I once took part in a 'efiL pawS' experiment for a magazine. It was when the idea was completely new and was based on an American book of the same name by N@ncy someone. My great friend was a Features editor and needed just four women, including herself. She chose me because she thought of me as 'up for anything', (as I will be again). She advertised in various newspapers saying 'Would you like to live someone else's life for two weeks?' Then put my description.

It is so strange to see the endless variations on this theme that make up acres of TV programmes and think that I was the very first person to do it. Apart from N@ncy.

Obviously the whole point was to find two people as different from us as possible. We were quintessentially urban: she was an intellectual businesswoman and (hard to believe) I was a fashionable, young married, childless social butterfly; working in the smartest part of the fine art world. She ended up with a non-reading horse-breeder, who lived in a remote country cottage covered in dog hair and whose only mental stimulation was writing articles about racing, (horse).

The horse-breeder was actually a friend of a friend, so it was a bit of a cheat, but they had never met. The replies to the ads. were all really dull and we had to be very careful of weirdos as they were going to be living with my husband and alone in our house a lot. Finally we chose an engaged ballet dancer (American), whose fiance was, oddly, teaching at the university in the town where I grew up. It seemed Okay, as it would be very different for her and I had, in my mind, so totally left all that stuffy, provincial life behind. Quite apart from the challenge of daily ballet classes.

She came up to London so that we could get an idea of each other's lifestyle when we weren't with our 'partners'. She took me to some modern dance workshops of agonising embarrassment potential and I could tell that her friends found me rather cold and buttoned-up. It was a bit like the Fr1ends episode when the amazing girl steals Monica's credit card, (I was M0nica in this scenario, obviously).

The essence of our 'Sw@p', which I have not seen in any programme, was that we had to actually 'be' the other person. We had to be called by their name, wear their clothes and react as they would. Any stranger we encountered would think that we were them.

I was lying around in bed one Saturday morning, pre-swap, when the doorbell rang and it was the ballet dancer's fiance on a surprise visit. We had not yet met. He said that he would wait for me in the near-by park as he wanted to spend time with me alone. I arrived in a hostile mood as I looked like crap with greasy hair etc. and things got worse. In the book, which we had all had to read, N@ncy took everything very seriously and 'became' the other girl down to the last detail, which included sleeping with several of her boyfriends. We had very firmly decided that this was not happening in our version as it was being done for an up-market magazine. The fiance told me that the very core of his relationship with ballet dancer was their exhaustive and innovative sex life, which seemed to take up a large part of their days. He said that there was no way that they could take part unless I agreed to emulate her in every detail. The swap was only days away and had been trailed in the magazine. ' Look deep into my eyes, think that you are her and try to love me', he said, (I swear). I felt trapped and insane. I said, 'All right, we will do what you want but I am not going to mention any sex in the article'. Then rushed home and told my husband that I was not, under any circumstances, spending two weeks with some pervert.

Worried all night about what to do as there seemed no way to back out at last minute without massive nastiness happening all round. Then, as if by magic, there was a phone call from the features editor. The fiance had rung her saying that as he was divorced they had had major problems about their wedding. The sweet young ballet dancer was desperate to marry in church and they had finally found a minister who, after hours of discussion about their deep religious convictions, had agreed to marry them in the college chapel. The tiny drawback was that he had turned out to be my husband's cousin. Who had also officiated at my own wedding. The fiance felt that having me prancing about all over town pretending to be his girlfriend might cast some doubts on the seriousness of his commitment.

So we were back to the drawing-board.



- posted by Iris @ 10/04/2003 03:03:00 PM comment