The Shady Solicitor

I am writing this at a time of great disillusionment. I never want to be one of those women who think that all men are bad or that dating is pointless but I must admit, although on the whole my dates go ok and very few are awful, they don’t seem to be going anywhere either.

I put on my Twitter the other day, “A man’s rejection is God’s protection” and I keep repeating this mantra to myself but at the same time looking within and questioning whether I am in fact doing anything wrong.

I’m an open person but have decided that men can get to know me a bit before I totally open up. It doesn’t mean I’m going to be closed, however to find out about me, the man will have to ask a few more questions.

I have also decided I need to slow down with a man. I am so grateful for example that I was taking my time with the Smoking Accountant so that I could find out he wasn’t relationship ready before any heartbreak was caused. To slow down means no sex until I am sure that this is a good man I want to invest my time in.

Lastly, I’m going to stop reading all this relationship advice stuff that advises things like leaning back, playing hard to get, man funnels. I believe that if you are thinking about these games it is a means to control the situation. So if you’re having to do this, the man probably isn’t the right one for you anyway. Don’t get me wrong. This doesn’t mean I’m ever going to go back to being needy and chasing a man. I hope I have learnt to value myself enough not to put up with poor behaviour. Sadly, poor behaviour is what I’ve seen since I’ve returned to New Zealand.

So let’s rewind to The Investigating Solicitor. Mentioned in a few previous posts because he rang me before I went away. First red flag was that he was trying to come round to mine to drink wine for a first date. NEVER again am I going round to the man’s or having him round to mine on a first, second or probably third date for that matter. We shall see if I can stick to that one. I just think going into each other’s personal spaces conveys one message… sex!

I liked The Investigating Solicitor straight from the first phone call. Firstly, I love a man who can pick up a phone and not hide behind texts and secondly his vibe and voice were really nice on the phone. I got a really good feeling.

He started getting in touch with me after The Physiotherapist, and the texts just flowed. We text for hours. Now from my previous experience this has always been a good thing and led to a relationship but now I also see it as a bad thing because you can get emotionally invested in a fictional character and this is exactly what happened here.

I got totally love bombed by text and phone call and fell for it hook, line and sinker. The big offering was picking me up from the airport. I wasn’t sure about this. Meeting an attractive man, you’re looking forward to meeting, for the first time after travelling without sleep for 30 hours. Yuck! I’m not vain or anything but I like to feel pretty for a date. When I argued my point, he said he wanted to see real me, natural me. I liked the answer.

The next thing I worried about was getting into a car with a man I’d never met before but I just decided I’d be careful, take a photo of his car number plate for a friend and share my location with some friends so they could see if I made it back safely and call the police if I didn’t.

So for the last two weeks of my holiday, The Investigating Solicitor and I kept in touch by text and had one really lovely phone call. We were really excited to meet each other. It was mutual and I was actually looking forward to getting home to New Zealand and going on all the adventures that we were planning to do together.

I had said to him, “What if it’s different in person? What if the chemistry isn’t there?” But he didn’t seem too worried and said that he liked everything about me so far.

So the day had come. I arrived at London Heathrow and confirmed with him one more time my arrival details. We chatted for a bit and were both really excited. It was exciting. Getting off the plane and having a hot younger man there to meet me (he’s ten years younger) is exciting! It also cheered me up because I was very sad to be saying goodbye to my family who I had just spent a lovely four weeks with.

As soon as the plane landed, I text him. A part of me was still thinking it was all a joke and he wouldn’t even be there at the airport. But… he was! He replied straight away to say that he’d been there for an hour and that he would be waiting in the pick up area in his car. So I quickly applied some make-up and tried to make myself look presentable.

I walked outside to the hustle and bustle, blue skies and warm weather. What a contrast to the bleak grey of winter I had just left in England. I was struggling to find him for a while but after a quick call and directions, I spotted him waving from his car.

He got out and had a beautiful smile and warm presence. I immediately felt at ease and knew that everything would be ok. He was good looking like his photos but very short. I had predicted this would be the case because when I had asked him how tall he was he’d just said taller than you. Well I’m 5ft 3 so most men are taller than me apart from dwarfs. I didn’t care about his height though. He was taller than me so that was fine.

I got into the car and he gave me an ice-cream sundae. I actually didn’t feel like ice-cream because I felt nauseous from all the travel, especially not melted ice-cream. But being British and being polite, I ate it all. It was a lovely gesture and I even joked that Uber wouldn’t have turned up with a hug and a sundae for me.

The first red flag of the encounter was his accent. He sounded foreign and his grammar wasn’t top notch. I couldn’t really put my finger on it but when I asked him he explained that is mother was from Cape Town and that they used to speak Afrikaans at home. This all sounded plausible but a solicitor whose grammar wasn’t top notch. Hmmm, I had noticed it in text, along with a few spelling errors but I put that down to lazy / quick texting. I make a lot of mistakes in texts too.

We got to mine and due to the cats being left there for a month with just a woman coming in to feed them it was a bit messy. There was grass and cat sick on the carpet. Not really the way you want to welcome a first date into your home. He was amazing though. He asked me where my vacuum was and said, “you clean the sick, I’ll vacuum the floor.” All he was showing me was what a sweetie he was.

I had a bottle of wine in the fridge and we sat on the deck listening to music drinking wine. It was really nice, good conversation, very chilled and I was really enjoying his company. If he hadn’t have picked me up I would have just come home to my cats and I reckon I would have felt pretty lonely after all the excitement of constantly being surrounded by friends and family.

At about 9pm he noticed I was getting tired and said, “do you need to get to bed?”

“Yep I’m flagging here” I replied.

“I could come give you a cuddle and then when you’re almost asleep I’ll leave”

I liked this idea. I trusted him and wanted a cuddle.

I got ready for bed and he gave me a lovely cuddle. We then started to kiss and I have to admit it was so disappointing. I didn’t enjoy it one little bit and thought, great there always has to be a problem. I’ve also heard it’s all in the kiss so if you don’t feel it in the kiss then chemistry could be a problem. This has always been the case for me anyway. I decided to let the problem go. The kissing might improve (always the eternal optimist). As we were hugging I could feel him grinding up against me. Oh no, not another man just trying to prod his way into my knickers.

I moved away and said, “no way, I want to get to know you”. He agreed and said he wouldn’t do anything he was just enjoying the cuddle. It wasn’t long after that he decided to go home. Funny that!

After this encounter everything went weird. Baring in mind that this was the man who would message me every morning while I was away when he woke up, and every night before he went to sleep so I was expecting the same pattern of texts. Either a text sent the night before saying he’d enjoyed meeting me or a good morning text asking if I had slept ok? But nope neither. I started panicking that I’d put him off by being too gross when I stepped off the plane. However he’d clearly been attracted to me to be kissing and cuddling me the way he was.

By 2pm I gave up and messaged him. I thanked him for everything and his amazing company. He replied straight away asking how I slept and all seemed good. But that was it no more. This was the man who had said he wanted to hang out with me at the weekend but now suddenly there was no mention of the weekend.

I left it another day but when I went onto Viber to see if he’d messaged and I’d missed it. I saw that he’d deleted all his messages. This was just getting weird. I text him and questioned the deleted messages. He explained it was because it didn’t feel secure and that he was getting adverts. Well I wasn’t, so this just felt off. I also said his vibe had changed. He disagreed and said he was just giving me time to adjust to NZ life again. He told me he was leaving Viber and would be using Whatsapp from now on.

But this wasn’t true. In the following days he continued to message from Viber.

Next his stories were getting confused. When we first ever chatted he told me he had one new baby niece. His first niece. This then changed to a nephew in Dubai and a niece here.

The next thing that happened was he invited me out and said he was free all of the week. Well I had now made plans so I told him I could do something Wednesday evening. He got funny and asked if it was for all my Bumble and Tinder dates. It wasn’t actually and I got really annoyed that I was suddenly having to explain myself to a man I’d met once who quite frankly wasn’t seeming interested anymore anyway.

On the Tuesday he got in touch again and asked if I wanted to come round for a swim the next day. He had told me he lived in an apartment complex with an outdoor pool so I said that sounded lovely. Ten minutes later he cancelled saying he’d been told he’d have to work late. This didn’t sound like a solicitor either. And called at 9pm??

I got suspicious and started shooting questions about his job and asking what his surname was. My last boyfriend was a compulsive liar with a double life so there was no way I was risking that again. After many texts back and forth he eventually gave me his surname and told me who he worked for. Of course there was no trace of him on the internet or that he worked for the company. I just didn’t trust him anymore.

I said, “Oh well, we’ll just have to meet at the weekend.” I wanted to interrogate this man to his face. Watch his body language. But oh no, he wasn’t free. He was taking his niece and nephew shopping. This was getting stranger because I thought he only had a baby niece here. And why would he be taking her shopping? But no, now he had a nephew here and 4 in Dubai. And what??? Shopping all weekend?

I was angry and confused and stopped texting him.

The next time I heard from him was the Thursday.

S: Hey how you going?

Q: Good thank you. How are you? Why the strange profile pic? Auditioning for the next Top Gun?

(His profile picture had now changed to a man in a helicopter or flying something with those big headphones on)

S: I am allright thanks. Just abit stressed out. Nah he is a good friend of mine who died

Q: Why stressed? Why put a dead friend’s picture as your own? It’s got white writing at the bottom too. Sorry but it looks like a Google pic. If I’m wrong I apologise but don’t know what to believe. Checked out your name on Google and couldn’t find any trace… if this is all lies, please leave me alone. Only interested in genuine connections.

S: Yah we will meet and talk, Next week is good with me Queen.

I didn’t reply and I haven’t heard from him since. Weird and shady but I guess it’s good I found out now, not after a year, like with my ex. Maybe I am learning. Slowly.

My next post will be about the millionaire – Mr Ferrari. It’s a goodie but sadly another unhappy ending. Can I just scream? Agghhhhh!