In very late December 2024 I started chatting to a man on Tinder, let's call him Andy. He seemed nice, although his dyslexia made understanding his written messages rather tricky for me. We met up, it was very crowded in London that day, but I guided him through with my usual bossy manner! I kissed him after we'd had a couple of drinks in a cosy pub, in retrospect I wish that I hadn't, but I can't turn back time. He's a teacher so we saw one another every day in a very compressed manner during the later Christmas holidays, which was pretty overwhelming. I am still on the up cycle of my bipolar mania so I chat far too much and let's be honest, I blather on, he was more taciturn. Andy was howerver, a bit full on when it came to personal displays of affection or PDAs as the Gen Y and Z are wont to call them. Personally, I'm no fan of being snogged in the Natural History Museum. Queen Victoria would not have been amused.
Term began - Andy lives in south-west London and I'm in south-east; there's a twenty mile distance separating us. I don't drive and he doesn't own a car. His job roots him in south-west London too and it's a fixed location, a school, so there's no possiblity of him working flexibly at home. I did question whether we'd see much of one another because he filled every single one of his weekdays with a different activity and he spent the majority of his weekends supervising school athletics. Very soon I started to feel extremely lonely and pondered why I even was bothering at all. I attended the Lesnes Abbey Wassail alone, although I did schlepp over to south-west London to see him the next day. I also attended a library lecture alone - he came later and stayed for the weekend. He was always staring at me calling me "wonderful" and "beautiful", talking of a life we'd share together. This was pretty scary considering that I'd just emerged from a twenty-two-year marriage and I'm only forty-nine at the moment. He was sixty.
The second year of grief seems to be hitting me the hardest and I'm really struggling with low mood and anger. One Wednesday evening I'd walked out of the walk-in (ironic) Cruse bereavement group session because one of the members was dominating so much that I couldn't get a word in edgeways to talk about the anniversary of my late husband's death. I tried ringing Andy but got no answer. I then, in a fit of rage, said that he was dumped. Apparently he'd fallen asleep (due to the fact that he's getting on a bit, out of shape and his body cannot cope with the demands he's placing on it.)
We made up but I was always furious. In fact, I was the girlfriend from hell - constantly sending snarky horrible WhatsApps and then deleting some, but not all - many, unfortunately got through. Romantic relationships with men seem to make me crazy, especially sexual ones and I'll have to address exactly why this is. When we were together I constantly dug him out because, quite frankly, he wasn't what I wanted. He was lacking a sense of humour and mine's very developed. I missed my husband Bob's natural London wit so much, in fact, being with Andy made me feel the loss of Bob much more acutely.
Andy refused point blank to attend my forthcoming choir concert in late March because he was visiting his mother up in north Yorkshire. He wouldn't change the date. Apparently he told his mother last week about our relationship but she sounded like she couldn't care less - we nearly split up there and then because I suffer from extremely low self-esteem and I don't see why I would be a disappointment to any in-law? Andy also refused to ever contemplate travelling to the USA because of Trump; I'd love to go and I shall, one day. Sod Trump!
Last night, after hearing nothing from him all day, Andy phoned me to break up with me. I was literally sobbing down the phone, pleading with him to talk about it. He said that "he couldn't give me what I wanted." which was true, but if that was the case, why was he even contemplating a romantic relationship with a woman on Tinder anyway? He clearly doesn't have the time. My friends were all very sweet, many had listened to me talking about how badly the relationship was going and whether Andy was actually the "nice guy" that he seemed? My cat had the measure of him anyway - she pissed all over the bed once when he was staying over - smart girl!
So: no more Tinder dates for a few months; my account is on hiatus - I lied, I hadn't completely deleted the one I met Andy on. I need to work on myself though and forge through this enormous cloud of grief. Getting a job will help restore some of my self-esteem which is literally on the floor at the moment. Nobody likes being dumped, it feels shit, but quite frankly, it's a blessing in disguise really as there are genuine blokes out there.
[Edited 24/2/25 - to delete any reference to the Future Faker, aka Mr Bumble.]
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