There comes a time - or a few times - in everyone's life where you realise that its time to change things up, and sometimes this means things need to end. WeirdNameGuy (the one from the last week's post) and I had been hanging out for a few weeks and it had been moderately fun - we did a lot of walking because we liked to walk (one particular day, we walked from London Bridge to Wandsworth Bridge which is a considerable walk and took us about 6 hours since it was a slow saunter and included lunch and drink stops in between) and chatted about a lot of random stuff, but ultimately, there was no way I could ever see a future with this guy. He was, unfortunately for himself, too insecure and stuck in his own ways for me to ever take him seriously, and I had just exited a relationship of 8 years with someone who was too similar in those ways for me to ever want to take that on again.
I had been thinking about this quite a bit and trying to devise a way to softly let this guy down, though realistically, I knew he wasnt going to take it too well. What I didnt realise was the just how badly he would end up taking it.
Perhaps around February-time earlier this year and we were due to have a particularly warm winter's day in the upcoming weekend, so WeirdNameGuy asked me if I wanted to hang out. I wasn't really in the mood to leave my house because I wanted to enjoy the sunshine outside on my deck with a glass of wine and told him so, so he sort of invited himself around to join me in doing that which I didnt object to.
Unfortunately for this bloke, the odds were not in his favour because, for whatever reason, I had woken up annoyed with the world and remained that way all day, so by the time he arrived - which was late, by the way (not that it really mattered because we didnt have any real plans, but lateness is not a thing that I can abide) - I was not in the mood for people and was a glass of wine down.
We sat outside on the deck in the sunshine and I poured some more wine while we chatted about general life stuff. General life stuff quickly turned into the topic of animal testing - something that I am vehemently opposed to - and, as I was already generally annoyed at life, his absolute disregard and nonchalance at the subject pushed me to the edge of what would become a very slippery slope. His argument was if we werent testing on animals, what should we test on? (Ummmmmmm...HELLLO?) The conversation seriously began to spiral into the abyss that all conversations go to when you have alcohol and discuss serious subjects and before long we were discussing the concept of happiness and this guy went into full on self pity mode and began a monologue about how he wished he earned more money and had more work opportunity available to him, how he wished he could move, but his dad is sick and therefore had to wait to see what happened to him (his dad had been sick for 8 years at this point), and then, weirder still, he started referring to himself in the third person: "And I just want to know, when is it WeirdNameGuy's turn? When will WeirdNameGuy get what he wants?"
I didn't know what to say to this charade. I was also really weirded out.
Once that little disaster had calmed down and we had returned to "relatively normal" conversational activities, he then suggested we go inside and "cuddle" on the couch - it had gotten dark to be fair.
NOW, two things that people dont necessarily know about me is the following:
1. I dont like to cuddle (unless its on my terms. Like a cat, basically)
2. I dont like to discuss feelings. Ever.
So when I declined to go inside to "sit on the couch and cuddle", he retorted with "sometimes, you are well stand-offish". My response, in its entirety, was to blink at him a few times with a deadpan expression.
What followed was the phrase almost everyone hates hearing: "where is this going?", followed by "because we talk every day (read: he texts me incessantly everyday and I reply sometimes) which is quite coupley"...you may imagine the rotating red lights being set off in my head by this point.
What followed was a rumination of firm words in my "I-am-so-done-with-this-shit" voice something to the effect of being so absolutely not interested in both a relationship and continuing with the conversation.
**Crickets**
After sitting in the dark for ten minutes in silence, I suggested that we go in, which we did. He kept putting out his hand in an effort to try to hold my hand and I kept putting the base of my wine glass in his open palm in response.
Things became increasingly awkward because I had decided I was firmly done with talking and, eventually (and thankfully), he asked me if I would like him to go home.
By his reaction, I dont think he expected me to say that yes, I did want him to go home because his face registered mild shock and he said "Really?" about three times.
When I confirmed that, yes I really did want him to leave, he picked up his coat and bag (which I had noted included a toothbrush and extra shirt, meaning that he had banked on staying over the night which further annoyed me) and stormed outside and down the garden path. I called after him that he was going the wrong way (because he was), so he whipped around and loudly said "Really!?" and then walked back towards me.
Queue a massive flare of rage from me at his passive aggressive attempt to elicit a reaction out of me. I responded to this by telling him that he could take his passive aggressive bullshit and fuck off because I was not interested in the way he was behaving and what he was trying to do.
He asked if he could stay and have one more cigarette which I abided, and then immediately regretted because he lit his cigarette and resumed the "where is this going" tirade.
I had, quite literally, reached tipping point by this time and ended up half shouting at him that he was "too negative" in frustration (but also, he was) because all I wanted was for him to leave. His reaction to this was descend again into a self pity monologue about shit his life is and THEN...
He began to cry.
Whilst he rattled through his monologue, he was crying. A man that I had known for a few weeks, that I wasnt even properly dating was crying because I was, perceivably, ending things with him.
In the dark, I leaned against the wall to the outside of my entrance hall, looked up at the sky and whimsically thought:
"HOW THE FUCK DO THESE PEOPLE FIND ME?"
After about 5 minutes of this sob-cry-rant monologue, I cut in and said to him that we didnt need to discuss this anymore, so he, promptly, stopped talking, looked at me, said okay and then picked up his bag, asked me if we could speak the next day and disappeared into the night.
And that folks, was the last time I ever saw or spoke to him.
I didnt block his number so he could have texted me if he had wanted to, but he never did contact me again. I honestly thought he would, because when I walked back into my house that evening, I saw that he had left an entire bankie of weed on my kitchen counter and I was sure he would want that back, but nope - not a word.
It was most definitely one of the stranger nights of my life.
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