Are men as confused about love as us?

I ran into my soul mate last night; don’t get excited, this isn’t some major revelation, this is the man who appears when I need him most, to pick me up, dust me off but when he disappears he cracks another little piece of my heart!

He is fondly and aptly known as ‘Trouble’, it’s a name coincidently we both used to refer to the other, unknowns’ to each other. Trouble and I always had an ‘on-off’ relationship. You may remember I telling you about a brat who told me he was 37 when I met him; after dating him for some time, I fell upon his passport – come on, I had to look, a peep at the photo and his middle name, his date of birth was irrelevant at the time, I didn’t even look at it initially. Something told me to pick it up for a second look. I’m not one to use profanities but boy did a string of F’s roll off my tongue that night, as I subtracted the year he was born from the year I was born, my screaming voice to: ‘you’re f’ing forty-four’ had quite a ring to it at 4am!

Trouble, is my nemesis. We met on my birthday, 4 or 5 years ago; we caught eyes across a crowded bar and he eloquently said; ‘come here!’...it was his face that drew me in; as my friend Lisa says, he has the face of a cherub. You instantly warm to him; he looks like a good, kind person. It didn’t happen that night for us; it was probably a year later.
If you saw Trouble and I stand side-by-side you’d say he was my perfect other half, physically, we mirror each other, so to speak. One night a complete stranger sitting beside me in a bar, saw Trouble come over, say something into my ear and disappear; she asked if he was my BF, I replied: ‘not exactly’, her response was: ‘you’re cheating nature by not being together’!

If you asked me this time yesterday, I would have told you I was over Trouble, on the path to recovery so to speak. As soon as a friend mentioned he was in the bar last night, I could think of nothing else. Five minutes later my tummy is doing summersaults. My friend Cara was with me, I admitted there and then without hesitation that I was still in love with him, but I know I can’t go back!

Apart from the occasional conversation about Trouble’s upbringing, I know very little about him. He’s a closed shop, you get windows of opportunity, when he’s unaware he lets the guard down. You might get a snippet of insight into who Trouble really is, or what his life experiences are. He’ll talk about work and family but nothing more than superficial stuff. When he speaks proudly of his nephews, you know he would make a great dad. I have no idea of past relationships; I only know what a close friend of his has told me. Ever heard the expression ‘the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing?’ well in Trouble’s case, the left hand, doesn’t realise the right hand even exists!

The weekend of the All Ireland Football Final I ran into Trouble whilst in our regular watering hole, I was on a girlie night with my good friend Rose, Trouble approached and said: ‘hey, how are you?’; on occasions like this, he usually gave my friends the Spanish inquisition; asking ‘where were they from, how long they had known me, and how did we meet’. This time he didn’t get to put Rose through her paces as I coldly said: ‘I’m not talking to you!’ and I turned away. Not my typical style but he had recently hurt me.

Trouble tends to display Jekyll and Hyde qualities, during a crisis six months ago, he was amazing, very supportive, I could have never imagined the support I got; it was completely unsolicited. He’s the best in the world for advice; about 3 months ago I rung Trouble, left a voicemail asking to give me a call; but I got no response, a week later I sent an SMS suggesting brunch I told him I needed ‘big brother’ advice. On the same day his profile appeared on my Facebook as a ‘friend suggestion’, I added him; he never responded to my text and to this day the ‘friend request’; now typically I don’t tend to think twice about ‘friend requests’ and I am not going to get sensitive about it but when it comes to ‘Trouble’ I took it to heart. Going from Mr Supportive to Mr Invisible? Hence the cold shoulder!

Rose and I had planned to meet other friends in the bar that night; my MBF was up from home. Once we found them, Trouble decided to position himself directly in my line of vision.

Ok, I was bold, and played games which I don’t typically do, but I told my MBF, that Trouble was watching and I openly flirted with my MBF for show. My MBF knew what I was at, and although my MBF knew who Trouble was, they had never met.

Last night, Trouble beckoned with his little finger, after he did a double take when he saw me, being a girl I of course had to get my dig in about him ignoring my call/text/friendship request; I am human after all! He retorted: ‘what, for big brother brunch?!’ I think the ‘brother’ was like salt on a wound. Trouble has a 14 year olds view on relationships, kiss a girl once and cut all ties...he has to do ‘all or nothing’, told him to grow up that he was 45 not 14...I am not confrontational, Trouble can dish the grief but can’t take it and he walked away.

Back I went to Cara to fill her in on the encounter, she was chatting to a nice guy, Ben. Cara quickly brought Ben up to speed; he informed me the ‘old flame’ still had feelings for me...according to Ben, men know these things seemingly! I said: ‘how do you think that?’ he replied ‘he can’t take his eyes off you and he’s throwing me daggers!

Prior to last night’s encounter, I often wondered if Trouble had treated me ‘mean to keep me keen’ in the past, if he really wasn’t all that into me but now I wonder if he’s capable of intimacy and letting himself go. During our on-off relationship it had crossed my mind that he’d been hurt very badly in the past by someone. Last night, in front of me, he described me to his friend as a beautiful, charming and caring person. That’s three more compliments than I have ever received from him in the past.

Over a milkshake he informed me how hurt he was to see me ‘flaunting’ someone in front of him, in ‘our’ place; referring to the watering hole, where we met and where our relationship developed and later saw its demise. The flaunting was me playing games with my MBF...oh, the guilt!
When I said to him, ‘it’s like you don’t want me, but you don’t want anyone else to have me’ he kept saying: ‘but you’re not listening to me, you’re not hearing me’ but he couldn’t verbalise whatever point he was trying to get across. I know he cares, I’d get lost in my thoughts, and he’d bring me back to reality by saying in the softest caring voice ‘are you ok?’ But none of it is enough.

Of course he tried his best to get me back to his, I told him I couldn’t, when he asked: ‘why?’, I told him it was because I loved him, and it would take me six months to get back to where I am now.
I boldly walked away and left him at Trinity College, whilst he was trying to hail a cab for us.

I text him when I got home, apologising for leaving him there but also saying: ‘I am in search of ‘my person’, someone to be with me through thick and thin, but you will always be ‘my trouble’, I will always love you and that I am here if you ever need me’.

I can guarantee this story, although yet unknown, is to be continued...

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