For those of you who follow my Facebook page, or that know first hand about my dating misadventures, Potato Masher is not a new name.
The nickname comes from the fact that I met him by selling him… you guessed, a potato masher on Shpock, an app for second-hand stuff. Yes, my dating sources seem to be limitless, though the result is pretty much always the same.
AAAAAAAAAAAnyway, let’s not dwell into the details of the story. Suffice to say, I saw him a few times last time, never really understanding what exactly he was looking for, because it was virtually impossible to breach the subject with him. I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but I let this guy cancel on me, last minute, without apologies or explanations or rescheduling, for about 4-5 times.
He would cancel, to then reappear as if nothing happened, a few weeks later, and I would also act as if nothing had happened. Why did I do that? Because I liked him, because sex was great, because he lives near me and in a city as big as London that’s definitely a plus, and because crumbs are better than nothing. Yes, I feel embarrassed saying this now, but transparency I demand, and transparency I give.
So there I was, ready to schedule another date, that he would cancel again. He would flirt all week long, organising to meet on a Saturday night, but then come Saturday he once had to go to see his aunt in Croydon, and wouldn’t know by what time he’d be back. another time he didn’t answer my phone calls because he had fallen asleep, another time his neighbour had asked his help to lay the floor…
There were always excuses like these.
He was supposed to come and say goodbye the day before I was leaving for my 3 months trip, and he just didn’t turn out. Just like that. The day after he didn’t even send an apology or a “Safe trip, enjoy yourself” text. Nothing.
I cancelled his number and decided to leave that emotional baggage in London, and leave with a light heart for my adventure.
One month later he texted me, apologising for having been busy (for a whole month???), and asking how I was doing. I never replied him.
He kept writing to me, finally imploring me: “At least tell me to fuck off”, which I didn’t, suggesting instead to meet up and talk when I was back.
Three weeks after I was back, he invited me out for dinner, after being all flirty and sweet for a week… only not to answer my texts and call on that Saturday.
“There is something deeply wrong in the way you treat people. The only reasonable explanation I give myself for your behaviour is that you have a personality disorder. Either that, or you get an ego boost for keeping people hanging like that. Either way, I feel sorry for you and for your children, for the example you are giving them. I’m done with you”, was the exact text I sent him the day after in May. He read it. His answer?
He blocked me.
Still now, writing it, I feel a mixture of anger, frustration, pity for him, sadness for myself that I saw something in him and that I let him treat me like that so many times… But, at least, I learnt my lesson. From that moment, a cancellation has become a big no-no for me, and I made it a point to give a second chance only in special circumstances.
I tormented myself for a few days, trying to get into his mind and understanding what can push a person to behave like that. It’s the same thing that happened two months ago with A, the guy met at my birthday, who disappeared without explaining why. I can think as much as I want about their possible reasons, but the fact is that I would always reason with my mind, which is very different from theirs. Even using all my fantasy and my will to get into their shoes, I probably would never guess the why behind their behaviours, because I know too little about their life and mentality. It took me a few days of inner torment, in both situations, with Potato Masher and with A., and concluded that I will never know their reasons, but that the bottom line is that they are putting the word “end” to whatever we had. And I’m fine with it, because I don’t want to deal with men who are not even able to express themselves and have a dialogue.
Potato Masher blocked me, but I didn’t block him back. I didn’t, because I knew that, in his perfect style, he would have come back.
And he did, as if nothing had happened.
But I’m not that chained up little girl anymore (Oh, sorry, I got carried away with “I will survive”…). I was saying, but I’m not the accommodating and understanding and walk-over Roby from last year, so when he wrote me back I invested him with my disgust: “How can you come back like this, after how you behaved? Don’t you have any shame? Again, I feel really sorry because you are giving your children the idea that it’s ok to behave like this. I told you I’m done with you.”
He wrote back: “I can explain you, if you allow me to see you”.
I fought a little inner battle. A part in me, supported by 100% of my female friends, wanted to spit in his face, or simply not even answer him. And then my curious part won, the part which always wants answers, which needs to understand why things went in that way, that wants closure and clarity.
Here I am, finally having a chance to understand what goes on in men’s mind when they repeatedly cancel on you, but then look for you again. It was such a temptation. Yes, I wanted to understand how these men reason. What is they are so scared to talk about, and prefer to block you rather than explaining themselves?
So I saw him. He came with wine and chocolate, started asking me about my trip. I could literally visualise a hard brick wall inside myself. “I’m not here to chit chat, I wanna hear what you have to say”.
….And what he had to say… made no sense whatsoever. Ready? He liked me so much that he wanted to do things seriously, but he wasn’t ready to introduce me to his children, so he was fought between wanting to see me, but then thinking it was better not to.
Wow. If he liked me so much and that’s how he was treating me, imagine how he treats people that he doesn’t like! And how about checking what I wanted from him? How about asking me if I actually wanted to be introduced to his children? Or how about just saying that yes, he liked me, but he was not ready, or that he had too much else going on at that moment, and that it was better not to pursue anything? How about TALKING ABOUT IT ALL WITH ME, given that there were two of us involved in this thing?
I will never stop believing that most, if not all, problems stem from a lack or an inability to communicate. Potato Masher lived everything in his mind and only according to his point of view, and it’s almost shocking how many chances he missed to behave correctly. He seemed really sorry, and said that he didn’t realise he had made me feel so low and unimportant by cancelling our dates over and over, and this was the clear hint that he would have done it again.
He left, feeling probably relieved that I forgave him. I have no energies to devote to negative thoughts.
The apologies that were supposed to soothe my torment, however, left me quite sad. Sad, because this is the level of emotional maturity that too many men are still showing in their mid 30s. Sad because some great sex should not justify letting someone treat me like that, and now I know it. But above all sad because these apologies and explanations arrive when it’s too late, when you have moved on, when you have come to terms with it and your life has progressed well.
You have waited for them for so long, and when they arrive you don’t even care about them anymore.
But, most importantly, you have blown your mind thinking about all the possible reasons, and the real one will probably make no sense to you. And we should have known it from the start, because nothing would ever make us behave like that.
I should have known it: I cannot conceive any good reasons for behaving like a total, ball-less prick. So why being hurt and suffering over something that, in the end, has no relation to our mentality and ethics?
May I, and you sisters, learn this lesson. Amen.
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