Ronan is sitting on my couch, his brow troubled. He rolls a cigarette – his normally deft fingers clumsy with the effort.

I offer him a cup of tea. It seems an inadequate response, but I am at a loss. What exactly is the correct response to the announcement of a marital separation? Perhaps whiskey. But it’s 11 o’clock in the morning. Besides which, he arrived in his car. Given all of this, and his emotional state too, alcohol seems out of the question.
I wonder why he has chosen to confide in me. We are not friends – although we are not complete strangers either. Our relationship is friendly, but professional. I helped him write the text for his website, and now whenever he needs a press release or some bumpf for a catalogue, I give his language a spit and polish. If he were a friend I’d do it for free. Instead I send him an invoice and he sends me a cheque.
When he called and asked to see me I presumed it was work, and perhaps it is, but he is distracted and I don’t like to ask. My mind flits back to all the unfinished tasks I have to do today. I reproach myself for my selfishness. What is a missed deadline compared to a wife who has asked you to move out?
He takes a long, deep gulp from the mug. It seems to help.
“Do you want to tell me about it?” I ask.
He nods his head and begins. I sit quietly and listen.
Not for the first time I wonder if I should have been a psychologist, a professional advice giver with consulting rooms and an hourly rate. Instead I am the unsung Mother Teresa of family dramas, broken hearts, panic attacks, sexual failures, night time terrors and modern spiritual malaise, administering tea and sympathy to friends, lovers, ex-boyfriends and, now it appears, to clients.
I make sympathetic noises and interjections, and perhaps that’s all that’s required. When he is done he asks if he can have some more tea. As I reach over to pick up his cup, his hand brushes mine. He looks at me with naked hunger. In an instant it all becomes crystal clear. I know why he is here.
I won’t deny that there has been a frisson of attraction between us. His great passion is art and I admire the depth of his knowledge enormously. And I’ll admit that when I chide him about his terrible grammar and spelling, there may be flirtatious undertone to my schoolmarm reprimands. But he is a married man, with two small children. It has all been very innocent, or at least it was, until he begged me silently with his eyes to take his pain away.
Sympathy sex is a double-edged sword. It may sometimes make either party – or indeed both – feel better, but it also has the potential to make everything much worse. Or that has been
my experience.
When my father was dying, I got involved with my ex-boyfriend. Had I used my ex-boyfriend to make me feel better? Possibly.
Sex was a distraction, a relief, a coping mechanism. But after the orgasm, lying in his arms I felt guilty. How dare I experience pleasure when someone I loved was in pain? What kind of awful person was I?
Later that day, walking through the hospital I realised that sex had given me the strength to cope with all the suffering and disease and death confronting me. I had needed him – he was my anchor to life. There is nothing so unlike death as sex.
A few years ago when a close friend was going through an extremely difficult break-up, I went to visit him. One morning as I lay in the bath, luxuriating in the hot water and bubbles, he walked in, tears streaming down his face. He kneeled down and dunked his head in the water to wash his face. Then he pulled off his shirt and his pants and climbed into the tub with me.
He lay with his head on my breasts and I stroked his hair as he poured out his woes to me.
As we got out of the bath to dry ourselves, he took my hand and led me to his bedroom. I knew that this was a bad idea and yet I didn’t resist. He was so unhappy I could not have refused him.
We didn’t have sex, at least not exactly. He seemed calmer and happier, but as he lit up a cigarette and began to talk, it was obvious that the easy camaraderie of the last few days was gone. Instead we were awkward with each other. I suspected that I had now become a complication, exacerbated by the fact that we both knew I had feelings for him.
As we got dressed, I felt the stirrings of regret. Sympathy sex may have made him feel better, but it made me feel worse. I promised myself that this was not a mistake I would make again.
This is the first time my resolve has been tested. Ronan asks if I’ll have a drink with him later, but I know that this is mere politeness. He cannot very well ask for what he really wants. Well, he could, but he’s Irish and Irish men prefer ambiguity. For once I am grateful for that. It means I can refuse him without seeming to.
“I’m busy,” I say. “A date.”
It helps that this is true, but my feelings are mixed. On the one hand, I feel selfish, as if I am rejecting him in his hour of need, when he is vulnerable and needs sympathy. Then again, I feel a smidgeon of anger too. What right does he have to ask this of me? None. And why me, anyway – surely he must have friends more suited to this than me? But perhaps that’s the point – that we are not friends.
He looks crestfallen and rolls another cigarette.
“I should probably go,” he says.
As he leaves I am not sure if I should shake his hand or hug him. I do neither. Despite the shared confidences of the previous hour, the atmosphere feels tense and uncomfortable.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
I feel like a bitch.
Later that evening as I get dressed to leave, I wonder about the man I am going to see that night. I have not yet decided if I should have sex with him. If I did, it would presumably make him feel pleasure, but would it make him feel better? Strictly speaking, probably not. As far as I know, he has very little to vex or trouble his soul.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I wonder. I don’t know the answer to that. But it has the virtue of being uncomplicated. And uncomplicated is what I need. At least for now.