Saturday. All the men in my life seem have overdosed on stupid pills. On my way to the gym, I get a text from Rugby Player cancelling our long-awaited, pre-planned dinner date for tonight because he’s had some dental work done which has gone horribly wrong and he’s in hospital on an IV drip for the foreseeable future.
Fine.
Absolutely fucking perfect.
Just what I needed.
Now I’ve been double, or is it triple, dumped.
I text back berating him for cancelling at the last minute. He must have known in advance he was due to have this work done, so why did he commit himself if there was a likelihood of him letting me down?
My rant receives short shrift. Well it would, wouldn't it!
Thanks for the sympathy. I thought you of all people would have been a little more gracious. Let’s draw a line under this. Good luck with all you do
I carry on to Pilates and push myself to the limit which helps up to a point, but I can’t help seeing Saturday night stretching before me like a wet weekend in Weymouth.
As soon as I leave the class, I go straight to my ‘stables’, and organise films tonight with Jeremy Fisher (one of the frogs), confirm tomorrow’s drink with Desperate Dan and just to add a belt to the braces, arrange dinner with Flash Gordon for Monday night. There. That wasn’t so difficult, was it?
Of course I could have been really grown-up and stayed home re-arranging my knicker drawer, or better still, my head, but what on earth would I want to do that for?
Sunday. I text Dan to double confirm the confirmation (so which one of us is the more desperate, would you say?) and thank God he’s still up for it. As it’s cold, I suggest meeting for a drink first and if we don't horrify each other, this could be followed by 'a bowl of soup by the fire back at mine'. We arrange to meet at 7 p.m. at Warwick Avenue Station. Déjà vu Centrale.
I make a big pot of chicken and vegetable broth then go to tea at the home of my mother’s new neighbours, an utterly charming and very well-connected Canadian couple. It occurs to me they may know someone suitable for me, but I don’t know them well enough to ask. And what’s ‘suitable for me’ anyway? I’m buggered if I know.
At 7 p.m. I drive to the station. It’s raining heavily but a young man soon comes out looking this way and that. I flash my headlights and he runs across the road and jumps into my car. We take our first look at each other and he kisses me hallo.
There’s a certain insanity factor in meeting strangers off the internet like this. If I thought for one moment either of my daughters was hanging around tube stations on dark, rainy nights waiting for God-knows-who, I don’t think I’d ever sleep again…
Dan is clean, freshly-shaven and smells nice (douze points) but is only average-looking and slighter than I expected (nul points). A long evening stretches ahead.
We go to the Elgin and he gets the first round: a pint for himself and a Bloody (awful) Mary for me. The staff in there changes with the frequency of Jordan’s breast size and none of them know how to make a decent cocktail.
We fall into an easy conversation and I find him articulate and interesting to talk to. When our glasses are nearly empty, I offer to buy the next round but he won’t let me. I go to the bar with him anyway and show the dozy cow how to prepare a Bloody (good) Mary, which hits the spot like a home run. After another twenty minutes of idle chitchat, I decide it’s safe to take him home.
The vodka goggles make him seem way more attractive than he was when I first set eyes on him and when I ask what he'd like to do next, he answers:
‘Your call...but that soup back at yours sounded good.’
I play the game of pretending to ponder the matter, just to build up the tension a little.
‘It’ll be fine’ he assures me, running a finger up my forearm. ‘You won’t have a problem with me. I’ll head home whenever you want.’
He’s trucked halfway across London to meet me and it’s only 8.40 p.m., plus he’s fairly weedy so I could probably wrestle him to the ground if needs be. That would be to defend myself, not force him down on one knee, in case you were wondering.
We get back to mine and I light the fire, open a bottle of wine and put Madeleine Peyroux on the stereo. I have no wish for this particular person to Dance me to the end of love or anywhere else for that matter, but it’s easy listening and will fill the gap should the conversation wane.
I put some crisps, nuts, crudités and dips out and heat up the soup. We cosy down on the sofa and carry on chatting. My tongue is looser now and I decide to conduct a little experiment based on my falling-out with Cute Face. I steer the conversation towards age and the sort of women he’s looked at on the toyboywarehouse website.
He says at 52, ‘which you don’t look’ (when I first joined the website, I made a typo on the age question...!) I’m at the upper age limit of what he, at 25 (Christ! Is that all he is?) would be prepared to go out with. He’s looked at women up to 55 but really… that’s 30 years older than him and would definitely be off his radar. I nod sagely and wonder whether or not to do what I’m about to. I decide to go for it.
‘I’m going to confess something to you’ I say. ‘Promise me you won’t freak out…you’ve met me now so you can judge for yourself. This is to show you that you should never define people by a number…’
There’s a long pause while he waits for the hammer to fall.
‘I’m 62, not 52’.
Without missing a beat, he lunges forward and kisses me passionately on the lips swirling his tongue around and around in my mouth as if he’s searching for something. The missing ten years, perhaps?
I respond eagerly by pulling him down alongside me on the sofa and we undulate against each other while continuing to kiss. I feel the unmistakable hard-on through his jeans.
‘Not a problem then?’ I giggle as we come up for breath.
By way of an answer, he tugs my top and bra aside and lunges at my nipple.
Sunday, 25 January 2009
Friday, 9 January 2009
THE DAILY MALE - continues...
I weigh up the flattery factor of receiving this kind of quixotic missive from a man young enough to be my son against him being obviously pissed and looking for - as they say in the navy - any port in a storm...
I’m fairly certain he’s done the geography and my particular port is probably the closest to the bar he’s just fallen out of, not to mention the gutter he’s about to fall into.
It’s 11.45 p.m. I’m in bed, nightie on, make-up off, kilos of cream upon my face with the rotting remnants of The Migraine throbbing gently like a waiting taxi just above my right eye. The last thing I fancy is being used as a doughnut for a young man’s pleasure.
Should I even get a half decent shag out of, which frankly I can do without right now, it will no doubt be followed by a sleepless night alongside The Snore Monster, so I text back NO, it’s too late and he immediately calls and tries to convince me.
He is very drunk and when I refuse him again, he becomes abusive.
'Aw come on, at your age you should be grateful…being as how you said you were 51 on the webshite…now I find out you’re 61, which makes you a bloody liar…you should…'
I kill the call mid-stream and switch my phone off. His invective doesn’t bother me but it doesn’t make me feel great either. I decide in future to only ever tell the truth about my age. If anyone doesn’t like it, they can lump it. Besides, IT'S ONLY A NUMBER.
I sigh deeply at the tragi-comedy that is my social life and wish CC were here to take me away from all this...
Wound up now and irritated by Cute Face’s vitriol, I switch my phone back on and text him:
Life lesson for you: calling late and drunk for a fuck then making insulting remarks is neither big nor clever. U’ll never impress a woman like that. We hate arrogance and a little charm goes a long way. A hard cock is not always enough – plenty of those on offer with nicer men attached.
He throws all his toys out the pram and huffs back:
Plenty of younger women around who don’t try to take the moral high ground after they’ve lied about their age
To which I reply:
My age didn’t seem to matter when you were humping me last weekend? And you still wanted to come over tonight, right?
That shuts him up.
I ponder on this chronological/biological age thing. Looking at it from his point of view, boasting to his friends that he’s bedded a 51-year old makes him sound like a cool accomplished Casanova.
Finding out that she is in fact 61 - no matter if she only looks 51 - has put him off balance, tipping his stud scale into the realm of ladies in lavender. This could not be further from my image or that of most other 60+ year olds I know but the message that Young is Hot and Old is Not is still live and kicking in the public consciousness.
If only the media would stop defining us by a number – Paris Hilton, 25 or Vera Scrubbs, 63 – people could be judged by who they are not how old they are.
Cute Face is cross with me for misrepresenting myself but even more cross with himself for falling into the tender trap. I suspect that his gran may not be much older than me, but he’s still phoned me for a shag tonight so go figure.
I guess when the blood has risen, any orifice will do…
I’m fairly certain he’s done the geography and my particular port is probably the closest to the bar he’s just fallen out of, not to mention the gutter he’s about to fall into.
It’s 11.45 p.m. I’m in bed, nightie on, make-up off, kilos of cream upon my face with the rotting remnants of The Migraine throbbing gently like a waiting taxi just above my right eye. The last thing I fancy is being used as a doughnut for a young man’s pleasure.
Should I even get a half decent shag out of, which frankly I can do without right now, it will no doubt be followed by a sleepless night alongside The Snore Monster, so I text back NO, it’s too late and he immediately calls and tries to convince me.
He is very drunk and when I refuse him again, he becomes abusive.
'Aw come on, at your age you should be grateful…being as how you said you were 51 on the webshite…now I find out you’re 61, which makes you a bloody liar…you should…'
I kill the call mid-stream and switch my phone off. His invective doesn’t bother me but it doesn’t make me feel great either. I decide in future to only ever tell the truth about my age. If anyone doesn’t like it, they can lump it. Besides, IT'S ONLY A NUMBER.
I sigh deeply at the tragi-comedy that is my social life and wish CC were here to take me away from all this...
Wound up now and irritated by Cute Face’s vitriol, I switch my phone back on and text him:
Life lesson for you: calling late and drunk for a fuck then making insulting remarks is neither big nor clever. U’ll never impress a woman like that. We hate arrogance and a little charm goes a long way. A hard cock is not always enough – plenty of those on offer with nicer men attached.
He throws all his toys out the pram and huffs back:
Plenty of younger women around who don’t try to take the moral high ground after they’ve lied about their age
To which I reply:
My age didn’t seem to matter when you were humping me last weekend? And you still wanted to come over tonight, right?
That shuts him up.
I ponder on this chronological/biological age thing. Looking at it from his point of view, boasting to his friends that he’s bedded a 51-year old makes him sound like a cool accomplished Casanova.
Finding out that she is in fact 61 - no matter if she only looks 51 - has put him off balance, tipping his stud scale into the realm of ladies in lavender. This could not be further from my image or that of most other 60+ year olds I know but the message that Young is Hot and Old is Not is still live and kicking in the public consciousness.
If only the media would stop defining us by a number – Paris Hilton, 25 or Vera Scrubbs, 63 – people could be judged by who they are not how old they are.
Cute Face is cross with me for misrepresenting myself but even more cross with himself for falling into the tender trap. I suspect that his gran may not be much older than me, but he’s still phoned me for a shag tonight so go figure.
I guess when the blood has risen, any orifice will do…
Wednesday, 31 December 2008
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
Just a little Hi to all my readers to wish you all a very Happy, Healthy and Successful 2009 and to thank you all for your support since I started this blog.
'The Daily Male' will be published as a sequel to 'The Toyboy Diaries' in the New Year in a slightly different format with plenty of new experiences and I'll keep you all posted as to progress.
Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and once again, every good wish for the New Year and thanks for reading.
Best regards,
Wendy x
'The Daily Male' will be published as a sequel to 'The Toyboy Diaries' in the New Year in a slightly different format with plenty of new experiences and I'll keep you all posted as to progress.
Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and once again, every good wish for the New Year and thanks for reading.
Best regards,
Wendy x
THE DAILY MALE continues...31/12/08
46 (CC's age) is a pretty good number, so I log on to toyboywarehouse and metaphorically trade him in for one 22-year old and one 24-year old who both contacted me last night. One’s fair, one’s dark, and they’re both called Dan and are 'curious to learn more about the older woman' so who better to teach them than Yours Untruly? Either way, I’m Dan-ned if I do and Dan-ned if I don’t.
We email back and forth awhile - I have no idea which is which but no matter – and I wonder if it might be amusing to arrange to meet them both together.
In the afternoon, I prepare for a short business trip which will give me a chance to rethink some of my less-than-brilliant ideas most notably that last one.
Tuesday. Skopje. I’m travelling with a group of fifteen women headed by HRH Princess Katarina of the Balkans on a fact-finding mission to promote investment and tourism in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
On the first night we are invited to dinner at the British Embassy by His Excellency the Ambassador, Sir R.U. Really-Worthit and his wife, Lady Izzy Really-Worthit. We stand around in our ball gowns making small talk and drinking abominable Balkan plonk.
A group of thick-set Macedonians have been drafted in to make up the numbers. They look like rottweillers and talk like mafiosi. I spot a couple of younger men across the room and when dinner is announced, I make a beeline for their table.
After dinner, they take us out clubbing – not something I tend to do much back home. As we are travelling with the royal party, we have a fully-armed police escort, and a fleet of chauffeur-driven bullet proof Mercs. It’s hilarious.
When I get up to go to the loo in one particularly outré disco, one of the female heavies comes with me. She clears a path through the crowd, brushes aside the queue of young girls in the Ladies and fast tracks me into the nearest stall. I wonder if this is what is meant by the Royal Wee?
We all get hammered on raki and the evening leaves me feeling as flippant as a funfair and as light as meringue. A good feeling.
The rest of the trip does what it said on the brochure. We visit museums, mosques and monasteries and I make a couple of new girlfriends among the group. One of them is psychic and while visiting an archaeological dig, she comes over all spiritual. We’re walking across some old burial pits and her antenna picks something up. She turns to me suddenly and says:
‘That man you’re thinking about - you have to let him come to you…’
I stare at her for a moment and nod sagely. In spite of it all, I am, of course, still thinking about CC 23/7.
Wednesday. I check my emails and find I have several new recruits on toyboywarehouse, none of whom float my boat or twang my thang. I’m starting to worry that I’ll return home to the mortal dread of all single people: a Blank Holiday weekend. Rugby Player for all his bravado is terminally unreliable and the Desperate Dans have gone off the radar.
Saturday. After a gruelling three-hour car journey from the Kosovan border to the airport, followed by a stopover in Vienna, I get home to find my internet is down. This is quite inconvenient, the physical equivalent of having both arms cut off at the elbow and both legs at the knee.
I try not to panic or shout at Bashar in Mumbai, Prakesh in Bangalore and Kemal in New Delhi but they talk to me in tongues using words like protocol, logfile and encryption. Follow instructions as I may, I STILL CANNOT PICK UP MY EMAILS.
A migraine circles my head like a hungry scavenger then dive bombs through my skull into the side of my temple. It starts pecking away at the left cortal section of my frontal lobe causing my own hard drive to crash. I leave the unpacking ‘til tomorrow, take two heavy-duty prescription pills and go to bed, praying that the problem will have resolved itself by morning.
Sunday. Still no internet connection in my home office. The migraine has now dug itself in for the duration and every time I move, I see Aurora Borealis and hear Very Strident Music. I struggle on regardless taking my laptop to the nearest café to check my emails. Nothing earth-moving business-wise, but one of the Dans has returned to basecamp and we make a tentative date for next week.
CC has now set up shop in the part of my brain not being assaulted by the Red Army Ensemble. He is peddling his wares which include Bad Vibes, Negative Energies and Terminal Grief Syndrome which all come in my size.
I mentally compose tracts of a letter to him which all sound articulate, convincing and feasible but I don’t note any of it down, so when I actually put fingers to keyboard, I can’t remember a single word. What I do write comes out sounding stupid, needy and pathetic. I take more head drugs and go to bed.
Friday. Rugby Player and I have a date arranged for tomorrow. I text to ask if it's still on and he confirms an 8 o'clock pick up for an 8.30 table. This time it sounds like it might actually happen. I’ll wear the lingerie he sent me, but more for me than for him. I doubt he’ll get to see it.
Cute Face bleeps in. We’ve had no contact in more than a week, ever since he’d forgotten our last arrangement and I’d told him off. Frankly, I never expected to hear from him again.
Wat u up 2? Ive got the raging horn. Shall I cum over? Hehe
We email back and forth awhile - I have no idea which is which but no matter – and I wonder if it might be amusing to arrange to meet them both together.
In the afternoon, I prepare for a short business trip which will give me a chance to rethink some of my less-than-brilliant ideas most notably that last one.
Tuesday. Skopje. I’m travelling with a group of fifteen women headed by HRH Princess Katarina of the Balkans on a fact-finding mission to promote investment and tourism in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
On the first night we are invited to dinner at the British Embassy by His Excellency the Ambassador, Sir R.U. Really-Worthit and his wife, Lady Izzy Really-Worthit. We stand around in our ball gowns making small talk and drinking abominable Balkan plonk.
A group of thick-set Macedonians have been drafted in to make up the numbers. They look like rottweillers and talk like mafiosi. I spot a couple of younger men across the room and when dinner is announced, I make a beeline for their table.
After dinner, they take us out clubbing – not something I tend to do much back home. As we are travelling with the royal party, we have a fully-armed police escort, and a fleet of chauffeur-driven bullet proof Mercs. It’s hilarious.
When I get up to go to the loo in one particularly outré disco, one of the female heavies comes with me. She clears a path through the crowd, brushes aside the queue of young girls in the Ladies and fast tracks me into the nearest stall. I wonder if this is what is meant by the Royal Wee?
We all get hammered on raki and the evening leaves me feeling as flippant as a funfair and as light as meringue. A good feeling.
The rest of the trip does what it said on the brochure. We visit museums, mosques and monasteries and I make a couple of new girlfriends among the group. One of them is psychic and while visiting an archaeological dig, she comes over all spiritual. We’re walking across some old burial pits and her antenna picks something up. She turns to me suddenly and says:
‘That man you’re thinking about - you have to let him come to you…’
I stare at her for a moment and nod sagely. In spite of it all, I am, of course, still thinking about CC 23/7.
Wednesday. I check my emails and find I have several new recruits on toyboywarehouse, none of whom float my boat or twang my thang. I’m starting to worry that I’ll return home to the mortal dread of all single people: a Blank Holiday weekend. Rugby Player for all his bravado is terminally unreliable and the Desperate Dans have gone off the radar.
Saturday. After a gruelling three-hour car journey from the Kosovan border to the airport, followed by a stopover in Vienna, I get home to find my internet is down. This is quite inconvenient, the physical equivalent of having both arms cut off at the elbow and both legs at the knee.
I try not to panic or shout at Bashar in Mumbai, Prakesh in Bangalore and Kemal in New Delhi but they talk to me in tongues using words like protocol, logfile and encryption. Follow instructions as I may, I STILL CANNOT PICK UP MY EMAILS.
A migraine circles my head like a hungry scavenger then dive bombs through my skull into the side of my temple. It starts pecking away at the left cortal section of my frontal lobe causing my own hard drive to crash. I leave the unpacking ‘til tomorrow, take two heavy-duty prescription pills and go to bed, praying that the problem will have resolved itself by morning.
Sunday. Still no internet connection in my home office. The migraine has now dug itself in for the duration and every time I move, I see Aurora Borealis and hear Very Strident Music. I struggle on regardless taking my laptop to the nearest café to check my emails. Nothing earth-moving business-wise, but one of the Dans has returned to basecamp and we make a tentative date for next week.
CC has now set up shop in the part of my brain not being assaulted by the Red Army Ensemble. He is peddling his wares which include Bad Vibes, Negative Energies and Terminal Grief Syndrome which all come in my size.
I mentally compose tracts of a letter to him which all sound articulate, convincing and feasible but I don’t note any of it down, so when I actually put fingers to keyboard, I can’t remember a single word. What I do write comes out sounding stupid, needy and pathetic. I take more head drugs and go to bed.
Friday. Rugby Player and I have a date arranged for tomorrow. I text to ask if it's still on and he confirms an 8 o'clock pick up for an 8.30 table. This time it sounds like it might actually happen. I’ll wear the lingerie he sent me, but more for me than for him. I doubt he’ll get to see it.
Cute Face bleeps in. We’ve had no contact in more than a week, ever since he’d forgotten our last arrangement and I’d told him off. Frankly, I never expected to hear from him again.
Wat u up 2? Ive got the raging horn. Shall I cum over? Hehe
Monday, 15 December 2008
THE DAILY MALE - continues...
I spend the following morning trying to put my thoughts in order. This self-imposed nonsense (though I refuse to recognize it as such) is doin' me 'ead in, yet in some indulgently sado-masochistic way, I'm pushing the boundaries of my sanity to see how far they'll go.
In the light of my other dalliances during and since meeting CC, you (and I) might find it hard to believe that my feelings for this man are genuine and I do seem to have the ability to separate my body from my heart and my emotions from my actions and in that respect, I am fragmented yet complete.
My daughter, Lily, pops by for a bowl of soup and I tell her about the date last night.
‘He doesn’t sound that interested!’ she states. ‘And he’s already told you as much Mum, so why don’t you listen? Find someone less complicated! Now, about that course I want to go on...’
The role reversal going on here is not lost on me and annoyingly, she’s probably right. And it can’t be easy having a mother like me.
Halfway through the afternoon, I remember that Cute Face and I had made a tentative arrangement for tonight but I haven't heard from him and it's already 4 o'clock. Our wild weekend seems as far away as Venus, but when I text him Are we on for this evening? he replies Oh crap. I’ve just arranged something.
Although I’m not that bovvered preferring to stay home and concentrate on my magnificent obsession, I am slightly peeved that he's forgotten our prospective date which compounds the theory: Give a man what he wants and he no longer wants it.
I text back a sniffy: Thanks for forgetting and not letting me know! to which I get Sorry hun. Don’t be grumpy and ruin my illusion that relationships with older women are less stressful! to which I shoot a finger-wagging: You need to be polite no matter the woman's age... to which I get silence. Another one I’ll probably never hear from again.
At 6 p.m. knowing his phone will probably be off, I leave CC an effusive message:
…I just wanted to thank you for a really great evening…it was so lovely seeing you again. About the theatre, please call me back when you have your diary handy so we can make a plan and I can tempt you with whatever you want to see…I really don’t want to leave it so long before we meet again…speak to you very soon, I hope? Lots of love...
I loathe grovellers so why am I grovelling now? Answers on a postcard please.
Saturday. I wake up a little down, the positive aspects of the next date with CC diminishing with every hour that passes sans reply to my sycophantic message. I add up the credits in my social account and they don’t amount to a hill of beans. I have:
1 x lascivious lothario who lives in New York and sends me expensive lingerie he’ll never see me wear.
1 x arrogant short-arse boy toy who FORGOT WE HAD A DATE LAST NIGHT and
1 x navel-gazer who is terrified of his own shadow, never mind having a relationship with me.
Pondering woman’s propensity to find a man she really likes then immediately try to change him, I wonder if that’s why I’m so drawn to CC. Speaking psycho-babbly, in seeking your soul mate you are drawn to the fragilities of others from which you too suspect you might suffer. By attempting to heal them, you are attempting to heal yourself. I don’t understand this either. I told you it was psycho-babble.
I pray to the Goddess of Lost Causes to show me the way to either fuck him or forget him or at least to be able to say: Fuck him! I’m going to forget him.
I discuss the subject with my daughter again and she suggests that since I’ve been unable to express my feelings vocally, I write him a letter. Not a text, nor an email, but a good old-fashioned pen to paper letter. 'It’ll be cathartic' she advises just as I would have had she been in the same situation, 'and you never know what may come of it...' and so I begin:
My dearest CC,
Dear Sweet CC
Dear CC
CC Darling
My darling CC
which takes me twenty minutes and I don’t get a whole lot further.
Sunday. As if Dyno-rod has done a night-cleansing operation on my brain, I wake up in a completely different frame of mind. Barbra and Donna’s song No More Tears (Enough is Enough) beings playing in my head.
It's raining, it's pouring
My love life is boring me to tears,
after all these years...
and I resolve, once and for all, not to waste any more time on this man.
I really must move on. If he’s happy being a tormented, introvert, self-absorbed, sad-assed hypochondriac, then I wish him well of it. There really is nothing more I can do.
With a renewed sense of self and optimistic vigour, I step out from under the cloud of pain and with the help of John Frieda’s Highlight Enhancing Shampoo for Champagne Blondes, I wash that man right out of my hair and decide to treat myself to a feast of unfettered self-gratification by replacing him now - this very day!
In the light of my other dalliances during and since meeting CC, you (and I) might find it hard to believe that my feelings for this man are genuine and I do seem to have the ability to separate my body from my heart and my emotions from my actions and in that respect, I am fragmented yet complete.
My daughter, Lily, pops by for a bowl of soup and I tell her about the date last night.
‘He doesn’t sound that interested!’ she states. ‘And he’s already told you as much Mum, so why don’t you listen? Find someone less complicated! Now, about that course I want to go on...’
The role reversal going on here is not lost on me and annoyingly, she’s probably right. And it can’t be easy having a mother like me.
Halfway through the afternoon, I remember that Cute Face and I had made a tentative arrangement for tonight but I haven't heard from him and it's already 4 o'clock. Our wild weekend seems as far away as Venus, but when I text him Are we on for this evening? he replies Oh crap. I’ve just arranged something.
Although I’m not that bovvered preferring to stay home and concentrate on my magnificent obsession, I am slightly peeved that he's forgotten our prospective date which compounds the theory: Give a man what he wants and he no longer wants it.
I text back a sniffy: Thanks for forgetting and not letting me know! to which I get Sorry hun. Don’t be grumpy and ruin my illusion that relationships with older women are less stressful! to which I shoot a finger-wagging: You need to be polite no matter the woman's age... to which I get silence. Another one I’ll probably never hear from again.
At 6 p.m. knowing his phone will probably be off, I leave CC an effusive message:
…I just wanted to thank you for a really great evening…it was so lovely seeing you again. About the theatre, please call me back when you have your diary handy so we can make a plan and I can tempt you with whatever you want to see…I really don’t want to leave it so long before we meet again…speak to you very soon, I hope? Lots of love...
I loathe grovellers so why am I grovelling now? Answers on a postcard please.
Saturday. I wake up a little down, the positive aspects of the next date with CC diminishing with every hour that passes sans reply to my sycophantic message. I add up the credits in my social account and they don’t amount to a hill of beans. I have:
1 x lascivious lothario who lives in New York and sends me expensive lingerie he’ll never see me wear.
1 x arrogant short-arse boy toy who FORGOT WE HAD A DATE LAST NIGHT and
1 x navel-gazer who is terrified of his own shadow, never mind having a relationship with me.
Pondering woman’s propensity to find a man she really likes then immediately try to change him, I wonder if that’s why I’m so drawn to CC. Speaking psycho-babbly, in seeking your soul mate you are drawn to the fragilities of others from which you too suspect you might suffer. By attempting to heal them, you are attempting to heal yourself. I don’t understand this either. I told you it was psycho-babble.
I pray to the Goddess of Lost Causes to show me the way to either fuck him or forget him or at least to be able to say: Fuck him! I’m going to forget him.
I discuss the subject with my daughter again and she suggests that since I’ve been unable to express my feelings vocally, I write him a letter. Not a text, nor an email, but a good old-fashioned pen to paper letter. 'It’ll be cathartic' she advises just as I would have had she been in the same situation, 'and you never know what may come of it...' and so I begin:
My dearest CC,
Dear Sweet CC
Dear CC
CC Darling
My darling CC
which takes me twenty minutes and I don’t get a whole lot further.
Sunday. As if Dyno-rod has done a night-cleansing operation on my brain, I wake up in a completely different frame of mind. Barbra and Donna’s song No More Tears (Enough is Enough) beings playing in my head.
It's raining, it's pouring
My love life is boring me to tears,
after all these years...
and I resolve, once and for all, not to waste any more time on this man.
I really must move on. If he’s happy being a tormented, introvert, self-absorbed, sad-assed hypochondriac, then I wish him well of it. There really is nothing more I can do.
With a renewed sense of self and optimistic vigour, I step out from under the cloud of pain and with the help of John Frieda’s Highlight Enhancing Shampoo for Champagne Blondes, I wash that man right out of my hair and decide to treat myself to a feast of unfettered self-gratification by replacing him now - this very day!
Saturday, 6 December 2008
THE DAILY MALE - continues...
During the evening, he’s complimented me on everything: my jacket, the colour of my top, my pearls, my earrings, my skirt, my nail varnish – every detail of what I’m wearing. To have a man seem so interested, yet still have no idea where I stand with him, is discombobulating.
Despite my recent shenanigans with AB, CD and EF, these were just pastimes to kill the hours, days and nights while waiting for CC to come back into my life. Not exactly honest behaviour, I know, but what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over.
Now that I’m with him however, my blousy confidence has blown out the window and I feel like I’m drowning, the life raft having been carelessly omitted from the manifest.
As we sit in the back of the taxi, me trying somehow to climb inside him, he begins to run his hand up and down my arm. His touch is like a promise and my cheating heart soars as I take this tactile contact as proof of his feelings for me. If it's not love, it's something I manage to interpret as such.
I sigh deeply and rest my head lightly on his shoulder. He stops his movements immediately and stiffens in all the wrong places.
‘There’s so much I want to say to you…’ I whisper encouragingly, and I actually feel a lump rise in my throat.
He doesn’t ask what this ‘so much’ is and the moment somehow passes. The taxi is nearing my home and having waited so long to be with him, I know these precious few hours are rushing towards their unnatural conclusion. I need more time with him. I need to express how I feel.
The taxi pulls up outside my block, and I raise my head and look questioningly at him.
'Now what?' say my worried eyes. His impassive look reveals nothing.
‘Would you like to…?’ I begin tentatively as if I'm inviting a rabbit to stand in my headlights.
‘No. Thank you. I must get home.’ The rabbit retreats to its warren.
My heart crashes through the floor but I decide not to push it. Not tonight. It’s gone better than I could have hoped. I think.
He walks me to the entrance of my block and kisses me goodnight. The lightest brush of his lips on mine is tantalizing, but for now, that will have to do. I thank him for a lovely evening and we say goodbye.
As I climb my stairs I write the text: Everything I wanted to say could have been summed up in just three words but I do not send it. I know that less is more and I want so much more.
I go to sleep peacefully, convinced he and I are far from over. In fact, I think we’re just beginning.
Wednesday. I wake up with a banging headache as expected and replay the evening like a cracked record changing the end with every turn. I’m certainly no worse off than I was yesterday, in fact, I may be a lot better. He didn’t have a dig at my lifestyle like the last time I saw him, and he was pleasant and personable company.
I feel very restless though. I want to call him, but I’m afraid of not catching him in the right mood, of him being cold to me which will compound my insecurity. I’ll do it later and see if I can pin him down for that theatre date.
Despite my recent shenanigans with AB, CD and EF, these were just pastimes to kill the hours, days and nights while waiting for CC to come back into my life. Not exactly honest behaviour, I know, but what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over.
Now that I’m with him however, my blousy confidence has blown out the window and I feel like I’m drowning, the life raft having been carelessly omitted from the manifest.
As we sit in the back of the taxi, me trying somehow to climb inside him, he begins to run his hand up and down my arm. His touch is like a promise and my cheating heart soars as I take this tactile contact as proof of his feelings for me. If it's not love, it's something I manage to interpret as such.
I sigh deeply and rest my head lightly on his shoulder. He stops his movements immediately and stiffens in all the wrong places.
‘There’s so much I want to say to you…’ I whisper encouragingly, and I actually feel a lump rise in my throat.
He doesn’t ask what this ‘so much’ is and the moment somehow passes. The taxi is nearing my home and having waited so long to be with him, I know these precious few hours are rushing towards their unnatural conclusion. I need more time with him. I need to express how I feel.
The taxi pulls up outside my block, and I raise my head and look questioningly at him.
'Now what?' say my worried eyes. His impassive look reveals nothing.
‘Would you like to…?’ I begin tentatively as if I'm inviting a rabbit to stand in my headlights.
‘No. Thank you. I must get home.’ The rabbit retreats to its warren.
My heart crashes through the floor but I decide not to push it. Not tonight. It’s gone better than I could have hoped. I think.
He walks me to the entrance of my block and kisses me goodnight. The lightest brush of his lips on mine is tantalizing, but for now, that will have to do. I thank him for a lovely evening and we say goodbye.
As I climb my stairs I write the text: Everything I wanted to say could have been summed up in just three words but I do not send it. I know that less is more and I want so much more.
I go to sleep peacefully, convinced he and I are far from over. In fact, I think we’re just beginning.
Wednesday. I wake up with a banging headache as expected and replay the evening like a cracked record changing the end with every turn. I’m certainly no worse off than I was yesterday, in fact, I may be a lot better. He didn’t have a dig at my lifestyle like the last time I saw him, and he was pleasant and personable company.
I feel very restless though. I want to call him, but I’m afraid of not catching him in the right mood, of him being cold to me which will compound my insecurity. I’ll do it later and see if I can pin him down for that theatre date.
Saturday, 29 November 2008
THE DAILY MALE - continues...
Another few minutes pass, during which time I develop a tic in my right eye. It flickers uncontrollably like Herbert Lom’s in The Pink Panther every time Clouseau hove into view.
Now I’m slightly tipsy and my eye’s all a’quiver. Maybe if I break both ankles as I’m going down the stairs, I can claim disability allowance and retire gracefully to Eastbourne, then I won’t have to worry about dating inappropriate men any more.
Unable to contain myself any longer, I pick up my handbag and keys, lock my front door and walk very carefully down the three flights of stairs. I twitch for another few minutes in the hallway of my block and finally, a black cab pulls up.
I leave my building smiling and walk confidently towards him, like a clapperboard's just been clapped and the director’s barked: ‘Action!!’
He’s in the back of the taxi on his mobile phone. He grasps my hand as I climb in and pulls a face by way of apology. I mouthe ‘Don’t worry…’ and squeeze his hand so tightly I nearly fracture his fingers.
I look at him and I look at him again. God. He is handsome. More so than I remember. I haven’t seen him since that awful night he fell apart in my little tub chair, and he’s actually improved.
The illusion I have of him in my mind did not, strangely, include the way he looks. It was more about the complexity of his character and the way he made me feel on holiday...certainly not since as, if you weigh it up, a major brain fuck is not perhaps that seductive.
He’s wearing a crisp white shirt, a grey suit and no tie. I’ve only ever seen him in ski wear or jeans. Or naked.
He finishes his call and turns to me and we give each other a big hug and a kiss on each cheek.
‘You look absolutely gorgeous…’ he says softly, looking me up and down with undisguised admiration.
Then he releases my hand abruptly, as if by holding on to it he might be lured back into some dark place he neither understands nor wishes to go.
‘It’s all new,’ I reply, so glad that he’s noticed. ‘Especially for tonight.’
Accommodate him, please him, make-him-feel-at-ease-him.
He apologizes again for having come straight from work and for being late, then draws my attention to the fact that his shoes could have been cleaner.
‘But you’ve been working,’ I say, helping to excuse him. I wouldn’t have cared if he’d been wearing one gold flip flop and one dog-eared trainer.
‘I’d wanted to go home and change, but I ran out of time’ he explains. ‘In fact, I nearly had to cancel again, but I knew that wouldn’t have gone down too well…’
Too right it wouldn’t.
‘Why what happened?’ I ask, deeply interested in what his idea of a good reason to cancel would have been.
‘There was a crisis at a property I’m renovating, but I got someone else to deal with it. If I’d had to go there myself, I suppose I could have picked you up first and taken you with...?’
‘I wouldn’t have minded that,’ I answer. ‘I would’ve put jeans on and we could’ve got a takeaway pizza…as long as we’d been together…that’s all I want…’
I drop my voice to little more than a whisper.
‘And I’ve not been well again since we last met…’ he informs me, with a drop of whine in his voice.
‘You look very well now,’ I flatter. ‘How do you feel?’
The correct answer would have been ‘All the better for seeing you’ but I don’t get that.
Instead he’s looking straight ahead, seemingly lost in thought. His hands are clasped together in his lap. I want to take one in mine and lift it to my lips but I don’t want to freak him out.
We make small talk for the rest of the journey and arrive at the restaurant where he orders two glasses of champagne. We clink a toast to seeing each other again and relax into conversation, like two normal people out on a date.
We share a bottle of wine with the meal. I know I’ll have a headache in the morning but I don’t care. I don’t need my head for anything other than thinking about him and that’s been an ache for the past five weeks anyway.
When I laugh at something he says, I realize I haven’t laughed since the last time we laughed together, and I tell him this because it’s true.
I take the conversation back to the good times we shared, trying to remind him how wonderful we were together in those carefree, heady, fun-filled days.
‘And oh those lazy afternoons... when it was snowing too hard to do anything but...' I sigh but he will not meet my eyes.
We talk about work and what’s on at the theatre, and there’s actually a play he wants to see. I immediately offer to buy the tickets and suggest we go together.
He hesitates, and I know I’m going too fast. I've definitely assumed the role of predator here, over keen, over-aged and over here. When an over eager suitor does this to me, I find it really annoying.
As we near the end of the meal, I notice a button hanging loose from the cuff of his jacket, and another one actually missing.
‘You need someone to look after you…’ I offer sweetly. ‘If you want to come home with me later, I’ll sew them back on for you.’
He looks at me as if I’ve just told him I’ve laid animal traps all up my stairs and there’s little chance of him avoiding them.
He pulls at his sleeve trying to turn it round so I won’t see it.
‘You’ll tell all your friends I arrived late looking like a tramp,’ he gripes, clearly embarrassed that I’ve noticed another flaw in his presentation,
‘Don’t be silly’ I cajole. ‘I’ll tell them that you arrived on a white charger, all tall and gorgeous, and that we had a wonderful time. That’s right, isn’t it?’
He manages to nod and shake his head all at the same time, an action Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men perfected it in the fifties.
Now it’s me who needs reassuring, me who feels insecure. I’m trying to love the pants off him and he’s shrinking down in his seat like a puppet whose master’s let go of the strings.
We share a chocolate mousse, then he pays the bill and we walk down Charing Cross Road to find a cab. He doesn’t hold my hand nor take my arm but strides on ahead looking left and right. At one point, a group of drunken youths block my path, and I have to step this way and that to get past them.
I call out to him: ‘Look after me, please. I’m about to be hi-jacked here!’ and he slows down and I take his arm.
This doesn’t feel natural. He’s holding it stiffly away from his body like someone’s left a brolly stuck up his sleeve. I let go and we carry on walking separately.
We eventually find a cab and climb in and at last, he takes my hand and I entwine my legs through his. He looks down at my feet.
‘Oh what lovely shoes!’ he remarks and I snuggle up closer to him.
Now I’m slightly tipsy and my eye’s all a’quiver. Maybe if I break both ankles as I’m going down the stairs, I can claim disability allowance and retire gracefully to Eastbourne, then I won’t have to worry about dating inappropriate men any more.
Unable to contain myself any longer, I pick up my handbag and keys, lock my front door and walk very carefully down the three flights of stairs. I twitch for another few minutes in the hallway of my block and finally, a black cab pulls up.
I leave my building smiling and walk confidently towards him, like a clapperboard's just been clapped and the director’s barked: ‘Action!!’
He’s in the back of the taxi on his mobile phone. He grasps my hand as I climb in and pulls a face by way of apology. I mouthe ‘Don’t worry…’ and squeeze his hand so tightly I nearly fracture his fingers.
I look at him and I look at him again. God. He is handsome. More so than I remember. I haven’t seen him since that awful night he fell apart in my little tub chair, and he’s actually improved.
The illusion I have of him in my mind did not, strangely, include the way he looks. It was more about the complexity of his character and the way he made me feel on holiday...certainly not since as, if you weigh it up, a major brain fuck is not perhaps that seductive.
He’s wearing a crisp white shirt, a grey suit and no tie. I’ve only ever seen him in ski wear or jeans. Or naked.
He finishes his call and turns to me and we give each other a big hug and a kiss on each cheek.
‘You look absolutely gorgeous…’ he says softly, looking me up and down with undisguised admiration.
Then he releases my hand abruptly, as if by holding on to it he might be lured back into some dark place he neither understands nor wishes to go.
‘It’s all new,’ I reply, so glad that he’s noticed. ‘Especially for tonight.’
Accommodate him, please him, make-him-feel-at-ease-him.
He apologizes again for having come straight from work and for being late, then draws my attention to the fact that his shoes could have been cleaner.
‘But you’ve been working,’ I say, helping to excuse him. I wouldn’t have cared if he’d been wearing one gold flip flop and one dog-eared trainer.
‘I’d wanted to go home and change, but I ran out of time’ he explains. ‘In fact, I nearly had to cancel again, but I knew that wouldn’t have gone down too well…’
Too right it wouldn’t.
‘Why what happened?’ I ask, deeply interested in what his idea of a good reason to cancel would have been.
‘There was a crisis at a property I’m renovating, but I got someone else to deal with it. If I’d had to go there myself, I suppose I could have picked you up first and taken you with...?’
‘I wouldn’t have minded that,’ I answer. ‘I would’ve put jeans on and we could’ve got a takeaway pizza…as long as we’d been together…that’s all I want…’
I drop my voice to little more than a whisper.
‘And I’ve not been well again since we last met…’ he informs me, with a drop of whine in his voice.
‘You look very well now,’ I flatter. ‘How do you feel?’
The correct answer would have been ‘All the better for seeing you’ but I don’t get that.
Instead he’s looking straight ahead, seemingly lost in thought. His hands are clasped together in his lap. I want to take one in mine and lift it to my lips but I don’t want to freak him out.
We make small talk for the rest of the journey and arrive at the restaurant where he orders two glasses of champagne. We clink a toast to seeing each other again and relax into conversation, like two normal people out on a date.
We share a bottle of wine with the meal. I know I’ll have a headache in the morning but I don’t care. I don’t need my head for anything other than thinking about him and that’s been an ache for the past five weeks anyway.
When I laugh at something he says, I realize I haven’t laughed since the last time we laughed together, and I tell him this because it’s true.
I take the conversation back to the good times we shared, trying to remind him how wonderful we were together in those carefree, heady, fun-filled days.
‘And oh those lazy afternoons... when it was snowing too hard to do anything but...' I sigh but he will not meet my eyes.
We talk about work and what’s on at the theatre, and there’s actually a play he wants to see. I immediately offer to buy the tickets and suggest we go together.
He hesitates, and I know I’m going too fast. I've definitely assumed the role of predator here, over keen, over-aged and over here. When an over eager suitor does this to me, I find it really annoying.
As we near the end of the meal, I notice a button hanging loose from the cuff of his jacket, and another one actually missing.
‘You need someone to look after you…’ I offer sweetly. ‘If you want to come home with me later, I’ll sew them back on for you.’
He looks at me as if I’ve just told him I’ve laid animal traps all up my stairs and there’s little chance of him avoiding them.
He pulls at his sleeve trying to turn it round so I won’t see it.
‘You’ll tell all your friends I arrived late looking like a tramp,’ he gripes, clearly embarrassed that I’ve noticed another flaw in his presentation,
‘Don’t be silly’ I cajole. ‘I’ll tell them that you arrived on a white charger, all tall and gorgeous, and that we had a wonderful time. That’s right, isn’t it?’
He manages to nod and shake his head all at the same time, an action Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men perfected it in the fifties.
Now it’s me who needs reassuring, me who feels insecure. I’m trying to love the pants off him and he’s shrinking down in his seat like a puppet whose master’s let go of the strings.
We share a chocolate mousse, then he pays the bill and we walk down Charing Cross Road to find a cab. He doesn’t hold my hand nor take my arm but strides on ahead looking left and right. At one point, a group of drunken youths block my path, and I have to step this way and that to get past them.
I call out to him: ‘Look after me, please. I’m about to be hi-jacked here!’ and he slows down and I take his arm.
This doesn’t feel natural. He’s holding it stiffly away from his body like someone’s left a brolly stuck up his sleeve. I let go and we carry on walking separately.
We eventually find a cab and climb in and at last, he takes my hand and I entwine my legs through his. He looks down at my feet.
‘Oh what lovely shoes!’ he remarks and I snuggle up closer to him.
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