There's a dress in M&S I like [1].

A white one with a flowery pattern on it. In these early autumn days it's a burst of late sunshine in cotton. (At least I think it's cotton. I haven't checked).

I see it once a week when I pop in to buy a sandwich. "J would look good in that," I think every time I see it. I'm vaguely sizing it up as a Christmas present.

Once upon a time I would just have bought it. But I've learned my lesson. I know I should show her it first. I do. Ah. Turns out J doesn't think she would look good in it. In fact she cannot imagine why I think she would look good in it. "It's not something I'd wear," she tells me with an only slightly disguised note of contempt in her voice. I can just about intuit the subliminal message she is trying to convey. Something along the lines of: "Why the hell do you keep trying to guess what would suit me? Where is the past evidence that you have the first clue when it comes to picking clothes for me?"

I did buy her something she liked once: a pair of Kicker boots purchased not long after I met her [2]. It's possible - I can't be sure at this distance - that she was in the shop with me when I bought them. That would make sense. Because everything I've bought since - and by myself - has never passed muster.

There is half a wardrobe of clothes in our house that still have the price-tag on. There's an orange raincoat she wore once, then said was too short, the summer dress that hasn't been seen in any of the four seasons, the designer label jacket - a Paul Costelloe as I recall - that has never been flaunted. "It didn't suit me," she told me the other day. "I gave it away."

"You did what?"

"Well, someone might as well have the use of it. I'm not going to."

You would think I would know better by now. That I would have learned her taste or know better than trying to second-guess it. It's not as if I can even offer evidence of my perfect eye in my own wardrobe. I still operate under the delusion that one day I will find a garment - the garment - that will transform me; something that will make me more impressive, more stylish, more me. Or at least the me I want to be. Hence another half wardrobe of clothes that don't fit or were bought in a hurry and haven't been worn since.

You would think I would have realised by now that, at 50 plus years, the me I am is the me I was probably meant to be. There is no more stylish me somewhere just waiting for the right jacket to make an appearance.

And J? J is fine as she is. Whatever she's wearing. It just won't be something I've chosen.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Not for me. It wouldn't go with my shoes.

[2] So we're talking late 1982, early 1983. A looong time ago.