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.

The Homecoming

Well, Freddie’s home. He walked in with his personally moulded backpack and slightly peeling skin a few days after we’d expected him, and shortly after I’d got home. From a date. A fifth date. With the datee. We were sitting on the sofa and I was giggling, as one often does on dates with passably attractive men, at a joke that wasn’t really all that funny. Freddie walked in, bare-armed, weighed down with baggage (literal and probably metaphorical), looking tired and tanned and like he needed a shower and a haircut. It was fortunate that I wasn’t standing up or I might have swooned. I am officially a pathetic female. And to think I’d persuaded myself that I was over Freddie and falling for dire Datee, with his door-opening, chair-pulling, jacket-taking good manners. Vom.

So, after a momentary pause, I recovered enough to launch myself from the sofa, squealing his name with Neeneeish glee and fling my arms round him, breathing ‘Oh God, I’m SO glad you’re home’ into his sweaty, manly neck. He squeezed me until breathing anything, even endearments, was no longer an option, said ‘I missed you too’ and then held me away to look at me. My heart thumped as his left hand slid gently down my waist to my hip, and his right hand cupped my chin and cheek and tilted my face up to his. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about you, Ally’, he muttered and, as we both forgot the regrettable presence of Datee, my eyes fluttered shut and –

Oh, alright, FINE, it never happened. I just realised as I shuffled hurriedly away from Dateee and gazed in breathless, heart-pounding adoration at Freddie, that the above was exactly what I WANTED to happen. Really, I couldn’t do anything very much at all, until Freddie broke the awkward silence with ‘Hello, Ally’, and put down the giant backpack. He stood rubbing his shoulder - which made me quiver and yearn to offer him a massage – come ON, girl, get a grip - and glanced between me and Datee with an uncertain smile.

‘Freddie! Hi!’ I gasped, sounding embarrassed and hostile, and got up to greet him. My attempt at a hug was made deeply awkward by his effort to kiss me on the cheek, ending in an uncomfortable, nervous-laughterish pause and a brushing of lips that, whilst tantalising, was also gut-wrenchingly embarrassing, the more-so as I could tell that he was staring at Datee the whole time. Ugh, how I LOATHED myself for letting him talk me into letting him into the house. Death.

Datee, meanwhile, had risen from the sofa himself, and come to hover near our miserable, unsatisfying reunion. ‘Hi’, he semi-shouted, apparently his tone of choice, incidentally – ‘Alan.’ As he said it I realised what I’d found attractive about him; he reminded me of Alex the Wanker Banker, which wasn’t entirely surprising. Alan is a management consultant, which is the same breed of man, just a bit slimier, I’ve always thought.

‘Hi’, replied Freddie warily, stepping forward slightly so that he was alongside me, our arms touching, in the hallway. I leaned shamelessly in against him, smiling stupidly just because he was there. I knew that I ought to be somehow taking advantage of the whole thing to make him jealous, but alas, such cunning seems beyond me. I could only formulate increasingly desperate strategies to pretend that Alan was really just a friend and get him out of there because the idea of Freddie thinking he had competition was inexplicably horrendous.

‘You a friend of Ally’s?’ Freddie prompted, and my stomach contracted. ‘Yes –‘ I squealed hopefully, but Alan was quicker and, unsurprisingly, louder. ‘We’re seeing each other,’ he claimed decisively and erroneously, without so much as a glance in my direction. ‘Are you’, Freddie replied, obviously not expecting an answer. He wound his arm around my waist. ‘Lucky man’, he remarked, and squeezed. I wriggled free, feeling wretched.

‘Ya, I guess so’, Alan said, with laugh that tried hard not to sound annoyed. ‘So you’re –sorry, was it Jamie?’ Freddie reached down for his bag. ‘That’s the other one, mate. You met Laura yet? She’s nice.’ He smiled pleasantly. ‘No, no,’ Alan said, more casually, ‘just you.’ Freddie grinned wolfishly, mystifyingly pleased. ‘Sure…and has Ally given you the grand tour of the house yet?’ This was weird. Were they going to be friends now? Not good. ‘I think she’s planning to do that later,’ Alan said, which annoyed me, because I had no such intent and it sounded lascivious. I cleared my throat. ‘Alan, it’s kind of late already, sorry not to have shown you round earlier, I didn’t think…’ – all the while wondering if it was rude to invite someone in and not give them a tour – was this some strange piece of etiquette I’d somehow missed in my childhood? – ‘….anyway, maybe another time.’

He frowned. Freddie nodded. ‘Shame,’ he commiserated, ‘it’s a great place. Ally’s got the best bedroom, I think. Kind of wish it was mine.’ I stared at him, because that was a lie, more or less. Alan stared too. ‘I doubt she’ll swap,’ he said, weirdly. ‘Nnooo, I don’t suppose I will. Although Freddie’s room is also lovely and he’s made it look very nice’, I babbled frantically, ‘now, Freddie, if you want to have a shower do you think you could go now because I’m going to need one too, and I want to go to bed soonish. We were just saying goodnight, weren’t we Alan?’ Freddie ruffled my hair with his free hand. ‘Sure thing, babe, I’ll give you a shout when I’m done’.

Alan peered up the stairs after him, and then turned to me. ‘So, that’s Freddie’, I said nervously, ‘he’s sometimes sort of protective, so – ‘ I got no further. Alan grabbed me with unexpected skill and force and kissed me. Also unexpectedly, I found myself kissing him back, and remembering all the things I liked about him. And then he broke off to say, ‘So…how about the tour?’ as though the thing was a certainty. ‘Um, NO,’ I snapped, outraged, wondering how I’d feel about it if Freddie hadn’t just come home looking like a ruffled God, and not especially liking the answer to that question, ‘no, it’s late and I’m tired. I’ll call you tomorrow. I’m sorry about – I didn’t know Freddie was home today, so…’

He left. Twenty minutes later, Neenee knocked on the door. ‘Lissy-wissy!’ she trilled as she brushed past me.

God, I’m so stupid.