A Woman's Promise.

Some of my older blogging friends might remember a post I put up once telling the amusing story of the blonde in a pub in Winchester. She was the one who chatted me up for over an hour, before announcing that she’d only done so to make her boyfriend jealous, and she was going back to him now. It’s funny in retrospect, but it wasn’t at the time.

Two other tales, dissimilar in detail but essentially the same in principle:

I once attended a friend’s wedding in London. It had been arranged that I and several others who had travelled some distance would spend the night in the married couple’s flat. At the reception I got talking to an attractive woman, a little younger than me, who was obviously unattached and up for some fun. So was I, so we agreed to spend the night together. We all piled into a taxi, and then a young man who was unknown to me ran up and asked if he could come back with us. He must have been known to the groom, because he agreed. As we walked into the flat, my ‘partner’ grabbed the young man’s arm and marched him into the bedroom. I spent the night on the living room floor. I don’t really blame her, of course; she had every right to make her choice. But it didn’t feel good.

And then there was the time when I was sitting in a bar in Donegal Town. Two American girls, obviously a pair of tourists, came in and paid me a great deal of attention. I admit, I was flattered. I’m easily flattered. It comes from having a slightly inadequate self-image. Things looked good for a while, until a couple of local young bucks made an appearance. The two girls didn’t exactly drift away from me. Moths to a flame would describe it better. Within minutes they were close up and personal, and I never saw them again.

I could give other examples – Sheona McCormack and Sven Mortensen, for one. And if there’s one thing I find hard to take, it’s being lifted up on a promise and then dropped again. It stings, you know? And it’s something women seem to be very ready to do. What’s more, it isn’t something you get used to. The effect is cumulative. Life has taught me to be circumspect before being drawn in by a woman’s attentions, and yet it doesn’t seem to help much. It still happens. The new buck is always younger, more handsome, more rakish, more something...

I’m going to bed now. It’s 3 am, the real witching hour. And this post will be coming down in the morning. It doesn’t do me any favours and it will have served its purpose by then.