In the post before last I questioned the outrageous man’s motives for wanting to meet me. My intuition, experience, paranoia or whatever was ringing alarm bells seems to have been correct as far as outcome but the reason was unexpected.

We exchanged text messages and spoke on the phone a few times before arranging to meet. He even sent me his business’s web site address, almost as verification of his bona fides because I must’ve come across as world-weary and cautious. We agreed to meet on a weekend afternoon for a late lunch and return to his house if things progressed well, again, agreeing readily with one of my personal rules that I don’t show up the first time at someone’s home. I was feeling good, and was in an unusual mindset that if our physical attraction wasn’t strong, we could possibly form a friendship (in writing this I just realised I am not in contact with any ex lovers — there’s no ill feeling or bitterness, I seem to work on recovery and re-building and I never go back while the memory of what was still hangs in the air).

The message that arrived in the middle of the night was that he *might* have to attend family business the next day but he *will* call me and explain in the morning. I was distracted at the time by some guilt that I was leaving someone else’s bed and I sent a quick reply that it wasn’t a problem and I’d hear from him in the morning.

I woke in the morning with a turbo-charged surge of logic. The previous night he said he was going to a friend’s birthday pub crawl and we had joked that he had better not get too drunk as he might be needing his energy and powers of recovery the following day.

I’d be willing to bet what’s left of my savings that he met a girl in a bar, was going to take her back to his place and couldn’t guarantee when he’d have her out the next day so it was easier to bump me with a lame reason. If that’s what happened, I wouldn’t have told the truth or expected the truth either, but I ended up indignant that my pride was dented and concerned with self-justification because perhaps I should give the benefit of the doubt as he didn’t owe me in-depth rundowns of his personal problems. Then again, what family issues arise in the late hours that only elicit a ‘might’ have to go?

He didn’t call that day, or the one after, or the one after that. I wrote him off mentally and didn’t bother following up. I get caught about whether I should send parting messages to bounders, but ultimately I can’ t dictate or predict how people behave and I need to dust off and get on with my own life.

Four days later he sent a message asking if I had forgiven him for the cancellation. Well, it wasn’t really about that. I ended up replying, saying that the postponement wasn’t the issue as life gets in the way of plans, but it was about honouring his word that he’d make contact and he had followed the cowardly fleeing habit of many of his fellow users on the web site and I had shut him out of my mind. It was a long message. Possibly a bit unhinged, too. He didn’t reply.

Oh, yeah, the hermaphrodite ran off as well. I ended up responding to his message with some carefully considered words and he didn’t reply. The most annoying part of that correspondence (apart from how much fucking time I spent trying to come across as a casually open-minded libertine who hangs out with hermaphrodites all the time) is that if I send a message and don’t receive a response in a couple of days but the person has logged on, I know they’re not interested — the hint is obvious. If I try to do the same and ignore a message I’m sent, I keep receiving more and more insistent messages until there’s a mini-war erupting in my inb0x or I have to be assertive with the block option. I’ve suspended my account because I’m dealing with enough of that behaviour with agencies during the job search; the similarities are amazing but I don’t have the energy to be dicked about by both — the pursuit of income rather than sex wins for now.