Women, Friends and Bikini Photos!

This post was inspired by a recent Twitter post about a girl that was alone in a bar, a guy started talking to her, she ended up chatting to the group he was with, both male and female and when she came back from the bar she got the cold shoulder, it seemed the girls had told the guys to give it a rest, seriously, is that how we want to treat other women?

I hope and I’m pretty sure that; if I’d have been in that position instead of being like that I’d have welcomed her into the group, regardless of whether I had a boyfriend or not, it’s hard being female you know, however even our friends can be really bitchy at times.

I’ve done this on holiday twice now, a girl on her own has been there and she’s joined us, both times we’ve stayed in touch, one of which I’m off to a cheese festival and winter wonderland with soon, they were welcomed into the group and I wouldn’t have dreamed of giving them the cold shoulder.

Women seem to see other girls as a threat when in actual fact many of us single girls are single because we can’t find the right man, that doesn’t mean we want to steal someone else’s, in my case I’ve waited far too long to ‘settle’ and want some that when I do need to compromise it is only on the small stuff, I have tried to change myself to be what someone else wanted and I have to say that the only thing it did was to make me miserable.

One day Prince Charming will sweep me off my feet but you know if he doesn’t I’m cool with being eaten by my cats when I die, for me that is still preferable to settling.  

Recently I spent a day with a friend of mine, we don’t spend a lot of time together but met about 13 years ago, at this point we were both in relationships and now both single.

I went on holiday this time last year and some photos of me in a bikini were put on Facebook, they weren’t posy or posed shots, they were taken by the friend I went with because the sea was really brutal and you weren’t supposed to swim in it (it also had sharks in it)

I’m neither little or large but still bigger than I’d like to be, largely because I like eating (especially cheese) but I also go to the gym and swim regularly in an effort to counter that, I am the kind of girl that looks in the mirror and only ever sees a fat girl staring back at her, no matter what size I am. I am however not the kind of girl that worries about wearing a bikini in a foreign country when it’s boiling hot and no one I know is going to see me. There will always be people that are smaller than me but there will always be people that are bigger than me too and if people don’t like it I’m not forcing anyone to look.

I met some lovely people out there. I’m a Cancerian and apparently, we are drawn to the sea which for me is totally true. I was a miffed at seeing I couldn’t get in it and spent each day longing to go for a proper swim.

The friend I went with wasn’t the type that liked to get her hair wet in the pool, let alone the sea (I wasn’t told that before we booked the holiday) Having a chat with one of the couples he said that his wife wouldn’t go in either but he’d be happy to have a swim out with me, another of the couples we met said she’d love to go too but her hubby wouldn’t, we a plan forming here and the wife in the first couple said that she’d give it a try if we all did.

So we waited until the next morning, checked it didn’t look too rough in comparison to normal and thought sod it, we’d give it a go, it seemed fine, we walked in had a paddle and headed out, managing a good swim, once you had got in it was amazing out there, then the first wife tried to get out, that wasn’t easy and she ended up rather bruised, then after a while the rest of us headed out onto the beach, that was an experience!

I’m not a particularly fast swimmer but I’m happy to go fairly far out as long as it’s under my own steam, I don’t like my head being under the water though. Even though I’d timed it pretty well I didn’t expect to be so violently barrel rolled as I went to get out, thankfully I remained really calm, tucked in my arms and legs and I was fine, as were the others. I got that bikini out recently though and despite being washed several times it’s still got sand in places that sand should not be and I was very much like that bikini for several showers after!

It was amazing though and we were all glad that we’d done it.

When we had arrived at the hotel the first thing we’d done was to walk along the beach and as we did the fishermen were pulling sharks out, I was totally mesmerised to see sharks out of an aquarium (I love animals and wildlife) and we got chatting to them, each night after that we got some beers from the bar and walked to sit and watch them fish for a bit, each time we got there they caught sharks, no matter what time we went, they said we were lucky and called it Shark’O’Clock! We were welcomed into the group by both the fishermen and their wives.

That night the group were pretty horrified that I’d gone in after seeing them pulling sharks out every evening and told us stories of people being airlifted to hospital from going in and a YouTube video of someone getting bitten by a shark on that very beach, would it have stopped me? Probably not if I’m honest, from some of the men I’ve dated over the years it’s quite apparent that I love a challenge!

Now, back to those photos, they are of a bunch of people enjoying the sea, in a variety of beachwear, laughing, paddling and having fun together.

I don’t think I look that bad in them, I’m pretty busty and if I was really skinny I would look like boobs on a lolly stick, believe me I’ve tried it.

She said that she thought that I was ‘brave’ for putting a photo of me in a bikini on Facebook and I have to admit that I took offence to that comment. Why is it brave to put a photo up in a bikini? Would that be questioned if I was posing on the beach at a size 6? No, of course it wouldn’t.

I had lots of comments to the contrary on this, it’s funny isn’t it, that a female friend saw a fat girl in a bikini but that’s not what the majority of my male friends saw, they saw a normal girl having a good time in the sea, there were obviously some females that also had this view and others of both sexes that just kept their mouths shut.

I had numerous nice comments, messages and likes on the photos, one in particular messaged me the day I got back, saying that he’d missed me (we talk a couple of times a week or so) but was glad I’d been away as he got to see me in a bikini and he thought I looked great in it. I am using this friend as an example as he is gorgeous, the kind of guy that I’d probably get whiplash walking past if I didn’t know him (he’s very happily married to a lovely girl, we are just friends) but if someone that looks like that can’t see a problem with it, why should she?

Perception is a funny thing isn’t it?

It came to light later that she was with her then boyfriend when she saw the photos and had mentioned them, she was annoyed that shortly after that he had added me as a friend on Facebook, which she assumed was to look at those photos; so there it was, her annoyance had nothing to do with me at all, it was her distrust in the boyfriend that had cheated on her before they had been together a year, she says she’s forgiven him for it but while she may have forgiven him she is happy to take his actions out on her friends, who have done absolutely nothing wrong.

She also made a point of saying that he had told her in the past that he preferred girls that were more my size to hers (several sizes larger than me, but is that really important?) but his preferences aren’t my choice or my fault, even if I’d not have met him as my friend’s boyfriend I wouldn’t have had any interest in him, he wasn’t my type and there is no way I’d have taken the shit from him that she did.  

Is it ok to say things like that to your friends to make them feel uncomfortable or like they’ve done something wrong to make yourself feel better? I am the kind of person that would be the first to tell my friends that something doesn’t suit them or that they are being an arsehole (believe me they rely on me for this!) but I would never try to make them feel shit about themselves and I would be horrified if I thought I had.  

On the day out with that same friend she also spent the day criticising every little thing from getting to where I live (pretty much the middle of nowhere if you live in a town) my car was noisy on the road on the way back (I love my car, it is also convertible which means it is more noisy than some cars) despite that I had done her a favour in taking her with me, had saved her an extra hours drive, a £20 parking fee and brought her breakfast.

I have to say that I was pretty fed up with it by the time we got back to mine, oh and when we did she didn’t offer any help to get everything inside, just got in her car and said goodbye, I think its safe to say we won’t be seeing each other for a while! 

Shoe Guy………

I met through the Space Cadet and he and I met on POF YEARS ago, like in the first year I was single, so late 2009 we had a couple of dates and decided not to pursue it but to be friends and we still are really good friends.

He has all the traits I wouldn’t want in a boyfriend, he’s definitely a player (although insists he isn’t) has more female ‘friends’ than you can shake a stick at (I’m 99% sure most are from online dating) he’s flaky, rubbish at planning, late for everything, so it was undoubtedly a good choice; however he is really good company and while he’s flaky if I needed something he would be right there which is a really important factor and I love him for that, even though when we have planned something and he flakes it’s bloody annoying, so usually I invite him to things I’m happy to do on my own should he flake, such as bike racing.

We’ll call SC’s friend Shoe Guy because he has a REALLY big thing about shoes.

In the middle of 2015 there was an advert for a film ‘The man and Le Mans’ which I wanted to see, mentioned it to SC and when we looked at it, it was on very limited showings, so he said he’d get tickets for December 19^th and we’d go, he suggested asking some of his other friends which I was cool with, I kind of expected a load of girls (you would with SC) I guess they probably weren’t up for it!

I’d arranged to meet SC nearby for lunch and he would drive from there, he picked another friend up on the way there and said another two were meeting us there, we walked into the bar by the cinema and upon laying eyes on Shoe Guy all that went through my head was ‘why didn’t I wear any makeup today’ well I didn’t because I was going to meet SC who has long been written off in the romantic sense! He wasn’t amazing looking, about 5’10 with a nice smile (and a receeding hair line) but there was something quite attractive about him.

It was apparent that he had recently split with his girlfriend as the boys were talking about when she had moved out, he came to sit next to me when we sat down and made an effort to talk to me, ask where I lived, what I did etc, there was definitely a little bit of flirting going on, we had a nice afternoon the five of us and the film was brilliant.

The boys were all taking the piss out of him as he has a habit of buying old cars with the intention of fixing them up (I’m talking 70’s classics here not shit heaps) but always seems to buy ones that are much worse than he thought and he has little or no mechanical knowledge, just a big wallet.

During this time I was seeing the guy that ‘didn’t want anything serious’ so was still doing the dating thing, although I hadn’t been on dates with anyone else.

Anyway that evening on the way home SC suggested that I add him and one of the others on FB to see what they were doing with the cars (I am a big car/bike fan) so I added them both.

Shortly after he sent me a message saying that it was nice to meet me and it was a great film, I responded saying that it was good to meet him too and had been a nice afternoon, I think he thought that Space Cadet and I were together as he said things about me needing to whip him into shape and that I should get him to organise more things, I said that wasn’t a job I would take on and that I was amazed he’d actually pulled this off.

He switched from friendly to flirty REALLY fast once he realised that SC and I weren’t together, he asked for my phone number so that he could Whatsapp me photos of the current car that they’d all been laughing at and to be fair even with my limited knowledge I could see that it was going to take a LOT of work!

He’d spotted photos of me in a Halloween outfit on Facebook, which consisted of a red corset, long skirt slit at the thigh, stockings, heels, witches hat, red lipstick, curled hair, it’s a photo I love, even I who rarely thinks of myself as anything but fat think I look good in a corset. He immediately went to ‘oh you like to dress up’ I can’t deny it, I love a good party and I love an excuse to be in an outfit, so that again took the conversation to a whole new dimension.  

Then he mentioned boots, he apparently goes weak at the knees for boots, I’d had my boots on that day and then changed out of them, kinda wished I hadn’t! It was in the coming days and weeks that it all started to come out, he said he’d not told anyone before but that he had a big thing with shoes and boots, I soon realised that this wasn’t a lie he really does and for outfits and boobs, all of which I’m not short of!

The conversation went on for months, actually it wasn’t far off a year, he kept mentioning meeting up but was talking meeting up for sex and that’s not me, I wish it was but it’s not. We talked a bit about our dating but had very few serious conversations in that time, mostly shoes, outfits and how he saw himself as a bit of a Christian Grey (not sure I’d have a massive issue with that) sadly, however without the billionaire bit! One of the things I liked most about him was that he pushed the boundaries with his messages but never once in the whole time we've known each other over stepped them, this; I've found is a rarity. 

He did however offer to buy me numerous pairs of shoes, I declined. 

In December last year the messages dropped off, which I was fine with, it was obviously going nowhere but I had got used to talking to him fairly regularly. Then this year, in September I got a message from him, late night, he was obviously out but it wasn’t a beered up message, it was a ‘You’re up late’ I didn’t respond that night but did the next day, he said he was in Norfolk with his mates for their annual weekend away and that we should catch up the following day.

In that time I had a bit of a Facebook stalk (you know you all do it too!) early this year it had changed to ‘in a relationship with…………’ a very dull looking girl and although it’s very judgey of me I did think then that she probably wouldn’t tolerate his ‘thing’ with shoes, dress up etc and I imagine that the missionary position is on the menu a lot, in looks she is also a downgrade from his very pretty ex but downgrading seems to be a big thing, I’ve done it myself and despite all of my friends telling me that at the time it was only looking at photos after the event that brought it home, I had massively downgraded, sadly not only in looks but in personality too. Not only did I downgrade I fell head over heels with the bastard!

The Facebook stalk told me that his relationship status was no longer showing on there, it didn’t say single but it had gone, even more strangely that he was no longer Facebook friends with the GF, that I found incredibly strange and if I’m honest I was just a little bit excited about it.

We had a bit of a catch up on the Monday, I asked why he’d got in touch after so long, he said that he just thought he would say hi, the conversation started fairly general, work, cars, he’d moved to London, that he’d not seen SC or his brother recently, what I’d been up to, I said that I’d thought about him recently, he asked why.

I explained that I had bought new shoes, beautiful, new shoes, the kind that he would love, he said that he’s glad I remembered him in a nice way, I said that shoes and chickens (he kept chickens in his old house) occasionally made me think of him, he asked about the shoes, at no point had the GF been mentioned and I was hopeful there was a reason for that, he said that his mind had immediately gone into overtime, he then said ‘my other half will give me a slap’

Ah, so there it is, she IS still around. FUCK.

I responded with ‘Buy her some’ he ignored my comment totally, asking if my PVC outfit was ok still. I said that our conversation has been very sensible until shoes had been mentioned but yes, it was still in the wardrobe.

He said that he’d never turned up on my doorstep like he’d talked about, I mentioned that  I’d never given him my address and said that with him having a girlfriend the time had passed for us. He said he’d let me know next time he was in the area so we could meet up, I made a pretty firm stand at this and said that wasn’t on the cards, he changed his tune quickly saying he meant for a catch up, nothing else, I wasn’t terribly convinced, I don’t see him being a cheater but if he wasn’t bored with her I’m pretty confident that I’d not have heard from him.

I’m in London soon for a couple of nights, he’s asked for the dates and mentioned meeting up for a drink, he messaged me one morning last week telling me he was in Birmingham this week, I’m not sure what he expected me to say to that, I didn’t however offer to meet up.

If he was single again I don’t think I’d hesitate given the right circumstances but he isn’t, he’s also bought a place in London with her so I don’t see it ending anytime soon really, we never know what would have happened but I feel a little like this was an opportunity missed, maybe he does too?

Am I just too slow for modern day dating?

I had lunch yesterday with a former work colleague, someone I’ve always got along well with that has left under a bit of a cloud.

It was early 2015 that he left his wife (that also works for us) for a girl that works on his team and was dating another of his team, she was promoted in this time and is quite frankly as useful as a chocolate teapot on a bonfire. If I wasn’t already suspicious about them once I heard she had been promoted I definitely was! However it was apparent before the split that they were always in the same place, despite the fact that they didn’t really need to be.

He and I never discussed it as he knew that I wouldn’t approve of the cheating and I wouldn’t approve of sleeping with one of your staff, it’s such a bad plan and to be fair it was, I’m pretty sure it contributed to his fall from grace, however both she and the boyfriend she left (who will be her husband next year!) both still work for the company, the only innocent party I see here is the wife, I felt for the boyfriend too until the muppet took her back and asked her to marry him, I see a rocky future ahead of those two.

So since early January he has left his (second) wife and been seeing the girl he promoted, they split and within weeks he was seeing someone else, within weeks he’d met her child and she his, they moved in together fast and they broke up in the late summer, since then he’s been dating which we discussed yesterday, since this time he’s had a short relationship with someone else and several dates.

He went on a date last Thursday, had dinner, then Saturday he stayed over and did the same on Sunday, in the space of the week they’ve been talking, he’s had several dinner, two overnight stays and met her parents.

Then you have me, for one I’d struggle to fit that many dates into four days, I wouldn’t be having someone stay over within the first week because I’d want to get to know them before they were getting into my bed, so my question is, am I too slow with all of this? Should I be upping my game and just moving them in by date three instead of cracking on with my life and being such a snail?

I seem to be kind of a slow dater, initially seeing someone once or twice a week is just fine for me, my weekends are usually booked up way in advance and I’m not making changes to plans I’ve already made.

At first I thought this gung ho chuck yourself into it was a man thing but there are women involved here too and what sort of woman introduces her kids to someone she doesn’t even know yet?

Lets go back to baggage boy, who I had 3/4 dates with before we decided that friends was the better option for us. One of our last conversation’s was when I told him that his son didn’t need to meet everything his cock touched.

In the short time we were friends there were more women than I could shake a stick at walking in and out of those doors, now at first I thought he was a good Dad, he had his son every weekend, which I was terribly impressed at, it was only later that it dawned on me that his little boy (who was four) just had to fit in with whatever he was doing, if he was going out on a date he’d get a babysitter and if he had a woman over it was no big deal, the little one many times went to sleep with a babysitter and woke up to a woman he’d never met, if she’d gone by the time he woke up I would have had more empathy with this but that wasn’t the case.

The little boy had a lot of issues, although Baggage Boy would never admit to them, there were a lot of issues with BB and the little boys Mum, I only heard one side of the story which of course made her out to be evil and him to be the hero, this I don’t believe but I can assure you that if Boy was my child he wouldn’t be meeting different women all the time as I wouldn’t have allowed that. He definitely had attachment issues, from the minute we met he was very cuddly, wanted to hold my hand all of the time, if we watched a movie he wanted to be sitting on my lap, now children to tend to like me but I think that’s because I’m a little nervous around them and I’m not one of these people that always wants to grab them for cuddles etc but normally I find children of that age are a little shy at first, he desperately wanted to be loved which made me a bit sad.

He also had some anger issues and wasn’t reigned in by his Dad, now most things I can tolerate, however one day when I was there I spotted him being cruel to the hamster, I don’t care who you are animals aren’t meant to be dropped from a metre in the air, so I told him that he couldn’t do that and got his Dad in, ‘he loves the hamster’ is what I was told and I could believe that totally, until he thought no one was watching, I imagine that quite a lot happens when he is unsupervised and his Dad is too busy entertaining to keep an eye on him.

He had a girlfriend in Germany for a while, a girl he’d met while he was with his wife and she was with her husband, but nothing had happened…… she was the love of his life, he wanted her to move over which was what they were planning, he’d also propositioned both me and a waitress when we were on a day out with his son at this point.

Then suddenly within days of all this on Facebook his relationship status changes to ‘in a relationship with………..’ a girl that didn’t have the same name as the girl in Germany…….. despite our conversation she had posted photos of her with Boy and him with her children and all of his posts were how much he loves his ideal woman and he’d never felt like this before…….. I know I’m a sceptic but……

We had a conversation about it and I told him that I felt he was rushing in, that while I was happy for him in the last year he’d told me he was in love many times and I had concerns and also concerns for Boy, he brushed them off, put it down to me not being happy for him, which categorically wasn’t the case.

The next conversation we had was a couple of months later, Facebook and Instagram were covered in how happy they were but our conversations were filled of how insecure she was, how she wasn’t as adventurous as him in bed and how he didn’t like one of her children.

The next minute they were on holiday and an engagement ring appeared, surrounded by messages of how much in love they were and how perfect for each other they were, he rang me after and I congratulated him, mentioning that it was only a week ago that they weren’t terribly happy and the holiday was make or break, that was the last I heard of him and I was deleted from Facebook.

They have got married, Instagram is covered in photos of how perfect they are, I did note that the child he doesn’t like doesn’t appear in a lot of the photos though, take that as you will.

A little side note about Baggage Boy, on a night in 2016 (before the now wife but when he was with the German GF) we had planned a night out, we were going to a car show, then for a night out and I was staying at his.

We’d gone to the car show and come back covered in dust, so I went to get showered and ready, as I headed into the bathroom he said ‘I’ll be in, in a minute’ which I laughed off thinking he was joking, he wasn’t. Now there was no lock on the door but it was shut, he then walks naked into the bathroom and climbs into the shower with me, very brazen, I’m not sure what he expected but I finished my shower, got out and went and put my dress on, I was pretty shocked if I’m honest but I’m not the sort of girl to wobble with something like that and I fronted it out, we had a brilliant night out but if I’d already worked out before this that he couldn’t be trusted but this really did clinch it, if I’d given him the slightest hint that I was up for it he would have been straight in there, despite the girlfriend, he spent the evening giving the come on to anything that had a pulse, even exchanged numbers with some and I was totally fine with that but he did then try it on when we got back to his, even drunk I’m pretty firm in my resolve, it did come up over the coming months how I’d batted off his advances but it was long before that we’d decided that we were just going to be friends and in the months that followed all of the reasons that was a brilliant idea became apparent.

So, should I throw caution to the wind when it comes to dating?

If I had I could have well ended up with Baggage Boy and many others that I’ve been saved from but does my caution hold me back because by the time I’ve worked out I do actually like them they’ve found someone else?

We all know that most people multidate these days, do I want to be with someone that isn’t prepared to wait? I honestly don't think I do but I wonder if I've wasted chances by being cautious, like the Shoe Guy, the friend of a friend from two Christmases ago that got in touch recently and today in fact. 

The Cat Breeder, the Vet and finding out I work with his Mum………….

In December last year I matched with a guy on Bumble, quite nice looking with some nice photos and it was pretty obvious from the baby lambs in them that he worked with animals.

Now if I could pick an occupation for my perfect man a vet would be way up that list, being an animal lover someone that likes animals is important and with cat breeding having a vet to hold my hand through birthing would be amazing! (The list would also have most uniformed professions. I quite like the idea of the forces as I could get rid of them for months at a time and most men look better in uniform – although I have seen times when this rule doesn’t work)

We chatted for a bit, did the whole what do you do etc and he was indeed a vet, working about an hour away from me, at the time I had a quite pregnant, very precious, pedigree cat and was fairly concerned so that was mentioned, he was working for a small and large animal practice at the time but large animals are essentially what he is passionate about.

We soon discovered that we were looking for different things, he was not long out of a relationship and just looking for ‘fun’ and I have no interest in that at all, he said that he’d like to keep in touch and should I ever change my mind to let him know, I assured him that I didn’t see that happening.

Over the next few days, he was very sweet, I was watching my girl all the time and was getting very little sleep, if anyone can empathise with that feeling it’s a vet, we had a discussion about how things were with her and he agreed that we could well be looking at a C-Section which was already where I was with my thinking, he’d given me his number by this point but I’d not used it.

A couple of days later the kittens were born, by C-Section, things were still a little fraught with a Mum that didn’t have a clue what to do with these little shouty things that had appeared next to her when she woke up and I was shattered, I also knew that I was going to have to feed these little one’s two hourly until her milk came in. I sent him a message saying thanks for listening with a photo of the newborns and he messaged back asking how they were doing and saying he hoped I was feeling less stressed (I wasn’t!)

I have to say it was nice to have someone level headed to talk to when everything is looking so shit, it was a really tough time kitten wise, Mum wasn’t settling with them at all, she’d only stay with them if I was with her, even then she’d rather be cuddled up with me, I was feeding every two hours day and night and I was exhausted and upset, to the point that I was looking to see if anyone had a surrogate when I had an idea and called my vet, asking him for a specific injection for her, he wasn’t convinced but I was at the end of my rope and was literally willing to try anything. That day I was in such a state that my vet hugged me as I walked in, I literally was the great unwashed, I couldn’t tell you how long is was since I washed my hair as I’d not had time between feed’s (you’ll be pleased to know I’d managed a couple of showers though!)

It worked, within six hours of having the jab she was settling with her little ones, feeding them with just a bit of help from me and became the Mum I knew she could be, which took the pressure off of me a bit, in the week that had elapsed I’d had an awful morning where I had to revive two of them and I was a completely frazzled zombie, I had friends telling me that even human babies don’t need that much looking after! Once my girl was feeling better the babies followed and started putting on weight, apart from the little boy that was a struggle, he was putting on but not as much as the others, so I continued to feed him as well as him feeding from his Mum.

You bond much more with babies that you are hand rearing, it’s hard not to, just thinking of him now makes me well up. He was full of fight, hated feeding from his Mum but fed really well from the sponge that I fed him from, eventually in the early hours of boxing day I lost him, after a vet visit and an X-Ray and some drugs, it’s hard to treat a baby that is so tiny, it was awful and it’s those times when being on your own really sucks, there are very few friends you can call sobbing at 3am when they are miles away and there is nothing you or they can do about it.

I struggled with it, you always think that you’ve not done enough when you lose one and I was terrified I’d lose more, I became totally OCD and weighed them much more than ever possibly needed, probably worrying myself more, I knew that weighing once a day was the sensible solution and slowly as they continued to grow and thrive I managed to get a grip of reality again.

It was literally a month before I left the flat for anything that wasn’t a vet visit, I’d seen no one, I think I’d have felt incredibly lonely if only I had, had time to think about anything.

If you aren’t an animal lover you’ll think I’m mad and I’m ok with that, if you are you’ll have an idea of how I felt! By the time they had reached a month old I had been in the office for one half day meeting, thankfully my boss is an animal lover and I bend over backwards to be flexible, often working when I’m on holiday so he was really understanding of my answering emails at 4am for a few weeks and working from home for that period. That was the only time I’d left flat for anything that wasn’t a vet visit, I’d seen no one, I think I’d have felt incredibly lonely if only I had, had time to think about anything.

During this time the Vet had checked in regularly with ‘This is your regular vet check-up, how are the kittens?’ which I have to say I thought was massively sweet and just what I needed, he always asked how the kittens were and how I was. He said a couple of times that it was a shame that we wanted different things as he thought we’d really get on and have a lot of fun together, to be honest I didn’t disagree but we did want different things.

Facebook did its thing and at some point in January threw the Vet up as a friend suggestion, I obviously didn’t add him but I couldn’t help but notice his surname which was not only fairly unusual but the same as someone I work with.

The lady I work with is probably in her fifties, she worked for us as a Business Development Director and at some point of her time here she’s worked directly for my boss, although mainly she’s worked for our team, however she used my office fairly regularly. She’s lovely and we’ve always got on well, she breeds Race Horses, lives on a Sheep Farm with her husband and is very lady of the manor.

Hmmmm, thought I…. it’s can’t be………..can it?

Now, it wouldn’t be obvious that they were related, based in different area’s and it wouldn’t be obvious that she and I worked for the same company, her home base is two hours from my office and he’s an hour away but the name is a bit like mine, you’d have to wonder.

I mentioned it to him and he kind of shrugged it off but in a manner that almost seemed a bit shifty, however it didn’t stop him doing his regular check in’s on me and the kittens and a bit of flirting.

A couple of weeks later she was in the office and we were chatting, I HAD to know, she was saying that she had a Grandchild on the way from one of her son’s, so we talked about that, I asked her what her other children did, she had two sons and a daughter.

‘……….. is a vet, currently working in……………………. in a mixed practice but he’s just got a new job working with large animals which is what he wants to do’

BOOM! The Vet is her son, or she happens to have a son with the same name, same job and that has told me exactly that same thing in the last couple of weeks…… unlikely hey?!

Soooooo I mentioned  him about it when he next got in touch, he asked who I worked for and then said that he hadn’t wanted me to feel awkward when she was in and that she disapproves of dating sites (which I could imagine if I’m honest) he asked me not to mention it, which of course I would never do.

Fast forward 11 months and the Vet still gets in touch, probably around once a month, he’s always quite sweet, usually asks if I’ve changed my mind (I haven’t) I thought about him last week as his Mum was put on garden leave before she exits the business and I missed saying goodbye as I was in meetings but it was a passing thought.

He missed his October check in (I didn’t know this until I checked the messages for this post) and saw that we’ve not spoken since September and then yesterday a ‘Good evening how are you’ popped up on my phone, it was him again, what timing eh?

It’s funny how these people pop up isn’t it? I’m pretty sure my mind won’t change, as good idea as a Friend With Benefits sounds (because to be fair it’s been a LONG time) I’d be worried that we’d have no chemistry and I couldn’t sleep with someone I had nothing there with, on top of that I’d worry that feelings would become involved for one of us.

I dated someone about two years ago, he said a few dates in that he didn’t want anything serious which I was ok with, however once that was said any feelings I may have developed were switched off, a few more dates down the line he changed his mind and wanted more but I wasn’t there because he said he wanted nothing serious I’d made sure my feelings hadn’t developed, I then had to call it a day because we were in different places so I’ve seen it go wrong, in fact years before that with Blue Eyes, I told him straight off I wasn’t ready for anything serious, he got his feelings all involved and then I had to call it a day as we were in different places again, so casual doesn’t really work for me as it never ends like that.

I think he probably hopes that at some point my mind will change which is probably why he keeps popping up, I don’t think mine will but he does seem genuinely quite nice and one thing I do like about him is that he’s been as upfront as I have about what he wants and I’ve got a lot more respect for someone that is upfront than someone that lies to get what they want, I’m not sure they’ll ever be any more to this story unless one of us changes our minds………..meeting the parents could be a bit awkward eh?!