Judging and misjudging

I had a sudden thought - what's the most important lesson I've learnt in life? Something that completely changed my outlook from then on?

I think the answer has to be - don't judge by appearances.

And that means not just people, but what I read, what I see around me, what others tell me. Whatever the outward appearance, there's always a lot more going on than meets the eye. There are hidden agendas, personal secrets, crippling traumas, grand ambitions. All sorts of things that lurk behind what's immediately visible.

I try not to judge by appearances, but it's so easy to do, especially when all around me people are doing just that, as if it's perfectly normal behaviour.

We judge people by their colour, their accent, their clothing, their sex, where they live, what job they do, what paper they read - a dozen things that can give us a completely false impression of who they are.

Someone can look blissfully happy and fulfilled when underneath they find their life totally frustrating and soul-destroying. Someone can look desperately poor in their shabby, worn-out clothes, when in reality they're worth millions.

I'm constantly surprised by something a person happens to reveal, something quite at odds with what I thought I knew about them, and I realise I've completely misjudged them all along.

I'm often misjudged myself, given all sorts of traits I've never had, like smugness, aloofness, condescension and stubbornness. but we like to pin people down, don't we? Oh yes, she's this and she's that, you only have to look at her....

There are plenty of people who look like saints and turn out to be mass murderers. And vice versa.

Spilling the beans

I think one thing that helps sustain a long-term relationship is as much honesty as possible. Whatever's on your mind, getting it out in the open always helps (well, usually) and brings you closer to each other (well, usually).

I don't say total honesty because there are always things you prefer to keep under wraps for very good reasons. I'd be surprised if there's any couple who're totally honest with each other at all times.

Jenny and I are very honest with each other about our thoughts and feelings, but some things we keep to ourselves. I won't say things that might cause her extreme embarrassment or offence, or things she simply wouldn't understand, or reveal intimate details about previous girlfriends.

I imagine Jenny keeps silent about similar things (substituting boyfriends for girlfriends).

That's the main reason I've never even considered having a secret lover. Keeping it secret would be an act of such total dishonesty I simply couldn't do it. Likewise I couldn't be secretly addicted to gambling or alcohol or drugs.

Of course there are situations when tact demands that total honesty be ruled out, like when one of us buys a new item of clothing and wants the other to compliment us on our choice. There's no way we'd say it was hideous (well, only if it was truly ghastly).

On the rare occasion that I've been dishonest and kept something important from Jenny, I've always regretted it afterwards and wondered why I kept it from her. I guess I was simply scared of her possible reaction.

Apart from anything else, it's hard work keeping a big secret for weeks or months on end. It's much easier to spill the beans and have done with it.

No longer taboo

In general I couldn't care less about the royal family, but I think it's great that one particular royal has revealed her distress over her miscarriage, and encouraged others to talk about what is still very much a taboo subject.

One big benefit of all the ongoing feminist campaigning is that so many once-forbidden topics are now openly discussed and women can share their experiences and get the support they need.

Things they once struggled with behind closed doors, things that were considered shameful and humiliating, are now out in the open and subjects of concerned public debate.

Miscarriages, still births, post-natal depression, domestic violence, sexual harassment, the glass ceiling, the obsession with women's appearance, women who're not listened to or taken seriously, and many other issues - now we hear about them all the time and it's not so easy to sweep them under the carpet.

This widespread trend for bringing taboo subjects into the daylight has prompted men to be more open as well. They're more likely to talk about erectile dysfunction, impotence, the straitjacket of "masculinity", their parental anxieties, or workplace bullying. They're more likely to share their emotions, be it sadness, grief, disappointment, inadequacy, despair or helplessness. They're less prone to hide everything behind a facade of tough, unflappable maleness.

To my mind, this is all very positive. The more you share, the more useful feedback you will get, and the more your experiences become normal rather than some disgusting secret. I don't think there's any such thing as "over-sharing", except perhaps when what you say might offend or hurt someone. Sharing something must surely be better than it festering away inside and becoming more and more distressing and painful.

The fewer taboo subjects we have, the better.

Private agonies

When I was young I used to think that although a few people were psychologically screwed-up and overwhelmed by life, most of us were healthy, well-adjusted individuals who found life easy to deal with.

It's only now, with a lifetime's experience behind me, that I realise that actually the vast majority of people are in some way psychologically damaged and find life an endless struggle. Very few people are lucky enough to have got through life without traumatic or calamitous experiences of some kind, experiences that often leave life-long mental and emotional scars.

Just scratch the surface of someone's seemingly calm exterior and you can open quite a can of worms. It could be something as simple as persistent self-loathing or as complicated as a heap of paranoid delusions. We're all hiding some inner demon we'd rather not display or talk about, and pretending we're as normal as apple pie.

It's good that more and more people are finding the courage to break the silence and reveal their personal agonies. Celebrities in particular are confessing to their eating disorders, acute anxiety, crippling depression or secret fears. And that encourages the rest of us to be equally candid.

I think my father had a bucket-full of inner demons but he never talked about them. He felt he had to be the tough, resilient, dependable head of the household and must never show vulnerability or weakness. We might have had a closer relationship if he'd been able to expose himself more.

I've blogged in the past about my many neuroses and hang-ups due to my dysfunctional parenting, boarding school bullying etc etc. I've managed to have a fulfilling life despite all the inner snarl-ups, and I feel better for revealing so much private turmoil. Bottling it all up is dangerous - sooner or later something has to give and it won't be pretty.

As the old saying goes, Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.

Attention deficit

When I was young, attention-seeking was a cardinal sin. You had to be quiet and unassuming, hiding your light under a bushel. My parents were always telling me not to draw attention to myself, not to show off, not to make a spectacle of myself.

It wasn't just my parents. This was a social norm most people adhered to. Persistent attention-seekers were seen as immature, vulgar, weird, a bit mentally lacking. It was best to ignore them, to avoid encouraging them.

Nowadays we've gone to the opposite extreme. Attention-seeking is routine, and thousands of people spend their lives seeking as much attention as possible. Their every move is broadcast on Twitter, Facebook, and all the other social media sites. We know what they had for breakfast, when they last had a pee, the embarrassing pimple on their nose, their sexual disappointments, their ingrowing toenails, their fear of hedgehogs. There's absolutely nothing they keep to themselves.

They'll do virtually anything to get attention, especially politicians. They tell lies, they make wild allegations, they smear their opponents, they pour out vitriolic abuse. So long as it stirs up heated controversies that keep them in the public eye.

I've never succumbed to this new fashion. I have no desire to be the centre of attention. If anything I have a horror of attention, a deep aversion to other people inspecting me too closely, judging me and gossiping about me. I much prefer to be on my own, enjoying my favourite activities without a flock of curious people around me.

It's not that I have anything to hide. I don't have all sorts of sordid secrets I'm desperate to keep under wraps. I'll reveal anything, even the most personal quirks and oddities, but preferably to an audience of one. I just get nervous when too many people are watching my every move.

So I don't think I'll tell you what I had for breakfast.

(PS: Blogging is just fine. I'm happy to reveal all to my cosy little band of blogging friends)

Trust me

I'm good at keeping secrets. I'm good at being tight-lipped. You can trust me with your most private thoughts, your worst fears, your most emb-arrassing moments, and they'll be safe with me. Far from talking too much, I'm more likely to be saying nothing at all.

Over the years I've been privy to all sorts of odd secrets, and I've never divulged any of them. I'm not a gossip, not an attention-seeker, not a rumour-monger. I appreciate that people have trusted me with something very personal and I'm not going to betray their trust.

I've heard about all manner of things - devastating panic attacks, social anxiety, agoraphobia, strange sexual habits, over-large breasts, breast reduction surgery, illegal drugs, gun ownership, excessive body hair, heavy periods. Only once have I heard about an affair, even though affairs are commonplace. And nobody has confessed to a violent husband. Perhaps I just move in very ethical circles where such things simply don't happen. Yeah, right.

Likewise I've revealed my own deepest secrets to other people, trusting they won't go any further. On the whole my trust has been justified and very seldom have I been betrayed. Which is just as well if I've moved on and I now think of whatever it was I blurted out ten years ago as mortifying idiocy.

I'm amazed at those people who merrily spill out absolutely everything to absolutely everybody. People who seem to be embarrassed by nothing and happy for the entire world to peer into their soul. It's all very entertaining and eye-opening but how can they do it? Are they pioneering a new form of total openness, or are they just unremitting narcissists?

Of course there's not much you can keep secret from your partner. Sooner or later they'll uncover all the weird and tawdry aspects of your character. And then you'll find out if they really love you warts and all. Or whether they run for the hills.

Hopeless dates

A woman from Philadelphia is suing a dating agency on the grounds that the men they offered her weren't properly screened, and were incompat-ible and unsuitable.

Darlene Daggett, a retired businesswoman, paid £115,000 to sign up with the supposedly elite dating agency, which promised ideal matches from around the globe.

One took her to Panama and then jetted off with his ex-partner the day after they returned. Another, nicknamed the "Serial Lothario", spent Christmas and Thanksgiving with her, and then abruptly left her. A third said he was waiting for his terminally ill wife to die. Yet another was a compulsive liar and stalker.

The dating agency has denied any wrongdoing, saying thousands of its clients have got married, but "it doesn't always work out".

I have no experience of dating agencies, having grown up at a time when people still relied on fortuitously meeting their future partner at the pub or the office or someone's party. We regarded dating agencies as strictly for the desperate and socially inept who just weren't getting anywhere.

Nowadays dating agencies are commonplace and nobody thinks twice about using them. But the results can be pretty hit and miss, and it's normal to get a few weirdos and arseholes along with the more appealing contenders.

So I think Darlene Daggett is being a bit absurd accusing the dating agency of offering her unsuitable men. Such is the occupational hazard of dating. Has any woman been spared the usual ration of slimeballs?

Presumably the dating agency's defence will be that however diligently they check a person out, there's always something they're hiding - maybe something pretty unsavoury. That's the risk you take going out with a total stranger.

And the agency can't be responsible for people's sordid secrets.

Pic: Darlene Daggett (right) and actress Cynthia Garrett

The curse

I find it extraordinary in this day and age that there are still so many taboos about menstruation. It's just a natural bodily function - so why all the embarrassment and squeamishness?

Women still feel obliged not to mention their periods, in some cases not even to their family or close friends. They have to hide tampons and pant-liners from work colleagues or acquaintances. Any visible sign such as blood on clothing is seen as utterly mortifying. The whole messy business has to be strictly hush-hush, as if it's something to be deeply ashamed of.

Even adverts have to be coy and euphemistic. Blood isn't red, it's blue. Periods are "the time of the month", while menstrual products become "feminine hygiene". In films and books, periods are seldom discussed - people don't want to know about about "that sort of thing".

Religions of course are even more censorious and puritanical. Menstruating women are seen as unclean and impure. They may be forbidden to pray or perform religious rituals. They may be excluded from normal daily life. They may have to refrain from sex. Otherwise they'll contaminate everyone around them.

Sometimes in the supermarket queue, I see women carefully shielding their tampon packets from view. Heaven forbid that a man might be alerted to their disgusting monthly leakage.

And from what I can gather, many men are still too sheepish to buy their girlfriend's tampons. They imagine the cashier will have them down as a screaming weirdo rather than a helpful, considerate bloke.

It's not just painful periods that are "the curse". It's all the prudishness and revulsion that turn them into something hideous.

The secret's out

Over the 66 years of my life, I've confided some very intimate, very personal thoughts and feelings to other people. Mainly to Jenny but also to other close and trusted friends.

Have I ever regretted such confessions? Strangely enough, I haven't. I can't recall anything that had damaging consequences or made me feel a reckless idiot.

Other people seem to do it all the time. Those familiar phrases - "Me and my big mouth", "I open my mouth and put my foot in it", "Did I say that out loud?"

Well, I don't use them myself. Have I, for example, ever been unfair to someone, shocked or horrified someone, diminished myself, exposed my weaknesses and frailties? Yes, I've done the last. But I'm happy to do that with people I trust.

Have I revealed things that are simply too private and personal to be shared? I don't think so. Someone can only get to know me properly if I tell them everything that goes on inside me. And that means everything.

There are people I haven't seen for decades who know quite mind-boggling things about me, but I'm not bothered. I doubt they've abused my trust in them, and even if they have, even if they've gossiped shamelessly, it'll be to people I don't know who can't do me any harm.

Then again, I don't need to have confessed to anything. There are glaring shortcomings I've revealed simply in the course of everyday life - sexual hang-ups, social ineptness, nasty habits, chronic self-doubts. But so what? Why be embarrassed that people have stumbled on awkward faults? They have just as many themselves.

I've got nothing to hide. My only worry is what others will do with the information. But by and large my trust hasn't been misplaced.

A lack of trust

There are people I trust completely, people I would share anything with, however embarrass-ing or painful or mean or pathetic or peculiar. People who will sympathise, understand, give helpful advice, and also keep it all to themselves. People I feel safe with.

When it comes to people I don't trust, though, I share absolutely nothing of any importance to me, I'm extremely cautious and I stick carefully to neutral topics. And I lie. It's frightening how much I lie rather than tell them the unvarnished truth.

I pretend to be polite and courteous when I'm really seething with rage and dying to make some vitriolic comment. I pretend to be ultra-masculine when I'm really feeling girly and giggly. I pretend to be competent and capable when I feel like I'm fucking up left right and centre. I pretend to be enthusiastic about things I couldn't care less about.

Anything to preserve a bland, anodyne atmosphere that doesn't tempt me to reveal what I don't want to reveal. Anything to ensure the real me is securely locked up and hidden away, not to be glimpsed by unsympathetic eyes.

I hate it when I have to spend so much time lying and pretending. But what else can I do? I don't think I'm especially mistrustful of others. But with certain people, I just sense instantly that to be frank with them about anything at all would be dangerous. They want me to conform to a certain image, a certain role, and if I said anything that contradicted that image, they wouldn't like it. So I keep everything well buttoned-up.

It's especially hard to trust people in today's opinionated society, when we're all encouraged to sneer and scoff at things we barely understand. Who will take the trouble to listen to me properly, to hear me out, to do justice to my most delicate disclosures, when knee-jerk reactions are the order of the day?

I don't bare my soul in a hurry.

"I don't trust easily. So when I tell you 'I trust you' please don't make me regret it" - J Cole

Weighty secrets

I don't like having secrets. They feel like a burden, a rock on my back. I want to be a totally open person, revealing myself without any inhibitions or squeamishness.

Unfortunately so many people are censorious and intolerant, and likely to trample all over whatever I happen to tell them, that in practice I'm extremely secretive, keeping all sorts of things to myself for fear of the consequences if I don't.

Stuff about sex. About gender. About relationships. About phobias. About prejudices. About extreme emotions.

I find this a tremendous load to bear. There is so much I want to share with other people - to get their views, their advice, their own experience of the same things. But I have to stay silent and work through them all on my own.

Obviously I'm not talking about things people tell me in confidence. Those stay secret for a good reason. But all this other personal stuff locked inside me like junk in the attic - I just want to let it all out, let it circulate, do something with it.

Some people enjoy having secrets, knowing things that others don't know. They like having bits of themselves that are theirs and theirs alone, that can't be taken away or spoiled. The last thing they want to do is share them with all and sundry.

I don't feel like that at all. I really want to let it all hang out. Having so many secrets that aren't public currency makes me feel isolated, shut off, detached from other people like some sort of awkward outsider. And it makes me feel abnormal, weird, perverted, as if I'm harbouring some monstrous tendency that mustn't be let loose.

I want to bare my soul. But not to a hostile audience with axes to grind.

Thanks to Leah for the inspiration 

Spilling the beans

In this era of supposed personal frankness, when people gush out their intimate thoughts and feelings to any passing journalist or TV presenter, you might think that no one has anything left to hide any more, that it’s all out there for instant public consumption.

I think not. For every person who spills the beans, there are ten others who’re more reticent and still keep an awful lot to themselves. Most of us don’t trust other people to be sympathetic to our innermost secrets, be they embarrassing, weird, disgusting or just incomprehensible.

The fact is that there are plenty of people only too willing to exploit other people’s weaknesses and eccentricities for their own personal gain or entertainment, and those uninhibited souls who lay their entire life on the table for others to pick at should either have a very thick skin or be prepared for a rather painful public mauling.

Even routine oddities like fear of flying, or fear of public speaking, or a passion for pickled onions, are often concealed in case of scorn or ridicule. As for the more rarified traits like social phobia or aversion to sex or hating to be watched, very few people would be trusted with those. Maybe only our partners, who’re going to find out sooner or later anyway.

It may be that other people are more sympathetic to those things than we imagine, but we daren’t risk telling the wrong person and being treated as some kind of freak show.

It may be that our shameful secrets are not as shameful as we think. But the longer we hide something, the more we prevent others from accepting and neutralising it, the more peculiar and monstrous it becomes, until the very idea of exposing it to others is unthinkable. We convince ourselves we’re so warped that if we confess all nobody will ever speak to us again.

We probably all need a personal therapist, someone we can confide in without fear of a negative reaction, someone who’ll listen without judging, someone who’ll help us to understand what we are rather than expecting us to be normal. With the best will in the world, even the closest and most trusted friend isn’t necessarily that dispassionate and all-embracing.

Privacy buff

I like my privacy, I like to keep a few things to myself. I'm not one of those people happy to live in the public gaze and share every intimate detail with others.

There are plenty of things I just don't want to reveal to all and sundry - because they're too embarrassing or distasteful or weird or puzzling or upsetting. I don't want to share the ins and outs of my sex life, the stupid mistakes of my youth, my peculiar obsessions or unsuitable crushes.

If something's embarrassing or upsetting, I don't think it necessarily helps to tell every Tom, Dick and Harriet. It might make it easier to deal with, but it might make it worse and magnify it a hundred times.

But there are loads of people who have no problem baring their souls to the world, or even relish it. I'm always open-mouthed as celebrities, or just ordinary individuals, appear on TV answering the most personal and intrusive questions as if they were nothing unusual, spilling out shocking and painful facts as if they were passing on a recipe.

In a few seconds, the whole country knows they've had three abortions, or used to be a chronic shoplifter, or only enjoy sex if they're bound and gagged. I'm just amazed at the total lack of inhibition, the belief that anything at all is suitable for the public domain, that there is nothing that needs to be held back.

I think some people can only see their actions as normal if they've revealed them to everyone else. They feel it's wrong to keep something secret, as if that makes it somehow odd or shameful. Whether others approve or disapprove doesn't really matter as long as it's out in the open and common knowledge.

The idea of "airing your dirty washing in public" used to fill people with horror as something extremely vulgar and unhelpful, but now it's totally acceptable and even encouraged as healthy openness. But personally I still think some things are better left unsaid.