Amok Mama: Prone to boredom

"I'm bored," I say. "They haven't had sex yet. Are they gonna have sex soon? I thought he was gonna at least feel her up in the lift."

My boyfriend looks up. "I think you might be a psychopath," he says, nonchalantly.

I look at him, 150 percent outraged.

"I am not a psychopath," I say. "Why do you think I'm a psychopath?"

"Well, you're very prone to bouts of boredom," he says. "It's one of the signs."

"Well, I'm already three percent through the book and they haven't had sex yet. I think anyone would be prone to boredom under those circumstances. Anyway, I'm sure I'm not a psychopath. I'm just a sociopath."

My boyfriend looks at me, mildly interested. "And what do you think the difference is?" he asks. "Between a psychopath and a sociopath, I mean."

"Isn't a sociopath just a psychopath who hasn't killed anybody yet?"

"According to Jon Ronson, most psychologists used the words interchangeably."

"Oh. Well, I'm not a sociopath, then. I tell you what I really am. I'm really susceptible to joining a cult."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, especially in Germany. You know how cold the Germans are, the only people who talk to you on the street are cult-members trying to get you to join their cult. And they just smell my desperate loneliness. They sniff it on me. They come up to me all the time: would you like to go for coffee, do you feel like walking together for a bit down this road? We could walk the 20 metres to the S-Bahn station together. And then I say yes, and then they try to get me to join their cult. And the thing is, I'm always a tiny bit tempted – especially when I walk past the Scientologists. A tiny bit, you know? I just look at that stress test and I just know. If I joined them, I wouldn't have any problems. They'd solve all my problems. I don't do it, but I want to. I ache to do it. I'd love to join a cult. I really would. But don't worry, I'm not going to."

"Yeah, if I joined a cult, I'd join Scientology, too," says my boyfriend. "Just to find out all the mad shit they believe in. Just to check for myself how bat-shit insane they all are."

"I wouldn't like to join one where I had to set fire to myself or anything," I say.

"No," says my boyfriend. "That would be really annoying."

He turns back to Jon Ronson and I turn back to Fifty Shades of Grey and I must admit, after they start shagging, I'm not prone to bouts of boredom anymore. I'm more prone to bouts of horniness. I read on, in silence, and every now and again I go to the toilet to check that I haven't actually started my period, but am actually just leaking with joy and lust and desire and other dirty emotions like that.