Take me to the banya.......and colour me senseless

There are countless differences between men and women, I am sure you will agree.

Now I have no wish to go into detail on those differences, except for the one; the ability to keep your mind focused in an alternative direction when......it starts to be a long time since you coloured with your special friend (I'm back to Sex and the City here.....the Movie, to be exact).

A man, I am told, will automatically think about colouring; it is part of their make-up to want to colour after a certain number of days. So they will go off and colour on their own somewhere, assuming their special friend is not available to colour with them. Apparently some are so keen to colour that they will even choose to not go for an early morning run, preferring to stay in bed and knock out some nifty artwork on their lonesome.

A woman, however, can simply switch off from colouring until such time as her special friend is available to create another masterpiece.

I am one such woman. In years gone by I have not so much as even glanced in the direction of the crayola for many a month, perhaps even years in some instances (please don't feel too sorry for me, I have been very liberal of late with my use of watercolours...)

That is all well and good, until the time someone describes, in very fine and perfect detail, what a "banya" is. And the reason they tell you is because that is where they are headed to shortly. Mmm.

In the interest of providing an accurate account I just typed the term into Google and found that the "Banya is a traditional Russian steam bath, where people go to wash, relax, and socialize". The one that receives much acclaim according to the web is Sandunovskie Banya in Moscow, which I have to say looks breathtakingly beautiful.

So, back to said description; this is the information I was given:

"I'm going to a banya, men only, getting severely hot, severely cold, beaten with eucalyptus twigs, then a massage, you get the smell of eucalyptus, plus all the toxins come to the surface and then cold, then hot, tea with honey the whole way through, then they cover you in honey head to toe, and you sauna the lot off.

OK, I must go, sleep well x"

Well...... thank you for that; I now have so many images dancing around in my head, men in a banya (which sounds like the best reason I've heard in a long time to get a visa sorted and head to Moscow), eucalyptus twigs, beatings, honey and saunas. Sleep well? I somehow think that is unlikely.

That is the problem when you miss your special colouring friend. A mere mention of the banya and suddenly the urge to get the pastels out is overwhelming.

And when you enjoy having supper, talking and laughing with your special friend, in addition to the oh-so-amazing colouring, you then miss them even more.

But the really great thing is this:

Soon he will be back. And we have, I can assure you, an infinite number of pictures left to create together......

The needs and the wants (and why we all just want to be rescued)

Many moons ago and during what now seems like another lifetime, I underwent a huge number of training courses in preparation for and the development of my sales career. Some would teach you fact-finding techniques, others how to uncover client hot buttons but they all did one thing (along with ensuring you spent too long in the bar the night before with your colleagues…), they all talked about needs and wants.

Needs were the boring, had-to-do’s:

“I need to go to the dry cleaners”

“I need to pay the electricity bill”

“I need to stop talking drivel”

Wants, on the other hand, are much more interesting, and a little bit sexy in the notion of a demand being on the table:

“I want champagne, not 3 for 2 dodgy Spanish table wine”

“I want that pair of Manolo Blahniks, dammit”

“I want ice cubes sending to my room now!”

There’s a bit of the prima donna in the wants, but apparently and according to the very best sales training courses, it is the wants and not the needs that will cause a person (i.e. your prospect) to take action.

Of course, in my twenties and as a fresh-faced eager-to-please sales recruit, I took all this on board without question. Off I went into the blue commercial yonder, keen to do business and full of unbridled enthusiasm.

Some twenty years down the line and I realise that the sales techniques of yesteryear are still being applied sadly. How many times do I have to practically hang my phone up when someone calls to try and sell me advertising? It’s not a great feeling, I can assure you; cold calling to me was like the sales version of having a root canal. But it appears some companies are still stuck there right back in the eighties, refusing to use up-to-date and more subtle techniques to attract custom (another post, another day, methinks)

They clearly need to up date their methods, but they obviously don’t want to.

So, at the risk of pushing the envelope beyond what is an acceptable use of paper, I would hazard a guess that the old needs and wants theory may be a little frayed around the edges, too.

“Why so?” I hear you ask.

Why? Because I now realise that many of the things we tell ourselves we don’t need, we actually do. And most probably in spade-loads.

I’m thinking here about taking time to sit and clear your mind every day of the constant mayhem that rages through it and about promising yourself that once a week you will have half an hour of “you-downtime” to do whatever takes your fancy. And most of all, I’m talking of learning to accept a helping hand when you are mentally and emotionally spent.

We don’t actually “need” any of these things on paper, but I will stick my neck out here and say that because we’ve probably shunned them for so long, we both need and want them now.

There is, as my friend Natalie will tell you, an episode of Sex and the City to mirror every eventuality in a woman’s life (and possibly for many men, too).

The episode “Where There’s Smoke..” sees the four girls discussing over brunch (as they do…as all girls do…) why firemen seem to be the archetypal female fantasy.

The very pretty yet seemingly naïve Charlotte blurts out “because deep down women just want to be rescued”

The other three sit motionless for a moment, catching each others’ eyes in the uncomfortable and silent acknowledgment of the truth.

Now I’m not too sure about when that episode was filmed, but I’d take a stab at around eight years ago at least, and as ever, we've moved on and our needs and wants have moved with us. I don’t believe women want to be rescued anymore; I think we need to be.

Of course the real challenge for a man here is, as we know, being able to identify when to switch into “fireman mode” and to haul you over his shoulder.

As a dyed-in-the-wool sales person I would recommend uncovering the need, and the want won’t be too far behind.

Just when you thought...

...something happens to suggest you were wrong, right?

Now I'm usually one positive, "up and at 'em" kind of girl, but lately I've been wondering if my life really is a merry-go-round, full of incidents but recurring ones, the type that give you a feeling of deja-vu?

No point in sugaring the pill here, chaps; I'm talking relationships. Those of the man-woman variety, those that look very nice on the packet but you can never get them to look like that in real life...

Following my recent Berkshire-Lincolnshire shift (from the former to the latter) I met a local man who rather surprisingly, ticked all my boxes and a few more. I say surprisingly because I never thought meeting a man of business, of my age (ish), with experience of children and who had been out of a prior marriage (and over it) for some time would be easy here- I have to say it was well nigh impossible in Berkshire, and that was with a higher head count per square mile.

He (let's call him Duz....I initially called him Big after Big in Sex and the City- no imagination....Duz is short for Duzi, which is Polish for big- there, still no imagination) is all these things and more, has an air of assured confidence about him with a touch of gravitas and presence. Very nice, and all without asking for it- I felt like I had stumbled across 6 numbers on a Saturday night.

So, it's going swimmingly well, save for the fact that.......I cannot just let things happen in their own time. I seem to want everything now, I want his unequivocal declaration of his undying love for me signed in blood along with our place in the history books reserved as the happiest couple that ever lived. But not always....hereby hangs the issue:

• When we are together, I need no such assurance. I am just happy.
• I am also happy shortly after we've parted.
• A day or two later I'm looking for problems..."why has he not called....." etc, etc
• Anytime after that I've convinced myself he is a waste of time and I should do myself a favour and get out now.

Which is a problem only if he is not attentive. I really hate admitting all this because it makes me sound needy and clingy, two labels I have tried to avoid my whole life.

So, do I weather the storm and hope that I can hold my tongue long enough for him to see all he needs to see before making a firm offer to commit? Or do I bow out?? I'm reasonably sure that men and women are such different creatures that it would be futile to think that I'm going to find all I'm looking for in the shape of just one man, so maybe I just need to be the one who commits. The one who commits to trying to do things differently this time, to taking some time out, to slow the pace down a bit.

Just when you thought you were ready to stand down, you realise actually you need to step up, and up to the mark this time.