i tried to pretend it wasn't happening and didn't listen to the conversation they were having, which was about some guy the women knew who was obviously a bit shy and was probably going out with someone.

i don't know. they left at the next stop.

and today, i was sitting there at king's cross, on the victoria line heading home southwards to brixton, feeling very tired and emotional - it's another long weekend and i don't want to be thinking about my ex the whole time and being miserable. there were quite a few people on the carriage, but i wasn't taking much notice of anything except for my book, and even that was failing to hold my attention much. nothing was.

anyway. there were these two women on the same carriage who were having a conversation about some dare or other. one of the women advised her friend that she should just go for it and do it. whatever it was. i concentrated on my book and didn't look up. i blinked a few times, and adjusted my glasses. i had lost my place in the book again. where was it? ah.

i looked stiffly forward in front of me, and was confronted with the standard london underground tableau - three people in a row staring fixedly at their novels, then a space of two empty seats, then a guy who was sleeping, who slumped awkwardly backwards, neither leaning to the left or to the right, his mouth open slackly and his head slightly to one side. next to him there was an old guy in the corner who was just looking straight out in front of him without expression.

i couldn't see the two guys on my immediate right, but i sensed that they were in their twenties of some sort and that i therefore had no idea whether or not they were going to be aggressive if i looked at them. i've been attacked by people just for being in their pub, before, without even looking at them, and i know how careful you have to be around young men in england. it's something i've grown up with.

you have to make like you're invisible. they still might start on you, but you never know. more often than not you manage to win through and actually be invisible. then you know you're alright. either way, i wasn't going to look round and see whether these men were aggressive or not - it's too late when you see that, yes, they are going to be aggressive, and wish to know what you are looking at. it's a thing that english men do.

anyway. in the space opposite me on the tube, i could see the two women, who were immediately on my left, one seat away. they looked young and attractive, one blond, the other with some kind of purple dye in her hair. i couldn't really see them properly, so i wasn't sure if they were attractive or not, but i could see that they were on their way out somewhere. saturday evening and all that. one of them was looking directly sideways at her friend, and her friend was looking at her. in the noise of the tube train i couldn't hear what they were talking about.

then the train stopped at a station, and another two women got on the train. one sat in the seat opposite me and one sat next to me. the one who sat next to me was very tall and i couldn't see her at all, not without turning right round to look at her, like some lech sitting there noticing all the women on the carriage. the one opposite was dressed in some kind of clubbing tracksuit gear and was smiling and crossing her fingers and talking animatedly to her friend in what sounded to me like a wide range of east-european languages.

i couldn't tell if the woman opposite was smiling at me or not, and then i caught myself thinking about it, and decided that i was just sitting there checking all the women out like a true arsehole and that i should just concentrate on my book. which i did, oblivious to the various conversations around me as they blurred into mush and the fact that i had no idea what language at least two of the conversations were in.

but i couldn't concentrate on my book. i was trying to work out how to survive the long weekend without thinking about my ex the whole time and being miserable. the problem with that though was that it meant that i had to think about my ex, and i do miss her so much. it's very hard to say 'right, i'm going to let my love die now.' it doesn't happen. anyway. tears began to come to my eyes but i choked them back and forced myself to locate the last sentence on the page in front of me that i could actually remember having read. ah, there it was. yes.

the train stopped at the next station, and the two east-european women left the carriage. i snatched a quick glance at the women on my left, and looked away quickly. they were attractive, around my age, on their way out somewhere. had i met one of them before once somewhere? and there i was, just leching again. i looked down at my book, quickly. i didn't catch either of their eyes, and stared furiously straight through my book at a point some seven kilometres underneath the ground.

'do you just want to make it through the night?'

there was a silence in the carriage. other people had been talking as well, but after this there was nothing. i didn't really think about it at the time, but it didn't occur to me straightaway that maybe someone on the carriage had just tried to pick someone else on the carriage up.

if i'd looked up then i'd just be taken for some kind of lechy awful guy, so i kept looking at my book. the silence continued. what had just been said? to who? it was probably none of my business, and if i had thought for even the tiniest fraction of a second that it had been directed at me, by one of those attractive women, i was surely living on some kind of fantasy planet. yeah right. what am i like.

'some guys just don't look up.'

the train had stopped at a station, and the two women were leaving. i didn't look up to see where we were or where they'd gone. were they talking about me? i banished the idea from my thoughts.

but i couldn't banish the idea from my thoughts. all i could think of was the line they'd used.

'do you just want to make it through the night.'

i have to make it through the night, alone, every night.

i manage. but i am lonely.

i miss my ex.

<pedant>