Single
White Failure
GJH Sibson
Introduction
This book was first written in the early Noughties and published in 2005. Some of the references may seem out of date already - online dating was in its infancy, there was barely any social media. And no one was swiping right. And yet, the dance was still the same. Read and enjoy - I’m just glad that a lot of the crap that happened to me only happened offline.
GJHS 2021
Praise for Single White Failure
“A terrific debut - we have all been there!”
Toby Young, The Spectator
“If you’ve lost your faith in men, he may just restore it.”
The Sunday Times
“You may be my perfect man.”
Vanessa Feltz, BBC Radio 2
“My favourite writer on dating!”
Samantha Brett, Sydney Morning Herald
“I can’t remember the last book that made me laugh so much. Buy two copies - one to keep, and the other to lend to your friends.”
Amazon Reader
For Neddy 1
&
Neddy 2
Acknowledgments
Strictly speaking, I’m not sure that anyone should be thanked for helping with this book – it would be like thanking your girlfriend for bringing home a virulent strain of gonorrhoea. It only seemed funny after the event.
But in the good spirit of Acknowledgements sections, there are a number of people I would like to thank for their support, understanding and listening to me for hours on end, boring them with ideas and unfunny jokes.
My Mum and Dad, for everything; Hayley, for her unbelievable support, intelligence and inspiration; Pop, for being the original storyteller; Matt, Ed, Will H. and Stockers, for being there during the early days; Rosie, for reading the first drafts and kindly laughing; Oscar, F. Scott and George Mac. F; to the Durham crowd – non nobis solum.
Contents
Title Page
Introduction
Praise for Single White Failure
Dedication
Acknowledgments
1. Closure
2. Like the blind men of Indostan describing an elephant
3. The prick teaser
4. Shameless
5. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth
6. A little less conversation
7. Staying single is the solution
8. M.I.L.F.
9. Speed dating
10. Mr Nice
11. Losing the ability
12. Losing the desire
13. Offshore
14. Online
15. Spent
16. Succubae
17. Kismet
Copyright
1
Closure
There are days that change your life. Leaving someone you love is no exception. Perhaps it is one of the biggest, and hardest, things that you can ever commit to. Committing to someone at the outset is easy, deciding to leave them is harder. Sometimes you just have to do it. My life is about to change, this is the story, prepare yourself.
I’m late home from work. I didn’t need to be, I’m supposed to be at the theatre with my girlfriend Jessica. Right now, I should be getting lost around Covent Garden, looking for the Donmar Warehouse. Jessica should be sinking into an ever-deeper mood, moaning about her feet (women in China are protesting against having their feet bound in a similar fashion) and rebuking me for my lack of planning – for forgetting the address. Instead, I’m walking home slowly, taking my time, making sure I’ll be an hour late. Why? Because tonight is the night. I still love her, and it is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. But the relationship has been sour for over a year. I told her I had to work late because I thought it would create one of those arguments that has pitted our lives for the past twelve months. I thought it would be easier to end it if there was a huge scene, lots of name calling and the usual nasty remarks. Bollocks would I be so lucky.
With a certain amount of fear, and my lunch threatening to launch an assault on my gullet, I slowly slide my key into the front door. It takes several attempts, my hand is trembling like an alcoholic’s reaching for a tinny.
Finally, the door gives in. The flat is as quiet as a vacuum. Where is she? Like Jason tracking down the Gorgon, I pick my way through the hall, peering into each of the rooms. I hear a soft hissing from the lounge. As I peer around the door, I see MTV is on mute. In front of the box, Jessica is sitting cross-legged, her straightening irons discarded on her lap. She is absorbed by 50 Cent, silently beatboxing with his homies.
‘Hi,’ I say.
She turns around and gives me a loving, understanding smile.
‘Hi, baby. I’m so sorry you had to stay late.’
Eh? Am I in the right flat? I smile, planting myself down on the sofa. She sits next to me. I can’t look at her, I feel ill. She looks beautiful, in her dressing gown and all made-up. She tells me that she has even prepared a meal, as we can no longer make the theatre. God, I feel awful.
But this isn’t normal – she must have read my mind. She is being totally reasonable. I don’t remember the last time things were like this. My intricate plan of staging a huge row has backfired. Jessica is always doing that, being one step ahead. ‘It’s no good, be strong,’ I tell myself – ‘you have to leave her!’
For the past six months, I have been trying to make this relationship work. But at every turn, Jessica makes me feel worse about myself. Last Valentine’s Day, I decided to give her a painting, one that I’d done myself. Painting is one of my hobbies and, whilst I’m no great master, I’m usually pretty pleased with my efforts. And I thought it would be romantic and personal.
I spent a couple of months sketching, priming and painting. The subject was an abstract nude, a woman half-crouched with her back to the world, tasteful and sincere, bright colours and sweeping strokes that took in Mother Nature’s curves. A week before the hallowed day, Jessica brought up the subject of presents. It had been an expensive Christmas and she thought it would be a nice alternative to make each other something.
‘It’s funny you should suggest that,’ I said, ‘because I’ve been working on something for you for a while.’
‘What is it?’ she demanded. ‘Is it a painting?’
‘Well, er, yes,’ I said, taken aback. The tone in her voice was one of a 17-year-old princess who’s just been bought a Beamer by her doting father for passing her driving test, but it’s in silver rather than pink. I could tell that a tantrum was about to come on.
‘You said,’ she’s emphatic, her voice rising, ‘that you were doing me a painting anyway. I want something else too. Where’s the thought in giving me a painting you were already going to give me?’
‘Okay, sorry.’
Pathetic, I know. Admittedly, I had mentioned the painting idea some time before, in passing. And that was why I thought it’d make a nice Valentine’s gift. Obviously not.
I felt awful at the time, like I’d disappointed her. I was sure the painting had been a good idea, thoughtful and romantic. But I’d begun to doubt it. In the end, she convinced me I was in the wrong. I made her something else, and apologised.
I know now that I had been an idiot. I should have got out back then, when I still had some self-respect. But Jessica had this amazing, malevolent power of making me feel as if I was constantly wronging her, she riddled me with guilt.
That’s why tonight would be the hardest thing that I have ever done. And I love her so much. It might sound strange that I love her, but also that I have to leave her. Many relationships end because of an infidelity, but there are reasons far worse than that. The mental hurt that one partner can inflict on the other, the g
uilt and self-loathing, it can be unbearable. To have them throw all those thoughtful gestures back at you, for reasons that you can’t even begin to understand, there’s little else worse. It’s taken me so long to build up the strength to do this; weeks, months even. This time of anguish and self-doubt can’t continue. I’m just going to have to take the traditional stance of laying it out in the open, clearly, once and for all.
‘Jessica.’ I never call her Jessica. Usually, it’s ‘darling’ or ‘sweetheart’. She can see I’m looking solemn. My stomach somersaults. I’m telling myself, ‘Don’t back out now, be a man you can do it.’ But look at those puppy dog eyes.
‘I don’t, what I mean is, I think, well the thing is.’ Good one Max, that’s telling her.
‘Oh my God you’re leaving me,’ she screams. The bottom lip is trembling, the eyes are welling, and that’s just me. She’s starting to cry.
‘You can’t leave me like this!’
Her indignant tone takes me back to my university finals. On the day of my penultimate exam, my mum had collapsed with a stroke – her second in four months. I frantically tried to get hold of my dad, keep in touch with the hospital staff and track down my classics tutor. I really needed Jessica to be there with me. She was at a Spa in Hampshire with her mother. I had called her immediately.
‘Oh, that’s awful,’ she said.
‘I know, and I can’t get through on my dad’s mobile. I wish you were here.’
‘I’m sure she’ll be fine.’ She didn’t get the hint.
‘I’ve told my tutor, I’m postponing the exam. Darling, it’d be great if you could come back and help, I really need you.’
‘Come back, oh no, I can’t,’ she said. ‘I have a Reiki appointment at five tonight, and mum and I still have another day here.’
I had hoped she would be there for me. That she’d have dropped everything and caught the next train back. But no. It’s at such times that you realise all those pillow promises are made of straw.
Is the crying an act or does she mean it? Perhaps she does love me and will miss me. No, think back to the all the things she’s done – the countless times you’ve been there for her, all those romantic gestures never returned and, what’s more, the hordes of cash you’ve spent on her in return for moaning and poodle sitting. Yes, she has a poodle, which since day one has been the bane of my life. This damn dog means more to her than me, which has done wonders for my masculinity.
‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ I’m perspiring profusely, ‘it’s not working out, I can’t handle you, the poodle or your mum any longer.’
As well as the effing dog, her mum has also invaded our once ‘idyllic’ life together. It sounds unbelievable, but over the past eighteen months they have shared a room and, at times, a bed. You would have thought that after two failed marriages and that much alimony, she could have afforded somewhere more spacious than the right-hand side of her daughter’s bed. But who am I kidding, I knew all along it was just a ploy to control Jessica’s life. They tried to tell me it was normal but I wasn’t convinced – and I’m from Norfolk!
I spend the next ten minutes trying to put into words why I have to leave her. It’s not long enough. I don’t want to blame her, but I want to be honest as well. She’s crying a lot, I feel worse. My head feels as if it’s been dunked in a bucket of ice water. My senses are dulled, I can’t breathe or hear properly. I notice that the look in her eyes has changed. From the initial shock, she’s now growing mad, mad about the fact that I might, conceivably, have the audacity to leave her – ‘no one has ever… left… ME!’
I’m expecting a slap. It’s not like it would be the first time. It’s happened before. A misdemeanour would often result in the nearest projectile coming my way. This time it’s my Thrills album – she wouldn’t throw one of her own. I can’t remember clearly now, but I could have sworn that she passed over the nearest CDs until she got her hands on one of mine.
Her usual routine kicks in, it was only a matter of time. She tries to make me feel insecure, that I can’t live without her. She’s the only one who cares for me, apparently. She’ll kill herself if I leave, she’ll get in the car this instant and drive herself into a wall!
Suddenly, her mother returns – this is my cue to leave before she grows more psychotic and the poodle savages me.
I hastily leave the flat, abandoning Jessica in a mixed state of disbelief, anger and tears. I’m shaking like a child. As always, she has reduced me to a quivering idiot. I feel like I need to laugh, ecstatically. Not because I’m happy, I just don’t know what else to do. Nervous energy. My ears are still pounding, and I have pins and needles in my extremities.
I feel awful, her tears are fresh on my own cheeks. Suddenly, I feel very alone, frightened; I have given up my partner. The person that I have been with for the last three years, the person I love, is no longer there.
‘Have I done the right thing?’ I ask myself. The street starts spinning. I know that the die is cast, there’s no going back and now I’ve done it, I’m not sure it was the right thing to do.
I stop at the corner of the street to dry-heave. Nothing happens. I rest my arm on the iron railings, my head is pounding. Perhaps it was me being unreasonable. She was right, I should have given her the painting and made something else, it wasn’t much to ask for. How could I have been so thoughtless. And when my mum had the stroke, Jessica had been on a break with her mum. And when I told her I wanted to try triathlon, the smirk she wore told me as plain as day, she had no faith in me whatsoever. I guess she was right. Oh my God, I’ve made a terrible mistake.
But why do I always feel awful around her? That can’t be normal. Your partner is supposed to make you feel better, not worse. I don’t think I was being unreasonable – all my friends said I wasn’t.
The street is still spinning. I wretch again. Still nothing.
I have a good, long walk through Battersea Park and over Chelsea Bridge. In my head, I replay all the major conflicts we have endured over the past eighteen months, after the honeymoon period had passed. As I begin to think with a newly acquired clarity, I feel satisfied that on each occasion, I was being completely reasonable, but that I always backed down.
The wave of sadness slowly begins to ebb away. Resolving each of our arguments in my head reaffirms my decision. I begin to feel good – the rotten relationship has been purged. It is like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. I am conscious that I can be me again; this old life, from a time before Jessica, the person I used to know has shaken off this other subservient Max, a man with no will of his own. The pain hasn’t subsided, I’m conscious that it might not for some time. But I am certain that what I have done is best for me. I start to feel excited, liberated and optimistic. Sort of.
I call up my friend Edward and ask him if he can get to the Bluebird in half an hour. For a drink. I need to talk.
After another thirty minutes of scratching the pavement on Beaufort Street, I edge towards the café on the King’s Road. It’s a clear evening, the hazy glow of the patio heaters creates a shimmer like Chelsea’s in the Mojave Desert. I cross the busy road and, hands in pockets, I stand looking into the café that I come to so often. Tonight, I’m a million miles away. Like James Stewart in that Christmas film, I feel like a voyeur, looking in on a happy and beautiful world, people meeting one another, holding hands over tables and exchanging kisses. No one seems to be noticing me. I’m half-expecting George Bailey to stare back at me from the reflection in the window. The last time I was here, Jessica and I had been celebrating her graduation. The melancholy peaks and I fear I‘ve left my wonderful life behind.
2
Like the blind men of Indostan describing an elephant
‘I know it was tough buddy, but from what you told us, it was definitely for the best,’ says Ed as he greets me.
He and Raj, another old friend from uni, were already there when I’d arrived. They’d made the shrewd decision to order three bottles of wine in anticipation. I c
an always rely upon them, even though I haven’t been the best friend over the past few months. I have neglected them, Jessica thought they were a bad influence on me. And they have put up with more than their fair share of my moaning. They know they’re in store for some more!
When they spotted me skulk into the café, they both stood up and took it in turns to give me a manly bear hug, accompanied by several compassionate pats on the back. Everyone’s looking. I pull up a pew and, like a disgruntled teenager, I plonk myself down. Neither of them says anything for a moment, they’re looking hard at me, wearing understanding looks on their faces. This is blokeish support at its best. I start telling them what happened; they’re both quiet, listening intently. Ed’s doing the nodding, Raj has got the glass-filling covered. All of a sudden, Raj’s mobile interrupts my ripping yarn – it’s his mum, she’s checking I’m ok. He’s embarrassed and breaks into Urdu. Ed’s hand is still on my shoulder, he realises it’s been there a moment too long and self-consciously removes it. They’re doing a grand job, and only occasionally putting their foot in it with comments like, ‘We knew she was a cow from the start’ – not necessarily what I want to hear, but the intention is there. If I’m being honest, it makes me chuckle, and I need a laugh.
Ed’s dispensing his usual sincere advice. He’s not trying to convince me, he can see I had come to terms with the decision months ago. Ed is an old school friend and a barrister, working in commercial law. When Jessica wasn’t there for me after my mum’s stroke, Ed had told his clerk to assign the case he was working on to a colleague. He got on the first train to my parents’ place. Ed’s a bright chap too. Previous tenants in his prestigious set include one Prime Minister, two Lord Chancellors and a top TV presenter. He has always loved his job and revelled in an attention for detail; an academic, professional attention to detail rather than an artistic or creative one. He’s the type of guy who’ll need his wife to coordinate his wardrobe or decide on a colour scheme for their house. Ed wouldn’t have a clue.
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