He lied about his age!

I really thought I’d written my last post about Whippersnapper. The whole of WordPress probably breathed a collective sigh of relief when I blocked him – at long last I would stop talking about him.

Alas, no. The plot thickens. The cornflour has been added, as my friend would say.

So, I had blocked him. He found he could still contact me on Okcupid, and sent me a shitty message. I ignored it.

I was on my way home that night at 2am. I was having problems. First the Night Tube line I needed was down, then my Ubers kept getting cancelled at the last minute.

I was standing outside Holborn station and it was absolutely pouring with torrential rain, so I was huddled in a doorway.

As I wrestled with the Uber app, I suddenly saw I had two more messages from WS on OkCupid. He sent this around 1am:

“Actually Dater Analysis, forget everything I just said. I do completely agree with everything you said. I am jealous of my friends, my family, my illusions. I hope I fucking die. I’m not saying this so you’ll reply, I’m saying it so you’re rid of me. Don’t reply to this. Fuck me. Goodbye, Dater Analysis.”

Then, half an hour later:

“Also, just to make you hate me more: I was 22 when we were dating, not 25. I’m 23 now, not 26. I hope you fucking detest me. Bye.”

Woah.

That’s a lot to take in when you’re standing in the rain at 2am, really quite drunk.

I didn’t focus on the age thing at first.

After reading “I hope I fucking die”, being “rid of him” and even the “Goodbye”s, I went into work mode and wanted to do a risk assessment.

I was worried he was going to kill himself. My drunkenness hyped up my anxiety; even though it was worrying, it wasn’t the first time he’d said these things. Even that night, I knew he was probably just trying to worry me so I’d unblock him, but I still wanted to check he was safe.

I replied on OkCupid, then tried to call him. Nothing.

I felt stressed. One of my friends thinks it’s out of order that WS says “I hope I die” when he knows I had a boyfriend who did die. I think that was in the back of my mind – that exes are fragile and I should try to keep them safe.

I unblocked him and sent a WhatsApp message. He replied immediately.

Eventually I got home at about 3.30am.

I woke up really early the next morning.

He was 22?!

I was 32 when we dated. I thought he was 7 years younger, and even that I had reservations about. Was he actually 10 years younger?

He was so chaotic, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he really was 26, and the lie was about being 23.

I couldn’t believe it. I never suspected for a second that he lied about his age. It’s so long since I was 25, I can’t remember what you’re supposed to be like at 25.

Either way, I think when I blocked him, it really rattled him that he couldn’t contact me, despite not bothering to speak to me for ages.

When I didn’t rise to the bait or reply to his shitty message, he panicked and upped the ante by saying he hopes he dies.

When I didn’t respond to that (because I hadn’t seen it yet) he panicked again and tried to find a new way to get a reaction.

He knew the age thing would provoke a response. I think by then, even if I replied saying I hated him, he’d be glad we were talking.

When he messaged me in the morning, I replied “Good morning, young man.”

Then I added “VERY young man, as it transpires.”

He said he put his age up by a few years on OkCupid ‘out of curiosity’ and then always planned to tell me, but didn’t know how.

I said “You must have lied to me so many times. All I ever said was ‘oh so how old were you when this album came out…’ Did you feel guilty for lying?”

He said “yeah, every time. I’m sorry.”

I said I was kind of amused, kind of felt like a paedo, but was also hurt he lied so much.

I kept remembering things he said about his age; when we talked about his glasses on our 3rd date, I said I hadn’t had my eyes tested since 2009. He piped up “since you were my age – 25!”

That feels a bit more calculated than the times it was just him panicking and having to do fast maths when I said “if I was 13 when OK Computer came out, how old were you?”

I said this and he apologised a few more times.

We started talking about something else (I said “how’s your poorly penis by the way?”). I was being nice to him while I figured out what my reaction was and what I wanted.

After a while he said “aren’t you pissed off though?”

I replied “I said I feel a bit hurt, and you said sorry. I already feel less pissed off since then.”

In all honesty, I’m not angry, but I can’t stop thinking about it now, and the fact he lied so much, so easily.

One minute I think is 10 years that different to 7?

I was 22 when I first met Balthazar, and he was 34.

But then I’ll think I fucked someone who was born in 1994 and shudder. I keep googling albums I like from the 1990s, to see if he was born yet when they came out.

The worst thing was when I driving to see my friend yesterday. I realised WS is younger than her little brother. He always seems like a kid to me, even though he’s 25 and a plumber now, because I clearly remember playing with him when he was a baby.

Then I realised WS is younger than all the children I used to babysit. And when I turned 30, he was still 19 for 3 more months.

It made me wonder about his attraction to older women. It was one thing when he was 25 and just seemed to be drawn to the slightly older women of the selection that any 25-year-old might like.

Lying about his age on a dating site to pick up older women seems different. It made me wonder about his relationship with his mum.

Normally I don’t buy into the Psychodynamic ideas about the Oedipus complex and sexual attraction and our parents (oh my god, am I part of his Oedipus complex?). However, I do have a few friends who fancy significantly older people, who also have complicated issues with their parent of that sex.

I guess if you want a partner, and you want to be loved and nurtured in a way you didn’t get from a parent, those things might overlap a bit.

He lives with both parents and I did notice he talks about his dad but never his mum.

I tried to address his obvious manipulative behaviour. I said “when you say things like you want to die, it makes me scared you’ll kill yourself. I suspect you already know this.”

He said “I would never do anything like that.”

I said “I feel like last night you wanted to say something dramatic to make me start talking to you again.”

He said “It’s not that, it’s just drunk, self-indulgent bullshit.” Then he changed the subject.

It IS that.

Anyway, we talked all morning, for hours. I kept thinking What am I doing here? 

Blocking him was such a good idea.

I was still pissed off he ignored my text last week, and that he was a baby when I blocked him (turns out he literally was a baby until a few weeks ago) and I was pissed off he manipulated me back into contact. I didn’t even know how I felt about his age.

However, I’d started out being nice so I could do the suicide risk assessment and then it was hard to stop.

 

I had said I was blocking him because otherwise, he would hook me back in by pretending to need me or saying he loves me, and he had done both those things within 24 hours.

However, I felt less under his spell than I used to be, because his manipulative behaviour seemed more predictable, and actually, a bit desperate.

Something shifted for me when he ignored my important text, and now his age has come out, something has shifted again.

We talked for ages yesterday morning.

I kept on bringing up his age.

I said “did you lie about anything else? Are you married? Did you vote for Brexit?”

We were talking about whether he should go to university, and I said “what did you get in your A-levels?” and then added “oh sorry, you’re probably still waiting for the results to come out next month.”

I said “Weren’t you worried I would find out by mistake? I suppose you didn’t have to worry about me seeing your driving licence, as you’re still too young to drive.”

After a while, I realised we’d been talking about him 100% of the time. I got us onto me and my anxiety since the Grenfell fire. He suddenly seemed a lot less interested. I did find it helpful, mainly because he left me to it, and I found my own solution to the problem by the time he replied. That made me like him even less.

I feel like a weight has been lifted since I realised he’s a ridiculous, self-centred boy instead being the Greek (Essex) God I thought he was.

However, I loved him deeply and fancied him like mad for months, and those feelings won’t go away overnight.

I might just block him on everything again, but if there’s an alternative way we can both get closure, I want that. Although it was the right thing to do, blocking someone seems a bit Black Mirror and dystopian, and I wouldn’t like it if he blocked me.

I can’t get closure when he’s ignoring me, because it bothers me, and he can’t get closure when I cut him off, because suddenly he wants to contact me.

It would be good if we could find a way to leave each other alone that we were both happy with.

My flatmate said, even if I had blocked him on OkCupid, soon I would’ve heard a tap on the window and seen a carrier pigeon, with a note saying WS loves me and wants to die.

So I said to him that all I’ve ever wanted since February is to see him in person one last time, to say goodbye, hug one last time.

I said “I want to gently close our book and put it away properly. At the moment, it’s like our book is wide open, and we’re both frantically trying to shove it away in the bookcase, but it won’t fit because it’s open, and we’re trying to make it fit by tearing pieces off.”

I think he can’t let me go if it feels out of his control, but other than that, he’s not that interested. If we can meet up and say goodbye, I’ll get everything I want, and if he feels like it’s his idea, as he keeps saying he doesn’t want a relationship, he’ll let go too.

He said yes, but he gave me some scribble talk about needing to get a new job first, so we’re leaving it a few weeks.

We’ll see if it happens.