Oh dear. Just 107 days from the 1000 I gave myself back in 2013 and I’d still prefer to change the plans of three other people just to avoid sharing a crowded pub forecourt with Halfman and his wife.
863 days later and I’m still finding out sleazy stories about him that make me wonder how my sleazeometer didn’t kick in at all.
I know hormones and loneliness and escaping a brutal 15-years … yada yada. But still, how could I not see it?
Those lines he fed me … Even when I objectively knew I was being treated to his best ‘sleep with me’ repertoire … I still let it work on me. Some of it was me thinking ‘this is an adventure even if ill-advised but some of me wanted to be charmed and let it happen.
When I think back to the two bits of conversation that led to our first kiss. Well, it’s embarrassing to give them oxygen.
But it feels good to dig them out and mock them as well. And maybe they will float away once they’re out there.
The first is such a huge sociopath warning sign: he told me his wife had rung him at work the previous week and ‘she was so painful’ – that was his code for her wanting something from him (like support and feelings). Anyway, she was upset and not liking herself and asked him: ‘why do you love me?’
Which is just so sad to me – it breaks my heart that she had to call him to ask.
And his response recounted to me was: ‘And I thought, I don’t know why but I need to get through this conversation. So I googled ‘why do I love her?’ And got this list of 101 reasons. Things like ‘because you support me’ and ‘you make me feel like I matter’.
And that is when he turned to me and said: And I thought these are all the things You do for me, not her. This is the way you make me feel.
Pretty good line, really. If I was 12.
I had a twinge: What a horrid thing to do to your wife – to mock her cry for help like that.
And then I thought: I’ve only ever just been respectful and kind to Halfman. Funny that he interprets that as something else.
And then the twinge passed. And not long after he was bemoaning his marriage and scooping me into his arms for a kiss under the freezing moonlight.
It is humiliating to think of how sophomoric it sounds now. How revealing of his lack of respect or feeling for others. And yet I let myself fall for it at some level.
Ugh.
1000 days 