Things my girlfriend and I have argued about (online version)

by Mil Millington

  How did you and Margret meet?

  Yes, I get asked this an awful lot. And here's the thing... there's no movie-script story to it. She didn't crash a truck into my house, we weren't matched by a War Games-style 'computer dating' computer that had spontaneously gained sentience and was now pursuing its own agenda, it wasn't some kind of Stockholm Syndrome affair where I fell for her after she held me hostage during a bank heist gone wrong. Really, it was all very low-key. Perhaps I'll cover it in one of the Mailing List mails one day, maybe.

  Are you and Margret still together?

  Lord yes. As I've said before, the secret of a successful relationship is to become irretrievably embroiled in a bitter struggle to the death. Anyway, if we weren't still together the title of the page would be Things My Former Girlfriend And I Argued About. Which, admittedly, would be a shame as it would mean losing the snappy acronym TMGAIHAA in favour of the clumsy and crashingly uneuphonic TMFGAIAA.

  Will you send me some pictures of Margret naked?

  Oddly enough, no.

  I'm a twenty-two year old woman with jet black hair - can I send you some photos of me naked then?

  Tsk, all right then, I suppose so. But just twenty or thirty - and nothing involving goats, understood?

  Oh, OK, you can include one with the goats. But just the one and that's it.

  Is the stuff on the page made up?

  No. And yes. And 'haven't we covered this already?' It's absolutely all based on real incidents, but my only concern is to be funny for my own idle amusement: I'm writing humourous anecdotes here, not compiling reports for the news. But then, if you didn't realise that already, then you won't be reading this anyway, because you'll have headed straight to the Guestbook to share you perceptive insights with the world.

  What does Margret have to say about the page?

  Mostly she doesn't bother about it - it's an Internet thing (Margret on the Internet: "It's rubbish."). She does read it every so often, though, and thinks it's funny. Margret, you see, unlike some people, is smart, understands English - subtexts and all - and has a sense of humour. We've only ever had two arguments about the page and they were minor. By which, naturally, I mean that they were screaming, howling rows lasting about three hours each, but they were minor by our standards (they were also about things so tiny and incidental that no one else would have even noticed them, let alone managed to fan them into a row). The last time she read the page her only comment was "You're such a liar." Which she later modified to "Oh. Right. I'd forgotten about that." It is true, however, that lately, after she's done something Margret-like - trying to reverse the car over me or whatever - she has taken to saying, "I suppose you're going to put that up on your page now, aren't you?" To which my reply, naturally, is, "Darling - it's not my page, it's our page."

  This is a microcosm of all relationships, isn't it?

  Nope, it's just about Margret and me. Some of you men might think you're in the similar situations, but, well, OK, go back to the earlier days your relationships. Did you ever have an argument with your girlfriend that resulted in her throwing you out of her flat and locking the door? Leaving you in a rather tricky situation regarding how to get home? There you go, then. We're similar there. Now, was it winter? Were you naked apart from a cotton t-shirt? And were you standing somewhere along the Swiss-German border? I do believe, however, that arguments - about stupid things - are not simply normal in long-term relationship, but actually a sign of intimacy. People only have these idiot rows with people they are genuinely close to: partners, siblings, parents. It takes time and real love to discover where someone's buttons are: but then you can happily push them until one or the other of you is institutionalised.

  But also, it has to be said, regarding generalities - this:

  Many years ago I was sitting watching a music show with my girlfriend of the time. Culture Club came on - it was their first TV performance, I think. After about fifteen seconds, Former Girlfriend punched my arm, hard.

  Me: 'Ow - what was that for?'

  Former Girlfriend: 'Because you fancy her.'

  Me: 'Her? Who?'

  Former Girlfriend: [pointing] 'Her.'

  Me: 'That's a him. It's Boy George.'

  Former Girlfriend: 'Oh. Right... Well, you'd fancy him if her were a woman - he's just your type.' [She punches my arm again, hard.]

  I simply attract this kind of girlfriend.

  Who's the most insufferable, you or Margret?

  Me. Obviously. Jeez - have you read the whole page and learnt nothing?

  Are you happy?

  Yes, thanks. Hugely happy. Both Margret and I are really quite sickeningly happy together and the kids are so well-adjusted it actually frightens me.

  The fact of all this, our being happy, appears to really, really piss some people off.

  Why did you stop updating the page?

  It just felt like the right time to say, 'OK - enough.' I've only ever done it for my own, idle amusement but if you count up the whole of it - that's to say, not only what's on the page now, but also the stuff that's been removed to keep the size down (but is still available to the Mailing Listers, natch) - then it's well over 50,000 words. That's longer than some books. Not my books, no, but some books nonetheless. It's sufficient to sate my idle amusement anyway. What's more, I enjoy writing the Mailing List Mails, because the Mailing List filters out most of the dolts. It's fun writing for people who have the intelligence to get it, but it can be rather wearying when you know that what you're doing is completely lost on the idiot minds of most of the readers. Look at this email that came in a few days ago:

  From: "Lyndon" lkoetter@tbaytel.net

  X-FID: FLAVOR00-NONE-0000-0000-000000000000

  X-FVER: 3.0 X-CNT:

  Subject: Web Page

  One thing you definitely do not have is balls. What kind of man would put up with a bitch like that. What dumb ass would have children with her so he would be trapped. Are you that homely that this is all you could get. Do yourself a favour, Jerk off, sex is not worth living like that. And if you are worried about support, get her committed. I don't think that would be difficult.

  Yours truly a real man.

  Not because it's in any way special, it's not - it's simply the most recent email I have to hand as I type this. The writer - obviously - is not on the Mailing List. Are you saying that I should not concentrate on the wise and luscious Mailing Listers, but instead continue to update the page so that laughable dimwits like this have something against which to bluster in the hope of quelling their own homosexual angst? Pfff. I think not. So, we have a situation where I believe it's time to stop updating TMGAIHAA, twinned with anyone I'd remotely want anything to do with being on the Mailing List in any case - so they'll still get the odd TMGAIHAA-related thing, amid the general rambling. It's simply a plug whose time to be pulled has come.

  Are you and Margret married?

  No. The clue there would be in the 'girlfriend' bit. We've been together for, at time of writing, about fifteen years, however, and fully expect to be together until death. Longer if Margret dies first as she's made it known she intends to haunt me - appearing suddenly in front of my car while I'm out driving at high speed on wet roads, that kind of thing.

  Why don't you and Margret get married?

  What is it with you Americans and marriage? You seem to have some kind of confusion that makes a ritual inseparable from the thing it announces. I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you, but if you don't have a funeral, you're still dead, OK? No, we're never going to get married. And we've spent the money it would have cost us on a loft conversion.

  Why don't you just kick the bitch out (that's what I'd have done, on day one)?

  Wow! You're really impressive - and so masculine. I wish I were more like you. You're great. And not just an heroic figure to all men either, but a huge success with the ladies too, I have absolutely no doubt about that. You've slept with lots of women haven't you? Just loads. Yes you have. Thanks for y
our input; we all thought you were dead manly and irresistible to anyone with a uterus already, but your words just confirm it. Cheers.

  As you clearly hate each other, why don't you just split up?

  So, you're a teenage girl then, are you? Bless. Not really the deepest of readers? Well, no, because reading is so much effort on its own that thinking too would be sheer torture, wouldn't it? Never mind, don't bother yourself with anything beyond the simple noise that the letters make when you add them up. Really, I mean it. You enjoy the carefree years you have because, you know what? You're going to end up marrying Impressive Man, above. Oh yes you are.

  Hello, I'm American. What I'd like to do now is dribble out some pop psychology I saw an airport paperback writer talking about on Oprah once and which I've slavishly used as the basis of my whole life since because I really can't go to the effort of thinking anything through for myself. Clearly, I don't have the reading skills or the intellectual depth to claw my way above the crashingly literal, so I'll use this embarrassing lack of subtlety as a misplaced springboard from which to launch into a critique of your relationship. I'll probably say something like, 'For the sake of the children', I simply won't be able to stop myself. Depending upon how I feel, I might even state that, 'I have a good sense of humour' too, a fact which, tragically, I, myself, genuinely believe to be true. Can I have a 'I Don't Get It' badge please?

  Certainly - there's a box of them by the door.

  Why is the page so long? I can't read all those words, it hurts.

  Sorry.

  You hate Americans, don't you?

  Absolutely not. Some of the brightest, funniest, most erudite, down-to-earth and self-effacing people I know are Americans. (Or Canadians - which is the same thing. Yes it is. I'm not listening - Yes - It - Is.) Even my limited experience suggests most Americans are extremely pleasant people. I'm just sorry that the majority have to share a country with such a large minority of yawping, jingoistic, humourless, moronic wankers. Oh, and my sympathies about your President too.

  Let me repeat what I just said there so there can be no possible mistake. We have, dear people of the Internet, a hard core of morons. They are: dull-eyed, humourless (though they think they aren't), wearisome, insistently vocal and - consistently - American. However, how-ev-er, the large majority of Americans are quite, quite lovely. I adore them all. If one of my children ever came home and said, 'Father, I'm in love with an American.' I'd swell with delight. I'd have a feast prepared and bells rung. Americans are ace. I genuinely do like Americans. Excluding (for obvious reasons) the French, then the only set of people I think are more rubbish than not are the English - sullen, littering drunks, clutching a mobile phone in one hand while in the other there is a lead which ends in a crapping dog. OK? Is that plain? America - come here, I want to kiss each and every one of your pretty faces.

  Tch.

  The Mail On Sunday Thang

  For those of you who've been following this little saga in a state of jittery excitement, and also for anyone who's shuffled by and wants to know the whole story, here's the tale of a man, a British newspaper and an internet. It's topping fun.

  It started when the British Sunday tabloid newspaper the Mail on Sunday (the MoS, perhaps not to its friends, but to us from now on) emailed me asking if they could use the Things page in their next edition, offering £800. I was very pleased and flattered that they liked the page, but said that – because of Stuff Happening just a couple of weeks previously (more on this later in the year, perhaps) – I had to reply, with agonising regret, that 'No, they couldn't use it'.

  I imagined that was the end of the matter and had a glass of milk.

  Next thing I know, it's Sunday afternoon and I get a message from my friend Penco saying 'Have you seen the Mail on Sunday? I think you ought to. Because, um, you're in it.' I flew to a local shop and bought (at the cost of one pound) the paper. It fell open at the feature (it really did, that's the kind of thing real life does sometimes) and there was a full page lifted almost verbatim from Things. There'd been some standard sub-editing to fit their house style (yes, so did I), Mil and Margret had become Colin and Karen and there was a photo of a couple which I assume the MoS thinks its readers will identify with more than a baggy-eyed idiot with bright red hair and his psychotic German girlfriend – otherwise it was complete cut and paste. Even more annoying than changing my name to 'Colin' (a point about which I've been legally advised to make no further comment) was that neither the web page nor I were mentioned anywhere. It was presented purely as if the MoS had written it itself.

  I was irate in several leaping ways. First, as I'd had no further contact with the MoS, my natural assumption was that they'd printed it without the intention of paying me at all. Higher up, they'd wholly ignored my polite refusal to use what I'd written. (In law, I've discovered, this is called 'flagrancy' – a delightful word that has that bonus of sounding pleasingly like some sort of weird sexual practice). Biggest of all, though, was that because I got no credit whatsoever, people might visit Things and simply tsk out "Ack – here's some tosser who's just ripped off the Mail on Sunday and passed the writing off as his own." That would be a tad annoying at any time, but with the Stuff Happening became really quite nigglingly displeasing.

  Problematically, I was due to leave for Germany the next day, which rather inhibited my investing in a bandana and storming into the MoS's offices with a heavy machine gun spraying lead justice. So, I contacted my chum J Nash. Truly, he is a man to have around in a crisis. In fact, you can usually contact J Nash anyway and he'll bring his own crisis. We decided to draw the matter to the attention of The Panel.

  Many of us on The Panel have worked together at some point, but that's incidental. It exists as a fluid email group devoted to pessimism, dangerous gossip and, on Tuesdays, the destabilisation of various nation states. Its members include NTK's Dave Green, Cam Winstanley (a former special effects technician, now of Total Film, who once advised me about dealing with a persistent burglary problem I was having with detailed instructions on how to make and lay homemade landmines), bed-hopping PC Gamer writer (and sometimes sinister The Register informer) Kieron Gillen and The Reverend Stuart Campbell, who kills people.

  The Panel took a dim view of the MoS's actions.

  On another front I talked to Nice Girl Hannah. Hannah is a woman I pay to be my friend. You see, due to Stuff Happening, it had become clear that I know nothing whatsoever about more things than even I suspected. There were only two solutions: become clever (which I haven't the time to do and play Unreal Tournament) or get an agent. Getting an agent seemed ludicrous. That's what proper people have. Bumbling nonentities from Wolverhampton have never had agents. It's just silly. And embarrassing. Still, it was clear that the Stuff Happening was too large for my brain, so, an agent it had to be. Purely by asking the only two people I vaguely knew who had any contact with agents, I got in touch with Hannah.

  I was still quite, quite ashamed to be getting an agent, so meeting her for the first time was an exhaling relief. Hannah isn't how you imagine an agent will be. She is what you'd get if you asked a mad scientist to construct an agent in his castle-top laboratory. Her hair, alone, not only defies convention, but several UN conventions. She also, delightfully, works for Curtis Brown. Minorly, Curtis Brown are a major London agency, far more importantly it means I can say 'Yeah, I'm with Curtis Brown' in the pretty secure knowledge that people will imagine I play bass guitar for a Detroit soul singer and am thus hugely groovy and someone they really should go to bed with. Thus, I had no hesitation in signing a bit of paper saying that Ms Hannah Griffiths and Curtis 'Yo! How you feeln' tonight Fort Worth?' Brown owned everything down to the laces in my shoes.

  Meanwhile, back at the narrative…

  I caught a coach to Germany (Margret and kids were flying out later) and Hannah set about calling the MoS to ask them for Ј2 billion and a waiver that said that I could, at any time, go round and throw bags of soot at the editorial staff.


  I was staying at Margret's folks' place in a town just outside Stuttgart. Hannah could phone me there (Marget's father can't speak a word of English and was reduced to paralysing laughter by Hannah's German, but it was possible to talk). Even better, I could go to a local internet cafe and answer emails. There were quite a few.

  The Panel was doing everything from spreading the word among the press and contemplating the legal possibilities to drawing up a programme of civil unrest. I had FTP access, so I added a bit to the Things page explaining the situation and crystallising my feelings about it. In response, I got a terrifying deluge of mail from people, well, just everywhere. Without exception it was supportive. And also surprising – I got mails from people (Oh. My. God.) who said they've been following the page for ages; rather than, as I imagined, it being a place people happened upon once, smiled wryly, then skated off again never to return. I got offers of free legal advice from Australia. Americans roaring I shout to television programme makers. Someone offered me money from his own wallet towards legal costs. I even got one from a person saying he or she works for the Mail (sent anonymously on a Hotmail account) declaring I ought to hammer the crap out of the MoS in every court in the world. It was actually quite moving. No, really.

  Hannah called to say Jim Gillespie (the MoS's Review editor and the person who had made the decision to go ahead and print against my wishes) had offered compensation and pointed out that, if I wished to pursue the matter, then the MoS had in-house lawyers, but it would be very costly for me. She asked what I wanted to do; she was sure I had a case, but it'd be tiring and lengthy to pursue it. I nestled the phone comfortingly against my ear and replied