A welcome distraction
The Loaf came over yesterday to have some beers in the sun by the river. We had the nicest time sitting in the late British summer sun and then came home, fired up the BBQ and cooked some steaks. We watched a movie and cuddled on the sofa under my big cream cashmere throw.
A bit of background, The Loaf is unbelievably lovely. He is early 30’s, 6’2” of sandy brown hair, golden skin, blue eyes and strong arms. On top of that he is warm, kind and very easy to have around. He is like a perfectly baked loaf of bread. You just want to toast him and slather him in butter. Yum.
The first time we met, we had a ball. Just good bar hopping fun that turned into a most of a weekend cause it just felt good. Restorative. He is the kind of toyboy that takes you out drinking, snogs you in a taxi, then makes you a cup of tea, runs you a bath and cooks you breakfast the next day.
And well, our day yesterday was so chilled and so cuddly that we actually didn’t have sex. I know, I know, toyboys and older women, everyone thinks its all about the sex sometimes. Well, surely sex is part of any relationship no matter what the dynamic or age difference, but well, sex in a funny way would have ruined last night.
Does that make sense? It was perfect just being sleepy and happy together. Will it happen again? It would be nice, but who knows? What I do know is, it put a little bit more of me back together (it’s a slow process putting yourself back together after a divorce you know) and that is all that matters frankly.
Anyway, The Loaf, full well known to him, is my very welcome distraction at the
moment. He knows the whole story I am about to tell ya’ll.
And, no ya’ll, not from Tennis Toyboy. He got the heave ho this week as he turned out to be an utter disappointment despite ticking every box I thought I wanted ticked.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, God sends us people when we need them and The Loaf has helped me understand that life is not all about ticking boxes. Sometimes life is just about days like yesterday.
And! Not think about someone else. See, a few months ago I met someone from TBW. And, no I have not talked about him. It was all too overwhelming to even write about.
Until now, because one way or another, I have to think about him now and quite possibly get him out of my system faster rather than slower.
We had been corresponding for 8 months and not managed to meet. Bear in mind ya’ll, he is not your average toyboy. For a start, he is 45 and had lied about his age in his profile!
We had planned to meet a few times over the course of those 8 months, but for loads of good reasons we never managed it. Good reasons in my book were me thinking my husband was having me followed in the run up to our settlement hearing and him, constantly travelling (he is a retired dot com millionaire apparently), skiing and scuba diving all over the world.
Instead of meeting, we ended up having this Jane Austen-esque sort of thing. Emails to check in with each other about every two or three weeks. A few phonecalls. Then sometime in February I hadn’t heard from him in over a month. And I just knew, instinctively something was wrong.
He had had a very bad diving accident.
He had almost died.
The month that I hadn’t heard from him he was in a decompression chamber in Yau, not sure when the doctors would let him fly back to the UK.
He got home safely thank God, and the emails picked up where they left off.
But then it was my turn for my life (selling the house, packing up, sorting the garden, moving into the new place, re-meeting Darren my gorgeous gardener from 10 years ago…wow…wow…wow…Bobby Ray phone your office), not his to make it impossible for us to meet. I was also seeing The Toyboy and having a wonderful time, so it was just lovely to hear from him from time to time.
Then, sitting on the floor of my new flat eating Chinese takeaway with my best girlfriends, 5 days after moving out of the marital home, my mobile rings. It was him.
He said, this is crazy, we have to meet. Would you like to have tea with me on Thursday?
Well after 8 months of emails I was like, tea?!?
Tea?!?!
Hell no, I wanted dinner minimum. I turned him down, ever so charmingly and said, when you have more time, do give me a call.
Then about an hour later after my girlfriends had gone and I was tidying up, I knew I had to meet him.
I texted him: ‘Screw it, let’s have tea. Life is too short.’
And we did.
Okay. I cannot believe I am about to write this, but one of my dearest friends saw it all over me later that evening. And having lunch with an old banking colleague last week, he saw it too.
Ya’ll know me a little bit by now and while I can be a hopeless romantic, I am, I hope also a realist. I have been accused of being cynical on more than one occasion. Distant, protective of myself rings a few bells too.
But this was a first. This has NEVER happened to me before.
And nobody was more surprised than me.
I fell in love at first sight.
He walked up to me, I looked up at him and I was a gonner.
The conversation was alarming. The instant chemistry, the click, the Christ, well, we’re older, we know. We just know.
In less than an hour we were both thinking, oh dear. Me happy to admit it (to myself not him!), he silently horrified that his perfect woman was sitting right in front of him and she is recently divorced with two kids.
Not part of his big plan.
And he said what I was thinking before I could. Our timing is crap isn’t it? You’ve just left the life I want to start.
Erm, yeah.
We looked at each other again on an impossibly beautiful summer’s afternoon last June and were speechless for a second.
He said he had a lot of thinking to do over the summer and that I had a lot of wild oats to sew. We agreed we should meet up in September.
And true to his word, he called me at the end of August (ok, after a little teasing text about some champagne in the fridge having his name on it a week before) as he was packing up his summer place in Switzerland and said, I would love to see you when I am back next week.
That was the week the boys were going back to school, work was madness and I was like I would really love to see you too, but cannot possibly.
This is not a man accustomed to women turning him down for anything I suspect. Hells bells, women probably fall in love with him at first sight every day of the week (or maybe I am biased).
We made a date to meet a week later.
It was after a full day of meetings, a glass of wine with our corporate lawyers and no dinner in my tummy, but at least my hair looked great and I was wearing a killer LBD.
And just before he got there, I had called my girlfriend and said, nope, not going to be charmed, I see all the red flags from 50 miles away on this one (as in, the last 10 years of his life has been one huge midlife crisis, probably a ‘toxic bachelor’ extraordinaire, illegally charming, answers to basically no one now that he’s made his money, etc.) and I am going to have one drink and go.
The road to hell and all that.
Within 5 minutes of sitting at the bar we couldn’t keep our hands off each other, smiling, flirting, thinking about each other naked, talking about our lives. The bar staff were looking at us with these beautiful smiles, clearly seeing two people that are absolutely, categorically made for one another.
Its pretty rare.
You’ve seen it maybe once or twice.
You know that little glance between two people, wrinkled and grey, faces full of the life they have lived together, that even after 40 years a spark of electricity still zips through the air when they look at each other. Or even the couple that have 3 kids under the age of 5 at brunch on a Sunday stealing a sexy glance at each other that says, as soon as these guys are all in bed I am going to take you upstairs and shag you senseless.
My parents had it. My goddaughter’s mum and her second husband have it.
Smelling delicious and crackling with charisma, he asks me what’s next for me?
I said, good question. I should have flippantly replied oh, make enough money to pay the boys school fees buy myself, buy a villa in Ibiza for next summer and do the ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) in November 2009.
Then I asked him, what about you?
He says its time for him to get married and have some kids (he has no idea how unready he is but…another column’s worth at least).
You wouldn’t have any more kids would you? You’ve been there done that, right?
Well, erm, yes I have been there done that, but I wanted more children, my husband didn’t.
He looked at me, smiled and said, shall we just book the church now?
Yes, he was joking and surely he would never admit it, but a part of him wasn’t and I’ll tell you how I know.
He is 45. Tall. Handsome. Accomplished. Unbelievably charming. I am guessing not from a terribly posh family, but upper, upper middle.
What are his options on the marriage front?
He is too old for a British, Boujis going IT girl in her 20’s. No matter how charming he is, she is just not going to go there long term. He may as well be a T-Rex in the Natural History Museum. He might shag a few from time to time, but its not more than that.
His married friends, ageing, but successful Sloanes fix him up at dinner party after dinner party with women who are in their mid 30’s, never married. Some are contemplating getting a cat and their biological clocks are clanging about as loud as the grandfather clocks in the hallways of the houses in Fulham where they are eating dinner.
There might be a few women at these dinner parties that are real go-getters, but sadly they will write him off as a total playboy that refuses to grow up (and they are not too far off the mark) and too much like hard work on top of their big careers.
They are successful, financially independent and can have their pick of men or toyboys. Erm, what biological clock? A lot of them might not want to get married at all thank you very much.
He wants the clean slate and stimulation of a fiery youngish career girl, who actually despite her career success, actually doesn’t have enough life experience to be worried by his massive ego or personality. His warmth, his tenderness and his heady hedonistic approach to life would win her over in no time at all.
She is also, young enough not to know any better. She’s probably late 20’s, early 30’s, and fiercely independent. That will give him the necessary thrill of the chase to stay engaged (to say he is easily bored is the understatement of the century). His married Sloane friends don’t know many of these kinds of women anymore, because they’ve all gotten married already.
And there’s the rub. Whether he knows it or not, his lifestyle (at least 3 months a year in Switzerland skiing just for starters) and his personality would kill his first wife’s (yes, and not the last if he doesn’t pick carefully, I bet a case of Bolly) serious career stone dead.
Her new job would be him. He would have himself a classic Dollshouse marriage.
Congratulations big guy.
And to please him because she is head over heels in love with him, she would have the babies, try to go back to her career and then just chuck it all and get a Mulberry handbag and drive the Range Rover all over Fulham or whatever Shire they move to.
Give it 10 years and she would grow up, realise she had given her late 20s, early 30’s and her career to him and then resent him for it and divorce him and start going out with a 23 year old.
I know because I was her.
There are so many similarities between him and Mr. Magnolia that well, I should know better. But maybe I can handle him because of what I have just been through.
Could I marry him and do that lifestyle standing on my head? Of course.
Full on wifedom is an area where I excel. I am a Southern woman. We do good wife.
I swear ya’ll, I could look at his beautiful lived in face for the rest of my life. Yes, sometimes older does mean sexier.
This man makes my heart, not skip a beat, but full on race with the excitement of the life we could have if we were brave enough to do it (which we’re probably not!).
And it scares the crap out of me.
Probably not nearly as much as taking me (and my boys) into his life scares the crap out of him.
After the third glass of champagne, we are like we have to go. We were desperate to get our hands on each other. He takes me home. We kiss, a lot. I hop out of his Range Rover and almost fall over because my knees are so weak, just from damn kissing. Good Lord in heaven.
He texts me straight away: “Wow….xxxxxx” I text back: “Yep…..xxxxxx”
He waits a few days and emails me. When can we see each other again?
I wait a few days and email back, and write that as much as I would love to, I am not sure we should see each other again.
He emails pretty much straight back and says ….
Ms. Magnolia
Comments