If I'd been a girl

Like most men, I guess, I sometimes imagine what my life would have been like if I'd been a woman. Strangely though, considering my advanced age, I've never imagined how my childhood might have changed if I'd been a girl.

Instead of being packed off to an all-male boarding school at age 13, I'd probably have gone to the same secondary day school as my sister. This might have changed my life quite a lot.

Why? Because till the age of 13 I spent a lot of time with my sister and was very close to her. We played together, did things together, hung out together. But once I was at boarding school I only saw her occasionally and we were no longer so close. I was living my life, she was living hers, and this created a distance between us.

If I'd gone to the same school as her, we'd have shared our experiences as girls - how we were treated by boys, our periods, our clothes, our crushes, how we saw our bodies and all that stuff. We'd have been together at home, doing the domestic chores, doing our homework, going out with friends, and presumably the closeness would have continued.

Unfortunately that wasn't to be and after I left boarding school, although I tried hard to restore the old closeness, it was gone. After a while we both left the parental home and again we were leading separate lives that added to that sense of distance.

Nothing has happened over the years to change that, and despite all my efforts there has only been the bare minimum of contact between us. We can't have exchanged more than a few dozen emails in several decades.

Life is what it is and I've had to come to terms with the estrangement. But my life would have been so much richer if I was still as close to my sister as I was in my early childhood.

There's a deep sense of loss that can't be shed.

Don't tell mum

I guess it's normal for kids to realise at some point that it's a mistake to tell their parents every detail of their lives. The innocent habit of blurting everything out regardless gives way to a more reserved approach in which you keep certain things to yourself.

You realise that some of the things you do and say are likely to get a hostile or at least chilly response from your uncomprehending parents, and you learn to keep them to yourself or save them for more understanding friends.

I have a long list of things that I've never mentioned to my mother or father (mainly my mother as my father died many years ago) - in some cases things from decades ago that my mother knows nothing about. For example:

• The times I tried cannabis and LSD
• The odd instance of petty theft
• My not-very-orthodox sex life
• Most of my political views (my mother is very right-wing, as was my father)
• My presence at gay pride and pro-choice rallies
• My taste in books, music and films
• The crummy bedsits I used to live in
• One or two girlfriends she wouldn't have approved of

I also haven't told her about the trace of prostate cancer. Well, I know she would only worry about it, even though it's pretty insignificant at this point.

The fact that I keep so much to myself is I suppose one reason why we've never been especially close. Closeness is dependent on a fairly open and honest relationship in which you can talk freely to each other. If I have to think twice about everything I'm about to say, that creates a huge barrier between us.

I imagine other people censor themselves with their parents in much the same way, though maybe to a lesser extent that doesn't preclude closeness. I envy those who can talk to their parents without such crushing inhibition.

Intimate relations

Established couples are assumed to be completely open and intimate with each other, having abandoned all the polite taboos and inhibitions of normal social encounters.

They no longer hide anything, no matter how personal or unappealing. Be it peeing, washing, cutting their nails, removing their body hair, picking their spots or farting, long-standing partners should be open-minded and tolerant enough to let their loved one behave any way they like, free of the usual suffocating public etiquette.

With a lot of couples, this is exactly what happens. They never lock the bathroom door, they pee and shit while chatting to their partners. They carry out every type of personal grooming, however unsavoury or hideous, in full view of the other person. They belch and burp freely at the dinner table, cramming their mouths to full capacity.

Well, that may suit some couples but Jenny and I would beg to differ. We don't believe a close relationship calls for that sort of unrestricted intimacy, in fact we regard it as insulting and tasteless. It's precisely because we respect each other's sense of decency and dignity that we keep certain things to ourselves.

We don't see unabashed intimacy as vital to emotional and spiritual closeness. Closeness doesn't come from cutting your nails together, it comes from knowing each other at a deeper and deeper level, and savouring that knowledge.

There's nothing more embarrassing than the uninhibited middle-aged male who believes his carefree farting, belching, groin-scratching and ear-probing is the sign of an enviable intimacy, while his long-suffering spouse watches in a state of mounting dismay and horror. And finds the idea of divorce increasingly attractive.

Mysteries of friendship

Even at my grand old age, friendship is still a big mystery. How is that we can click with some people instantly, while with others there's no spark whatever?

How remarkable it is when I've met someone and straightaway there's something flowing between us, some vigorous connection as if there are no personal barriers and we might have known each other for years.

Even if you don't meet for months, as soon as you do it's like you saw each other yesterday and conversation comes easily and naturally as if it never stopped. You simply pick up where you left off as if you merely paused for a cup of coffee.

With other people that psychic "ping" just never happens, however much I'd like it to. We can talk about the most intimate subjects without any actual intimacy. We can be utterly frank but there's still an invisible boundary between us, as if I'm talking to a doctor or a therapist.

I may know someone for 20 years, I may have shared all sorts of experiences with them, but still I don't feel close to them, there's a hovering sense of reserve and distance despite everything.

I can meet someone and think they would be a wonderful friend, they have some sort of quality that immediately attracts me. I do everything I can to ignite a friendship, to get something going between us, but somehow it never works. We meet up occasionally, we chat, we share things, but it never makes that final leap to long-term devotion.

How lucky you are if you have a handful of really close friends, a select few you get on with effortlessly, a seamless communication with no restraints. It's a rare thing in a world of distrust and caution.