Okay, here’s what happened…about five years ago, I met someone on a (rather crap) dating site. He seemed okay (seemed being the operative word), but we went on one date and things after that didn’t go so well.

I wasn’t particularly bothered about seeing him again, but we still exchanged the very rare email here and there. This has all exploded in somewhat spectacular fashion this morning, and while I would never normally do this, I am angry and amused in equal amounts, so I thought I would share the whole sorry tale…

For the purpose of this story, we’ll call him Prat, for that is what he is…

From : Prat

April 1st 2015

I love you, Daisy, and I want to marry you!  xxxxxxxxxxxx

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From : Daisy

April 5th 2015

I was just about to rush out and buy a dress and then I noticed the date….

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From : Prat

April 5th 2015

Haha, I was just thinking of you, then I saw this email.

Please consider this with an open mind. All you will have to do is ‘turn up’, I will do the rest! 

Oh and ….. Happy Easter, young lady!  x

Hi

Thanks, it’s really sweet of you, but right now a night in a hotel is not something I’d want to pursue.

Sorry

D x

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From : Prat

Okay, I know that I was one of them but nonetheless, I’ve never known two people on a first date be so comfortable with each other, sitting having a drink, being so tactile with each other, being obviously so attracted to each other, kissing, cuddling etc.  I certainly don’t/haven’t found that with everyone or anyone really – to that extent!

Can we not build on that?  ‘Slow steps’ if necessary. It seems such a shame to waste such a wonderful, promising start. The time that has elapsed shouldn’t really make any difference. After all, in MY case approximately 50 years had elapsed by the time that I FIRST met you!

How about a date? x

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From : Me

I’m not sure what I can say, Prat…it was a comfortable first date, but not one I really want to repeat. It’s not anything to do with the passing of time, more i think that I’m a very different person now. Plus, you used to absolutely love winding me up, and while I totally get that that’s your sense of humour, it didn’t sit well with me.

Also, I know you find this hard to believe, but I am very disillusioned with love and men, and I genuinely don’t want to be involved with anyone. This is a terrible cliche, but it’s not you, it’s me.

I’m sorry – it’s sweet and really flattering that you are so keen, but I’m not right for you – I hope you can find someone that is.

D x

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From : Prat

Forget ‘winding you up’, I’m over that now, I wouldn’t do it again, I’ve forgotten about it forever. I’m different too!  I thought that you might’ve also ‘got over it’ now ….. even more so, as you’re “a very different person now”!  Not withstanding the latter, I always prefer to concentrate on the positives, not the negatives.

I’m sure that you’re not interested, as you are disillusioned with love and men, but I feel pretty much the same about the majority of women – far too cautious, they can’t ‘think outside the box’, they’re very negative and, invariably, turn up on a first date or ‘first chat’ with two or three suitcases of baggage. Whereas I’m a ‘clean slate/clear mind kinda guy’, and positive, optimistic and confident to boot!  Maybe that’s where I’m going wrong??? 

Rhetorical question – why on earth would I continue to wind you up if it had a VERY negative reaction?  I obviously wouldn’t want that, I’d want to please you at all times.

It’s a great shame that your ‘last man’ (I can only surmise because you don’t say) has spoilt, or primarily spoilt, it for ‘everyone else’! 

I don’t understand why we can’t, at least, just be friends – chat on the phone etc. The fact that you appear not to trust me is VERY disappointing. Conversing through emails is always going to be very harsh and cold. I’m sure that we could have really good chats on the phone, as and when, I’m a VERY good listener, very sympathetic, very empathetic etc

I don’t see my attention to you as “sweet”. It’s just a normal ‘male/female thing’ when one is attracted to the other.

I think that you ARE right for me. Whatever you have experienced with “love and men”, in the last 5 years, quite frankly and with respect, has absolutely nothing to do with me – in more ways than one.

I always say: ‘No two situations are the same’, and ‘Everybody is different’! x

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From : Me

Okay, let me break this down…you say you wouldn’t wind me up again if it had a negative reaction? It *did* have a negative reaction, on more than one occasion – and even when I asked you – often – to stop, you didn’t. Then there was that time you kept sending my previous text messages back to me, to try and prove a point – that completely unnerved me.

Adding a winky face onto the end of a paragraph where you are putting down the “majority of women” – and I assume I’m included in that, as all traits you mention could be levelled at me – doesn’t make it a joke, it doesn’t make it “banter” – what it serves to prove that my first instincts are correct, and there is no point in even continuing this conversation.

You seem to be completely glossing over the parts of my various emails that say I don’t WANT to be involved with you, and I’m sorry, that includes even as a friend.

I feel you will always have another agenda and I really can’t be doing with it. My life is very full and busy, there is no real place in it for a relationship or any friendships that may turn into a relationship. 

Also, my last man hasn’t spoilt anything for “everyone else” – how dare you talk about me and my feelings as if I were a commodity?

Enough now, I shan’t be replying again.

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From : Prat

This can often be a potential problem, as you know – being a very intelligent lady, with email and/or conversing in ‘black and white’ – a lot of misinterpretation! 

The past is THE PAST – I refer to my previous email re: ‘the winding you up bit’!  Why do you appear to be perpetuating the slight negatives in the past? They are gone and wouldn’t happen again. You are, seemingly, bringing them up on purpose.

The winky face wasn’t making it a joke or banter – FAR FAR from it, it was merely reinforcing the fact that I, generally, ‘move forward’ with a clean slate, clear mind etc and can, therefore, do so with a degree of happiness and positivity.

My ‘Rule Number One’ is; ‘Never Assume’ – my comments about “the majority of women” certainly did NOT include you – I refer to my rhetorical question in my last email. That said, in your last email you appear to be intent on taking everything in the most negative possible way.

I don’t have any “agenda” at all, I really don’t understand what you’re referring to. However, your agenda appears to have been to manufacture a misunderstanding as soon as possible, and then to ‘hang your hat’ on that. I’m a straightforward guy looking for love and romance with my ‘best friend, soulmate and lover’. Clearly, we now appear to be looking for different things.

I wasn’t talking about you and your feelings as if you were a commodity at all. I was surmising based on ‘all known information’. That information being the few, tenuous ‘facts’ that I have and how they appear to have impacted on you, me and the rest of the adult male population.

I really don’t understand why you are trying to manufacture a difference of opinion other than, of course, to make it easier for you to ignore me. You appear to be hell-bent on putting a negative slant on every point I make. I know that you’re an intelligent lady, so you can’t use ignorance as an excuse and, although I mentioned it earlier, you’re way too smart to misinterpret something/everything when ‘the benefit of the doubt’ would be the easier/more sensible and more logical stance.

What I DO know is something that I was told many years ago, and rings just as true today: ‘You can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.’

I’m not going to ‘rise’ to the ‘perceived confrontation’. I don’t think that there is ever really the need for ‘verbal confrontation’ or the ‘A’ word – I prefer to call it a ‘frank exchange of views’ or, quite simply, ‘a difference of opinion.  Two intelligent, calm, rational human beings should always be able to talk things through. I believe that WE have all of those attributes, therefore we have no excuse.

I’ll leave it at that as, from what I ‘can see’, you have clearly and cleverly decided and managed to position things in such a way that you can’t continue chatting. That said, you have sometimes just not replied to emails in the past. I’ve waited for months for a reply, but all to no avail

For once, I’m left dumbfounded and almost lost for words.

Even the most keen admirer will give up eventually, when his genuine, warm, friendly words are all ‘taken the wrong way’.

As the headline says: ‘Trust Is Paramount’!

Shame! 

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I’m not replying, because I said I wouldn’t, but OH MY GOD…is it me?

Seriously, one date, five years ago. Get over it, get over yourself and get out of my inbox you absolute prat.

PS  Why you should be “unnerved” by my sending back to you lovely, tasteful, loving, hopefully genuine at the time, texts that you had sent to me, in the past, I really don’t know?

To be honest, I had forgotten about that, but I was presumably just trying to remind you of the nice things that you had said to me, and how good they, and you, made me feel.

Maybe it’s a fault of mine to be a Hopeless Romantic?

Sadly, or maybe happily for you, those texts and your beautiful, tasteful pics have long since ‘disappeared’ because of changes of phone/SIM etc 

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From : Prat

PPS

I have just noticed another apparent misinterpretation. When I said that I wouldn’t wind you up again if/as it had a negative reaction, I meant in the FUTURE!!!  But you’re still referring to the past.

The past is done/gone/extinct, for better or for worse. I was trying to allay your possible fears about the future, but once again you misunderstood me.

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From : Prat

Finally, I find it interesting that when you said that you are “disillusioned with love and men”, I didn’t automatically include/assume that I was included in those “men” (whether I actually was or not is largely immaterial).  Yet, when I referred to “the majority of women” you assumed that you were included in that!  I was, in fact, remarking about other women TO you. For the record, it never occurred to me to even THINK of including you.

The last point on “the majority of women” is that I WASN’T “putting them down”, it was merely my observation of the majority of the women’s behaviour who I have encountered, in recent times. I ‘say it as I see it’, I ‘speak as I find’, not withstanding occasions when it is necessary to be subtle or diplomatic, I think that it is the best/only way to be.

For future reference, if you default to giving me the (positive) benefit of the doubt and/or putting a positive spin on my remarks/comments, I can guarantee that your interpretation is likely to be around 99% correct!

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past

#Dating #Idiots #Love #Relationship