Respite

Posted by Lianne Gutcher at 13:34 on 24 Nov 2009

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So I have given Itinerant Charmer the shove. I've been here before and I am not entirely sure I won't be here again but it's good to clutch back a vestige of control.
 
In the "I Can't Do This" phone call, I told him I had had it with ceasing to exist whenever he left Kabul. This man has led me a merry dance for a year. I can't change his behaviour so I have to change mine - by not seeing him. I don't think that is unreasonable. He apparently did not agree.
 
We finished the phone call by him saying: "Off you go then, back to work... influencing millions."
 
Clearly, he was being snide.
 
Why do men do this? I have never tried to convince someone to rethink their decision not to go out with me or felt the need to put them down for running for the hills.
 
Oh, wait. Hold on. Flashback. There was one instance with a man who came back for a nightcap. I was deliberating whether or not to make a lunge at him. But after careful assessment of his body language I decided he Wasn't That Keen.

"You're turning me down, aren't you?" I said with what I thought was mock horror. "You can't turn me down! I'm a girl! This is Kabul!" (I've mentioned the very positive ratio in previous blogs.)

It came out in a less witty and more obnoxious manner than I had intended.

His reply was: "Oh, get over yourself." Which, to be honest, was fair enough, really.  

(Except why was he drinking whisky in my living room at 5am?)

Anyway, in general, I find men aren't very accepting about the brush off.
 
The past couple of times, I have tried to let a suitor down gently the men in question have felt it necessary to give me a no-holds-barred psychological appraisal.
 
"You are confused and adrift," said one. Adding that I "lacked imagination" when it came to relationships. He had just made me a proposal of the Demi Moore Indecent kind, which I wasn't agreeable to.
 
Another emailed after learning I didn't want to go out with him to say that, after careful consideration, he thought I might be "slightly bipolar" and should get help. He helpfully included the phone number of a London psychiatrist.
 
Well, what's a girl to say?

Um, thanks, chaps?

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