Missing the moon

February already! How time flies. Mabe you’re wondering what happened with me and ManUtdGirl (but probably not). I think it’s time I put the story to bed – which is more than I managed with her (ouch). I tried writing something similar just before Christmas, penned a large chunk of the tale and then got sick of it and annoyed with myself and deleted it. I’ll have another go now, then at least I can move on.

To recap. I met her at the wedding last August, got her phone number and then, once I’d retrieved my mobile (shiver), started texting her and soon progressed to talking to her online. I didn’t know at the time that she had a boyfriend and only discovered this when I asked her out for a drink. She’d apparently been seeing someone in America for about 6 years. It was all a bit odd. From what she told me, he sounded an utter knob. They’d broken up once or twice, but had got back together afterwards. Things didn’t sound so good between them when we started seeing each other. She stressed that we were just friends, and that was the key issue, I think, at least to her. The first four or so weeks were marvellously breathless. We saw each other 2 or 3 times a week, talked almost every night online (often until the early hours, even when she had to be up ridiculously early for work-related travelling), sent lots of texts and emails. It was fairly obvious that there was some chemistry there, even to a dithering dullard like myself. Unfortunately, the American boyfriend seemed to cast a tall shadow over the Atlantic. I tried kissing her on a couple of occasions, but she wouldn’t reciprocate. She said that she wouldn’t cheat on him and that precluded kissing. Hmm, ok, but she didn’t mind spending time with me alone, letting me put my arm around her or even sleeping next to me (at right angles) on a bed settee after our gig in Halifax in September? Odd. There was no hanky panky, I might add. Apart from that, it was just so damned nice to go out with a girl again and enjoy somebody else’s company. And bugger me, she seemed to enjoy my company too, which was a bonus. There were the occasional puzzling things that made me wonder where we were heading; for example, she never invited me back to her flat. She said it was in a right state and she’d have to tidy up “sometime” (conveniently open-ended). But I consciously pushed these concerns aside. I couldn’t help falling for her, even though she wasn’t officially available.

Late summer eased itself into autumn. A few things happened in the second half of September. Late in the month, she split up with the American. He was supposed to be trying to get a job over here during the summer, but this fell through and apparently he blamed her and was nasty about it. On the one hand I was pleased, as it meant that she was single, but on the other hand she’d be on the rebound and likely to be up and down emotionally. With things poised thus, fate cruelly intervened. She’d had a bad cough since the middle of September and this was diagnosed as a viral infection. She was in London for a few days with work, mid-month, and she rang me one evening to chat even though her voice sounded like it was about to give way completely. I was so touched. Upon her return, she was signed off work for a fortnight. I didn’t see her for 3 weeks until she was better, and I fear the momentum was lost, even though we were still in daily contact. Around the same time, she stopped talking to me online, claiming that messenger had stopped working. Frankly, I was sceptical, particularly when she popped back up on it on two subsequent occasions when she wanted to ask me something. If she’d wanted to spend less time on the computer in the evening, I wouldn’t have been offended if she’d told me.

Nevertheless, we picked things up again in mid-October and it was as good as it had been before. She came to our next gig (21st October) and stayed over in Hebden Bridge again. We had the house to ourselves, by accident rather than design. I should have asked her about us, or pounced on her or something, but I didn’t. After being rebuffed earlier, I was wary of being knocked back again, and the moment never seemed to arrive. At the end of the night I slipped off down to my own bed, alone, feeling like a complete idiot. How I cursed myself afterwards for not being braver. This preyed on my mind for a few days. Later in the following week, I went down to Wolverhampton to see the Wedding Present, which coincided with her being in London again. We exchanged some candid texts while I was down there and – yes – she said that she had been expecting me to say something that night and she really liked me. Hallelujah! Was this the green light? Then it all went wobbly. We saw each other again the next weekend and spent a great day together on the Saturday. I hugged her when we parted. This was actually the first time that I had. It might seem strange, reading that. She never seemed very tactile. Her body language didn’t seem to invite physical contact, although the things she said did. No wonder I was confused. It got worse.

November. Dear old November. She cooled on me and I nearly drove myself mad thinking about it. We were going to go out on Bonfire Night, but she cancelled, saying she’d barely slept and was shattered. I went to a bonfire at ex-Tomato Michael and Aggie’s and told them all about it. Amazingly, I’d kept all this from them and GB Troy until this point. I wish I hadn’t had done, in retrospect, because by November I was starting to drive myself to distraction, mulling over (and over) things, and trying to second-guess what she might be thinking. Maybe I should have just phoned her and asked! Tsk. ManUtdGirl had seemed wary of me telling them that we were seeing each other, inisisting that I should stress that we were just friends, as she didn’t want them to think she was cheating on the Yank. Hmm, I think that they’d probably assume she was anyway. So I told them nothing. It was fun at first – added to the frisson, having a secret rendezvous behind their backs. But the burden became more oderous when things began to wobble and I regretted having nobody to talk to about it. So I told Michael and Aggie. Their observations were helpful and interesting…

We didn’t see each other again until the middle of November. She was away a lot with work in the first fortnight of the month and I went to Spain to see the Wedding Present on the next free weekend. She went to see the newly-weds when I was away. She said that she was going to tell them about splitting from the American and about us, but didn’t in the end. That made me feel a bit miffed, to say the least. Was she so ashamed of me? Also, she persuaded them to go to the Christmas ball in December. Yes, the Christmas ball. It’s an annual event, as you might expect. Michael, Aggie and GB Troy had gone last year. Aggie had bought me a ticket but I’d backed out a week or so before the event because I didn’t have suitable clothing and couldn’t be bothered hiring any. I’d told them that I’d go this year though (this was a week or two before ManUtdGirl had mentioned it to Michael’s brother). So she talked them into going to the ball with her, but didn’t mention it to me. Thanks. I was no longer flavour of the month, it seemed. A rock covers band she knows were playing, which is why, I suspect, she was keen on going. I think she once said that she used to go out with one of the band members, before she met the American cheeso. Hmm. I’d already arranged to go with the other side of the family, but I didn’t tell her.

We next saw each other in the middle of November when we went to see “The Prestige”. I’d told myself that I should have a chat with her that night, if only to put myself out of my misery. Of course, I didn’t. We sat in the car afterwards when she dropped me off at home. Before I got out, I leant over to kiss her on the cheek. She turned her head at the vital moment and I ended up clumsily kissing her on the mouth. I laughed, and said, “should we try that again?”. We did, and it felt marvellous. But still left me feeling confused.

It was the end of November when things finally fizzled out. We went out to see a band on Thursday 30th November and finally had “the chat” in the car afterwards. It was something I should have done weeks before. At the time, after spending a smashing evening with her, I didn’t want to spoil the moment by asking her about us and hearing something I didn’t want to hear. I could have phoned her and asked, but I wanted to talk to her face to face… but then when we did meet, I didn’t seize the moment. Useless! Anyway, the chat. In summary, she said that she just wanted to be friends with me. I told her that I’d half expected it. She said then that she was still cut up about splitting from the American boyfriend and wasn’t ready for a new relationship. She said she’d felt ok in the immediate aftermath, but in the last couple of weeks before we had that chat, it had been getting to her again (this tied in perfectly with the period in early November when she went quiet on me). She said she still wanted to be friends with me. Eventually I said goodnight, gave her a peck on the cheek, and exited the car into the pouring rain at about 2:45 in the morning. Perfect.

So it wasn’t unexpected then, considering the way things have been going. It was sad to hear, but I wasn’t as upset about it as I would have been, say, a month previously, when I had been confused about what her intentions were and a bit upset about the mixed messages I seemed to be getting. I think I’d prepared myself for the answer and worked the shock and misery out of my system before she revealed it. I also got the impression that she was seeing somebody else anyway.

As a postscript, a couple of weeks later we met again at the Christmas ball. It was awkward. That was the last time I saw her.

It was a shame that it fizzled out the way it did, after such early promise in those first 4 weeks. The problem was that I never really knew what she wanted from me. Was it just friendship or something more? She certainly gave me the impression that we were more than friends, or at least could be. Maybe she just liked the attention without having any strings. Whatever, it certainly confused me and eventually made me unhappy. I think she has quite a few males friends. I did wonder at one point whether I was just another. Maybe I was. On the plus side, at least I can now return to hating Man Utd as much as I used to.