Sarah Standing

Standing Room | 18 July 2009

All right, so perhaps I was a mite distracted.

issue 18 July 2009

All right, so perhaps I was a mite distracted. I was busy stirring a beetroot risotto, the television was on in the background, I had the telephone tucked under my chin and was also trying to figure out the solution to 11 down in the crossword (‘desire returns to writer covering S&M, spellbound’ in ten letters), but all these vaguely mitigating circumstances don’t really excuse my outburst.

‘Goodbye. Thank you. September 24th at 10.30’. I said. And then just before I hung up and added more stock to the pot I inexplicably blurted out the codicil ‘love you’. Just like that. It wouldn’t have mattered had I been arranging a clandestine assignation with a lover, but I was actually just securing an appointment for a mammogram at the London Clinic. I blushed.

Saying ‘I love you’ (and not meaning it) is a form of emotional Tourette’s.

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