Excuses, Excuses; Procedural Dating; – and Goodbye, Freddie

Well, it’s been a while since I blogged – naughty, naughty Alice – but, in my defence, it wasn’t entirely my fault. In fact, for quite a while – up until mid January – it was Freddie’s. Remember him? Scruffy, documentary film-making alpha male for whom I was last seen falling head over heels? Yup, well, it turns out that Freddie does not approve of blogs, and certainly not blogs mentioning him. Here’s the short story (which, till Freddie stopped me, I was going to post back when it happened) with recap notes:

It was the morning (or two) after the night(s) before. I was confessing to Laura (rather inopportunely on the landing) that I’d slept with Freddie, our flatmate whom I was supposed to loathe. Her face was unexpectedly tragic, eyes and mouth wide with something I initially assumed was horror. ‘How COULD you, Alice?’ she wail-hissed, rather to my surprise. ‘Um, well, it just sort of happened, you know,’ I stuttered, somewhat taken aback, ‘it turns out that some of the tension was sort of sexual tension and I think I like him, so…’ I trailed off, guessing from the now abundantly flowing tears that I wasn’t helping. ‘But – but – you hate him’, she sniffed. ‘Nnoo, I like him’, I corrected, again, ‘and to be honest I don’t understand why you’re so grossed out by this because I thought you liked him too.’ A gulp of air. ‘I DID like him!’ Wails. Dawning comprehension. ‘Oh God, Laura, I’m so sorry, I had no idea you liked him like THAT, I really didn’t – I mean, you have DAVE’. ‘DAVE??’ she snapped, apparently infuriated by the idea of her own boyfriend. ‘How can you throw DAVE in my face at a time like this? You KNOW we haven’t been getting on. You KNOW how bad I feel about DAVE.’

At this point Freddie emerged from his room, kissed me on the head, smacked me on the arse, failed to look at Laura at all, and went downstairs. Pyjamas, topless. Laura sighed after him, and then started crying properly. Trying to ignore the ugly little Dave-worms that had wriggled excitedly free of their can, I tried to point out that however she felt about Freddie, he quite clearly liked me, so really there wasn’t much I could do about the situation. ‘Oh, really, you think you’re SPECIAL, do you?’ she screamed, apparently forgetting he was downstairs, ‘We KISSED, did he TELL you that?’. This was bad, because he hadn’t told me anything of the sort. ‘What?’ I asked, hissing snakily now myself, though fortunately too incensed to cry. ‘Oh, I thought not’, she howled triumphantly, ‘yes, we KISSED.’ ‘When?’ I squeaked, feeling like I might throw up. Freddie suddenly appeared on the stairs, and my head threatened to explode with the farcicalness of it all . ‘Alice, babe, that is not true’, he said, looking deeply annoyed, ‘Laura, you kissed me, and I told you I was with Neenee,.’ ‘NEENEE’, I huffed out, involuntarily. Freddie stared at me in surprise. ‘Ally, you met her, you know, Neenee’. Me: ‘Ugh, shut UP’. Freddie: What the FUCK, Alice? ‘Oh, whatEVER’, Laura broke in, ‘we KISSED.’ ‘No you DIDN’T’, I snapped, losing patience with both of them, ‘and Freddie, you really ought to have warned me.’ ‘WHY?’ he erupted, ‘She was off her face, I thought she’d forgotten’.

This was better, but hardly acceptable. ‘Because’, I stammered, suddenly at a loss for why he ought to have told me, ‘because you can’t sleep with people your friends have kissed!’ (That sounded broadly correct). ‘Because THIS happens!’ And THIS was terrible. ‘I don’t even fancy her,’ Freddie snapped, ‘it is not MY fault she jumped on me’. ‘Oh get OVER yourself’, Laura shrieked, apparently losing it altogether, ‘you know Alice didn’t even LIKE you when you moved in, she thought you were DISGUSTING, have you READ her BLOG?’ Bad. Very bad. ‘WHAT? You write about me on the INTERNET?’ Freddie roared, strangely sexy in his anger. ‘WHERE’? ‘Oh just google Alice Keates’, Laura cackled, grinning at me madly as I trembled in shock. ‘Freddie’, I wailed, running downstairs after him, it’s not that bad, it’s nothing you don’t know already, it’s really not’.

Anyway, the rest is history. Laura moved out to live with DAVE, telling him everything that had happened, and telling me that she never wanted to see me again, whereupon Jamie’s friend Ed moved in. Freddie read the blog and, though he agreed that what I’d written was quite funny and generally flattering, said he was not going to put up with my writing any more about him at all. This gave me writer’s block of a more general kind, and so I stopped. Sorry. But, here I am again, because a couple of months ago we broke up – I know. How can it be? Ours was a true love etc etc. Well, he moved to Kenya to talk to wild beasts and so forth and I stayed in London and since things hadn’t been great for a while anyway, that was that.

In the meantime, Mad Mary has continued her reign of terror, carefully whittling down our team until only I remain, there every night until ungodly hours, labouring beneath huge stacks of paper and electronic missives while she gads madly about with her new boyfriend (HOW? HOOOOWWW?), Limp Peter. ‘I just want to have seeeeeeex’ Mary moans at me every morning, gripping my arm with one of her claws and staring crazily up at me, ‘but Pete thinks we should waaaiiiit. Do you think that’s weird?’ ‘Err…I think it’s very…respectful’ I suggest, daily, wishing he would man up and sort her out before she breaks one of my wrists.

Since Freddie’s abrupt departure/ABANDONMENT, my love life has been…patchy. First there was the inevitable drink with Vile Alex, the Wanker Banker. He talked about himself for two hours, and then groped me in an alley way off Carnaby Street, calling me Zoe by accident. I went home, showered for an hour, layered on half a tub of my Yin Yang Rich Skin Food in a bid to see off the effects of the stubble-rash (quite successfully) and vowed (for at least the ninth time) never to see him ever ever ever again. Till the next time. Then I went on a date with Simple Simon, the good looking but boring boy I go on dates with between every relationship to remind myself why I shouldn’t go on dates with him. He talked about nothing, and didn’t grope me, and I felt too guilty to let him pay for dinner, so it was expensively dull hour. Next I went on the obligatory post-break-up blind date with a friend of a friend. He reminded me, pleasingly at first, but decreasingly so as time went on, of a Rottweiler. After two dates his severe behavioural problems and urge to growl at waiters became too troubling, however, so I decided not to see him again. Just as well since he called our mutual friend crying in the night a week later to tell him that he liked me but felt too guilty about his ex girlfriend to do anything about it. Issues.

So much for procedural dating.

Next time: The Monster.