How quickly everything can change in the land of dating. You meet someone, you get on really well. You have an amazing few dates with fantastic interactions in between. You start wondering if this might be your next relationship. And then… something changes. You start making a few observations and realise that all is not as it seems. That is what happened this week.
So after an amazing Saturday night date with the Smoking Accountant. All went a bit quiet. I was ok with that as I had noticed he was always quieter on Mondays and Tuesdays. I assumed it was work related.
On Wednesday I finally got a reply to my how are you doing text saying that he had forgotten that he didn’t respond. I’m not sure if I believed this. Do you really forget to reply to someone you say you really like? But the text conversation was going quite well and he was asking if he could see me before I headed back to the UK. Of course I said yes. It all went wrong at this text.
A: Well as I said. Can’t wait to you come back and we can seee if we wana take it to next level
(Ok let me start by saying this sort of text is a warning bell. I had started to notice that any texts sent a bit later in the evening were less coherent and filled with more mistakes. I had pulled him up on it once, very early on and said your vibe and texts seem different. He admitted he had had a few beers. Well it was becoming apparent he’d had a few beers this evening too)
Q: Lol I can’t wait to come back too but I also want to enjoy seeing my loved ones again. I really do believe this timing has happened for a reason. I mean feel free to come round here before you go but not sure if it’s for the best.
(Now I can see how this could be construed as me not wanting to see him but actually it was more that I was worried that if he came to mine we would fall into bed and I wasn’t ready for that yet)
A:…. Woah
Q: What?
A: Nothing. Just sounded like you you not keen to see what could be
It was at this point I called to talk to him as I didn’t want to go round in circles with text. Sure enough he was out in a noisy bar. Again. On a weeknight. At almost 11pm. I couldn’t hear him well and the conversation wasn’t flowing properly. I could tell he’d been drinking. He ended up hanging up and the text conversation continued. It was going nowhere and getting worse. Everything I said, even if I said, “ well I’d love to see you and go from there” I’d get a “Far out Queen” I was so confused about what I was saying wrong. He then continued to say he was upset that I thought he only saw me as a fuck and said that it would be a good idea to just see each other when I got back.
Of course I found this disappointing because I knew it was going to be 4 weeks until I saw him again and now it would be 6. I was trying to keep up the great momentum we had. He continued to tell me he was doubting us and that maybe he was too fragile to date and put it into tricky box. Whatever that means. At this point I said I understood but in the back of my mind I was thinking I don’t want fragile I want a goddamn strong warrior who will protect me and slay the dragons. Ok I watch too many movies but fragile is not an adjective I choose to call my future man.
I then got accused of not seeming interested, even though he has bloody read this blog, and that he had invested and now potentially nothing. That he didn’t usually invest in girls. I ended it by saying I hoped he was ok and to let me know if he did in fact want to see me before I go.
I didn’t hear from him the next day, or the next day. I feltelt disappointed but my intuition must have been screaming at me because I spend a good hour on Thursday night reading articles about functioning alcoholics and it all appeared to be making sense. Maybe this was why he lived at home still. Maybe this was why he’d had no committed relationships. I didn’t want to believe it though. I liked him. Yes he’d admitted he was a heavy drinker and had an addictive personality (oops that was a bit of a giveaway) but he didn’t seem drunk on our dates (even though he had 5 to 10 drinks hmmm).
Today I got the confirmation I needed.
A: Hey. Sorry won’t be able to do anything this week. I hit my head last night and need to rest up. Hope you are well.
(I thought this all sounded very strange but decided to be cheerful and cool and just give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he just had fear and was pulling back).
Q: Hey. Oh no, that’s sad. I was looking forward to seeing you. How did that happen? Hope you get better soon and that you have a wonderful Christmas x
A: Fell over at Christmas party.
Ding ding. And there you have it. The confirmation I had been waiting for. Grown men don’t normally fall over at Christmas parties, especially men who have a high tolerance to alcohol. All I kept thinking was if he can remain pretty sober after 5 to 10 beers, how many did he have to make him fall over? It scared me.
I then began to call him on it. Told him it may be time to quit the alcohol, that I was noticing patterns. I apologised if I was stepping over the line, but I just had to get it out. He neither confirmed or denied, or seemed shocked or offended by my comments. Nothing. In fact he just said thank you for the comments. It was all very strange and it was at this moment I realised that this wasn’t going to go anywhere. I told him about the red flags, said we could be friends and wished him well. His reply.
A: Thanks Queen. You have been really nice to be with. Hope trip is amazing and stay safe!
So there you have it. That was a fun, exciting but disappointing little episode. I could get upset and say why do I always attract addicts. I have had a relationship with two addicts previously. But I guess the difference now is that I’m not spending 6 months to a year trying to work it all out and hoping it’ll get better.
Oh but of course this isn’t the only thing that happened this week. Two slight odd happenings.
I was having a flick through Bumble the other night, seeing if I’d missed anything over the last couple of weeks and I saw this guy who I’d matched with on Tinder earlier this year. We will call him the Teacher as he is training to be a teacher. We really connected via messages and I liked his vibe and thought he was good looking. A bit younger than me but nevermind, age is but a number. We were going to go on a date and were just in the process of arranging but when I looked back at my Tinder he was gone, just another fucking ghost. I was disappointed (again, dating is just full of disappointments, you get used to it) and assumed he’d just met someone else.
So here he suddenly was on Bumble. In fact I don’t think this was the first time I’d seen him on Bumble but had ignored because he was the one who unmatched me after all. Well this time I decided to swipe right and see if it was a match. Sure enough it was so I said this:
Q: Hmmm why did you unmatch me on Tinder?
T: I deleted not realising I hadn’t grabbed your number. Have been trying to match back with you ever since
(Now I’m not sure if this is in anyway true but I had seen his face on the app a few times and I liked the reply)
Q: Seriously??
T: Unfortunate yes haha. I was looking forward to our date.
Q: I found it so strange. We were getting on well. About to meet then one day I was deleted lol. I was looking forward to meeting you.
T: Yeah I was gutted haha. Like yeah we seem to get on really well and your gorgeous so am definitely still keen.
(Come on teacher, get your your and you’re right please. I didn’t say this)
Q: Haha yeah I was gutted too. I liked the vibe we had via text which is quite rare for me. Yes
keen, however I’m off to the UK on 23rd for 3 and a half weeks.
We have decided to stay in touch and have our date in the new year. Today he asked for my number so there’s no excuses for the date not to happen anymore. So we shall see.
And one more interesting turn of events was, I was going to write a blog post about a rather crazy date I had many years ago. Not a time I’m proud of but a fairly funny story nonetheless. Well the guy I was going to write about got in contact today. He wants to see me when I’m back in the UK. We have been penpals for a year now and get on great but he’s married so I don’t want to cause trouble but also would love to see him again. I will explain the sordid story of how we met next time…
Queen of the Dates 