Mr Irresistible

I'm not trying to court sympathy. Really I'm not. But in order for the following story to make sense, it is going to need a little context. The context is this: I have always found the whole 'love' thing rather complicated. It's never really come easy. Maybe it's worked sometimes, but usually at a time inconsistent with the other person in the equation, or perhaps the overlap has happened, but just not for long enough for things to stick properly. All I am saying is that it's not been as straightforward as other people have found it. Enough of the context, let's put away the violins. Now the story.

I am looking for a flatmate. A lodger. Someone to live in my spare room and defray the costs of my life. As anyone chancing on these pages may have noticed. A few weeks ago, I thought I had found a marvellous candidate. This was AB, a charming, funny guy who was in the final stages of a specialised medical training. He was very keen, then a crisis in his private life meant that he decided to live near his friends and thus felt compelled to decline the room to live in exile in Belsize Park. As it happened, that arrangement fell through (a mercy, if you ask me) and he accepted some place in Cromwell Road. Which was strange, because you'd have thought he'd have called me to check if my place was still free. But he didn't. I had always understood this was because he had found another place at a very low rent, but in a new development, it turns out this was not the case. No! We chatted in the early hours of last Sunday morning and he revealed that he had declined the place because he thought that if he had moved in, before too long (and I am quoting here) 'he'd want to jump me'. This was all very flattering and everything, I was touched and amused, and naturally arranged a drink to discuss the matter further, etc etc.

After AB had declined the place there was another nightmare when the next oh-so promising potential lodger went emotionally tits up. I then re-advertised and found someone marvellous and new. This most recent candidate is an Italian gentleman, LT. He's charming, amusing, gentle. We have met twice. Once last week, once last night. On this second meeting we went to Waitrose, got food, prepared food, chatted. Quite a good second flatmate interview technique, I thought. He showed epically fine judgement by bringing the most fabulous 2001 Chianti Classico for us to drink. He was warm, tactile and friendly as a human in a very European way. We shared a relaxed evening and I was very enthusiastic about the whole thing because I considered that he was a great candidate who seemed very calm and centered as a person. Home would be a haven of tranquility scented with freshly made coffee. He promised he was a genius in the kitchen and as far as I was concerned I might as well have had Antonio Carluccio moving into the spare room. I might even pick up basic Italian. What could be better?

Given my appauling luck in finding someone suitable, I might as well have been dodging cars while doing the blindfolded two-step Polka on the fast lane of the M4. Because (as far as I was concerned) utter calamity and total disaster struck shortly after LT left. This disaster took the form of a text message from him. This text message conveyed the fact that the warm tactility I had thought was so gloriously Continental was in fact a manifestation of Greek love. LT announced that he was 'very attracted [to me] and found [me] very handsome' and 'did I expect this?'. Er, I think it's safe to say that no, I did not. There then followed a series of moderately obsessive text messages sent at ten minute intervals expressing that he needed to say how he felt and he was a grown man and that was how things needed to be (and so on). A bleak depression descended. I think everyone knows that unrequited sexual tension between flatmates is nothing short of an emotional suicide. I say this with some feeling because when I was a student, I was on the wrong end of a directly comparable situation and it was just about the worst thing in the world for both parties. Suddenly reminded of this, I became clear to me that LT simply could not be a candidate. I sat at home with my head in my hands in blind disbelief.

All my life, I've had a nightmare finding anyone who wanted to go out with me, but now at the specific time when I am looking for a solely platonic situation, I am deluged with them. Suddenly, by popular consent, I'm just too attractive to live with.

[Insert silent scream here]

Alanis Morissette Ironic

Comments

[Ginny]

Fantastic! We've had the comedy, despair, anxious wait, and now an amusing and embarrasing love-triangle! I'm just waiting for the torrid sex scene and bravely emotional funeral speech before you wake up/get carted off by aliens/the Queen Vic burns down, or however soaps end these days!

[Richard Chapman]

Just call me Bobby Ewing and perhaps the whole thing can be a bad dream. Maybe you could be (a heavily pregnant) Pam?

Am seriously considering publishing the full text message exchange which led to this sorry episode...