Yes Man (53 page)

“No. Thank you.”

The barmaid walked off, and Ian looked furious.

“You fucking
idiot!”
he said. “You
threw it away!
You threw the whole thing
away!
You could have done it! You could have still gone to Australia! But oh, no, Danny doesn’t want another pint, and what Danny doesn’t want, Danny doesn’t get. All that work, Dan! All for
nothing!”

“That’s not true,” I said. “Not true at all. Yeah, okay, so I failed. But look at what else happened to me. Look at the difference in me now. I’m alive. I’m having fun again.”

“Fun? You’re back where you started. In the pub, with me. You don’t have Lizzie anymore, you’re seriously in debt, and you’re about to start a job I’m not certain you truly want.”

“I
do
want it. Yes has been good to me. I’m moving on.”

“And Kristen? Where does Kristen fit into all of this? You can’t just transfer what you feel for Lizzie to some girl you happen to have slept with along the way….”

I looked Ian in the eye and held his gaze.

Gradually it dawned on him.

“Oh, my God … you didn’t sleep with her, did you?”

I couldn’t look at him, now.

“You didn’t, did you? You said no! You
already
said no! This is a travesty! This has been a sham! You said no to a girl, and then no to a pint! You haven’t
just broken the Yes Manifesto! You’ve virtually broken the
law!”

He threw his hands up in the air and sat back in his seat with a jolt. He said nothing for maybe ten or fifteen minutes. He went and got himself a pint—but for the first time in our lives, not one for me (I had, after all, said no). Maybe this was his punishment.

Turns out it wasn’t.

“Be here on Tuesday night,” he said, “for
… the Punishment.”

And he drained his pint and left.

I know. I’m sorry. I should have told you. But I was worried you wouldn’t like me as much. I was worried you’d think I was a failure. I hadn’t done anything I shouldn’t have done with Kristen. And that’s precisely why I didn’t want to talk about it. Had I said yes, of course, I’d have been discreet, sparing you the gory details, but I would at least have ticked it off as another fantastic Yes in a very odd period of my life.

But I couldn’t do that. It wasn’t a tick. It was a big, red cross over my head.

I’d thought if I ignored it, it would go away. It wouldn’t count. I’d never have to think about the fact that I’d failed. And so I’d kept schtumm, kept it out of my diary, said nothing—not even to myself. Saying yes to Kristen would have been a Yes too far. I didn’t want to do something like that. I couldn’t. It wouldn’t have just affected me, but Kristen too, and—if I ever stood a chance of seeing her again—maybe even Lizzie.

But ironically my No had just made me Yes even harder. It was only then that I truly threw myself into the fight, determined as I was to make up for lost ground. So I jetted off to Barcelona. And then, just when I was starting to remember again, I found a way to push myself farther, and I booked a flight for Singapore. Subconsciously I can’t have just
stumbled
upon that advert … on some level, I must have been
looking
for it …

So that was that. Ian was right. I’d said No to a girl, and No to a pint. Two things that if as a teenager I’d known I would one day do, would have utterly horrified me.

My Yes adventure was over. I had failed, and Ian knew all about it. I’d never before imagined the moment would be like this. Failure just hadn’t seemed an option. It was only saying yes, after all. I’d wanted to make it all the way to New Year’s Eve and be standing underneath a sky full of fireworks with my friends by my side as I reclaimed my right to say no.

But tonight the sky was dark and dull. Nothing was lighting it up. Just a
clouded moon and the odd passenger jet, flying off to who knew where.

Ian was right, of course. Sometimes you
do
have to say no. I knew that now, and I knew it more than anyone. It’s part of the human experience, and I’d been wrong to deny myself of it. But it had been fun, and I’d learnt a lot. And it wasn’t as if I was alone, was it? Not
really
. All over the world, right now, people were making their decisions. Millions were saying yes to their friends, to new experiences, yes to themselves. And millions more were saying no, too. No to opportunity, to chance, to life.

Maybe that’s what I needed to do for a while. Just for a while. Start saying no again. Stay in. Rest. Maybe that would be good for me. I was exhausted, physically and emotionally.

I got home to the flat and found my diary. I hadn’t bothered to update it since Lizzie had left. Maybe now was the time. It’s funny, writing a diary. We assume that all the experiences are our own. That we’re unique, and they’re unique to us. But every thought we’ve ever had, everything we’ve ever said, every time we’ve surprised ourselves with a new experience or idea, every memory we’ve made, every story we’ve heard or told or been part of … it’s already happened before. Somewhere and somehow and sometime, someone has shared our experience without us even knowing.

Maybe there were other diaries out there, just like mine. People who’d been through things like I’d been through.

I was on-line, now, but rather than check my e-mails or read up on the news, I headed for Google. I’m not sure why I did it, but I typed the phrase “I wish I had said no” into the search box, and clicked Search.

I expected to get a million results. But I didn’t. There were very few corporate sites, very few business pages coming back at me. I suppose regret doesn’t sell. But what did come back to me was an Internet we only see when we look for it. The personal side of the Web. The people’s side. The side I suppose I wanted.

There were blogs and diaries and entries in guestbooks and the odd celebrity interview. But the blogs were the most revealing. The innermost thoughts. The diaries tucked away in Tulsa or Peckham or Moscow, by people who have something personal to say and want to say it to an unseen world. A diary to be read by people they’ll never meet. A way of being brave, sharing every aspect of their daily lives—the dull, the meaningless, and the meaningful.

I read my way through dozens of different pages that night, searching for God knows what. Advice? Guidance? Instead I found just what you’d expect. People who’d said yes when perhaps they ought to have said no.

A girl in Oklahoma wished she’d said no when a guy called Ryan asked
her out, because he ended up taking Stacey to the party instead.

A man in France wished he’d said no to playing basketball that night, because he’d sprained his wrist and now couldn’t type “prolpery.”

A guy called Ken wished he’d said no to bringing inexperienced bird-handlers to a summer falconry event, because it was “just plain embarrassing.”

And there were many, many others …

Today, Saturday, I’m at my aunt’s.
I wish I had said no
, because she’ll want to play rummy all night, and I’ll miss
Pop Idol
.

Have said I’ll look after Jon and Carol’s dog this weekend.
I wish I had said no
. It stinks of s**t
.

I wish I had said no
. He turned up and he was wearing his nan’s tea cosy cos he said it made him look like an admiral
.

But oddly it all seemed quite trivial. Apart from the crack users or the drunk drivers or the people who’d done something so obviously bad and wrong that it should never have been an option in the first place. But what I found next was different. What I did next seemed important. What I did next was type in “I wish I had said yes.”

There were eighty-five results.

I read through them.

At first things seemed to be just as trivial.

I wish I had said yes
, when he offered to go Dutch. It was forty bloody quid and it wasn’t even cooked properly
.

I wish I had said yes
, because at least then I wouldn’t have had to walk most of the way in the rain
.

But slowly I started to find themes developing. Sure, there were people out there who wished they’d said yes to certain things, and it had been no more than a casual annoyance. There were people who’d kicked themselves once or twice over the years, and probably uttered the odd “tsk” when the memory shot back to them and disrupted a lazy afternoon. People who’d probably lost a few hours sleep over a careless no …

But there were also people who knew
… pain
.

The pain of missing something; the pain of not knowing what
could
have happened; the pain of discovering that sometimes, opportunity really will only knock once; the pain of knowing where a No had brought them and realising too late when a Yes in its place could have led them.

The pain not necessarily of having said no, but of not having grabbed a Yes.

We gave the PlayMobil away today. I wish I had a penny for every time Harry had asked me to sit with him and play.
I wish I had said yes
and sat with him every single time he asked. Now he is older, and he never asks his dad to play. I miss that so much
.

“Yes, oh yes!” would have been the easiest answer. And why I did not say those words, I do not know, and even today,
I wish I had said yes
.

I will never be able to explain just how much
I wish I had said yes
, because then at least we could have stayed where we were, and we could have held him in our arms until he was gone. I wish
I had said yes
.

I miss her, I miss her.
I wish I had said yes
to her, because I miss her so much now
.

I wish I had said yes
every time he wanted a hug. But I was always too busy, and now I just can’t …

I didn’t know these people. I didn’t know their lives or their backgrounds, and I’d never know why not having said yes to one moment in time meant quite so much. They were just voices in the dark. But I could see their sadness.

Maybe I was reading all this wrong, but suddenly, not having said yes to something that would have been great seemed
worse
than having said yes to something that could have been bad.

Sure, it’s a case-by-case thing, but I was starting to realise that regret could always be with you. And maybe there’s a real difference between doing something we regret, and regretting not having done something. And it seemed that difference could be … well
… sadness
.

Take the stupidest thing you’ve ever done. At least it’s done. It’s over. It’s gone.
We can all learn from our mistakes and heal and move on. But it’s harder to learn or heal or move on from something that
hasn’t
happened; something we don’t know and is therefore indefinable; something which could very easily have been the best thing in our lives, if only we’d taken the plunge, if only we’d held our breath and stood up and done it, if only we’d said yes.

If only
.

If I went to see Lizzie and it didn’t work out, would I regret it as much as I would regret never having done it? Would knowing be better than not knowing?

But suddenly I snapped out of it. I switched the computer off. I was being stupid. I had done the right thing. The only thing I could. This wasn’t a film. This was my life. A part of me—and maybe even you—had hoped that by reading those random people’s experiences and seeing their grief, something would snap inside me. And I’d realise that I wouldn’t want to be like them, wouldn’t want to regret like them, realise that it wasn’t too late, that I could still take a chance …

But it didn’t.

It just made me feel like there were other people out there who would understand; who would know exactly how I felt. And right now that was enough for me, somehow.

The following morning I would cut up my credit cards. I would book an appointment to get a haircut, during which I would lose my mullet and regain my old self. I would look into the best ways and means of selling my car. I would go back to how I was, in preparation for how I
would
be.

Soon it would be Friday. I still had a couple of days to brace myself for whatever punishment Ian lined up, and I would undertake his wishes with a smile and good humour.
You want me to dance around the pub in little blue pants?
Fine.
You want me to dress like a pirate and call myself Mr. Shitlerfor three weeks?
Done. I’d do whatever he wanted. Once again, and for one night only, I’d be a boy who just couldn’t say no.

And so I got on with life. I went to the supermarket. I rented some DVDs. I started thinking about what I was going to do in January at the BBC. I played a few video games, replaced all the batteries in all my remote controls, and fixed a broken pen. I stayed in and watched telly. Lizzie left a message, saying she’d gotten back safely and wishing me a happy Christmas. I couldn’t face phoning back.

And just when I thought that any hope had gone and that the course of my life was now more or less set, I received a postcard.

And that postcard, my friend, changed
everything
.