I was sat next to a stranger
recently eating lunch in the Royal Square. She had her mobile nailed to her
ear, a growing expression of frustration and anger building in the tone of her
voice. Although both she and the other person were getting louder I couldn’t
hear both sides of the conversation, but from what she said the topic was
clear. I started to feel intrusive, just sitting there, and so moved on, but I
was struck by a few phrases she threw into her mobile as I left. ‘He’s just a
friend. We reconnected on Facebook. From school. I finish all my messages with
an ‘x’ so that means nothing’.
Walking away I heard the one
word spat out with the power to pour fuel onto the fire: Jealous. In the
appropriately titled song Jealousy, Neil Tennant asks: ‘Where've you been? Who've you seen? You didn't phone when you said you
would. Do you lie?’ His questions captured the moment when the void of not
knowing, not trusting, gets filled by the all-consuming feeling that the other
person is cheating on you.
From where do we get this
sense of jealousy? At what point does all that we trusted in the other person
evaporate to nothing, replaced by the conviction that hitherto innocent actions
and words in fact have a darker, hidden meaning? Perhaps the trust has been
broken but it is as likely that, surrounded by life’s warnings that good things
must be followed by the descent into disappointment, we brace ourselves for
‘failure’.
Sadly there is sometimes good
reason for jealousy; partners can and do let us down. But we shouldn’t live in
expectation of it. Perhaps there is the possibility that things really are
good, that the other person wants only you and there is no need for jealousy.
That possibility can feel very good.
This article first appeared in Gallery Magazine February 2016
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