Spectral

I have a work colleague I particularly like and in the last year a unique bond has grown between us as we chewed over our shared long distance relationships and the emotional curve balls they have thrown our way. We’ve commiserated over separations which come around all too often and congratulated ourselves on love’s triumph over physical distance.

Her situation is much worse than mine, her partner is further away and their future more tenuous. Lately it’s been overwhelming for her, as her Sydney domestic life crumbled she felt the keen absence of her long distance partner, confessing through tears that she was finding the distance too difficult. In her endearing Eastern European accent she explained that it ‘was like being in love with the ghost’.

I know how she feels. For the 18 months that the Country Mouse and I have been what my mother quaintly described the other day as ‘an item’, his absence, as well as his presence, has been a defining part of our relationship.

There is the difficulty of facing emotional hurdles alone, like a single person, when you actually have a partner. An absent partner is much worse than no partner at all. If you are single you organise your life accordingly. When you are in a relationship you organise your life accordingly. To have a partner who is emotionally with you, but often physically absent, does your head in. It works on many levels, but the one I didn’t expect was how it would affect us socially.

Recently the disparity in our social lives was brought home to me when, at a Hunter Valley based social event, I scanned the room and realised that I now know most of the people in the Country Mouse’s world (good) whereas he still knows almost no-one in mine (not good).

“I DO HAVE FRIENDS YOU KNOW!” I announced suddenly, with conviction. Obviously too suddenly and maybe with just a little too much conviction because the Country Mouse looked at me with a frozen, terrified look. “I know you do!” he answered sensing instinctively that a strong affirmation was needed despite not knowing why.

I have many close friends he has never met and one in particular used to go further than the standard “when are we ever going to meet this man?” running commentary, joking that the reason we had never met the Country Mouse was because he didn’t exist at all. I had simply made him up (maybe just to create an angle for an angst-ridden blog?). How could, she argued, have so many people in my life have never met this man after so long?

To counter her argument I started to bring to our Sydney social events photographic proof of the Country Mouse’s solidity. By now we have been on enough holidays for there to be evidence, “See...here we are mountain climbing on Lord Howe Island”, “See...here we are snorkelling on Maui”, “See...here we are at dinner at Bondi Icebergs”, “See...here we are on Terrigal Beach”. She remained unconvinced, smiling smugly and purring “Photoshop”.

The Country Mouse’s chief denier argued that I had simply found a random male photo online and photoshopped him into my holiday photos. Of course I could of, so there was no argument, I was defeated. When I miss him and Iook at the empty space beside me I wish he was occupying, the Country Mouse may seem to be like a phantom, but to at least one friend of mine he will always be the Invisible Man.