The Rosie Project (Don Tillman #1)(38)
‘It’s probably good that you feel like that,’ said Claudia.
Feel! Feel, feel, feel! Feelings were disrupting my sense of well-being. In addition to a nagging desire to be working on the Father Project rather than the Wife Project, I now had a high level of anxiety related to Bianca.
Throughout my life I have been criticised for a perceived lack of emotion, as if this were some absolute fault. Interactions with psychiatrists and psychologists – even including Claudia – start from the premise that I should be more ‘in touch’ with my emotions. What they really mean is that I should give in to them. I am perfectly happy to detect, recognise and analyse emotions. This is a useful skill and I would like to be better at it. Occasionally an emotion can be enjoyed – the gratitude I felt for my sister who visited me even during the bad times, the primitive feeling of well-being after a glass of wine – but we need to be vigilant that emotions do not cripple us.
I diagnosed brain overload and set up a spreadsheet to analyse the situation.
I began by listing the recent disturbances to my schedule. Two were unquestionably positive. Eva, the short-skirted cleaner, was doing an excellent job and had freed up considerable time. Without her, most of the recent additional activities would not have been possible. And, anxiety notwithstanding, I had my first fully qualified applicant for the Wife Project. I had made a decision that I wanted a partner and for the first time I had a viable candidate. Logic dictated that the Wife Project, to which I had planned to allocate most of my free time, should now receive maximum attention. Here, I identified Problem Number One. My emotions were not aligned with logic. I was reluctant to pursue the opportunity.
I did not know whether to list the Father Project as positive or negative but it had consumed enormous time for zero outcome. My arguments for pursuing it had always been weak, and I had done far more than could reasonably be expected of me. If Rosie wanted to locate and obtain DNA from the remaining candidates, she could do so herself. She now had substantial practical experience with the collection procedure. I could offer to perform the actual tests. Once again, logic and emotion were not in step. I wanted to continue the Father Project. Why?
It is virtually impossible to make useful comparisons of levels of happiness, especially across long periods of time. But if I had been asked to choose the happiest day of my life, I would have nominated, without hesitation, the first day I spent at the American Museum of Natural History in New York when I travelled there for a conference during my PhD studies. The second-best day was the second day there, and the third-best the third day there. But after recent events, it was not so clear. It was difficult to choose between the Natural History Museum and the night of cocktail-making at the golf club. Should I therefore consider resigning my job and accepting Amghad’s offer of a partnership in a cocktail bar? Would I be permanently happier? The idea seemed ludicrous.
The cause of my confusion was that I was dealing with an equation which contained large negative values – most seriously the disruption to my schedule – and large positive values – the consequential enjoyable experiences. My inability to quantify these factors accurately meant that I could not determine the net result – negative or positive. And the margin of error was huge. I marked the Father Project as being of undetermined net value, and ranked it the most serious disturbance.
The last item on my spreadsheet was the immediate risk that my nervousness and ambivalence about the Wife Project would impede my social interaction with Bianca. I was not concerned about the dancing – I was confident that I could draw on my experience of preparing for martial-arts competitions, with the supplementary advantage of an optimum intake of alcohol, which for martial arts is not permitted. My concern was more with social faux pas. It would be terrible to lose the perfect relationship because I failed to detect sarcasm or looked into her eyes for greater or less than the conventional period of time. I reassured myself that Claudia was essentially correct: if these things concerned Bianca excessively, she was not the perfect match, and I would at least be in a position to refine the questionnaire for future use.
I visited a formal costume hire establishment as recommended by Gene and specified maximum formality. I did not want a repeat of the Jacket Incident.
17
The ball was on a Friday evening at a reception centre on the river. For efficiency, I had brought my costume to work, and practised the cha-cha and rhumba with my skeleton while I waited to leave. When I went to the lab to get a beer, I felt a strong twinge of emotion. I was missing the stimulation of the Father Project.
The morning suit, with its tails and tall hat, was totally impractical for cycling, so I took a taxi and arrived at exactly 7.55 p.m., as planned. Behind me, another taxi pulled up and a tall, dark-haired woman stepped out. She was wearing the world’s most amazing dress: multiple bright colours – red, blue, yellow, green – with a complex structure including a split up one side. I had never seen anyone so spectacular. Estimated age thirty-five, BMI twenty-two, consistent with the questionnaire responses. Neither a little early nor a little late. Was I looking at my future wife? It was almost unbelievable.
As I stepped out of the taxi, she looked at me for a moment then turned and walked towards the door. I took a deep breath and followed. She stepped inside and looked around. She saw me again, and looked more carefully this time. I approached her, close enough to speak, being careful not to invade her personal space. I looked into her eyes. I counted one, two. Then I lowered my eyes a little, downwards, but only a tiny distance.