Strange Dream About You Last Night… Meet Number 18

On the last day of 2014, I put a post up on my Facebook wishing everyone the best for 2015 and saying good riddance to the shitty year that was coming to an end. I briefly mentioned getting my heart broken again, which appears to have been a massive mistake; at least five of them have bizarrely popped up into my life again.

“Strange dream about you last night, nothing sexual (a kiss) but you had a baby strapped to your chest?!?!?! Lol! How are you? x”

That’s what I woke up to from Number 18 – The Postman. I don’t even know where to begin with this guy. It started when I was with Number 5 – The Fireman when I was about 16 or 17 years old. The Fireman’s mum worked with The Postman and it was when she invited him to one of her birthday parties that we first met. He was wearing a black fishnet top, had spiky red hair, and rocked a lip piercing. He was a skinny little thing, not my usual type, but he really reminded me of Matt Bellamy from Muse and at the time, I had a massive crush on him! Plus, The Postman was a guitarist in a band. I was obsessed.

Completely disregarding the fact that I had an actual boyfriend, because that’s the kind of moron I was as a teen, I embarked in some mild text flirtation with The Postman after a cheeky little phone number swap. And then, in true moronic fashion, I wasn’t smart enough to delete the text messages, so The Fireman caught me. He ordered me to remove my new friend from my life, so I did. We didn’t speak again.

Fast forward a couple of years and I would bump into The Postman again. I had since broken up with The Fireman, was working in a bar, and was very much enjoying the single life. Before long, that mild flirtation we had before developed into something more. First, sex; then, feelings. It wasn’t a great relationship, lasting about eight months, give or take. He seemed to stand me up a lot, never turning up to events he was invited to or arriving much later than he should’ve. He also seemed to keep me at arm’s length at all times, something I never understood. I was very much into him, on my way to falling hopelessly in love with him even though he was giving me all the classic signs of not being all that interested. I really didn’t play a part in his life at all. I never met his family or any of his non-work friends. He met all of mine. He was even invited to my birthday party, which he turned up to late.

It didn’t take Bestie long to see something was very wrong, and between us, we managed to stalk, creep, and figure out the answers. My boyfriend of around eight months was in a relationship with another woman. He had been for the entire duration of our relationship. Not only that, he was engaged to her. He lived with her … and her parents.

It gets better: he wasn’t just cheating on his fiancée with me; he was also cheating on the pair of us with another man. I wasn’t even aware he was bisexual or experimental or pansexual, or whatever. I wouldn’t have minded, but I would’ve at least appreciated the opportunity to decide one way or the other, you know?

And guess how I found out about all of this? The Postman’s fiancée had figured out something was going wrong in her relationship, too. Clearly he wasn’t spending lots of time at hers; he was spending at least one night a week at mine. How was he explaining that away? Not very well, it seems; she emailed me one night, completely out of the blue, asking if we could chat and share stories. And we did. We spent a very civilised afternoon together at my house, eating cake and drinking cups of tea and actually becoming friends. Who’d have guessed that would happen? I felt so guilty, apologising over and over again for trying to steal her man, but she kept telling me to stop because she didn’t blame me. If there was a “right way” of handling that kind of situation, that was it. I respected her dignity and self-respect so much, I felt the need to follow her lead. Deep down, of course, there was a part of me that wanted to gauge her eyes out. But, as she said, it wasn’t OUR fault. We didn’t ask for the situation, nor did we know about it. It was HIS fault: The fucking Postman.

I was cool about things for a good day or so before I snapped. And I really did snap. He’d been avoiding my calls, I’m assuming because she’d told him about our little afternoon chit-chat, so I asked my Bestie to phone him and leave voicemails when he wouldn’t answer. I still had some of his belongings at my house. Important belongings. Work uniform, passport, phone charger, etc. I gave him multiple chances to come and pick it all up, but he stood me up every time … even when I promised Bestie wouldn’t be there. When he didn’t grab his stuff for the fifth arranged time, I just threw the whole lot out in the trash. I burned some of his clothes in my bath because I was 18/19, drunk and Bestie dared me to, and I emptied all of his Clinique skincare products in the toilet. The rest just went in a garbage bag. It’s not like I didn’t warn him. And I took great pleasure in telling him when he called a couple of weeks later, requesting his passport for a stag party that was happening in Prague just a week later.

Oh, you don’t have time to get a new one now? Shame. Sorry … not. 

I remember very little about my relationship with The Postman. I thought I was falling in love with him at the time, but I have a feeling it was more likely a lustful obsession. And we did have some good times, and some very good sex. I remember one particular night in a hotel that I really must tell you about sometime.

He wasn’t a core-shaker, though, you know? He wasn’t a big love story. Ours wasn’t a great, passionate romance. It was a brief relationship that we both knew was wrong from the start, for different reasons, but we still went ahead and did it anyway. He was too hot for me not to have been lured in, and there was sexual chemistry between us from the very first moment we met. Everybody saw it, including The Fireman’s mother, who also warned me away from my new obsession when we were still dating.

I wonder why he’s messaging me now? Who am I kidding? Of course I know why he’s messaging me. A second after I read it, I screenshotted it and sent it over to my Bestie – “What’s do we reckon? Split up from his wife?”

I kid you not, The Postman sent this just five minutes after that:

“Yeah I’m not too bad. Split with the wife but doing well. You better now? Saw you’ve been ill recently.”

I fucking knew it! There was only one way this conversation was going to go. He’s now single, he knows I’m single. What a predictable fucking cunt. I told him I was sorry to hear his news. What else do you say? You’ll never guess what he said next …

“It’s fine. She had an affair, so she did me a favour, the dirty skank. Lol.”

He had a fucking affair with me, didn’t he? All those years ago? Did he forget that? Why would he even say that to me? That’s exactly what he did to me and with me. What an asshole. I didn’t say anything to that, of course. I don’t really want him in my life at all. “Sorry to hear that” for a second time was about all I could muster, and I haven’t responded since. I don’t want to. What does he think he’s going to achieve by messaging me? Does he think we’re going to meet up and have great sex for a couple of nights before meeting new people and moving on, possibly considering each other as future booty calls? I don’t think so. He wasn’t great enough for me to remember back then, so I doubt he’ll be any more spectacular now. Plus, he’s got kids now, and he’s heartbroken. He’s damaged goods as far as I’m concerned. I’d rather not start any kind of anything with two kids under the age of four in tow.

You know, as sorry as I was to hear of the breakdown of his marriage, part of me can’t help but agree that Karma has done a great job in making sure he got what was quite rightly coming to him. The way he treated me when we were together was awful and although it wasn’t a big part of my life and I don’t really class him as one of my great loves, his behaviour still had an impact on me. I went a little crazy during our breakup. I go a little crazy in all breakups, but that’s not the point. I actually burned some of his stuff in the bathroom. That’s how nuts I went.

So yeah, that’s the story of Number 18 – The Postman. I’m not really sure how I feel about him making a reappearance into my life. I’ll just ignore him and with any luck, he’ll just go away.

Keep your fingers crossed, folks!

Featured image by Daria Volkova on Unsplash