Out of our league

Jenny and I have finally faced reality and admitted we aren't up to the intricacies of chess games. We packed up our lovely glass chess set and it will go to a new owner with the necessary high-powered brain.

We've been in the habit of holding a chess tournament every Christmas to stretch our brains a little and have a bit of fun. But you need a brain that can consider several possible strategies at once and how all of them might develop.

We're just not up to the job. We were fumbling around making silly mistakes and letting our pieces be taken too easily. We were taking longer and longer to make our next move, while the other person got increasingly bored and impatient.

So we finally accepted that chess is too sophisticated for our puny brains. We've given up trying to master a game that's way out of our league and we've gone back to something more manageable - Scrabble.

We're both good with words, so Scrabble suits us much better. And we don't nod off waiting for the other person to move.

Lonely or what?

There's still a lot of talk about the "epidemic of loneliness" and what can be done about it. The general conclusion is that lonely people need to get out more and spend more time with other people. But I don't think it's nearly that simple.

My own view of loneliness is quite complex. For me, I would say boredom is more of a problem than loneliness. If I'm totally absorbed in something then I don't feel lonely because I'm just not thinking about other people.

A feeling of loneliness is said to arise if you can't find people who're on the same wavelength as you, but I don't expect people to be on my wavelength. Society is now so fragmented into umpteen tiny groups of like-minded people that the chance of my happening to meet someone I see eye to eye with is pretty slim.

If I'm not on the same wavelength as other people, that makes me feel isolated or unusual but not lonely. But then I was brought up in a family who had very different views to myself, so I'm used to being out on a limb.

What I really need isn't people on the same wavelength but people who can give me useful advice about how to deal with life's problems. That's where I feel a lack. Like someone who can diagnose a faulty washing machine or fill in a complicated application form or just give me a more optimistic view of the horrifying world we now live in.

There's more to loneliness than meets the eye.

Mealy mouthed

Apparently the English are renowned abroad for not saying what they really mean and coming up with something that hides their true feelings. I love those charts that explain what foreigners think we mean as opposed to what we actually mean. For example:

• "I was disappointed" (I was absolutely furious)
• "I hear what you say" (I totally disagree)
• "With the greatest respect (You're an idiot)
• "That's an interesting proposal" (It can't possibly work)
• "I'll bear it in mind" (But do nothing about it)
• "You must come to dinner sometime" (It would be a nightmare)
• "It's fine" (It can't possibly get any worse)
• "There's a slight problem" (This is a disaster)
• "It really doesn't matter" (That was incredibly offensive)
• "It's not ideal" (It's totally inappropriate)

Well, you get the idea. I gather Americans are more direct, and more likely to say exactly what they think, whatever the reaction might be. They don't understand all this English subterfuge.

I must admit to falling into this trap myself. I'm not brave enough to say to someone "That was a really boring evening and I'm not going to repeat it." I'm more likely to say "That was fun. We must do that again sometime", meaning the exact opposite.

The English custom is to be elaborately polite even in the most dire circumstances, and never to say anything blatantly rude. One must avoid confrontation at all costs and keep the atmosphere calm and comfortable.

I admit to finding any sort of confrontation quite agonising, and I go to extreme lengths to avoid it. I wouldn't have been much good as a police officer or a politician or a debt collector.

But maybe the English have the right idea. Maybe skirting round a delicate issue is better than picking a fight.

Misunderstanding

People sometimes suggest (because I like my own company I guess) that I hate other people.

That's very cheeky. And totally untrue.

Firstly, I don't hate anybody. Secondly, my attitude to other people depends entirely on the person. If they're intelligent and interesting and considerate to others, I warm to them. If they're dumb and boring and selfish, I give them a wide berth - but I don't hate them, I just wonder what made them like that.

I don't go out of my way to meet other people, I tend to keep to myself, but that's not because I hate people. It's because the chances of their being dumb, boring and selfish are alarmingly high.

And no, that doesn't mean I'm an elitist snob, it just means I don't want to spend my precious time humouring someone who's intent on airing their ignorant views about immigrants, homosexuals, lefties and welfare claimants. Or how long they had to wait for the bus, or the supermarket checkout, or the plumber.

Far from hating people, I'm hugely compassionate towards them. I want to understand other people's personal circumstances, I want to know why they're the way they are, I want to grasp the often traumatic and daunting situations they've been through that have influenced their personalities and their outlook on life.

We've all faced overwhelming and terrifying events at one time or another, and I can't hate people who've done their level best to overcome those obstacles and keep their lives on track. I can't hate people who're simply frail, vulnerable human beings trying to cope with the messy unpredictability of their daily existence.

I don't even hate rapists or murderers. They shock and sicken and bewilder me, but I don't hate them. I just want to know why on earth they did what they did, why they lacked the normal scruples and inhibitions that stop others doing the same. And I want them to be treated or rehabilitated rather than punished or ostracised.

I've seen enough vicious hatred in my life to know that hate achieves nothing except yet more hatred. I'm not that way inclined and never will be.

Home help

I was moved by the generosity of a 93 year old North Devon woman who has used the proceeds of her first published novel to buy a house where her friends can stay instead of ending up in lifeless nursing homes.

Lorna Page thinks most nursing homes are so awful (“You sit there all day staring out of the window”) she wants to provide something better that will be life-enhancing rather than stultifying.

“I started asking people if they wanted to move out of their care homes and live with me and I’ve had dozens of offers. They are queuing up” she said.

It’s equally impressive that she’s become a published author in her nineties. She didn’t even think the book (A Dangerous Weakness) was much good but her daughter-in-law persuaded her to send it to a publisher.

Personally I’d hate to end up in a nursing home. I’ve visited quite a few and they always seem desperately soul-destroying. The residents sit around like zombies looking bored to death and stupefied by a barrage of powerful drugs.

Last year Jenny and I visited an aunt who was in a Belfast nursing home temporarily while she recovered from an operation. The sight of the several dozen permanent residents slumped speechless in their armchairs doing absolutely nothing was so terrifying I couldn’t get out of the building fast enough.

I would rather be roasted slowly on hot coals than end up in a place like that. I hope to hell I just die quickly of a heart attack or a rapid cancer rather than spend years incarcerated in a nursing home not in full possession of my faculties but still dragging out my life.

Other people see it differently. They believe a lot of those apparently comatose nursing home residents are actually quite content, their minds meandering happily through old memories and experiences and conjuring up all manner of fabulous interior landscapes.

I wish I could believe that, but I think hopeless despair seems more likely. Count me out.
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I'm pleased to read that Dr Paul Miller, the psychiatrist who Northern Ireland MP Iris Robinson claimed could "cure" homosexuals has severed his connection with her. He has also been suspended from his psychiatric job at the Mater Hospital in Belfast. Unfortunately he is being made the scapegoat for the controversy, while Iris still refuses to resign over her description of homosexuality as an "abomination" and a practice "as bad as child sex abuse".

Cupid's whims

The approach of Valentine's Day always gets me thinking about love and what a mystery it is. Why do we fall in love? Why with X rather than Y? Why do some relationships fail so quickly while others last a lifetime?

Therapists and scientists and writers are constantly looking for the secret of love and its seeming unpredictability but they're still as baffled as ever. Cupid is a capricious little thing and her arrows land in the oddest places.

Who would have guessed, when Jenny and I locked eyes almost 27 years ago, that our tentative hugs and kisses would ignite such an enduring passion? Certainly not us.

We've had plenty of quarrels over the years. In moments of boiling anger or frustration or resentment we've talked of splitting up and calling it a day. Who hasn't? But every time our fundamental love for each other comes bubbling up and miraculously heals the wounds.

In a heated moment, Jenny may accuse me of a multitude of sins. I may accuse her of a multitude more. Is any of it true? Who knows? What matters is that sooner or later we can't help making up and then it's all just water under the bridge.

Above all, we've never found each other boring. We both have quirky, original minds forever going off in unexpected and fascinating directions. Every day we unfailingly amuse and delight and surprise each other.

An astonishing number of couples split up for no other reason than boredom - they've just got nothing to say to each other any more. That's one thing we're never in danger of.

So Happy Valentine's Day to all you lovely couples! And to everyone who's looking for love!

Bed and bored

Northern Irish couples are almost twice as likely to blame collapsing marriages on affairs as couples in the rest of the UK.

They're also twice as likely to blame boredom, though domestic violence and lack of sex are mentioned a lot less*.

Why so many affairs? Are there really that many or is it just that Northern Irish folk are more likely to know about them because it's such a tight-knit society?

People here are so closely connected through family, work and neighbourhood links that if your spouse is bedding someone else the chances are you'll find out pretty quickly through a mutual friend or workmate. Especially since Northern Irelanders are such avid gossips.

If you want to keep an affair under wraps, you'll have to do it in disguise or in a different country. And steer clear of that travel agent who just happens to be your plumber's cousin.

But what about boredom? Why do so many Northern Irish couples find each other so dull? Perhaps it's all those men whose idea of excitement is a day's fishing. Or all those women whose big thing is scouring the outlet centres for a flattering blouse.

Or maybe it's just that their minds have stopped functioning after another 10 hour working day to pay for the sky-high mortgage on their fashionable Malone apartment?

It's also interesting that although many Northern Irelanders are intensely religious, divine guidance doesn't necessarily stop hubby making out with Fiona from Accounts and upsetting the marital apple cart. Or maybe it was the missis yakking on about the benefits of the Good Book that drove him into Fiona's arms in the first place. God works in mysterious ways....

* A survey by InsideDivorce.com, reported by Relate Northern Ireland.