The Hopelessness of Me

So, after finally growing some (thankfully not very hairy) balls & registering with a recruitment agency in London, in a bid to procure myself a proper grown-up job, I have to say I have been rather disappointed by their progress.  Firstly they left me a message the other day to say they had a role for me.  Then I call them to seek out further details.  I'm told the recruiter is with another candidate & she'll call me back.  Fine, except she doesn't.  I call her the next day about it & she's 'left the office due to personal reasons'.  I'm told she'll call me about it the next day.  It's been two days & I've heard nada!  What happened to professionalism?  Why am I having to do all the donkey work?  I mean, these guys get paid when I do, right?

Apparently the job they have on offer is as a Legal Clerk.  Sounds interesting.  Worth an interview at least.  Is it wrong that my main concern with a job prospect is what I'm allowed to wear?  I understand corporate, but honestly, some people's ideas of office dress code is still stuck in the 90's!  If I even glance at a square toed block heel shoe I'll be sick!  That's not even a joke.   I mean really!

I was hoping that all this job hunting would distract me from my looming singledom.  Unfortunately, it hasn't.  If anything, I feel more lonely than ever!  I think I miss being apart of something, y'know, like a relationship is a team effort.  Your partner ends up being your best friend.  I love my best friends, but I don't wanna have sexytime with them.  Eurgh.  I need someone good looking (obvs), funny (always important, you don't want a guy with a stick up his ass), well-dressed (poor attire is something I honestly cannot forgive) & most importantly honest.  Honesty is not only the best policy but it is imperative for a relationship to work.  The Ex was seemingly never honest.  I can't trust someone who isn't & we all know, that without trust, you got nothing!

Let's take dear 'Darren' (clearly not his real name, but he & many others will know exactly who I'm talking about) for instance.  So there I am having a gay ol' time at Benicàssim (still at this point thinking that the French Docteur was incroyable & therefore attempting not to get involved with anyone else) & I meet this guy at the bar.  Unfortunately, I was not feeling my hottest at this moment, nor my most sociable (okay, so maybe not having the gayest of times...), so I chat & then bounce quite abruptly.  The next day, looking & feeling better, I happen to bump into this guy again & this time we actually spend time conversing.

Ellie & I had to leave to go see a new DJ we'd found at one of the stages & this guy, 'Darren', follows us there, leaving his friends behind.  Ellie was not suitably drunk enough by this point, so objected to being a 'third wheel', which probably wasn't helped by my drunken cartwheels (I landed several times on the back of my neck & generally made an arse of myself).  'Darren' & I kiss & then Ellie & I have a big tear-fueled falling out about the fact that I have this 'great' guy back in France (obvs this is now laughable knowing what we now know).  After some time, all issues of third wheel are resolved & we all head over to the dance stage, where we bump into some menshape friends of Ellies.

'Darren' & I siddle off to the turf area (gotta love turf, haven't you?), which by the by had a cross shaped pool (I mean c'mon!).  We sat in that area until five in the morning telling each other our life stories & I was like, wow, this guy is so cool.  Then I of course do the woman thing, where I start to immediately fantasize about how great a boyfriend he'd be.  So pathetic, but I do it every time!  Anyway, we agree to meet up in Brick Lane when we both get back to the UK.  I would like to point out right now that he knew of the existence of the French Docteur.  Y'know why, 'cause I'm honest!  Nothing good ever came from dishonesty!

Obviously I was in France for my birthday & 'Darren' messaged me on Facebook & suggested meeting up when I got back.  I told him I expected funding to be low, so I wasn't sure when.  Then I got back to the UK & I did actually have some dollar to my name, so I did something I never do, I texted him.  I suggested dinner & told him I'd message him the next day to confirm possible dates.  Next day I text him to say 'dinner, next week sometime?'  No response.  FOUR DAYS LATER he bothers to message me back.  I was like, really!?  I don't know, am I overreacting here?  That's like nearly a week.

I decided not to respond.  Then he calls me a few days later, says he didn't message me back because he was busy renovating this new flat he's got.  We build a bridge, we get over it.  Date is arranged in Sevenoaks, because it is an equal distance from where he lives in London & where I am on the coast.  The day of the date arrives.  One hour before we are supposed to meet up, he calls me to say he's still in London & is like 'I dunno what to do'.  My first thought; 'well, what you're meant to do is, stick to the fucking plan asshole'.  I refrained.  In the end though, I honestly had to CONVINCE him to go on a date with me.  No word of a lie!  Alarm bells should have been ringing at this point.  Still I persevered & went to dinner with him.

The annoying & rather confusing thing was, he was really nice on the date.  Very funny.  Insisted on paying.  Still very cute looking.  I was a little nervous but at the same time unconvinced of a spark.  We both went our separate ways at the end of the night & he texted me to say how lovely it was to see me again.  Brownie points, natch.  I don't know whether I was just actually mildly uninterested or unintentionally playing it cool, but I seemed to never message him, unless it was a response to something he'd messaged me & even then it wasn't particularly flirty.

So the other week I'm in London for this interview.  I thought great, as I'm in London, I can easily see 'Darren' again.  I message him nearly a week before hand & tell him I'll be in town.  He was like, what are your plans.  I told him I have this interview at one & then I'm going to go see my Aussie friends afterwards in Brick Lane.  His first response?  'Oh, I won't be in Brick Lane on Friday, I'm gonna be the other side of town'.  Writing this doesn't really put across quite the way it was said, it was like, 'well, I don't want to hit up Brick Lane, so you can come to me' basically & I hadn't even asked nor expected him to!  But then it riled me that he wouldn't even consider crossing town for me.  It's a tube stop for Christ's sake!  Taxi at best.  That's when it hit me.  I was always going to have to do the running in this relationship.  So I ignored his text, had a great evening with the Aussies & went home.

'Darren' continued to call & text me, which was fine.  I responded, not necessarily favorably.  Then it came to Shakedown.  I'd invited him to it with no response (as usual).  He then texted me to see how it was going, said he wished he'd come.  In my drunken haze I messaged him back several hours later & told him to come to Audio for the after party.  At first he seemed quite tempted.  After several messages I simply ended it with 'now or never'.  He never came.  The next day he messaged me asking how I was & when could he see me.  I told him 'it was now or never, clearly you chose never'.  His response?  'Oh well, you win some you lose some.'  Jeez, that whole experience was so worth it, right?  I mean honestly.  What was the point!?  I don't get it.

So to summerise on what has been an exceptionally long post/rant, when I meet a guy I want him to be honest.  What is it exactly that you're after?  Do you like me enough to honestly make the effort or is this just foreplay for you?  'Cause I've broken hearts & had mine shredded in front of me before & I have become a little less open to life & 'seeing where the wind blows' kinda experiences.  If I'm gonna put myself out there I wanna know it's for someone who actually wants it.  Not some arse wipe who's just out to make me jump through hoops just to stroke his ego.  I have not got the time nor the inclination & if I'm honest, I hope dear 'Darren' reads this, if not to understand where he went so unequivocally wrong with me.  Like I said to him 'I like you, you like me, make it happen'.