Oh
God, this is awkward. Possibly...
I’ve
just become aware of a feature in a magazine called ‘Country
Living’ in which a woman is documenting her search for love among
the hay bales and slurry of Somerset – or Wiltshire. Can’t be
sure. Names may have been changed to protect the identities of
persons living – and counties.
Like
me, she’s lost a spouse, so of course, I am sympathetic, but the
poor creature just doesn’t seem to be able to read the messages
she’s getting from this chap she’s pursuing, and it’s been
reminding me of a situation I’ve found myself jousting with
recently.
It
was my daughter who first alerted me to this column. She’d started
reading it while she waited at our local GP surgery.
“Bloke
in this seems a lot like you, Dad” she had said. So much so, in
fact, that she’d asked the Receptionist if she could take the mag
home to show me.
As
I reluctantly read through the August episode of riotous romantic
antics, I began to wonder if the bloke in fact WAS me.
Just
like him, I am a widower. Just like him, I am half Spanish, and just
like him, I do speak to my animals in my father’s language. They
seem to respond well to it. Animal communication is all about meaning
after all, rather than words.
 |
| Ok, this isn't me, but I definitely look like him... |
Also,
just like him, and at the insistence of my daughter, I have dipped my
toes into the internet dating pool, but didn’t really like the
sensation of eager little fish nibbling at my flesh. Just like him,
one in particular has ended up becoming something of an irritation.
As
I read on, I became extremely uncomfortable remembering how we had
finally met up – in a bookshop. How I had been immediately
horrified to find that the woman with whom I had been corresponding
had turned out to be a neighbour of mine, how I had continued with
the ‘date’ so as not to be rude, and how I had even followed-up
with an invitation to a show – because I had felt to leave it there
would not have been sporting. After all our to-ing and fro-ing on
messenger, just to dump her due to a lack of chemistry seemed
churlish, and I figured that as she was a neighbour, I might at least
make a friend.
She
didn’t answer. Not for a while, anyway. I remember I was rather
relieved, but when she eventually told me that a plague of mice or
termites, or locusts (whatever it was) in her post box had eaten my
note, I think I felt about the same as my Housemaster must have done
when I explained my shoddy Physics prep by blaming my dog, claiming
he’d ingested my notes when I was at home for Easter one year:
unconvinced.
The
only thing I was convinced about was that I didn’t want to get it
on with this lady. She was nice enough in a sort of desperate post-menopausal hobby farmer’s wife way, but the rather affected dippy
‘scatterbrain’ persona she adopted to mask the smell of
desperation came across rather like the pervasive pong of one of
those air-fresheners colleagues use in the office lav.
I
went online to read more of these ‘stories’. Dating back some
months, I started recognising ‘scenes’ in which I had found
myself with my neighbour. The most recent documented a situation at a
local wedding where this ‘Imogen’ had got plastered, and done a
Theresa May: running girlishly through some poor sod’s crops in the
moonlight, ending up in a waterlogged ditch. In mounting horror, I
remembered how my neighbour had done something similar. I had watched
in some irritation as she and a group of younger people had gone
crashing through a field of young maize. She couldn't keep up with them and inevitably came a cropper in a ditch. Fighting the urge to leave her there and simply call the farmer so he could utilise his digger and give her the telling off she deserved, I had pulled her out. I helped her
back to her gate, then ran off as quickly as I
could before she could try to drunk kiss me. In the story, 'Matthew' had helped
‘Imogen’ back to the host's house, and she had taken this as him caring about her.
In
fact, reading back through the series, it seemed that every attempt this chap ‘Matthew Antiza’ had
made to get ‘Imogen’ off his back, even the most basic courtesies
he had shown towards her, had been interpreted as him wrestling with
his true (romantic) feelings towards her.
I
found myself wondering if every time I had brushed off my neighbour,
she had been reading this as me burning with a passion for her I
simply did not recognise as such...Yet. I also found myself wondering
if she wrote a secret column for a ‘country’ lifestyle magazine…
Of
course, I can’t prove anything, but just to be helpful, I have a
few words of advice for any other ‘bewildered countrywomen’ who
are labouring under similar delusions: ladies, men don’t do
subtlety very well. If we are interested, you won’t be able to
mistake it. We will call you, text you, ask you out. If we want you,
we want to see you. You don’t have to make excuses to ‘bump’
into us at the Garden Centre or the vet’s office. We’ll be
bumping into you first.
And
‘Imogen’, leave him alone. He’s not interested.
Sincerely,
Antonio
Banderas (not my real name)
