I have always been surprised by men's attention towards me. For a start, the event is rare and, as such, elicits the same kind of reaction from me as being told, on collecting Pest n.1 from a friend's house, that my boy has been as good as gold, considerate, selfless and polite. Surprise is semantically too weak a word: bewilderment is probably a better one.

I am used to being shunned; in fact, in my pub-crawling days I have sat there, cuddling my G&T and watching my girlfriends effortlessly flirting, and have expected - no, even justified - men's attitude towards me.

They were wary and suspicious at best. Most of the time, however, I was ignored.

How does a young girl feel, after she has spent an hour getting ready, wearing the shocking clothes I have loved so much ever since my mother vetoed them, brushing my hair into a leonine frame to my makeup, only to be left sitting next to the loudspeaker?

My mother always told me I was ugly. She did not comment on a particular feature, such as a large nose or perhaps spindly legs; her opinion was an all-encompassing, all-consuming criticism of Emma is her totality.

I was, in her view, an ugly human being.

She would whip my glasses off whenever we met an acquaintance, ashamed of this five-year-old's virtual blindness. As a result, when under public scrutiny, I would continuously bang my knee against protruding corners and chairs, walk in the confusing thick fog of extreme short-sightedness, and feel I deserved it for being so ugly in the first place.

Then there was the hair style, of course. Little Emma wanted long, flowing hair - a childish way to hide - but she got the short, cropped bob complete with the rich curtain of a long fringe, which made her look like she'd just escaped from some institution. I was a teenager and my mother would still insist on it, claiming an elegance to the cut which I would never fully comprehend.

'All really classy French actresses wear their hair like that.'

'Maybe, but I don't like it.'

'Yes, you don't like it because you are cheap.'

Cheap. The ultimate insult. Cheap when I wore a miniskirt, cheap when I longed for mascara and lipstick, ultra-cheap when I wanted to go out and have fun.

I was always top of the class academically, but would risk expulsion over my rebellious behaviour at least three times a year. One has to find an outlet valve somewhere.

However, being mildly abused by one's mother does not explain how I could be ignored by men most of the time. It all came down to just two possible avenues: either I was trying too hard, or my mother was not abusing me but simply telling the truth.

'Do I look desperate?' I enquired with a girlfriend. By then, we were in our twenties.

'No. Not at all.' She was extremely popular with the guys, and had such an easy way to chat and relate to people that made me feel like a praying mantis, compared to her.

'What is it then? Am I really that ugly?' I had lost count of the times she would be asked out, despite the fact that there was already a stable boyfriend in the background. I was, as usual, single.

'Emma, you know you are not ugly, stop fishing for compliments.'

I started thinking of the biblical story about a satiated man and a hungry one, complete with table groaning under the weight of food beyond the hungry person's grasp.

'It's all right for you, isn't it? Every time we have been out this week you've pulled. On Saturday you even left me to go back home by myself.'

'Well, it's not your fault. Men are delicate.'

Now, that statement shocked me. Delicate? Men?

'Of course', I said, and the air was thick with my sarcasm. 'They are so delicate, and I don't know how to handle them. Where is the cotton wool?'

'You don't understand. There is too much of you.'

I was swept away by the very idea. Too much of me? Too much of what, exactly?

I thought of an argument I'd had with a boy I liked, a few weeks before. He'd seen me to the train, on my way to work. We had quarrelled about something inconsequential.

Already on the train, I had wound down the window to wave him goodbye, despite the heated exchange; I forget what the argument was all about, but I remember his face, contorted with rage. 'The trouble with you, Emma, the trouble with you....'

The train started moving away. I clung to the window frame, desperate to know what the trouble with me was. After all, I might get invaluable information out of him. He started running after the window. Clearly he also wanted me to know.

'The trouble with you... is that you have too many FUCKING OPINIONS!'

I looked at my girlfriend. My best friend, in fact. 'Too much of me? You mean, I think too much? I express too much of what I think?'

She shook her head. 'No. Not just that. There is too much of you. Your legs are too long, your hair too shiny. You hold your conversation too well; you are scary. They run away.'

I thought of those words when I longed for cold, for nights when I wanted to draw someone close, hold them fast against the slowing beat of time.

Was it really too quaint, to wish for a little of someone and me alone to be
wonderfully fine, and very much enough?

I allowed men to mistreat me because there is too much of me, somewhere. And apart from Mr Husband, who - alone - never ran away but even married me, they all did.