Pen Pals

One year. 
I have been single for one year this week. 
I am starting to view my last relationship as the emotional equivalent of jumping in a cesspit full of sharks and piranhas , and being thankful for the opportunity to swim in it. With that realisation, I am almost ready to write about 'Mr Wrong'. Until then, I shall regale you with my normal light hearted stories about the heinously awkward situations I get myself into, in my (seemingly) endless plight to find Mr Jonestein.
If I'm honest, those situations have been a little light on the ground of late. I have had a genuine apathy towards (all) men, and have found a slew of new hobbies (diversions). However, this week I had a date that there is no doubt was worthy of documenting.

We were talking for two weeks. Every day. You see, modern dating can go two ways. The first is pretty simple; you swipe, match, chat, arrange a time, and meet for a drink, no harm no foul. The second, is slightly more arduous as it involves having a pen pal. Of course over the weeks that you talk, you become fond of someone, and the build up that ensues can lead to a colossal crash, and crash my most recent date did.

After two weeks of chat, flanter, and two (yes, TWO) cancelled rendez vous (him, not me) we settled on a balmy (rare) late summers evening at a restaurant in central London. To say I was nervous was an understatement. In my year of singledom, there have been few people that I have been remotely excited about, and I was hoping that this could be the reason that I could eventually delete the file of dating apps on my iPhone. During the day, we talked sporadically, and it was clear he was also very very nervous.

It didn't start well. He was late, 30 minutes late, and when he eventually did turn up, he was clearly a bit of a wreck. His hands were shaking and there were beads of sweat forming on his brow. Strangely, this put me at ease and we embarked on a couple of hours of pleasant small talk, picking at the mezze that he ordered for us. 
Unfortunately, he did not calm down. His animated gesticulations knocked things off the table, and he tripped over his words, muttering words under his breath to centre himself mid sentence. More than once he asked me (out of the blue) if I was ok, had he offended me, was I upset? I was fine, I reassured him, slightly perturbed, but not wholly put off. What happened next was nothing short of odd. 

We started to talk about politics. Whilst I was berated by many of my friends whilst telling this story after, in the political climate of uncertainty we're living in, it seemed like a natural subject to approach. He informed me that he had voted to Leave the EU. I was a little blindsided, and asked why. He stammered something about his friends putting pressure on him so he did it to shut them up (very bad reason to vote for anything). I thought, I'll give him a lifeline and asked him 'Who would you vote for, Hillary or Trump?'. Now, dear readers, I'm not shy or quiet about my political leanings, even when I cannot affect the end result, and what he said next shocked me. He said 'Trump', with a wry smile on his face. Again, I asked him 'why', but this time, with my head in my hands. This is when things got very uncomfortable. He stuttered something about his friends telling him that Trump is the better candidate (who are these people he surrounds himself with?) and being good for business. He was clearly not informed or clear in his convictions, he admitted that he had not read anything about either Brexit, or the American presidential elections and was influenced by the views of his social circle. We entered an awkward exchange whereby I started quickfiring my opinions at him, whilst he got more and more uncomfortable, to the point that it was totally unbearable, he could not defend any of his previous opinions.
I suggested we call it a night and watched him clam up more, sweat dripping off his face, and he started muttering things like 'I've messed up, again, I'm so stupid', refusing to look me in the eye. It was awkward, very very awkward. I hot footed it into an uber, and texted him (before he could text me) to thank him for a lovely evening, and wished him luck in his dating endeavors. 

We then moved from the sublime to the ridiculous. He begged me for another chance, informing me that he was nervous, and he'd behaved badly. He really liked me and he would like to try again with a clean slate. I thought about it. I can't necessarily write someone off for their political leanings (but really, Trump?!), but perhaps if he were to read and be more informed that could change. It was really his reaction to me challenging him that made me uncomfortable, and I wasn't sure that that I would ever be less challenging, or he would ever be comfortable with being challenged. 
On the other hand, he had been a gentleman, had rejected my protests to split the bill, he had even paid for my Uber, he was complimentary, and clearly wanted this to work. I acquiesced and we organised to meet again. I wasn't 100% sold on the idea, and spent the next day trying to talk myself into it, focusing on the good bits. By the evening,  I had failed to convince myself, and decided to text him and reassert my initial decision that we should part ways, and started with a 'Hi, can we talk?'. He didn't respond. He didn't respond until lunch time the following day, whereby I got a well crafted 'rejection text' with some crap about us being too different for things to work but could we stay friends blah blah blah. Damn, he got there before me. 
He then asked me for feedback... yep, you read that correctly, FEEDBACK, and revealed that he was a deeply insecure person, that I'd made him feel anxious as I was more informed than him, and that he was essentially scared of everything and everyone. 
30 minutes later, I found myself sitting opposite him in Starbucks, with an iced coffee (on him), cursing myself for yet again, being a magnet for the fucked up whilst he twittered on about his issues. Whilst he talked, incessantly, without stopping to breath I found myself being super productive:
- I planned my dinner for that night, 
- reminded myself to confirm my haircut, 
- counted up the number of people coming to my birthday party to confirm with the restaurant
- drafted out an email I needed to send
- decided he was a narcissist 
He did not notice my eyes were glazed over,  he simply took the opportunity to wax lyrical to a relative stranger (read that as free therapist I guess) about how messed up he was. My mental list making continued until I was rudely interrupted by six words that I'm not sure I'll ever forget 'You see' he said 'I think I'm gay'. Cue me choking on my iced coffee. I unsuccessfully tried to replay his monologue to see what I'd missed. He looked at me expectantly, clearly looking for an answer to a question that I had missed. How on earth had this conversation got to this? What the hell did I miss? 
Channeling my inner Freud, and hoping that I didn't spit coffee down my top, I replied 
'what makes you think that?' 
his response was fairly straightforward 
'Well, I've had relationships with men, and, I'm more attracted to men than women. Do you think that means I'm gay?'. 
'Well yes, I think those are pretty good indicators that you are, in fact, gay' I replied.
I'm sad to report that he looked shocked and confused, it seems that his avoidance of reading anything vaguely informative about politics also extends to the dictionary definition of homosexuality.
I walked away from the Starbucks sure of a few things. Firstly, that at 38, it was deeply sad that this guy has been unable to be honest with himself and others (including, his ex wife) about the fact that he is interested in being with men. Secondly, I was deeply impressed that I didn't have a drop of coffee down my top after that bombshell being dropped. And finally, I should definitely stick to my gut, I KNEW that we should have called it a day at 'Trump', we should have stayed pen pals, although the post high crash was far more impactful for him, than me.