#50 THE SECOND BOY I MET ON THE TRAIN
#50 THE SECOND BOY I MET ON THE TRAIN
That time I felt like Maggie Gyllenhaal in “The Secretary”
Anyone reading my “episodes” (or chapters? stories?) will know that err on the side of far too long (sorry) but this post will be a short one. I am never sure how many details people want. Sure, I can generally summarise most people’s stories in under 2,000 words but not if there are to be details.
About three years after I met the first boy on the train, I met another one. I’ll call him Alastair. It was around 2009 and I was in my last year of undergrad. I was visiting England for the summer and this time going from Manchester to Newton Le Willows, which is the nearest train station to my grandfather’s house in Burton Wood. I was visiting Grandad Mike and Grandma Gill.
Interlude: Grandad has since passed and was sort of the inspiration for my writing (as discussed here) in many ways just as my Grammy Dee was my inspiration for being an avid reader and book lover (and my late father). Although, I’d die of embarrassment if any of my grandparents read these episodes. My much-loved Grandfather would have turned 89 on the 18th of January. At the time of writing, it’s the 23rd of January which is Michael’s late Grandad Ted’s birthday who died a couple of months ago and would have been 97 years old today (my thoughts are definitely with my sweet mother-in-law and her siblings). Grandad Ted also shares a birthday with Evelyn who is my dear friend Orienna’s gorgeous daughter (she is only two)!
The guy on the train and I sat in the same carriage; the carriage was quite empty. As is probably unsurprising to anyone who senses my very shallow past patterns of male selection, I spied a handsome boy across the way and we kept making flirty eyes and smiles at each other. The best way I can describe him is that he sort of looked like a three-way split between Joe Alwyn crossed with Paul Mescal and Paul Walker but without the kindness in his eyes.
Alastair was handsome and didn’t have a small ego about it. He knew he was good-looking and somewhere along the way he’d been taught that women were disposable or commandable or both.
As I walked by him to disembark, I’d written down my email address on a scrap of paper and handed it to him and he got in touch.
Alastair and I used to chat on MSN messenger because apparently that was still around (surely it had died in 2004?) and I had no recollection because in one of our early Facebook messages, he says, “You’re not on MSN though tonight.”
We never had any chats of substance. They were mostly him asking me to Skype or send nudes. If I talked about anything in my life, he shut me down and was like “Why are you telling me this” sort of thing. Many of his FB messages were sort of commanding messages to be “a good girl” and send him some photos and he’d detail what he’d do to me if we ever met up or say he had a wank over my pictures. He’d say things like, “I’m just looking at the pics that you’ve sent me and I’m so hard right now for you.”
I’m not sure why I even sent him photos or went on Skype with him really because he didn’t necessarily make me feel that giddy, happy, flirty way – something was off. Maybe it was the people pleaser in me (the people pleaser that’s often taught societally to many women) who seemed to want the approval and attention of this type of person who didn’t act with kindness or care.
I never made serious plans to meet up with him or vice versa.
Somewhere along the way, I learned he was from Cheshire and grew up partly there and partly in Florida like me. He was English and American, also like me, with dual citizenship (I didn’t get my US citizenship until after my first marriage even though I was eligible not via marriage).
He had a commanding sort of presence like someone who was always used to getting what he wanted (like Colin Craven in The Secret Garden). He was sporty but didn’t seem to work out actively – but he had a good figure nonetheless, tanned and slightly muscled and lean with one of those really white smiles (also seems to be a theme for me). He travelled often and went on skiing holidays. We were both uni students at the time so clearly our income levels were very different.
Even I, who seemed to have a knack for chasing after the wrong people, was wary of him. We flirted and Skyped fairly often and exchanged photos. Still, he was always dating this very beautiful, thin, glam blonde woman and I was seeing various people on and off at the time too, so I didn’t trust that he could be into me really because I was very much not thin and glam. I felt I was on the fuller, fatter side with oversized boobs and a big frame.
As I said, he was always getting me to do things for him (which involved Skype and photos) in a very authoritative way that made me feel slightly uncomfortable. I haven’t read 50 Shades but I get that that’s the vibe – or like that film The Secretary with Maggie Gyllenhaal except I didn’t have to degrade myself or wee myself, thankfully.
We flirted and messaged on and off for years until I met my first husband. We did not have a friendship or talk about anything non-flirty or non-sexual so I think even though I was shallow and liked attractive men, I didn’t really get on with his personality because he was douchey. Alistair gave me the sense he would use me up and discard me which made me weary.
I never have liked men who treated me (or women in general) in these ways, so that’s something. I may have been okay with the odd bit of dirty flirting and I was a sucker for a handsome face and a good body but there were depths even I wouldn’t sink to. I always valued men who were handsome, yes, but also kind, interesting, intelligent and funny. There had to be some other intriguing element besides looks. That’s not to say Alaistair didn’t have glimmers of kindness – he did – but overall, I didn’t see the qualities I sought.
To be fair to him, I think he has grown up and out of this behaviour now. He and his beautiful dark-haired, petite, thin wife (thankfully for her, not the same woman he dated back then) live in Cheshire and seem to have some sort of rental (or glam Airbnb) business together where they own and fix up these very gorgeous-looking properties and seem to have done very well for themselves, judging by the photos of their “new home.” They both look radiantly happy in their wedding photos, both perfect and glam-looking, everything staged to perfection. I’m not being facetious. I really do think they make each other happy and he met the woman he felt was worth treating right. He even double-barrelled his surname with hers, so he must have turned a new leaf because that’s very feminist of him.
We don’t keep in touch.
Next up, the dashing Captain Cotillion, one of the many Captains I met in Columbus, Georgia.
Don’t forget to check out the other forty-nine posts I’ve written, including the one on why I’m writing this newsletter/blog in the first place – and the odd “present day snippet” of what I’m up to lately.
Have you ever allowed yourself to be treated in a way that made you feel uncomfortable?