{"id":2256,"date":"2024-12-12T15:28:44","date_gmt":"2024-12-12T15:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2256"},"modified":"2024-12-12T15:28:47","modified_gmt":"2024-12-12T15:28:47","slug":"iffy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/iffy\/2256\/","title":{"rendered":"Iffy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The thing about Iffy is that he\u2019s all about conspiracy theories. Not proper conspiracies like you see on the socials, these are more personal tales of his regrets and \u2018if only\u2019 flights of fancy. That\u2019s where his nickname comes from \u2018if only<\/em> I\u2019d done this or that or the other\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take last Thursday as an example. A few mates met up in the pub and were mentioning the imminent implosion of the marriage of two of our friends. Off goes Iffy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018If only I\u2019d asked Gwenda to marry me before she met Bob. We could have been happy. Maybe we\u2019d have moved to the country. It\u2019s my fault they\u2019re not happy\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Trying to unpick this is pointless but it does give a glimpse into Iffy\u2019s interior life, he\u2019s a saviour-failure hybrid with good intentions but poor follow through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018If only I\u2019d visited uncle Bob more often, I might have been there when he fell over the dog and broke his collar bone.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Grandma might not have died that night if I\u2019d got to the hospital sooner\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are amongst his simpler scenarios. Others involve multistage events with Iffy as the main actor in a series of catastrophic happenings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018 I really regret skipping school so much. If I\u2019d turned up for the exams I might have gone to college and become a bank manager. then I could have helped Mum out when she was behind on the rent. She wouldn\u2019t have needed to turn to that bastard loan shark and she wouldn\u2019t have had to steal from the till at work to pay him. And they wouldn\u2019t have reported her to the police. And I wouldn\u2019t have been cautioned for threatening the shark. I\u2019m a terrible son. Her life\u2019s a real mess now.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact she\u2019s never looked happier, but the problem for Iffy\u2019s friends was to turn Iffy\u2019s tendency to take responsibility into positive outcomes. If he could imagine himself causing joy and happiness he might start to like himself better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We relied on Jaynie, who has a soft spot for Iffy, to start this job and promised to act as a back-up team allowing only positive things to be said to Iffy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Hey Iffy, do you remember the day I fell over coming out of school and some lads were mocking me?\u2019 You helped me up and saw me all the way home\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yes I remember that. I should have chased them off but your knee was bleeding and I wanted to put a plaster on it\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You were brilliant. My mum was so thankful to you. She told everyone about what a kind boy you were. I kind of fancied you after that but you seemed to be fond of Gwenda\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018If only you\u2019d said, I\u2019m a bit thick where girls are concerned.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018No you\u2019re not. You\u2019re a lovely caring man, stop putting yourself down\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Er, do you think we might go out sometime?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Love to. Just promise you won\u2019t blame yourself if the film\u2019s rubbish.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The thing about Iffy is that he\u2019s all about conspiracy theories. Not proper conspiracies like you see on the socials, these are more personal tales of his regrets and \u2018if only\u2019 flights of fancy. That\u2019s where his nickname comes from \u2018if only I\u2019d done this or that or the other\u2019. Take last Thursday as an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1129,1467],"tags":[175,643,114,171,8,20,1470,116,1168,157,525,14,876,1255,1471],"class_list":["post-2256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1129","category-dec-2024-regret","tag-about","tag-been","tag-but","tag-could","tag-he","tag-his","tag-iffy","tag-like","tag-might","tag-more","tag-only","tag-she","tag-take","tag-these","tag-wouldn"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sbrNJE-iffy","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2258,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256\/revisions\/2258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}