Paranoia/facade (January 18, 2005 - 2:18 p.m.)

The danger, of course, is in giving somebody some evidence that could be used against me. That’s the reason I’ve been concerned about whether anyone is aware that I’ve been writing here, and also been worried about apparent recent attempts to break into my desk and my locked brief case. The fact is: if I didn’t keep souvenirs and a copy of the correspondence between me and Dave, if I didn’t write here leaving a trace on my computer, then there wouldn’t be anything to fear from someone discovering anything. But somehow I can’t do that.

Concrete evidence is only important because of what someone might do with it. I mean – people here have had suspicions, and for them finding things would only be a confirmation of what they think they already know. So it’s then a question of them having the motivation to do something with that evidence that changes what someone else knows about me – principally Lynne. Looking around don’t think I see anyone who would have that motivation – even the increasingly bitter and twisted Lesley, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I don’t know how they tick, the same way as I hope they don’t know exactly how I work.

But, actually it is that bit more. I don’t want the people who have suspicions to know the truth. I want them to have a degree of uncertainty, not only because I don’t know where the truth would lead them, but because I want to be able to retain ownership of my image. I want to keep the façade intact for them just as much as I want Lynne to go on believing I’ve been a faithful husband. Being honest with myself I think that preservation of control had a lot to do with not taking a decision to commit to Jo.

It’s an extreme form of what happens all the time though. We all keep up a pretence. Through the years of adultery I managed to be so adept at making the change from one life to another that I might easily have qualified as a spy – it was no trouble at all, as you’ll find in these pages, to walk through the door minutes after having sex with Jo and behave with my family absolutely as though nothing had happened. There is a moral difference obviously, but the skill is the same as the teenager who doesn’t want her/his parents to know the extent of their sexual activity or their drink/drug use.

There have been a few examples here lately of people saying that their diary has been found, or they have locked up because they fear it might be found. Some of those are parent-child relationships. I guess these people don’t want to shock their mother/father by discovering the truth about their activities. And maybe there would be genuine shock that the child behaves in a different way from how the parent believed, or indeed how the parent behaved at the same age. But I suspect in many cases there wouldn’t be – the parent has been young too and ought to be able to rationalise the fact that ‘such things never did them any harm…’

But the discovery of these things doesn’t actually alter who you are. If you/I are OK with what we’re doing hidden from the gaze of the person we’re keeping it from, and we maintain a good relationship with them does them finding out have to change the way we interact with them? I know, I know, of course it does!!.Lynne would conclude that she doesn’t know me at all, that what I’ve done is a betrayal, hurtful, everything that I would feel too if I found the same about her. But from where I stand now I don’t think it has altered my relationship with her at all. I kept it separate, we lived the life we would have done anyway.

I mean – did lying about having his cock in Monica’s mouth really indicate that Clinton was such a thoroughly bad person that he had to be removed from office? It wasn’t even bad enough to end his marriage, after all. Sure it showed he was someone who would take calculated risks – but that ought to be a good thing in a President.

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