I'd Hate To Be Looking Again (abstract acrylic)

In the nineties I was in the reception area at work waiting to send a fax. A colleague in the queue said, “John, why don’t you get a girlfriend or people might start to think you’re weird.” Is it me? Do normal people think like this? I don't care much for people's view and I've lost count of the number of times I've seen people's eyes scan down my old clothes looking at the frayed collars, holes and stains (oil paint, linseed oil, virgin's blood, bull drool, marzipan, Nutella, etc).

Do normal people view themselves through other people's eyes? Perhaps they do as later on the same woman was having boyfriend trouble but didn’t want to split up because "I’d hate to be looking again.” I asked her what she meant - looking for what? “Another man so people don’t think I’m on my own,” she answered. I didn't understand it. Do normal people think this way? Aren’t they a complete person on their own? Isn’t there a broad steel beam in their mind which supports their entirety and excludes the need for someone else? Perhaps I'm in the minority. Later on the same woman told me she'd only got a boyfriend as she didn’t want to be the last sibling left at home with her parents and risk people thinking, "I wonder what's wrong with her?"

I never forgot "I'd hate to be looking again" and - always willing to paint on a bit of wood - thought I’d do a quick pit-stop painting on the subject. Here it is, wonderfully abstract (i.e. appallingly bad.) Please make your own interpretation of it. Painting it I was thinking it's resonant of a pre-war benign-Cubism interpretation of prepubescent angst crossed with a prevailing exaltation of suffering in a peace-threatened bleached-out Nuclear age. I'm sure you get that same thought when you view it.

It’s on an A4 piece of board so I can drop it a padded envelope and post it off for you tomorrow morning after an exhausting six minute eyebrow workout. Normally it would be £8444 but after finding a sealed Swiss Roll chocolate cake (in date) on the pavement I'm feeling generous. It yours for £8400.