Puzzling (my one that got away)

Wednesday 23rd November 1994 – age 13
Dear Diary,
I went to see the school show ‘Oliver’ tonight. ‘Oliver’ is so gorgeous I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. He has hair like this (small drawing of a head and his hairstyle) He is the cutest, most adorable, sweetest, most gorgeous boy I’ve ever set eyes on!


Thursday 24th November 1994
Dear Diary,
I saw him today, he is lovely but hasn’t noticed me and probably never will!


(Various other not very interesting entries…then)


Tuesday 14th February 1995
Dear Diary,
I gave him a box of sweets today and he gave me a card after school – quote
“Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
No-one can make me happy
except for you!”

oh boy!

Thursday 16th February 1995
Dear Diary,
Rachel & Fraser say it’s his Birthday today or tomorrow, I must get him a present.


Friday 17th February 1995
Dear Diary,
I give him a card and a toy dog for his birthday, he says he’ll call it after me! I hope he doesn't mean I'm a dog.


Tuesday 21st February 1995
Dear Diary,
He wrote me a letter today telling me that Rachel has been sending him letters telling him how much she loves him and that she wants to go out with him. But he says he would hate to go out with her which makes me feel a lot better although it’s not as if he would want to go out with me! But at least he doesn’t like her. I just wish she knew that. He also wrote – PS. My birthday isn’t till the 27th! Damn Rachel that little liar.


Monday 27th February 1995
Dear Diary,
It’s his actual birthday today so I gave him a chocolate dopey from the 7 dwarfs.


Wednesday 1st March 1995
Dear Diary
I don’t think he liked the chocolate dopey as I haven’t heard from him since…


Thursday 2nd March 1995
Dear Diary,
Emma says she asked him if he liked me and he said ‘Yes’ then she asked him if he fancied me and he said ‘Yes’!! Yaaas!!


This went on for years…



My parents and brother knew all about this boy, they couldn’t not know! I’d get up in the morning and watch the VHS of the school show. He was perfection and I couldn’t get enough of him. Of course ‘Oliver’ has become my all-time favourite musical as I know every single word of it and the ‘I’d do anything’ song is one of those songs that often gets stuck in my head for weeks on end.


On bonfire night in 1997, we were both 16 and at our local bonfire, which by the way they no longer hold there for health and safety reasons – another example of bureaucracy gone mad. I was there with my friends and he was there with his. After the crowds went home a few of us stayed behind and sat and enjoyed the warmth that was left. At one point he kissed me. He actually kissed me. He was kissing ME! After that we were too shy to talk about it, we were too shy to do anything about it. I remember wondering why I didn’t just write him another letter but those days were long gone, we were too cool for that now and nothing ever came of it. The following summer he left school and I met my future husband.

I went to the same University as him and when I saw him I was so embarrassed about all the letters I’d take a quick turn to avoid him and duck out of the way, I didn’t know what to say to him. We were only at the same Uni for 1 yr so that wasn’t too awkward. One time, when still students, in town with friends I went into a bar to find him working there, I pushed back through the crowd and sent a friend up to buy the drinks instead, the memories of all the letters, poems and gifts were making me cringe too much to be able to face him EVER again.

Then about 4 years ago I got an email saying he’d added me on Bebo! (Social networking site popular before Facebook for those of you who are wondering) Ahhhhhh! I nearly fell off of my seat! I got over excited and sent him a msg saying something along the lines of ‘OMG You’re like a famous person to me’ That night I was out for dinner with the girls and I told them he added me on Bebo. Of course they knew all about him and asked what I'd sent back, the looks on their faces when I told them showed me they were disgusted! Apparently this is not the right etiquette. But we used to just write whatever we wanted when we were 13, 14 & 15. I was told this was no longer acceptable in your mid-twenties. Ooops!


Thankfully he laughed in his response and we reminisced about old times, it seems he’d kept all our letters and jokingly started to quote from them online! One of my friends offered him cash to buy them all from him but fortunately he didn’t sell them to her as that would have been mortifying! We talked a bit for a few weeks, he wrote me an email asking me out for a drink, I wrote back and say yes, I heard nothing more.

About 6 years ago I threw a Halloween party in town, he and his friends decided to come and arrived dressed as the YMC. He came as the Indian - I was a witch. It was strange to see him again after about 9years, kind of weird, kind of wonderful. He was lovely, funny and handsome still. Our emails carried on here and there for months.

Then a few years ago he moved abroad to work, we talked about everything on our emails by this stage but still we’d not actually met up one-to-one. Over the first two years he was abroad he wrote to me a lot, some weeks he wrote 2,500 word emails, I’d reply and the following day I get another 2,500 word email straight back. I spoke to one of my friends about it and he advised that either, the guy is just really chatty, or he’s really into me.

Then he met a girl in this far off country so I had to assume it’s that he’s just really chatty and I left it at. The emails continued every week or so and then two summers ago I was clearing out the attic at a house I rent out and I found my old diary and the video of the school show!! This is where the quotes above come from, it’s cringe-worthy but very funny, and I emailed him some examples for his entertainment. So we joked about that for a while.


Then about 2 years ago I received an email to say he’s been dreaming about me, and then he proceeded to tell me what happened in the dream which was really quite sensual, I laugh it off but found it to be a strange thing to say to someone who is not your girlfriend.

He wrote again a few weeks later, full of chat and news, one piece of news was that he’d moved in with his girlfriend, so I pondered this for a few days and I held off replying. I concluded that I ought to leave this email relationship as an ‘if only’. As ‘the one that got away’. As the ‘first love’ that I had in my teens and keep this romantic image as it is. I should let him go and build his life with this girl without this strong friendship with me distracting him in any way. Then one night whilst I was still pondering all of this and before I had a chance to respond to his last email, he emailed again;


“I'd do anything, for you dear anything, cos you mean everything to me....
You bloody do too. Did I ever tell you that my sister loves you?
And so do I. I love you.
I wish I’d been smarter and realised a good thing when I had it.
x x x x”

I couldn’t believe that he’d started the email with the line from this song. I couldn’t believe he’d written what he’d written. What did he expect me to think about this? What was I meant to do about this? What is it with men? What am I supposed to say?


After much consideration I responded the next day saying “Sorry I know I haven't yet replied to your last email but I'm waiting the obligatory 3 weeks. With regard to the msg you sent last night - I'm not sure whether to assume you were drunk or not?” I was playing it cool, giving him the chance to say ooops that wasn’t for me (though it could surely only be for me with its content?!)

He responded…


“Ok, my email...yes I was a little drunk when I sent that. I was watching TV and there was a show on about Benidorm or someplace like that and it made me think back to a holiday I had when I was about 17.

I remember being in Aya Napa or somewhere ghastly like that and I recall thinking about you a fair bit. I was determined that when I got back to the UK I was going to ask you out. I can't remember why I didn't now. I think it was because I'd just left school and I didn't have your phone number or address. Anyway, I didn't ask you out and the rest is history.

So that led to me thinking about you so I sent you that drunken note. As I state, I should be apologetic and ashamed of it, but I'm not at all.

I'll now go through the mail and attempt to regain some dignity:
I would do anything for my friends and over the years I believe we have become very good email friends. Therefore I would do anything for you.

Did I ever tell you that my sister loves you? I think I did didn't I? Or did I?
Yes, in some way shape or form, I love you too.

And yes, I should have been smarter and been nicer to you when you stalked me. Who knows what may have happened? We'd have split up after three weeks and never spoken again, that's what. But seriously, who knows? It obviously wasn't meant to be and thankfully we do speak and have become friends. In fact, you're the only person from school that I speak to on a regular basis! How about that eh?

Right, I've explained myself and await your mail missy!“


I didn’t respond. I couldn’t bring myself to write a single word. I didn’t keep in touch. I moved to London and I forgot all about him as best as I could. I knew I had thought too much of it all and his cryptic message had sent my heart and stomach into uncontrollable cartwheels. So when he explained it all away with just a wave of his hand I was absolutely floored.


In the couple of years since I moved I did contact him about 15months ago to ask if he’s help my best friend who was looking to move to his city. He and his girlfriend met up with her and she said it was helpful. I know she expected me to ask all about what the girlfriend was like but I didn’t. I’ve moved on. I’m not interested. He messaged me at Hogmanay last year (New Year to all you non-Scots) and that obviously made my night! We promised to get in touch in the New Year. We didn’t.


Then a little while ago I got a message from him asking if it was still my number. I replied to say it was still my number but was I who he was looking for? He replied that I was definitely who he was looking for but that if I didn’t know maybe he would keep it a secret. (At this point, because he used the word ‘definitely’ I was giddy with excitement like a stupid 12yr old girl who has not yet learned that boys are rubbish and we should throw stones at them) Anyway after various messages he says he was in London a few months ago and meant to get in touch but didn’t. When I asked why he said it was because I’d not been in touch. So confusion has once again set in. I’m not sure why he keeps getting back in touch and why he feels its ok to write that he loves me then swiftly clarifies that he doesn’t mean ‘LOVE love’. I am back on the rollercoaster I first unknowingly stepped onto when I was 12. You’d have thought after 18 years I’d have moved on. But I really haven’t.


So now we’re another 6 months down the line and we haven’t been in touch. I know I shouldn’t lose a friend but we were never really friends in real life. We were pen pals at school (albeit one I’ve been a little bit in love with since I was 12) we became online friends thanks to Bebo and FaceBook and we shared our lives with each other through masses of huge emails but we’ve spent only a handful of times in each other’s company so why is it so hard not to have him in my life? It really is.


I honestly had tried not to think about him for a long time, I got the VHS of the school show copied to DVD a few months ago purely to protect it so I had a digital copy but haven’t been able to bring myself to watch it as I’m sure I’ll cry my heart out.


For all my talk about the boy that recently came to tell me how he felt and I told him I wasn't interested I guess in the same way that he did I have now realised I too need to unburden myself of the feeling that I missed out on something.


I know he's just my 'one that got away' and that I should only think of him as the first boy to make my tummy do summersaults. I know I should remember him like everyone else remembers a boy they had a crush on at school. I know I should forget him, I know I should forget that for over 18 years of my life, through my marriage and all the other relationships I’ve had “I’d have done anything…” and I mean absolutely anything… to have been with this man. But I’ve realised now that sometimes ‘anything’ just isn’t enough.


He’s happy now and so am I. Maybe we should stay friends. Maybe he’ll read this and we won’t.

Is it me you're looking for?

 

When a man you dated at least 6 or 7 years ago (so long ago now that I cannot actually remember exactly when) turns up in London to declare his love for you – it should be flattering.

I haven’t seen or heard from him for 3 or maybe 4 years so when he got in touch recently and asked me to meet for some champagne while he was in London I thought it was a little out of the blue but I didn’t see any harm in catching up with an old friend. After all we’d only been on two dates and nothing more than a kiss had happened between us so there wasn’t any real history to consider. Or so I thought. 

I remember at the time we dated all those years ago, feeling unimpressed because he still lived with his parents and I presumed he wasn’t incredibly ambitious. We didn’t end up going out with each other again but we kept in touch on Facebook and I was pleased to see him looking happy when a few years later he went onto marry.  I can admit I thought, gosh he’s handsome and doing so well for himself now and is such a great guy… yes a little part of me wondered why it wasn’t me, but that's usual isn't it?  They now have a toddler and I presumed (as Facebook makes it look that way) that they were blissfully happy.

Then over another bottle of champagne he began telling my friends how he fell in love with me after our first date and has wanted to be with me ever since. My friends were a little taken aback, I wasn’t aware of the conversation as was speaking to other people in the bar but I did step back into the conversation as he told one of my friends that he thought we would have had beautiful children together. That was a very strange thing to hear him say but things got progressively stranger.

As the evening wore on and we went from pub to pub he began telling me that I have always been ‘the one that got away’. That he has been in love with me for years and he imagined us being together. He watched my ‘exciting life’ (his words not mine) unfold on Facebook and he wanted to be living his life with me. He said he didn’t want to be married anymore and that he wanted us to spend the rest of our lives together. He told me he would move anywhere in the world to be with me and I could choose where we live. He said we would be blissfully happy together and that he thought I was absolutely beautiful. He said he’d felt this way for years and that this is what he wanted. I was absolutely flabbergasted, what on earth do you say to someone who walks into your life from years ago and simply hands you this bombshell?

He and his friend couldn’t get a taxi to their hotel so ended up sleeping on my sofas that night which I didn’t mind as I thought it would be a good idea to talk in the morning. I didn’t really sleep though and when I went down in the morning he swore he’d meant every word he’d said the night before. His friend seemed quite at ease with it all and seemingly knew all about this. Nice to know it seemed so normal to some people when to me, it sounded like madness.

I tried to explain to him that the grass was not greener with me. I am not better than his wife. He sees me as more fun and living a more exciting life because that’s exactly what I portray to the world. Yes my life is bloody fantastic right now but in truth I only tell people what I want them to hear. I only publish what I want people to see.  I do open myself up to the world on Facebook and on this blog but that is my choice and this is not an unedited ‘warts and all’ window into my life this is what I want the world to know about me.

 I am only revealing what I want you to see.

Ok yes, I am flattered, only a few years ago I would have been swayed but I am wiser now. I have lived through emotions on many levels and my head rules most of the time these days so I can see that this is not about me. This is about him. He doesn’t think he has the life he should have. I have been there, I sympathise with him entirely but sympathising with him is a long way from loving him.


 They are a waste of my energy as there is no potential there.

They see in me something they think they lack in their lives (or indeed wives) so let me be perfectly clear. I am no different to your wife. I am hard work, I am difficult and I am single for a reason.  Do not be deluded into thinking your life would be better with me in it. Of course when I said this to him he just laughed and said I was amazing. Yes I am amazing, which is precisely why I don’t need to have a relationship with someone else’s husband.

He said over and over that I was 'the one that got away 'but doesn't everyone have one of those? Doesn't everyone grow old wondering about 'the one that got away' how many people really get that person back? I don't think people ever do and I think it's maybe deluded of him to think he can have what he wants just because he wants it without even thinking that I might not want it. I cannot be in love with someone who has been out of my life all this time. If I'm truly honest there are others who are 'the ones that got away from me' yes he's maybe one of them but he is not the only one nor the most significant.

Look at me closely - is it me you're looking for? Is it REALLY me you're looking for? I don't think for a moment that it is. Whatever you think you see, think again. I’m not the woman you dream of, I’m just a girl who hopefully deserves better than being a little bit of excitement in someone elses otherwise dull marriage. I know as time goes on the chances are all the fabulous men will have been snapped up and I’ll be left with are the ones no-one wanted but I am ever hopeful that someone will be out there. There's always hope I tell myself. Though I suppose that's exactly what he was telling himself when he decided to tell me how he felt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GyMfoAhksI

Karma?

 

We were launching a new branch of a networking group in our city and the first meeting was starting at 6.30am the following morning. One of the guys who was joining the group with me said “so after all this excitement what have you got planned for the weekend?” I said I had from friends coming to visit for my birthday. He laughed and said “21 again eh?” to which I responded “no actually, I’ll be 22”

That’s how we met. He thought I was older than my years and at 21 (almost 22) that was a huge compliment to my naïve self. We got along well and over the following months we became good friends. For those of you who are beginning to piece together my jigsaw of life you may be thinking I was in fact married about this time and you would be correct. There was nothing going on between us but he was handsome and funny in a very arrogant way and he was unbelievably popular with the ladies so the fact that he took the time to speak to ‘little old me’ was really flattering.

He was listed in the local press as the city’s most eligible bachelor, ran a busy law firm and had a queue of wannabees desperate to be his girlfriend.  I had no interest in pursuing him and that was the one thing that truly annoyed him so of course, being a typical alpha male, he began to pursue me.

I had had the most boring of marriages and when I found myself newly single I realised that I had no real reasons not to accept his offers of dates to romantic restaurants and trips to St Andrew’s Old Course Hotel.  One night at dinner there, he commented that other people in the restaurant must have thought he was far too old for me. At 12 years my senior I hadn’t thought about it but it was a good point and although I brushed it off at the time I never forgot him pointing it out.

The sex was terrible, but I still didn’t know any better and he had little ambition to create a happy home for himself. The mould in his bathroom shower made me realise he wasn’t that bothered about how he lived as long as the outside world thought he had made it. Being seen in the right bars, with the right girls on his arm and spending as much money as possible was his idea of success.

One day I heard a rumour from a friend of his that he had his eye on some girl I’d never heard of before and it was a bolt out of the blue for me.  I realised we had never had the ‘exclusive’ discussion and I knew he wasn’t the committing type but we spent a lot of time together, weekends away, dinners out and nights in.  I’d go and visit his Mum and Great Aunt in the countryside and take them out in my convertible car. I’d go for country lunches and to nice places in the city with his Mum with or without him there because she was fabulous and we became good friends.

When my Mum died he was great, he came to her funeral which was a few hours from where we lived and came to the memorial we had the week later. His mum gave me a poem that really helped me and in fact I read it out at both services.  The night of my Mum’s memorial he came back to my parent’s house and told me he thought I was amazing and that he wanted to give us a proper go.  I was over the moon and spent the night with him feeling safe and secure that he wanted me as much as he said he did.

There was one problem, this other girl he had begun to see. I was gutted as I felt she had stolen him from right under my nose. We were still sleeping together but he had started seeing her too. It turned out they had booked a holiday (which in itself was obviously a blow to hear him say) but rather than cancel the holiday he thought he would go anyway as he needed a break from work and when they got back he would end it with her.  I was so young, so unaware of the world that I accepted this willingly and let him go without thinking too much of it. He called me and messaged me from the holiday telling me how much he was hating it and saying that he kept ditching her to go to watch sport in the bar and he was looking forward to seeing me when he got back. I was so pleased to hear that this other girl was about to be dumped and he was picking me. (urrghhh… I am cringing as I write this – please believe me when I state I’m not proud of how stupid I was)

He asked me out for lunch when he got back and we went to the nicest restaurant the city had at that time. We enjoyed a lovely lunch and then he said he had something to tell me that he wanted me to hear from him before I heard it from someone else.  I waited as he played with the food on his plate and suddenly the world began to focus. I could hear the bustle from the bar upstairs. Forks and knives clicking delicately on plates around us seemed somehow musical and his inability to look up at me made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.  I became aware of my heart beating in my chest and the steady flush coming over me. I couldn’t have guessed the next words he said but I already knew the context in which they would come.

“We’ve decided to move in together” he said avoiding looking at me.

In my head I wanted to scream “WHAT?!” and throw my plate off of his smarmy little head but I just sat there calmly while he began to stutter to fill the silence. “we got on better than I thought we would” “she’s not as Mumsy as I thought she was” and “I just think I ought to give it a go and see what happens”.  I nodded agreement and began to wonder if I ought to say something or just get up and leave. Then once the silence got too much for him he said it… “I mean, you didn’t think I was going to come back and say it was over and I wanted to be with you, did you?”

That was my cue to leave because YES - you total imbecile that’s exactly what I thought you were going to do because that’s exactly what you told me you were going to do.

In the weeks ahead he either missed me or felt guilty because he asked me to go to Salsa classes with him once a week ‘cause his new girlfriend didn’t want to go. I decided that I could either walk away or have fun and mess with him a little bit. I wish I’d just walked away but I think there is a small sadistic side to my nature and I had no interest in burying it.  So we began going to Salsa classes, his girlfriend didn’t seem to have a problem with it and he enjoyed getting to spend time with me. I kept the façade up for a while and one day he told me he thought I should set up my own company. I said I couldn’t take the risk so he offered to back me. ‘Ah now we’re getting somewhere’ I thought.

Soon we’d set up a new company, I’d quit my job and we were working together every single day. To this day I can’t deny that a little part of me might have given up my mission to hurt him if he’d truly said he wanted me as I’d been crazy about him but I knew he never would so we continued to work side by side day in day out. Salsa classes each week, networking events each week too. Socialising together from time to time and all the time I smiled when I met him and his lovely girlfriend together. The most annoying thing for me was that she was actually lovely, a genuinely lovely person and very, very beautiful.  It would have been easier for me if she had been horrid but it didn’t stop me in my plan to upset him.

I knew he had a heart of solid stone and that there would be no way for me to hurt him in the way he hurt me emotionally but I knew one thing. Ruining a business plan would infuriate him and that was good enough for me.  He still had the cheek to try to come back to mine sometimes and I told him time and time again that I wasn’t desperate enough to have to get it on with other peoples boyfriends.

I continued to grow the business and at the same time slowly began to build my own business and contacts. I had decided that when I got bored playing the game of being friends I would cast him overboard. I had no plan when that would be until they announced their engagement. Ah… time to go.

I resigned as a director of the business and set off on my own. He was furious. We employed a mediator to allow us to communicate and he was spitting with anger asking how I could dare to walk away from such an opportunity. Inside I felt a deep sense of total pleasure at his fury. Smugness engulfed me and I couldn’t care less whether my own business floated or sank as long as it was nothing to do with him.

He didn’t speak to me for a year or so then began to tell people that I wouldn’t be who I was now without him giving me a step up into business. I wasn’t bitter by this stage and in all honesty he was totally right so I agreed and we began to put the past behind us.  I felt we were even and I had no axe to grind any more.

The week before I was moving to London I bumped into him in a bar. He asked to speak to me and crumbled into tears about how confused he was that we never worked out and how upset he’d been when we fell out over the business.  I realised then that he still didn’t get it. His marriage had been as rocky as any other relationship he’d ever attempted to have and was now also over. He was back on his own and his life was looking bleak.

I was very calm and collected when I told him that only reason he probably got married was in the hope of a tax break or because she already had a little boy which killed two birds with one stone for him. First of all he could turn up to clients with a car seat and a ‘baby on board’ sign in his car window to make men feel he was less likely to bonk their wives while he took the details of the property they’d like to sell. And secondly because it meant that he got to play at being a grown up without having to have a child of his own. I said the fact he didn’t have children was either because he’d been firing blanks all these years or because he could never bring himself to have to love another human being more than he loved himself.

My words stung him badly and he looked at me like an injured animal. A pathetic, injured animal. I figured I’d be as well being in for a penny as in for a pound so added for good measure that I never intended to work with him and that I’d consciously decided that if I couldn’t hurt him emotionally due to him being a heartless b*%tard then I would put a business opportunity in front of him and then whip it away. That I always knew would be a bigger loss to him than I ever was.

He said he didn’t want me to move to London and I said London wasn’t far enough away for my liking, as I got up and walked out of the bar - leaving him there a crying, snotty mess.  He called my mobile a few times that night but I didn’t answer.

Then a few weeks later he added me on Facebook.   I sent him this video in response and duly pressed ‘ignore’ on the invitation (please watch the video – it’s hilarious! The quality isn’t good but it’s worth it!)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSgXwUI2Jxo  The words are utterly perfect!

I thought that would be the last I would hear of him unless I were to bump into him some time back home. Then today I got a call from my best friend telling me he’s been banned from running his firm for 3 years due to professional misconduct.

Suddenly Karma has come around and not only is he divorced and getting old and wrinkly pretty fast but his empire is crumbling.  I don’t want to see him in ruins but there are some people out there that never put anyone else first and life will catch up with them in the end… I hope he rebuilds his world in some way because a long time ago I saw in him a man I could have loved.  Now all I see is a man who missed all the good opportunities he had to be happy.

The Adventures of an EasyRoommate - Part 4

This is the story of how my housemates and I all came to be living together in London. I decided to tell the story as my friend, housemate and sister-I-never-had Sam turned 30  this week and I realised I literally wouldn't be where I am without her. These stories are all true but told entirely from my point of view so somewhat biased. There will be more stories to follow in the days ahead but here is part four.

(read part one here , part two here and part three here) It all began with Sam...

Dating

So with four hot single girls living in the house it was inevitable that the dating banter would be hilarious. Kerry had initially decided she would be best to try hanging out at Halfords on a Saturday afternoon to find a manly man but soon resorted, like the rest of the girls to online dating.

One day all the girls were sitting in their pyjamas logged into the dating site and comparing which men they had been chatting to when every girl got the same message from one guy. So each girl typed back an identical message just to mess with his poor head! Most days some guy would message at least two of the girls obviously not knowing they were friends. One particular morning Erin and Kerry were talking about how they had both been chatting to someone called Mike. Of course it turned out to be the same person. Erin happily stepped aside and was delighted she did as he turned out to be into swinging. That’s too much even for Kerry & Erin. (Well for Erin anyway…)

Online dating is in equal measure entertaining and disappointing, some men have great banter, some ask you whether you’d rather be a one-armed ninja or have a herd of hamsters follow you around for the rest of your life.  Few are worth actually meeting.

Sam went on a variety of dates sometimes travelling for hours just to see a boy and accidentally missing the last train home (school-girl-error) Perhaps the worst date was when she met a guy and realised pretty quickly that he wasn’t for her. After their first drink he nipped to the gents and while he was in there Sam began thinking about how to get out of spending the evening with him. She was wondering if she could do a runner and trying to gauge, if she left at that moment would he be likely to walk out of the gents and catch her?  She realised he’d been a while so checked the time on her phone and noticed a text from him apologising for walking out and saying that he wasn’t interested!

Horrified and annoyed that he’d beaten her to it, Sam texted the girls to tell them to get dressed up as they were going out on the town. Who needs a man?

The Kitten

There was one boy that Sam thought was ok for about half of their two month romance. In the end it fizzled out because he pretended his Mum had died (so only a little bit mental then). But while they were dating he was looking after a friend’s kitten, Lilly. Sam is a huge cat lover as misses Alfie all the time even though he prefers living with Sue, so she was over the moon to spend the evening with him and the kitten one night. The next morning the kitten wasn’t quite herself so Sam offered to take her to the Vet.  Long-story-short is that Sam was left with a £180 bill to cremate the now dead kitten and the task of telling the ‘arsehole’ (as we refer to him nowadays) that his friend’s kitten was now in kitten heaven.  You just couldn’t make this kinda stuff up!

  

Things That Go Bump in the Night

One day Erin and Kerry were in the house and began to feel irritated by a constant and annoying sound. It was quite distant and hard to describe but as time went on it became more and more difficult to ignore it. Eventually Erin and Kerry went on a hunt around the house to work out what the noise was. Room by room they quietly progressed through the 3 floors of the house stopping in each room and listening carefully… eventually they stepped into Sam’s room and could hear the noise a little more clearly than in any other room.  As they stood in the room and focussed on the noise they began to giggle as both their eyes rested on the bottom drawer of Sam’s bedside table. They looked at each other trying to work out which of them was going to be brave enough to stick their hand in and turn it off…

Dirty 30’s

So now all the girls are officially into their Dirty Thirties. Sam thought her twenties were filthy but the girls have a sneaking suspicion that things are only going to get madder and badder at the Castle.

Who cares that they could all technically be Grannies by now? (Thanks to Kerry for pointing that one out) The fact is that the four girls are relatively young, free and most importantly - single!

The chances of them meeting someone awesome enough to give up their crazy single life for are slim but that’s no reason to stop looking.

It’s expected that the stories will continue to get more ridiculous, the situations they find themselves in will be more unbelievable but every single moment will be fun and in time they will come to be known as…

These stories will continue
There will be chapters more to come
Things will be adventurous
But most importantly they’ll be fun

Some would call them ‘Easy’

With a steady queue of boys
But don’t be fooled by this
As they much prefer their toys

‘Easy Roommate’ is the website
Its how these girls began to meet
They’d have ignored each other
Simply passing in the street

The adventures of these four good friends

Will be told for years ahead
Rather than look for Prince Charming
They’ll live together forever instead

Those who know them, will enjoy

The future stories as they’re told
As these four crazy ‘Easy’ girls
Will be friends until they’re old

But no matter how the tales unfold

This is how it all began
For the story will always start the same
Once upon a time, there was a girl called Sam…

To be continued some time in the future...

...

The Adventures of an EasyRoommate - Part 3

This is the story of how my housemates and I all came to be living together in London. I decided to tell the story as my friend, housemate and sister-I-never-had Sam turned 30 at the weekend and I realised I literally wouldn't be where I am without her. These stories are all true but told entirely from my point of view so somewhat biased. There will be more stories to follow in the days ahead but here is part three.

(read part one here  and part two here) It all began with Sam...

The Princesses

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago

Four little princesses, wished to live on this quaint Road

A row of pretty castles, all spacious and unique

With high ceilings and shutters, so nobody can peek

Four equally large bedrooms, two rooms in which to bathe

An enormous lounge and kitchen, to party the nights away

A garden full of sunshine, and monuments in stone

A place to entertain their friends, a place to call their home

From cold and frosty Scotland, Princess Erin brought her ware

Shoes, handbags and necklaces, and bows for in her hair

Princess Sam travelled from Hampshire, with her crazy blonde afro

Her mass of coloured dresses, and a love of pink vino

From Essex Princess Kerry, moved into the grand west wing
We all know she has great dance moves, but that she cannot sing

One Princess was born English, then move to Australia

Michelle can drink and dance till dawn, and loves Spanish Rioja

Cocktails at the ready, the dancing shoes are on
They sing to all the classics, and often make up their own songs

They’ll be there for each other, when sick they’ll hold back the hair

And when the clock strikes midnight, they’ll help each other up the stairs

There will be lots of antics, lots of frogs out there to kiss

The parties in the castle, you would be crazy to miss!

Now they wish to celebrate, another year of fun for each Princess

All beautiful and well-to-do… except when in a drunken mess!

Everybody Needs Good Neighbours

The Housewarming party was planned and the excitement grew. On the evening Jagerbombs were being drunk before 7pm and the girls all had their glad rags on. As guests began to arrive the champagne and wine flowed. The party got busier, louder and more drunken as one hour rolled into the next. After showing someone into the front door it is alleged that Erin spotted the neighbours had a pizza delivery arriving and apparently invited them through to join the party. She denies any knowledge of this as when she met some strange boys on the dance floor (a.k.a. the kitchen) and was introduced to her neighbours she wondered how they had come to be invited. It was only a little embarrassing when she asked who invited them and they said she had.

Fear not, if they felt unwelcome then things were about to change for the better when Sam decided to give one of them an evening he wouldn’t forget.  In her bedroom they were enjoying themselves when Sally knocked on the bedroom door and he jumped up to hide in the wardrobe. Sam asked incredulously what the hell he was doing. He told her that he thought he ought to hide. Sam screamed “Why? It’s not my Mother!” At this point she began to wonder if the reason we didn’t know these young neighbours was because they were in fact the sons of the couple that lived there and maybe the reason they were never there was because they were in boarding school.  Oh dear…



Home Sick

That first summer Erin and Sam had a fabulous holiday to Sam’s Dad’s house in Mallorca where they drank copious amounts of wine, ate their own body weight in Langoustine, lay in the scorching sunshine for days reading book, after book, after book and enjoyed exhilarating days on John’s boat out on the Med.

One night they had such a good evening that they decided they wanted to have a midnight swim. Moon bathing is very in fashion you know. So after some swimming around with wine glasses in hand they got bored with the top pool and decided to head down to the lower pool. Erin had definitely eaten a bad prawn that night and all of a sudden she was (a little bit) sick all over herself.

Sam promised never to tell a soul but threatens to from time to time so Erin has decided to tell everyone about it herself and aims not to do that on future trips to the sunshine!

Dancing The Night Away

Speaking of having lots to drink… The Castle comes with its own wine cellar and every month a little man in a big van turns up to offload the wine delivery. Every time he comes the girls pretend they are having a party that night so they don’t look like the alcoholics they are.

 Most of the wine is consumed while dancing around the kitchen till the early hours of the morning with the music on full blast. Erin sings the bloody Little Mermaid Song (again!), Kerry says F*ck a lot and wraps herself in cling-film, Sam grinds up and down like she’s on a pogo stick, Michelle swings round the pole which was luckily there as part of the structure of the house and the honorary housemate, Sam’s sister Kristie, mostly dances around in her pants with slices of woollen cake down her top like huge nipples.

It’s all incredibly civilised though they are thinking of getting some curtains as the neighbours have started to look at them funny in the street. (…and not the one’s from next door who would have good reason!)

Trapped

One Saturday morning Sam was in bed when she heard a distant cry and someone calling her name… “Sam… are you there Sam? Help, anyone HELP!!” Sam woke from her slumber and realised it wasn’t a dream. She could hear someone calling for help. She tried to work out where the cry was coming from and soon realised it was coming from outside her 2^nd floor window and it sounded like Erin. “Erin is that you?” Sam shouted back. “Yes” screamed Erin. “Thank goodness you’re home, I’m trapped in the shower!” Sam went running downstairs to find the bathroom door locked and Erin shouting from inside that she was trapped in the shower cubicle. Sam ran out to the garden to look through the window. There was Erin in the cubicle, naked and freezing and totally trapped.  The bars on the basement level window meant there was no way for Erin to get out other than to try to free herself from the cubicle and she asked Sam to pass something through the bars for her to stand on. Sam ran off to find something narrow enough to pass through and came back with a bottle of lemonade. “What the HELL am I supposed to do with that” screeched Erin? Sam wasn’t sure.  Eventually a Sam found the ladder and wedged it horizontally through the bars for Erin to crawl along like a tightrope on all fours, naked. It was a sight Sam had never seen before and hoped she would never have to see again.

To be continued... read part 4 here!



...

The Adventures of an EasyRoommate - Part 2

This is the story of how my housemates and I all came to be living together in London. I decided to tell the story as my friend, housemate and sister-I-never-had Sam turns 30 today and I realised I literally wouldn't be where I am without her. These stories are all true but told entirely from my point of view so somewhat biased. There will be more stories to follow in the days ahead but here is part two


(read part one here) It all began with Sam...

 

The Ball is Rolling

A few weeks later Erin found a room in a house in Balham and told Sam that when another room came up then she could move in. Soon after that Erin came home one evening to find that the agent (who, annoyingly, also lived at the house) had had a girl round to view a room that was newly available and said that she thought the girl would be calling the office at 10am the next morning to take the room. She seemed delighted but Erin was furious… that was NOT going to happen… Erin rushed upstairs to call Sam and left her messages with clear instructions to call the agent when they opened at 10am on the dot the following morning and take the room. There was no time for her to view it but Erin insisted Sam should trust her and just take it.  Upon going back down to the lounge the agent who lived there said she was so pleased that the girl was likely to take it as she would get the commission for showing her the room. Ooops… Erin felt a little bit bad that she was sneakily whipping the room from under her nose but all is fair in love and war and Sam and Erin needed to live together!  So the following day Sam called and said she’d take the room. The agent was confused why she would take it without viewing but Sam insisted. A deal was struck and the lease agreed!  Sam said she would come round the next night to see the room.

The Great Pretenders

Sam and Erin had now conspired against a girl who lived in the house so they could not admit to having communicated about the room. They therefore decided to pretend not to be friends already. The doorbell rang and Sam and her friend Sally were shown into the house to see the room. Everyone was introduced and Sam and Erin, rather unprepared without a full dress rehearsal mumbled about recognising each other from a speed flat mating event they’d both been to and how it was such a coincidence that they now found themselves in the same house. What are the chances?  Erin showed Sam around the house and sneakily gave her back the shoes she’d left on the night of burnt bacon and sickness.  The deed was done. Sam and Erin were now officially housemates and they couldn’t be happier! 

The Balham House

Sam had moved into the room with its own back door and found that having the occasional male visitor at her back door was actually rather pleasant. On occasion she was tempted to get it on with one or two of our male housemates but stopped at tongue action. The other male housemates were only interested in back door action, sadly not with Sam’s back door but rather with each other’s…

A year was spent living in the Balham house with a variety of housemates including the Hungarian couple who often ate a whole loaf of bread dipped in egg in one sitting and once made a cake that resembled a pile of crap. An English boy called Egg who had an ugly girlfriend and a Canadian / Polish gay couple who forced us all to get drunk daily. A French man who had access to ketamine in case you had a horse that needed tranquilised and a Spanish couple who were only a little scared of Erin as she roared around the kitchen trying to explain what a dinosaur was to the girl who spoke no English. There was a Slovakian girl who screamed like she was being murdered every time Man U  scored a goal and a girl who complained hearing Erin opening the drawers in her bedroom which only made Erin open them and close them more - just for the sheer hell of it.

Kerry Joins the Gang

A friend of Erin’s then began looking for a new place to stay. She was looking for a room to enable her to move out of her marital home and begin divorce proceedings against ‘Frank the Plank.’  Erin went with her to view a place in Balham but when asked if she had any hobbies Kerry said “no not really” when asked what she liked to do of an evening she said “come home, put my dressing gown on and watch TV”. WEIRDLY they didn’t seem that keen to have her move in and she realised that now was probably the worst time in the world to try to sell herself as a potential housemate. Erin suggested she move into the house as they wouldn’t mind her if she was boring and because a room was becoming available which almost any weirdo might have moved into…  Thankfully Kerry decided it was the best option of a bad bunch and she has turned out to be FAR from boring to live with!

Finding Our Castle

That summer the girls decided that they wanted to find a house of their own and began looking at places all around Balham and Clapham. The list of criteria was lengthy and included a few essentials; 4 equal sized bedrooms, at least 2 bathrooms, large living space, large kitchen, gas central heating, a sunny garden, on a lovely street and with a maximum 10min walk to the tube station.  Frustratingly the hunt for a new home was rather similar to the last time. They found that agents said they understood but rarely did. They viewed some houses with beautiful roof terraces but horrific rooms, some great houses but on industrial type streets, some with bedrooms the sickly colour of toothpaste and some that were so unequally sized that the girls would literally have to have a mud smeared catfight to decide who got the biggest en-suite room and who got left with the room not large enough to store the a 10^th of their shoes.  Then one agent suggested they viewed a house slightly out of the area they had chosen. Uncertainly the girls agreed mostly to stop the agent pestering them. As soon as they arrived at the housed they were smitten. It ticked every single box. They could imagine drinking Pimms on the lawn, having barbeques on hot sunny days and cooking big roast dinners for friends in the huge kitchen. They immediately knew that this big house on Turret Grove was the Castle these three Princesses had been looking for. All that was left to do was find a fourth roommate.

Looking for a Fourth Housemate

Finding someone to live with is difficult. You get only a few moments to speak to each viewer and ask any relevant questions. It could be compared to speed dating except at the end of house viewings you actually invite someone to move into your house and live with you. It seems rather ridiculous. The girls literally had hundreds of responses to the advert and people came round in 15minute intervals. There was a girl that brought her parents who thought the house was perfect and were delighted she had found it. Sadly the girls weren’t remotely sure she was interesting enough for them to live with. Then there was the girl who was 19 and desperately wanted to move in but the girls knew that a 19year old would be far too naïve to live with and that they would surely ruin her 20’s. There was a girl who said she loved it and messaged before she’d even got to the end of the street to say she’d take it. Erm…. think not.

Michelle is Mad Enough


As Erin showed an awful Eastern European, ginger girl around the house trying to make small talk despite not being remotely interested in picking her, Sam showed a girl called Michelle around and they seemed to get along really well. After she left Erin asked Sam what Michelle was like and she said “well I told her about the butt-plug and she laughed”. Erin stared at Sam in disbelief, speechless.

Turns out Michelle found Sam’s story about a guy asking her to dance around the room with a butt-plug in hilarious and so Sam was now sure that she was ‘the one’.  Since Kerry wasn’t home for the viewing the girls invited her back round that night to meet her. They told Michelle to bring a bottle… she brought 3.

A few bottles of wine later and they were googling to see what the hell a butt-plug really was as none of them had seen one and Sam had turned down the one offer she’d had to try one. The atmosphere was easy and the girls had already become firm friends. They all agreed Michelle was the perfect new roommate and the fourth resident of the Castle had been found.

To be continued... read part 3 here!


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