Reason 14 – they can be really charming!

Reason 14 was a friend of a friend and was well and truly a ladies man. He was suave, sophisticated and extremely good-looking and every time I saw him he had a new piece on his arm, usually of the blonde, voluptuous, plastic variety, but hey, who was jealous? It was only when I made some enquiries to our mutual friend about Reason 14 that I was warned to stay well clear. I was given a few examples of his extremely bad behaviour:

Apparently, after a new secretary has started at the law firm at which Reason 14 worked, he made a bet with a colleague that he would get her into bed within the month. The colleague shook on this, saying that he would attempt this also, and so, the poor girl was pursued. Both men, in their early thirties, began with casual chats and knowing smiles, followed by invitations to lunches or coffees. Evidently, the girl seemed to be quite taken with both men and they both mutually decided to up the ante, by asking her out for drinks with both of them one Friday night. The girl agreed as long as she could bring a friend along. Both men figured that this made a fair, even number and secretly, both realised that perhaps the loser of the bet might have his loss lessened if the friend was anywhere near as attractive as this young secretary.

The Friday night arrived and Reason 14, his friend and the secretary all made their way to a nearby bar where they were meeting the other girl, and when they arrived, both men were pleasantly surprised. The newcomer to the group was not only attractive, but she was blonde, voluptuous and well… plastic. It only took one beer for Reason 14 to take his friend aside and instruct him to “go for gold” with the secretary, as he was more than happy to take second prize if it meant that second prize was the airhead with the great breasts. The deal was done.

As the evening progressed, it appears that Reason 14 stopped drinking, citing that he had to drive home, but proceeded to assist the two girls in getting rather inebriated on champagne. No surprises that by the end of the night, the friend was eating out of his hand, giggling and flirting as she did so. Reason 14 made his move and offered her a lift home. It was accepted and they were on their way. [Incidentally, for the curious, the secretary and the colleague went home separately, so neither party won the bet.]

On the way home, Reason 14 stopped at a park and turned off his car’s engine. One thing led to another, and he and the girl ended up having sex in the front seat of the car. Romance was not Reason 14’s strong point. She was drunk and apparently “up for it” and he was sober and determined to get some – it seemed the perfect arrangement. After the act though, the girl decided that she needed to get herself cleaned up, so asked for a few minutes outside of the car to be able to straighten herself out. Reason 14 said “Sure”, rested back in his car seat, and she got out of the car. Seconds after the car door closed behind her however, Reason 14 had the engine started and drove away, not before tossing her hand-bag out of the passenger side window and leaving the poor girl stranded at some ungodly hour of the night.

 

What a charmer!

 

 

Reason 13 – they get in first

My friend had convinced me to get into that good old medium of modern day meeting – a dating website. It took her about a year to convince me it was worth trying and after yet another night out on the turps with nothing to show for it but a raging hangover, I decided I would give it a go. I got my profile organised and wrote (what I thought was) some humourous prose around my interests, hopes, aspirations and favourite pastimes (kind of along the lines of, “what’s your favourite colour? blue”, etc, etc).

I let the messages come in and to be honest, the standard of incomings wasn’t so high. Not that I am particularly fussy, but the trannies, the men with an inkling for bondage, S&M, and auto-erotic stimulation, and the men who would scare small children got a wee bit tiresome. Nonetheless, I persisted.

And finally, like a ray of sunshine through the stormy clouds, Mr 13 appeared. He was gorgeous. And witty. And my age. And he had a job. And he seemed so.. so normal. Mr 13 and I emailed back and forth a few times. I would actually look forward to getting home to check my emails (dating sites not being allowed at my conservative financial company!) to find something from him.

Finally it came time to meet and we arranged to catch up over lunch one day. I was so excited. When 13 walked towards me, I saw that he carried a little more weight than his photos. But that was ok. He was still a very nice looking man. We greeted a little awkwardly and he sat down. And the tooth-pulling, paint-drying began. The hour dragged as if it were ten hours and the conversation was more stunted than a smoking mother’s foetus. I couldn’t wait to get away. Luckily, being a working day, I had the excuse of a VERY important meeting I needed to rush back for.

I made my polite goodbyes, thanked Mr 13 for taking the time to meet me, and left. The door of the cafe had not even closed behind me when my phone told me I had a SMS. I took it out and read: ” I don’t want to pursue anything further. Don’t call me again.”

What? WHAT?!?!?!? How dare he?! He of THE most boring personality I have EVER had the misfortune to come across doesn’t want to see fabulous, amazing ME? Grrrr!!

Reason 12 – sometimes they just don’t get it

So I was dating a boy. A lovely, lovely boy. Who was witty, funny, charming, rich, yadda, yadda, yadda. We went out for a good few months and I did really like him. But there was something missing. Something wasn’t there. And, I think it was the extra eight cenitmetres he could have had at the end of his penis. Now, I know size doesn’t matter, and it’s not the size of the tide, it’s the motion of the ocean, and all of that crap that men with small penises and the women who date them sprout often to people who really, really don’t want to know. But for me, a bit of size is good. As is a bit of longevity in the bedroom. Like longer than a few minutes please. Please!!

For a few months, I enjoyed his company and put up with the disaster in the bedroom. It was after talking to a friend who told me that she was surprised I would stay with someone that I wasn’t “totally into”, and she was right, it’s not normally my style. I am normally of the mindset of “why waste time with someone when “the one” could be waiting around the corner”. It had gotten to the point where I almost dreaded the physical intimacy with Reason 12 – because it was just that bad.

So, I had “the chat” and explained that I really, really liked Reason 12 and thought he was a great guy but that I really wasn’t after a relationship. It was my own unique, polite way of saying “it’s not happening for me in the bedroom (like ever!) and your personality isn’t enough to carry this relationship past that.”

Reason 12, being the gentleman that he was, told me he knew I wasn’t after a relationship and thought I might need to get some counselling/therapy or something for my “issues in the bedroom”. He advised me that ”when we started going out, you were fine, but after a while, you just became so frigid. You should really get some help with that.”

Right.. Thanks Reason 12. I took it on the chin and didn’t have the heart to tell him that his problems were probably beyond help, unless he wanted a penis extension and some Viagra.

Reason 11 – they don’t always like to give as they receive

I was living in Tokyo, working for an IT company, and like most gaijins who don’t speak Japanese, didn’t meet very many Japanese men. Being six foot one and an African-American didn’t really help my plight with the less height-enhanced members of the Japanese male community. I would often find myself longing for even one sideways glance on the subway, instead of the furtive shuffling followed by the intense study of the stitching in their shoes, which is what I invariably received. On top of this, was the added slap to my ego that a large percentage of the foreign men living in Japan were chasing the petite, coy Japanese women – an understandable pastime but not necessarily a forgivable one.

One day, I was walking through Roppongi, when I met an Australian man – Reason 11, John. He seemed nice enough (although in hindsight perhaps I was so desperate to have any male attention at all – that despite his abruptness and often quite distant behaviour) we became lovers. We didn’t spend much time together, maybe only one or at the most two night a week, but we continued sleeping together for quite a while – meeting up in bars, having a few drinks and then returning to my apartment for sex. John would never stay the night, and I was never too concerned, assuming it was because of the distance he had to cover to make it home, rather than anything else untoward. We were fulfilling each other’s base needs.

At first, everything was okay, and I was under no delusions that our relationship was anything other than one based on lust and sex – really only to satisfy a physical desire we both had, probably because neither of us were getting any action elsewhere. The problem from my end, however, was that the sex just wasn’t that good. A few minutes of John’s frantic gasping as though he were in pain, a prod and a poke here and there and it was virtually all over. He was very fond of receiving oral sex but wasn’t exactly forthcoming in returning any favours I indulged him with.

One day, John and I were lying in bed, sharing a kiss before we were about to make love. We were both naked, and Reason 11 was lying on top of me, between my legs, kissing my neck. I thought it was an apt time to ask if he might perhaps give me a bit of oral pleasure and so whispered my request as seductively as I could.

I don’t know if I would have got a worse reaction if I had asked Reason John to sacrifice his first-born child. He stopped kissing me, got out of bed and pulled on his clothes while looking at me with a look of absolute loathing and disgust. I was so shocked (appalled?) by his actions that the only thing I could do was pull the bed-sheet up to my chin and stare amazedly at him, as he hurriedly searched for strewn shoes and socks. As he rushed to slam the door shut behind him, the last thing he called back to me over his shoulder was, “You are disgusting. What the hell do you think this is?”

When I recovered from the shock, all I could do was laugh.

(*It was only later that I discovered that for the duration of our affair, John had been married. I guess I wasn’t too shocked by this until I found out the reason for his divorce. John’s wife had discovered the equivalent of thousands and thousands of dollars missing from their bank accounts. It turned out that our boy had a severe addiction to prostitutes. Funnily enough, I didn’t date any other men for the rest of my stint in Japan.)

Reason 10 – because if you can’t beat them..

I was travelling in Thailand and was at one of the temples in Bangkok where I spied a gorgeous man. He had dark hair, coffee coloured skin and the most beautiful face I had ever seen. I watched as he pulled off a T-shirt and put on another one, taking note of his smooth, toned chest and abs. He was heavenly. And he walked away into the throngs before I could follow/approach/anything.

Later that night, in a bar on the dubious Koh San Road, I couldn’t believe my luck when I saw “the gorgeous one” sitting at a table on his own. He was reading a book, and I noticed that it wasn’t in English. Fuelled with the feeling of impunity one gets from being away from home (alone) and a few Thai whiskeys, I approached his table. “Hi,” I said, “I saw you at the temple today. Are you on your own? I’m with some friends back there if you would like to join us?”

The gorgeous one smiled a very polite smile and said, in perfect English, “Thanks. I’ve actually just ordered some food. But maybe after I’ve eaten.”

I wasn’t too impunity-ised to hear a plane crashing and burning at that exact moment. I smiled politely and walked away.

Imagine my surprise about a half an hour later, when the gorgeous one approached my table. “Hi,” he said, “Is it ok if I sit down?”

I almost fell off my chair.

The gorgeous one, reason 10, and I chatted for hours. He was hilarious – as well as charming, lovely, politically correct, Dutch and wonderful. It took me a few more drinks to work up the Dutch courage (heh, heh) to ask this gorgeous man about anyone special in his life. That was when he told me about how he and his partner of 4 years, Mike, had just bought a house together. Mike? A man? Gay? What? How had I missed the signs for that one? My gaydar was normally finely honed but in this instance had totally let me down.

That didn’t stop reason 10 and I continuing to travel throughout Thailand together and actually becoming very good friends (to this day). And he is still, 6 years later, living with Mike.

Reason 9 – because sometimes you only want them for one night, and they can’t even give you that

After being the recipient of surely the most, heartless, unceremonious dumping technique ever invented by cruel mankind (text-tastic Reason 8), I set off on a mission. To get as hideously drunk as possible, and to do so in as short a time as possible. My good friend chardonnay assisted in this task as well as a few trustworthy girlfriends who assured me not to worry about my ex, Steve. After all, they reasoned, Steve was a good-for-nothing-nobody who would be regretting his decision in the very near future (NB: He didn’t, a friend told me he shacked up with the next woman he met and as far as I know, they are still together, but cè la vie). Besides, they reminded me, I was an empowered independent woman who could do a whole lot better. 

A whole lot better turned out to be just over on the other side of the bar, and so, aided wholly with Dutch courage (in this case in the form of nastily cheap house white wine) I grinned coyly, until he approached to introduce himself. His names was Steve, and while one may assume that I would have laughed ironically and turned on my wobbly heel at the very point his name slipped past his lips, I didn’t. No, actually I spoke to him for about a good ew hours, before he suggested we “go back to mine for coffee”. And he meant mine, not his. And I know he didn’t really mean coffee. But, having just painfully finished (or had finished) an eighteen month relationship, and having never experienced a “one-night stand” before at the age of 34, AND having three girl friends nod and wink surreptitiously as I gave them a querulous look, I agreed. And we left. Back to mine.

And so it goes. Steve and I were kissing at the door, my blood and the wine that accompanied it was racing and sure enough, surprise, surprise, we ended up in bed, making mad, passionate, drunken love. He was an energetic lover, and the fifteen or so minutes he lasted were sweaty, sexy and somewhat satisfying. Afterwards, as I lay back contemplating whether this was the best I was going to get from here on in, Reason 9 leaned over and whispered gently into my ear, “just so you know, I can’t stay tonight”.

I sat up on one elbow, looked into his eyes and asked, “why not?”

“I have to get home,” he whispered, “my wife needs the car to take the kids to Sunday school in the morning.”            

Nonetheless, Reason 9, has put me off of men of the name Steve for eternity, although the sight of him naked, with all of his clothes in his arms or on the floor of the elevator around him as he begged to be let back in to the house to at least get dressed was memorable… and rather sobering.

Reason 8 – they rely on SMS-ing too much

I had been in a relationship with Reason 8, Steve, for about twelve months and we had gotten along famously right from the very beginning. As soon as I had met him I had realised that he had the potential to be the perfect guy. He could cook. He could clean. He was witty and charming and active and damn it, he was great in bed. I had always been an extremely independent woman and both friends and family were amazed that I seemed to be committed to this one guy – something they had long lost hope of seeing, particularly as I was nearing my mid-thirties and had never been in a relationship longer than a few months before getting itchy feet and wandering eyes.

A year or so into our relationship, I decided it would be a natural progression for Steve and I to move in together (in hindsight, possibly my first major error). It wasn’t something that I was overly concerned about – I wasn’t intent on invading anyone’s personal space, or inviting myself into facets of Steve’s life in which I wasn’t welcome… No, no. It just made perfect sense to my practical self that since we spent all of our time together anyway, in either his house or mine, we may well pool our resources, cut our expenditure and streamline our operations. We could consider the whole episode a business venture between two like-minded individuals who enjoyed each other’s company. Yes. A business venture.

After a few weeks of discussion, I realised that Steve wasn’t in any way ready to be moved in with. I suggested that we postpone (indefinitely) our co-habitation, and all discussion about it, and Steve hastily and eagerly agreed. The dialogue was shelved and our relationship continued along the happy trail it had been coursing. We returned to spending two or three nights a week at each other’s houses and being inseparable between Friday nights and Sunday evenings. I had my much-loved solitude a few nights during the week and the taboo subject of living together was never discussed.

A further six months later, around the 18 month mark in our relationship, Steve decided to broach the topic of living together again. He explained that he hadn’t been ready previously, but had reconciled that my proposal had been correct purely from an economic viewpoint, and that in order to streamline operations, we should try living together. I nodded as he said this and explained that I didn’t want him to feel pressured into doing anything as I was more than happy with they way things were (“and if it ain’t broke, why fix it?”).

“No, no,” argued the fellow pragmatist Reason 8 - he felt it was in both of our interests to look at it as a business venture and move in together as a cost-saving initiative. I think he even thought that this was his idea. I explained that I enjoyed things the way they were, but if he really felt strongly about it, I would be prepared to remove some of the clutter in my house for him to have some space for his own clutter. He could move in at the end of a month when the notice on his own apartment ran out.

So, I spent the following month clearing the spare room to create space for my soon-to-be live-in-lover. Steve seemed to be often busy in the fortnight preceding the move, explaining that he couldn’t see me most nights because it was taking him so long to pack up his many possessions – he didn’t seem to want any assistance either. I really thought nothing of it, reconciling that I would be seeing more than enough of him before too long and revelling in the lone-time I was able to enjoy.

The daySteve was due to move in, I hadn’t seen him for 10 days, although we had been speaking often on the phone, and sending text messages constantly (we were a couple of the new millennium after all – it was all about the text messages from start to finish).

I called him in the morning and he said that he was on his way over with a truckload of furniture and car full of clothing.

I never saw or heard from Steve again. Except the text message I got after leaving a few messages asking where he was. “Sorry babe. Can’t do this. Need space. CUO (“See you round”) Steve x”. So much for our adult, mature business proposal. The whole 18 month partnership was over with a single text. Steve never returned my calls or emails, and one day I came home to find all of my belongings that had resided at his house in a carton in my apartments foyer. For all I know he could have been dead. I didn’t ever get up the gumption to send him my ideal (not-very-mature) text back: FU U 8=9 (“Fuck you, you knob”) J

Reason 7 – sometimes they need no explanation

This one is enough to turn any woman off men for life – with a few PerezHilton embellishments of course!

Reason 6 – they don’t always have much pride

I went out with a guy at uni for all of about 3 months. Being a good virginal uni student, the relationship never went further than a grope under the covers (if he was lucky – and note I said “under the covers”, not “under the shirt” – I was a VERY innocent girl!!). He wasn’t really my type (he supported Tottenham, I’m an Arsenal supporter from way back), and also (but not more importantly) I really didn’t want him to be my first. So all in all, he had to go.

After I ended things, David (aka Reason 6), had a wee bit of trouble letting go. I had only just moved out of home and he used to call my home regularly to talk to me. My dad had an issue with being the bad guy, so would tell David I wasn’t presently available (but never breaking to him that I had actually moved out – go figure!!), and then would proceed to chat for hours about football, beer, cars and the usual boy stuff. Afterwards, my father would call me to tell me that David had rung and that really he was a lovely guy, but Dad could understand why I wasn’t keen – even my Dad thought he was a bit soft.

But when, on the off chance, David would catch me at my parental home (usually when I was home for dinner -  and because I was a poor university student this was more than a few times a week (usually 4 or 5 times at least!)), he would ask if he could see me and the conversation would go like this:

Me: No. I don’t want to see you.

Him: Oh, come on, just for a couple of hours. Just two hours! 

Me: No. I don’t think so.

Him: Come on. Just one hour. I can buy you lunch. Just one little hour!

Me: No. I don’t think I have an hour free tomorrow.

Him: What about just half an hour? Just 30 minutes? Surely you can spare 30 minutes?

Me: No. Sorry.

Him: 20 minutes. Surely 20 minutes isn’t too much to ask?

Me: I have to go now.

Him: Please! Just 10 mins? 10 mins? Come on! I can walk you from one lecture to the other? Please!!

Please is right – jaysus man! Have some farken pride! I was embarrassed for him! And my best friend summed it up not long after when she told a boy (the one that I had chosen to be the one, incidentally) that she didn’t know why David had been so desperate to see me all the time. Afterall, she assured him, I “wasn’t that great!”

Thanks love!!

Reason 5 – they are not very discreet

I grew up in a relatively small town where everyone knew not only everyone else, but their business also. This was never of huge concern to me as I had the same partner for over seven years and we had moved from the small town to a larger city in search of glittering careers. Like all good things this relationship eventually came to an end, but my ex-partner and I stayed on fairly good terms. After the initial post-break-up mourning period, I was ready to get back up on the horse and so, ventured out in the larger city with a group of old girlfriends – all of whom had moved, like myself from the same smaller town. There was a fairly large group of us, gathering for a friend’s birthday and like all good newly single girls, I imbibed in probably one too many glasses of champagne. I got chatting to a gentleman (Andy (aka Reason 5 – so obviously not actually a gentleman)) and after I had decided that I was mere seconds off turning into a pumpkin, he, chivalrous thing that he was, offered to see me into a cab. It will come as a surprise to very few that we exchanged phone numbers and saliva on the footpath outside the bar that my friends were in, much to the delight of the crowd that gathered at the windows to cheer and whoop in delight at our two or three minute interlude. The next morning, I woke with a raging hangover, and a slight feeling of guilt concerning my ex-boyfriend. But, I consoled myself, we were no longer a couple, and it was no longer his business as to what I got up to on drunken nights out with other friends.

It wasn’t until a few hours later, guilt having subsided, but hangover still fully intact, that the ex rang, asking what I thought I was doing with someone like Andy. “Huh?” was the only articulate sentence I could offer. My ex-boyfriend then explained that he knew Andy very well indeed, because when they had worked in the same industry in our hometown, he had been notorious for emailing all of his associates with gory and intimate details of his actions with random members of the fairer sex. Apparently, his emails were quite infamous. The ex was upset and explained to me (in no uncertain terms) his opinions of my kissing compadre and myself. I sat on the end of the phone, nursing my head, taking it all in, but the bombshell was dropped when my ex told me that Reason 5 was also living with his girlfriend – she just happened to be out of town this weekend. I gently explained that I had to go and hung up.

Five years in the wilderness of couple-dom and my first foray back into the single realm was with a cheating man who could very well email a lot of people I know with tales of drunken kisses on the footpath outside of a bar. I couldn’t have imagined a worse welcome back to singleness if I had tried.

I duly avoided Andy’s calls when they came and made a few excuses to elude him. I am honest enough to admit that he was certainly not the most persistent man in the universe. What had become of his girlfriend, I didn’t ever ask, but I had since heard on the grapevine that their love had died.

After a few more months, I moved back to my afore-mentioned hometown, to take up my dream job and be nearer my family. Not long after returning home, I met my current partner, and again, due to the size (small!) of our hometown, my new partner knew both my ex, and the notorious Andy, through work and mutual friends. I suppose that word got back to the city on the illustrious grapevines that all small towns grow so fertilely, that my new partner and I were together, but imagine my surprise when I got to work one day, to see in my inbox an email awaiting my attention. It was from Andy. I was intrigued.

Even after our brief interlude I had not received any emails. I clicked to open it, interested to see what the title “Slops” meant. Imagine my horror when I opened the email to find a picture of myself, kissing Andy, from all of those months before. Someone had obviously had a camera out in force that night, and as could probably be imagined, the photo was as flattering as it could only have been after a good few solid hours of champagne drinking. Worse still, was the note accompanying the photo, which was addressed, firstly, to my current partner, secondly, to my ex-boyfriend who had already been crushed by the initial fact, and thirdly to somewhere between forty and fifty others ranging from close friends to people I had never even heard of.

And the text with the unattractive photo read: “Hey mate. Just so you know that you’ve got my slops. Never forget that I got in there first.” Andy was an absolute charmer – in case I had ever had any doubt. And even if it was only a kiss on the footpath at three o’clock in the morning, I certainly won’t be forgetting Reason 5 in a hurry.