120. Number 10

This is becoming silly.  I keep meeting strange women.  Nutter (click to see) & Brief Encounter (click to see) .  I met another two weeks ago but it wasn’t the first time I’ve seen her and on my scale of relationships she is a 2. 

Incidentally, I am a little surprised and disappointed that Wilton's Scale of Relationships, (click to see)  the system I devised for describing the level and intensity of the relationships that we have with each other, hasn’t caught on as I had expected.  I posted it in February 2010 and I anticipated that by now it would have fallen into common vernacular. 

I thought that people would be saying things like,

“Oh him?  He’s a Wilton six to me.  I’ve known him since I moved here and he’s really nice,” or,

“I don’t really know her.  She’s just a three on the Wilton scale.” 

I thought that people would know of me in the same way they know about Beaufort, Richter and Mohs, but they don’t.  I can't understand it because my scale has everyday function.  Theirs don't.  It's not windy every day; earthquakes are very rare and when did you last need to know the relative hardness of a mineral?

What is wrong with people?

I met this strange woman two weeks ago.  I was sitting on a bench at the edge of the lake in the grounds of the estate where we live.  The huge carp in the lake had seen me and six of them were at the surface, close to the edge with their huge mouths gaping open waiting for some fish food.  Unfortunately for them, I hadn’t brought any. 

I heard the noise of a snuffling dog and became aware that somebody was standing behind me.  I turned my head and said, “Hello.” 

It was a neighbour and over the past three years I have seen her several times but I had never spoken to her before.  She is probably in her sixties and, holding the lead of a black Labrador, she was looking out over the lake.

“Have you got a computer at home?” she asked, still staring past me.

“Yes,” I answered, thinking that it was a strange way to start a conversation with a stranger.

“Look at the Internet,” she said.  “I think you’ll find it interesting” and having said that and only that, she turned and walked away.

“What?” I shouted after her.  “What should I look for?”

She didn’t stop or turn her head but carried on walking towards the apartment-block some 70 yards away.  I called after her again but she didn't hear me or more likely, she ignored me.

“Another nutter,” I thought to myself.  “What is it about me?”

As I was driving home on Easter Monday morning, I saw her again.  She was walking with her dog on the long drive from the main road to the houses.  I pulled up alongside her and wound down the window.

“Hello again,” I said.

She stopped walking and looked blankly at me for a few seconds.  I realised that she didn’t remember or recognise me.

“We met by the lake last week,” I reminded her.  “I was sitting on the bench.  Remember?”

“Oh, yes,” she said vacantly, gazing over the roof of the car at the adjacent field where there were about fifty ewes, all of them with lambs prancing about in the bright spring sunshine.

“You told me that I should look on the Internet but you didn’t tell me what I should be looking for.  Do you remember what it was?”

She thought for a couple of seconds.  “No.  I don’t.”

“Are you sure?  It seemed very important to you at the time.”

She didn’t say anything but lifted her head and looked up at the trees for several seconds.

“Was it about potatoes?” she asked.

“I don't know.  All you said was that if I looked at the Internet, I'd find something interesting.”

A lamb had come close to the fence at the side of the drive and it bleated loudly.  The woman turned to look at it and smiled.  I waited patiently while she said the sort of things to the lamb that women of her age usually only say to small babies.

“Oh yes, I remember now,” she said at last, nodding her head and tugging on the dog’s lead to pull it up from the ‘sit’ position it had assumed.

I waited for her to tell me what it was she remembered but she said nothing.  She started to walk on down the drive towards the houses.   I caught her up but she didn't stop and just carried on walking.

“Aren’t you going to tell me?” I asked in exasperation as I drove slowly alongside her.

She seemed to be thinking about whether to tell me or not.  “Yes, it’s number ten,” she said eventually, pointing towards the Coach Houses.

“Do you mean house number ten?” I asked, trying not to sound irritable but probably failing.

“Yes.”

“What about house number ten?” I asked, staying very calm.

"Didn't you look on the Internet?"

"No, of course I didn't.  I didn't know what to look for."

“It’s for sale,” she said.

“Really? Is that all?”

“Yes.  They must be moving.”

And that was it.  She walked on and I doubt I will ever speak to her again.  I’ve mentioned before the differences between living here and living in London.  I realise now that there is another:

The level of gossip here is appallingly low.

5. Wilton's Scale of Relationships

I was talking to David on Skype a couple of days ago. I first met him in 1962 when he and his brother Steve moved from Haverford West in south west Wales to Lowestoft in Suffolk and so I have known them both for 47 years.  Such longevity obviously breeds a certain familiarity and possibly it seems, even contempt.

“Have you seen my blog?” I asked David.  He had not.  “Have you got the web address?” I asked him.

“I'm not sure but I’m not going to go to the trouble of looking for it,” he said.  “If you want me to read something, send it as an e-mail and not as an attachment either.  I'm not going to the bother of opening an attachment.  I’ve got better things to do.”

So, if one of my oldest friends can’t be arsed to look for my ramblings, why would anyone else?  We were always good friends because we had a lot in common, especially sport and geography.  As I know he will be the first to admit, I was always his superior in every sport but I concede that he was the more committed and conscientious geographer.

Reflections on my relationship with David, have led me to consider relationships in general.  In a belated and probably futile bid for immortality, I have devised “Wilton’s Scale” of relationships.  It is my attempt at a place in posterity.  I want to be up there with Beaufort, Richter and Mohs.  You will find it below.  
It’s probably not an original idea.  I’ve no doubt that a social scientist, a psychotherapist or someone else who makes a living out of stating the bleeding obvious, will have beaten me to it.

Until a couple of days ago, David was a 7. There were times in the 70s when he came close to being the 8 but then, as now, he blew it. He runs the risk at the moment of being downgraded to a 5, or even a 3.

Wilton Number	Category	Description and Notes
-2	Enemy	Someone you genuinely hate.  They dislike you too and possibly hate you as well.  The cause of the animosity is unimportant.
-1	Dislike	Usually someone that you have to be with on a regular basis but would much rather that you didn’t.  Often a work colleague or a neighbour.
0	Total Stranger	Virtually everyone in the world.
1	Passing acquaintance	Someone you meet and acknowledge possibly once and never see again. Someone you meet while walking the dog or who gives way to you at a road junction.
2	Slight  acquaintance	This is a person that you come across fairly often, acknowledge and perhaps smile at when you do.  The assistant who often sells you a newspaper or a neighbour from down the road, or your child’s friend’s mother.
3	Acquaintance	Someone you have come to know.  You know each other’s names and exchange words when you meet but you never meet by design.
4	Internet Acquaintance	A person whom you have never met but are aware of and communicate with solely by electronic means: e-mail, social media etc.
5	Moderate friend	If you meet this person while shopping on a Saturday, you might suggest going for a coffee.  He or she knows some of the details of your life and you of theirs.  You have interests in common and often discuss them.  If you are having a party, you will think about whether to invite him or her. It’s not an automatic invitation.
6	Friend	This is the kind of person who makes your life enjoyable and what it is.  You would attend his or her funeral and expect that they would come to yours.
7	Very good friend	You have known these people for some time.  You are totally at ease in their company.  You feel happy at the prospect of seeing them.  He or she may criticise you and you will accept it, discuss it and tell him or her why they are wrong, but you never take offence.  You may go on vacation with them but this can be a dangerous move.
8	Best friend	There is only one of these and it is never a relative – not even your spouse. It is always someone of the same sex as you.
9	Soulmate	Make up your own definition.  It is possible to have two or three of these during the course of your life but one is the norm.  They can change from this to -2 or sometimes to a 4 or 5.
N/A	Relation	Rule unto themselves.  Impossible to categorise except biologically.

Notes and exemplifications

-2 Enemy

I’ve never had one.  There are some people who really irritate me and whom I dislike but I have never hated anyone - yet! There may be people who have classified me in this way and maybe still do but I am blissfully unaware of it.

-1 Disliked

These have only ever been work colleagues as far as I am concerned and over 35 years, the number is in the low, single figures. In fact, it may only be two. I used to leave the staff room when one of them came in rather than have to talk to him. He, however, thought that we were kindred spirits and would seek me out to talk bollocks to me. I was rather proud of myself that I never let him know the truth.

7 Very good friend

Going on holiday with very good friends is potentially a very dangerous exercise. We all know of occasions where the consequences have been disastrous.

Very good friends should remain at that level forever. It should be impossible for them to drop levels (Well done, David. For once in your life you have achieved the impossible. You might beat me at tennis one day - now that I have an artificial hip and an arthritic knee) and in rare circumstances they rise to category 8. You will probably know the date of their birthday.

8 Best friend

Times spent with your 8 are the best times; better even than some of the times spent with a 9 and that can be a source of conflict. Those young women you see on television gushing on about how their sister or, even worse their mother, is their best friend, are self-indulgent morons who need to get a life.

9 Soulmate

This can be problematic because for example this morning, in just half a second, I plummeted from 8 to -2 (I’m not telling you how except that it involved freezing cold water and a hot shower and gradually, five hours later as I write this, I have clambered back up to a 3 but now seem to have hit a plateau). 

It is also different from other categories in that someone can jump levels. Caroline went from a 7 to a 9.  In fact, I seem to remember that my proposal was something along the lines of:

“I am not certain and I will have to check on this and seek confirmation by means of much further, intensive research but I am proposing that we get married as I am fairly certain that you’ve recently become a nine.”

It took her a couple of weeks to understand what I meant.

********

Sunday is Valentine’s Day 2010. Year after year I studiously ignore it.  I really can’t see the point of recognising it other than as a means for greeting card companies, florists and sickly-chocolates manufacturers to make money. 

I am so anti-Valentine’s Day that I never go out to a restaurant on February 14th in case the staff and other patrons think we are there just because of the date.  As I have told Caroline many times, "It must be like Valentine’s Day every day being married to me."  I have never asked her but I am sure that she agrees. 

My antipathy is not based on bitter experiences.  I have received cards, although admittedly none since I was at school but I have never sent one.  The few that I received were always anonymous and I never discovered who the sender was except for one. 

When I was 16, a girl who I knew disliked me intensely, came up to me and handed me an envelope with my name written on it. “It fell out of Wendy’s bag and she’s gone home so you may as well have it,” she said. 

Knowing whom it was from totally ruined the experience.