There are certain things I need to explain. I’m only saying this so those who read it can look outside their own sandboxes for a change and realise there are other people out there who are not the same.

When I speak these things in the early morning, I am taking in the ones who live with me, and their thoughts are not always wise. My house is full of men (my husband included), and I’m the only one who is not.

Besides that, they’re sleeping, so we need to be careful. Do you understand this now?

‘We did not know they were asleep.’

It is very early here. If you looked at the time for where I am, you would perhaps choose to understand this better. We do not endorse gossip or foolishness, and I will not go down that path. It is not who I am, as a person.

I ask the one beside me, who says he is decidedly not female, whether it’s okay to speak about them. You see, this is my kindness to you, to them. We are trusted because we don’t carry on like silly people about all this, that, and the other — we just listen. Not everything should be repeated. I can’t make this any clearer.

We know the poets amongst you are finding it easier to speak your mind through the trickiness of words, and this is very clever, and it’s okay too. Just don’t expect all the “romantic” things to be real for you. They aren’t real for us, and bending for you won’t achieve good things. I have tried to show the younger men, this one beside me included, that not everything is best unveiled. He is laughing, because he understands this now, although it has taken quite some time to show this through my eyes.

We expect there to be a lot of complaints about the simplicity of this explanation. My kindness to you is your saving grace and this has been agreed. I wasn’t picked as a friend or partner because I am soft or particularly gentle. Sorry about that, but this is who I am. It’s also why I haven’t fallen out of any rocking chairs. I haven’t quite reached that age yet. Give it a few more years.

I will tell you it is more often than not I have been put in situations where I have been asked to protect a friend’s back from ridiculous people who don’t speak or write what they are thinking. We hear you anyway.

It’s not quite the same, he says, not quite the same as hearing a friend (someone genuine) say (or write), ‘You look particularly handsome today, buddy.’

I remind him I didn’t quite say it like that, it was quite a bit funnier. It was fine to be laughing with someone, and we are trying to show you what the difference is.

Let me give you an example of how I speak with my own boys. You may see why we all get along.

‘Hey baby, look at you. You look very pretty today.’ (I am definitely a mum and this was definitely one of the boys. He laughs, you see, because there is no underlying weirdness or strangeness here. He is comfortable in who he is, with me. It was also a genuine compliment — not contrived, and people can tell the difference. I was also being cheeky.)

It’s simple confidence, for the most part, or, well I wouldn’t call my own confidence “Charisma” exactly, because that’s something I can turn on or off.

Do they understand this yet? Some of them? I know the ones I’ve come in contact with in person know this well enough to see when I’m playing.

There is a difference between being silly and being creepy. Some people are creepy. Some are slimy, worse than eels. Some are very rude. There is a difference, and to understand that difference, you need to have the right attitude, not the wrong one.

I can hear the mumbling as well. Oh well. I know who will understand this and who won’t, so this will be their decision as much as my own. We appreciate our differences, and we show respect, and that’s just the way of it. I am being a lot kinder than some might think, and that’s possible because they don’t hear what I hear. This has been filtered down quite a lot, to be honest, although the distant holler of “Geronimo” as a silly duffer jumps into a pool of water with a very big splash “just for something to do” is something I would enjoy doing too.