As 'lovely' as a dogshit and Ebola sandwich...

I wrote this particular blog entry some time ago but I've been 'umming and aahing' over whether or not to post it for some time. It's frustrating to have people believe another to be something that they're not and I've finally had enough. Enough of a certain person swanning about the place like some sort of W.A.G and having all and sundry purring and cooing about how nice and “lovely she is”. And yes, I am kind of bitter about it.

Bitterness is a curious sensation however. It's always used in a negative way, but a quick look at the dictionary tells us that it can be defined as 'anger and disappointment about being treated unfairly'. Which doesn't sound quite so bad as the press it gets. But am I still angry and disappointed about what my ex-girlfriend did to me after three years have passed? Well before you answer, and especially for those who are quick to judge

and criticise me, I better just explain exactly what happened when she left me. I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of the years that went before – that's a novel in itself! I'm just going to go from the day she ended things. Suffice to say though I did feel bitter about the fact that I supported her through some very dark times, yet when I hit a bad patch, the support was not reciprocated.

I'll begin by saying that her leaving me was like being hit with a concrete juggernaut – a rubbish image I know, but just think about the weight of the thing if you could please. It absolutely destroyed me. I'd like to think that it was a combination of things that happened to me leading up to her leaving; being made redundant from both my jobs which meant having to move out of the house I rented and back into my family home, but who knows?

To begin with I couldn't think of anything else other than trying to convince her to change her mind. It was fruitless of course, although at that moment in time I didn't know that I had as much chance of getting anywhere as a snake in an arse-kicking competition. I sent texts, emails, wrote letters, made heartfelt declarations and promises. Nothing. After a few weeks though I convinced her to come away with me for the weekend. I suggested we go away from Oxford for the weekend with no interruptions and distractions and simply spend some quality time together to talk things through. She agreed and I booked us a room at a nice little country hotel in Bath.

There was one condition however – I wasn't to tell anyone. I was fine with that, well I would be wouldn't I, and in my desperate state I didn't hear the alarm bells. Anyone sane would ask the question - why wouldn't you want to tell anyone that you were going away for the weekend with your recently ditched boyfriend to talk things through? Not a single friend. Only her mother. I can only suppose my subconscious didn't want to rock the boat.

Away we went then and bearing in mind I was unemployed at the time, I spent a lot of money that weekend on our hotel, going to the spas, drinks, dinners and two fines for accidentally driving in their shitty bus lanes – twice! I really enjoyed myself and I got the distinct impression that she did too. It was just like the dates we went on when we first met. Which ironically enough, she used to keep secret too!

At one point when we were in Bath city centre, a close friend phoned and she lied about her whereabouts to her. That's 'lovely' isn't it – lying to even your best friends. She then told me that if anyone found out we'd been in Bath together she'd say that she was in Bath visiting her non-existent aunt and she'd just bumped into me. And STILL muggins here didn't twig.

The weekend over, I dropped her back at her mum's. As we said our goodbyes on the doorstep I asked if we could now try again and take things slowly, and to my delight she agreed!

The pit of filth that had sat heavy in my stomach for the last month now evaporated instantly and I felt free. She was coming back! Brilliant!

The next day however, I received an extremely angry phone call from her. I was genuinely shocked because I'd never in the five years I'd know her seen (or heard perhaps?) her this angry. She was incensed because a few of her friends had apparently been texting her and having a go at her for going away for the weekend with me. Saying things like “what the hell are you going away with him for?” Charming! She refused to name these people but I could probably have guessed anyway. A certain well-known lad from the village had allegedly been telling her friends about it and this person worked with a friend of mine and she was accusing me of telling said friend of mine. Still with me? In the first instance, I hadn't and also, so what if I had? We did go away! And we'd had a good time! And she'd agreed to get back together! What was the problem? If I knew then what I know now then I would have known what the problem was straight away - but more on that later. The alarm bells weren't piercing my eardrums but I have to admit I was starting to question this behaviour. This though seemed to be forgotten though as we now continued to see each other a few times a week. The green shoots of suspicion wilting rapidly as I failed to consider why I wasn't allowed to stay the night there when I'd go round for the evening, or why every time we went out for dinner or a drink we weren't allowed to go to Kidlington or Oxford. We were having great fun when we were together and as far as I was aware, we were back together – she'd said so – and so I just didn't think about it. Again, knowing what I do now, it all makes sense.

We're now a couple of months on from the original split and a few days before her birthday she dropped a second bombshell. We'd spent the evening together, cuddled up on her bed, watching Frozen. Not THAT Frozen, but the one where some buffoons get stuck on a ski-lift. As the end credits

rolled I noticed tears in her eyes. It wasn't that powerful a film I thought, what could be wrong? She then proceeded to tell me that she couldn't do this any more and we really did have to split up.

Obviously I was mortified but agreed to leave with my recently repaired heart ripped open again.

I still wasn't giving up though and for her birthday I'd ordered a bountiful bouquet of lilies for her. Lilies were her favourite flower and I was blissfully unaware of the irony that they're more common at funerals.

The morning of her birthday began with me posting a message on her Facebook wall (do we still call it a 'wall'?). “Happy birthday to my special lady. Love and miss you lots” I think I wrote. This post however was then 'liked' by someone, which as one can imagine, bemused me slightly. I texted her to ask why and who and she told me that she didn't know why and he was just someone she knows from seeing about the village. I accepted that like the mug that I was and set about collecting her lilies. I then tried getting hold of her to deliver them but she was now being somewhat elusive. Later in the day I finally got through to her and said I needed to see her to give her something. She said she was 'out' but didn't elaborate, so she told me to drop whatever it was round and her brother would take it on her behalf. So I did and on seeing them he told me that she'd be really upset when she saw them. I wasn't quite sure what he meant by that but I do now.

Birthday gift delivered, along with a specially made card, I went home and awaited a response. I didn't get one. In fact it was two days later that I got a belated and half-hearted 'thank you' and some heart-shattering news – she was with someone. This she managed to deliver with zero tact, as though she was telling me out of the goodness of her heart and she didn't even need to tell me. But she was telling me and I should be grateful.

She refused to elaborate on how long it had been going on, how they'd met, why she preferred him - every question I posed was roundly ignored. I forget now how I found out who it was, but of course, it was the person who had 'liked' my Facebook birthday post. You know, the bloke that she just knew from seeing about the village. She had quite obviously been cheating on me for some time. When she had first tried to end things she was already seeing him. That's why she ended it. That's why she didn't want anyone to know we went away for the weekend. That's why she went nuts when she thought someone who turns out is mates with 'him' had found out. That's why we weren't allowed to go out together in the village or in Oxford. That's why I couldn't stay overnight. That's why... It's also worth bearing in mind that when she told me we were back together and taking things slowly she was with him too. Classy..

From then on I was gone. I did nothing. I was nothing but a shell of a person. An empty husk, destroyed by hurt. When I say I did nothing, I really mean it. I could not think of

anything at all but living the rest of my life without her. That evil, sticky intruder had hooked it's claws into my gut again and this time it wasn't going anywhere. I slept all day. And then because I'd slept in the day, at night I did nothing. Just cried and held on tight to a pillow or when it got really bad, an old bear. I couldn't eat and lived solely on supermarket brand ginger beer. Why, I couldn't tell you. I ended up losing almost 2 stone and for someone whose frame was already more raw-boned than ripped, that was quite a loss. I had no time for anyone, even to my eternal shame, my daughter. She would come to visit and I would drag myself downstairs and just look at her from beneath my duvet on the safety of the sofa. She wasn't silly, she knew something was up. One day I will explain it all to her. This is how bad it was, even my pride and joy, my little princess couldn't shake this horror from me. She didn't even enter my mind when one afternoon I chucked a profusion of paracetamol down my stupid neck. I couldn't take living like this any more and I genuinely could not see an end to it ever so I wanted out. I feel a bit of a tit now looking back but it was real enough then. Perhaps even more embarrassingly I then panicked and ran to the bathroom. I rammed my toothbrush to the back of my throat and as often happens when hungover this made me retch and bring a flood of extra-fizzy ginger beer out and into the sink.

You may be wondering why I'm telling you all this. Well, I think it's important to understand exactly how what she did affected me. By now she wasn't answering my calls and was sporadically replying to texts. Amazingly I managed to get a job. A shitty job. An utterly soul-destroying job, but since I'd been totally destroyed already, it didn't seem to matter. All I could think of was that it was a job and she might come back now and we could put our house buying plans back on track. But no. I got worse and ended up being sacked for crying at my desk and having too much time off. I was on all sorts of medication now. Something for depression, something for anxiety plus I was even seeing a counsellor who amongst other things advised me to keep a diary. After a few weeks I had to give that up as I was simply repeating myself day by day, plus it actually made things worse. With all this going on I didn't really know who I was any more.

Then out of the blue I suddenly got a Facebook message from 'him'. Goading and taunting me about losing my job and my house and of course her, in an extremely illiterate and oafish manner. I've seen five year olds construct more coherent sentences. This I think is a large part of his attraction - her being with someone with the IQ of an Iceland ready-meal makes her feel and appear more intelligent and therefore the superior one in the relationship. I subsequently posted this message on my own wall to show people what a thoroughly nice chap my ex had left me for. My phone instantly lit up and a text appeared demanding I remove the post as it was “nothing to do with anyone else and is between him

and you”. No apology, no admission that he shouldn't have done that, but could I take it down anyway. Just an irate demand. So I left it up there. And she then deleted and blocked me and I remain blocked to this day. Except for a brief moment about 18 months ago when a friend request from herself popped up on my phone. By the time I'd gone into Facebook though it had been withdrawn and I was blocked again. So someone was fiddling about in her account and on my page. I wonder who? Probably the same person who said in a moronic message to me she had 'shown' him my messages to her when in fact he meant they had been 'seen by him whilst he was going through her phone'. Hey, trust is overrated anyway...

That was probably the last time we spoke. I managed to stay alive for the remainder of the year and on its very last night, I did a disco at a local pub to help see in the much-welcomed new year. Now the thing about this medication is that you're not supposed to drink on it. But the irony is that the reason you're on this all medication is because you're depressed. And if you're depressed you tend to look to drink. And I certainly did that night. So many people were buying me drinks. Every time I looked up there was a beer, a jager-bomb or a shot of something left for me. The last thing I remember was having a piss and realising it was 11.59 and that I should get back to the disco sharpish for 'Auld Lang Syne'. Memories don't exist after that. It was now late morning and I was at home in bed.

I'd long since stopped contacting 'her' and was understandably surprised a few weeks later to receive a visit from the police. Not the pop group, but the law enforcement group. My house was searched from top to bottom before I was cuffed and arrested for 'theft from a vehicle' before being locked in a cell at Banbury police station.

Trust me, when you're suffering with depression and anxiety, this really isn't something you need, but I can only assume she didn't care and actually wanted me charged with a criminal offence. Thanks honey! And what was I meant to have done? I apparently went to her house that New Year's night and pulled the number plate off the rear of her car. I say 'apparently' as I genuinely don't have any memory of that night at all. If I did it, I did it, hands up. Although I would argue that it's not a big deal. It's not like I torched it. It's certainly not worth having someone charged for. But that's what she wanted and charged I was. After being put on bail and then having said bail extended – twice – I was eventually let off due to lack of evidence. All the stress of that set me back a bit I can tell you but that obviously wasn’t something that concerned her. I still don't quite see why, if I did do this heinous crime, why she or her brother, mother or even 'him' couldn't have just popped round to see me and had a word, without running to the police. I don't know why she was so keen on having me charged knowing the state I was in – a state that was completely caused by her actions – but there you go. Anything to make me look bad and deflect from her and his behaviour I suppose and help prevent damage to her 'lovely' image.

Gradually I began to sort myself out. I enrolled at college in order to gain access to university and I got a new Djing job. This job though, didn't help things. She kept coming in didn't she. With him. And every time he was in he'd threaten to kill me. One memorable time I was minding my own business, packing away and happened to glance in his direction as I turned to take a light down and he raced over and again warned me that he was going to kill me. “One day” he would, “not now, but one day when we're alone” whilst she looked on, clearly endorsing his cuntery. She didn't look at me though and never does. Every time I have seen her in the last two years she cannot even look at me. She will often come into the place where I am Djing and she will look in every single direction, except at me. I can be stood in right in front of her, playing the music that her friends are singing along to and she still cannot even acknowledge my presence. That's quite a hard thing to do too. I'm sure most of us at some point have been somewhere and there’s someone there we don't want to look at. And it's really hard not to look at them! I can't do it. She can, she's brilliant. You have to hand it to her. She manages to ignore my daughter too, which is rather upsetting when I think about how close they were. There's even been times when her and him have danced right in front of me, to the music I'm playing. That's nice isn't it. There's nothing like someone giving you shit and subsequently rubbing your nose in it too.

And you know, I have to be honest, blanking me like this really hurts. After everything we went through, the support I gave her in some horrific times which I won't go into, she acts as though her and I never existed. Those five years didn't happen. I don't exist. To her, I've never been born. Just imagine someone doing that to you. It's not nice at the best of times but it's even worse when you've done nothing wrong, when you're the one who was shit upon over and over. You'd think if anyone should want to blank the other and make out like the whole thing never even happened it'd be me! I'm the one who was cheated on, lied to and lead-on! I'm the one who was dumped – twice! I'm the one who lost both my jobs and my home! I'm the one who's had depression, anxiety, counselling, death threats and had a criminal charge thrown at me! Yet she behaves like she's the one who suffered all that and manages to wear the epithet 'lovely', whilst I'm made out to be the villain of the piece and instructed to simply 'get over it'.

I don't profess to know why exactly she does this, but I think I'm close. People have suggested all manner of reasons but I think it's one of three – or all three. Firstly, guilt. If she acknowledges my existence then she has to acknowledge knowing me, 'us' and what she did to me. If I don't exist, then she can't have done what she did. The second reason I can think of is that she's avoiding confrontation. She thinks if she even gives me a slight glance I'll jump in and start asking her why she cheated on me, why she reported me to the police and all the other questions that she never answered and of course never will. I gave up looking for answers years ago, believe me. People like her don't want to give you the real truth because they know it'll make them look bad. So they just bury their heads in the sand and blank you out of their life so they don't have to face up to what they did. Then lastly we're back to the 'lovely' thing. She works had at maintaining this false front of loveliness. If she admits to knowing me then people will want to know what happened and the truth of courses shows here to be less than 'lovely'. There's so much more I could say where I've felt like I'm being kicked more and more, down and down but I've gone on long enough as it is. There truly is a novel in it all!

As I end this, iTunes is having some fun with me by selecting 'Unforgivable' by Armin van Buuren, but it's time to return to the initial questions - am I bitter? Is she 'lovely'? I'm sure many will say 'yes' to both and that's fine. I hope I've at least given some valid reasons for why I might be bitter and why I

don't buy into her 'loveliness'. But I honestly prefer to say I'm just hurt. Time does heal wounds and I don't think the cheating or the lying or the being lead-on hurts any more. So there's no point people saying 'get over it' because I am. I just don't like the hurt of the here and now. After everything she did to me and without even acknowledging my existence, she still manages to stick the knife in. And that really takes some doing. It's not the past any more that makes me angry and disappointed – it's the present. It's hard to get over something that has no finish. I want people to know exactly why I struggle to be happy with things as they are. I want people know the truth, to know that she isn't quite the 'lovely' person she works so hard to portray to everyone and also that I'm not quite the arsehole she'd have me painted as. But then she wouldn't ever paint anything, she prefers everything to be left blank.

As I alluded to just now, I'm sure there will be many people who still think I'm the bad-guy here and Little Miss Lovely is still exactly that, but what I would say as I end this piece is that knowing what I've just told you, do you really think this person can be described as something which is “of a great moral or spiritual beauty”? Do you really think you wouldn't feel even a little bitter if you were in my shoes?

Don't do what I did – don't be fooled by appearances... and lies...

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: All persons appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.