I was off the date scene for a while following the mishaps that were Wish-He-Were-Bachelor, Morality and Hmmm. The problem that I was facing was that I’ve felt a spark. You know, that spark so massive that just seeing that name appear makes you quake with happiness or dread, and I was hoping to feel that once again in my life.

It hasn’t happened for a while, but along came this man who I thought would suit me perfectly. A fellow ranter, he amused me with how he was taking fun in constantly moaning about everything. People walking along the train platform when he’s in a rush… I so get that.

It’s a scientific fact that when you’re in a hurry, there’s a group of 5-50 people in front of you who are not. So we bonded over pet peeves and cat videos, animals in general and music.

We went for our first date in Southend. It pissed it down. Not only did it piss it down but the formerly-known-as Office Idiot walked into the pub we’d holed up in. I promptly pretended to be a pint.

I don’t really recall what we chatted about but it seemed like a perfect fit. There wasn’t an immense buzz for me but ok, if this were to work out, surely that can grow. I thought yes, I could probably really enjoy being with this bloke, and not just that but our career paths seemed somewhat intertwined too. Happy days! So we discussed work and animals, he mentioned sore points but he was nice. Chatty. Friendly. After a few hours he’s asking me to go back to his place. The wheels were turning… Not another one… “No, not for anything like that, I just want a kiss and cuddle.” A likely story!

But I chose to trust this one because frankly I can’t treat every bloke like he’s an arsehole in disguise and I thought to myself it’s all fine – it was half past six, I needed to be gone by 8:00, and nothing can happen in an hour. Except for the obvious when he turns out to be an axe murderer.

I repeat my earlier statement: A likely story! Largely because a likely story!

There was something in this one though, an honesty and sincerity that I haven’t yet come up against, and since I was doing a 6-10 shift that next Friday and wouldn’t be seeing him that weekend, he asked me to stay over his. Ok, says I, thinking yippee, genuine longevity! So we didn’t really make plans due to my working until 10. He was going to order in a pizza, we were going to settle down and watch a flick. While I was working he had one request – I stroke his head. I guess we all have our creature comforts, and I don’t have a clue what mine are, but just because he knows what his is doesn’t make that weird even slightly. Likewise, he requested that I file his nails. There’s been a whole conversation about nail biting and he’d just managed to quit biting his but, being a man, he is a helpless moron who doesn’t know how to use a file.

Well, he was so whiney about it and I thought to myself hey, there might be a time when I’ve drunk my way to broken fingers and I might need him to rise to the occasion and wash my hair or something so why the hell not.

Thursday arrives. We had spent the day texting, and he said what time he’d be at Stratford for me to meet him. I told him to remind me I need to find my WiFi device. He said “And a nail file!” I pointed out that I don’t get paid to file therefore nail files are not my priority. He then proceeded to throw another tantrum. Don’t believe me? See below for evidence.

 

 

 

 

There you have it. It wasn’t about a nail file, rather what a nail file represents. Well, I’m sorry. To me it represents a nail file, a tool for filing down the raggedy bits which get caught on your clothes leading to snags, something to use because you’d rather use your thumbnail than a pick when playing the guitar. A sodding nail file!

He seemed to chill out when he realised I was actually rather annoyed and upset about being called thoughtless over a sodding nail file he could get for a quid in his 2-minute-walk-away Tesco but, as is the norm when you come up against a bit of a nut, this, too, petered out.

Dumped for a nail file. Classic!

Well, I won’t let a nail file get me down. So I got back on that horse.

My most recent run-in was with a guy who seemed really rather nice. Sweet. Innocent, if not slightly neurotic, I suppose would be the best way to describe him. Paranoid, insecure… He claimed he didn’t have any issues but that I was the one with them which, while I won’t deny, came from a man who started messaging mild abuse in the time it took me to log off and respond via my phone (which admittedly was an eternity of five minutes, but hey, I’m slow like that).

Calm down, I’d only switched off the computer, I told him. It made me a little sad to think that this guy has clearly been mistreated by women and this part of me thought of all the times I’ve been wary.

There was a draw I feel (now) could be likened to that one feels when faced with an injured animal, even with the onslaught of minor abuse I faced: I live with my parents, I want to get married, I want children. So I said to him that I live with my parents because they asked me to go with them. Of course I hope to one day be married, but as far as kids go I want to have the option of them, not a flat-out piss off, we’re not having kids.

Within two hours I had discovered that his father died the year after he was born and that he had a strange relationship with his mother which was ‘for another conversation’. He neither wants nor can have children, he loves sex, and he was very attracted to me and wanted sex to be our first date. I declined, strongly of the opinion that sex doesn’t count as a first date. He called me a time-waster. (Yes, this is still within two hours.)

I should have cut it off there and then but apparently I’m a sucker for a legless puppy and eventually I managed to calm him down while I continued to work. He then threw a tantrum about how I had neither asked for his number nor given him mine. (Four hours.)

Finally we seemed to be on some kind of similar wavelength, and we arranged to meet up the next week after I’d finished work on the Saturday. He moaned, rather endearingly, that it was a long wait, and my response was that I’d say Friday but it gives us no time to get to know each other, especially given as how I finish work at 10. He was fine with it. I, on the other hand, was not.

Very quickly, we went from having a date next weekend to never talking again because he deemed me to be a time-waster again, called me a nutter (I’m still not entirely sure why), and had suddenly gone from being fine for next weekend to a literal it’s now or never. (Go on, I’ll allow you to sing for a while. *taps foot* All done? Awesome.)

What I have discovered from this interaction is that he’s a bit mental. While I thought at the time the poor – and, might I add, gorgeous – man had suffered a few really low blows, it dawns on me that it might actually not be, as he claims, that the women he’s met are time-wasters as much as it takes him one hour to judge a woman as someone likely to mess him about when she doesn’t respond to a message within five minutes, presumes she’s not interested because she says words to the effect of “I finish at 10 p.m.” and then starts calling her names within 24 hours – none of them expletives, I might add, he was most polite – which included “too immature” due to the fact that I said my work, which is freelance, is important to me.

I refused to get irate with him, but the problem was that I felt a strange like for him drawn largely from pity. I find it sad that someone who’s clearly had a rough life will never find the happiness he deserves down to the attitude he’s managed to acquire over his lifetime. That said, I find it sad that he was such an impatient and irrational twat because there was a really sweet and obviously caring (not understanding but caring) scared little boy who seemed to desperately want to find his female rest-of-his-life. And you know what? I really hope he finds someone who has the time and patience, someone who’ll take charge of him and make him realise that just because he can’t have his own way all of the time, doesn’t mean they don’t care. I hope he’s happy one day.

So, with that one nipped in the bud, we will move on to Part 3 (definitely in the works)!