Friday the 13th

Maybe there really is something to this day being bad luck, as this was definitely not my day!

The day dawned cold and rainy, and I showered and got dressed, hopeful for a fresh start after my incredible irritation at CBDG the day before.

We went to a local cafe for a fry-up for breakfast, where he surprised me again by saying that he didn't want to have kids, that he just didn't think he'd have the patience for them.  Now, it's not like I'd ever seen him as a realistic relationship prospect, but there was more to it than that.  I'm always deeply suspicious of people who don't want to have kids, and particularly in this instance, the more he spoke about it, the more selfish and self-centred he appeared.  I kept trying to cajole him and keep the conversation light about it, but I was surprised as to what an ugly side of him I was seeing.  Really, just not flattering in the least.

Inside the historical train carriage

I shook that off, and we went to the train station, where I changed my ticket for the next day (which would turn out later to be a mistake) to catch a later train.  I went and found CBDG, who had excitedly just bought a copy of "Railway" magazine.  No, I kid you not.  Such a thing exists.

The hallway outside the old first class compartments

Okay, so everybody can have their little enthusiasms, even if I find them somewhat strange.  What killed me though, was that it quickly became apparent that he intended to sit there reading his new magazine, while totally ignoring me.  Did I mention how pissed off I was getting at this boy?

So it came time to catch our train, and I was then utterly surprised when he introduced me to a random guy in the station, saying it was his father.  Hadn't known he would be there, on that train, but there he was.  Although it had me wondering, "How on earth do you not know when your father, who doesn't live anywhere near you, is going to be in town?"

I tried to shrug off the weirdness of this, and so we got on the train with his father.  His father seemed to be a man of few words, but I can charm the pants off anyone if I put my mind to it, so I set about making his father like me.  A bit of hard work, but slowly he did warm to me.

I was then surprised when, halfway through our journey, he suddenly said that we should jump off the train.  Turns out that we were at some coastal town, and so we went for a walk down to the ocean.  It was nice to breathe the salt air, even if British beaches always do seem too cold and done up with their tatty piers for me.  Still, it was nice, and we stopped in at an arcade at one point, where he got us each a bucket of 2p coins, and we played some of the games.  Kind of dull to be honest, but relatively cheap entertainment.  He was much better at them than I was, although pretty quickly I was reminded of why I'd never liked these games, as I hated losing money like that.

Old fire brigade buckets

We then went for a walk along the pier, took in the rescue lifeboat stationed there, and then walked back to catch the next train (there was only one per hour) to the beer festival.  We got to the platform a bit early, and so sat for a while talking about how his father had started out as a 16-year old high school drop-out (with only two GCSEs, was how he put it), and by working as a ticket agent, had met his mother (at least a high-school graduate, she had a few A-levels), and slowly worked his way up to a decent standard of living.  As we talked, it became apparent how little we had in common, at least in terms of our family backgrounds.  Although, given how many times over the past 24-hours I'd wanted to yell at him for something or other, "How stupid are you?" I now worried that I really wasn't dealing with the brightest bulb in the box.  And now I knew where he got it from.

Okay, but onward.  We went up to this beer festival, which was taking place along a historical railway platform.  It was actually kind of cool, as they had this railway station done up just like it would have been back in the day, complete with "ladies waiting rooms" and everything.  The beer festival was a thing where you could buy pints or half-pints of tons of beers (only £1.50 for a half-pint, which we got a ton of), and then you could sit on an old-fashioned train on the platform to drink them.  Lots of old men sitting by themselves, but I was determined to make a game effort of this.

There's a reason it's a "steam" train!

So we got a few half-pints of interesting things here and there, until we were joined by his father, at which point we bought a few spare pints and went on our steam engine ride.

That was actually rather interesting, as the steam rolled over the scenery around us, so it almost appeared as though we were travelling through clouds.  We got all of the way to the end of the tracks, at which point they had to uncouple the engine, bring it around and put it back on the other end of the train.  Kind of fun and neat, particularly given that all of the engine workers were dressed in old time costumes, just like they must have worn back in the day.

We then went back to the beer festival, drank a lot more, and I pretty much ignored CBDG, who was seriously pissing me off at this point (drinking so rarely improves men's characters), and had fun chatting with his father who really seemed to be opening up and liking me at this point (although the beer probably helped).  I wondered aloud why on earth CBDG had asked me up here, and his father replied, "Maybe he fancies you.  You should ask him what the deal is." Hmmmm....

It finally came time to leave, but we decided to stop and quickly get some Chinese food before our train.  We were in such a rush, that as we were running across the street to go catch the train, I tripped and totally ripped my knee open (the good one, thank goodness) which hurt like hell.  Second time now I've killed my knees while spending time with CDBG.  The boy obviously results in me getting quite a few skinned knees!

On the train ride back, we were sitting near some Spanish people, and I can't remember how it happened, but I ended up chatting with them in Spanish.  And they were wondering what the deal was with us, and I had to explain that I didn't really know.  All I knew was at this point I was totally ticked off at this guy, my knee hurt like hell, and I was wondering why on earth I'd come up here in the first place.

So perhaps ill-advisedly taking the advice of his father, as we walked out from the train station, I was rather tipsy, angry, and annoyed, and just had to know:  "What on earth is your deal?"

The precise wording of his reply escapes me, but it was essentially that he had no romantic interest in me (not like I did in him either at this point), and just otherwise avoided the question, and we lapsed into incredibly awkward silence.  Ah yes, I'd forgotten that I was dealing with an incredibly young, immature, dumb and stupid boy here.  Completely avoiding the question would have seemed like a good idea to him.

I felt like pressing him further on not just the sexual interest question (I was now really just becoming curious if he was gay or straight or just weirdly asexual), but I was quickly discovering a serious downside to my confrontation strategy:  Rather than getting everything out in the open and on the table, things were now EXTREMELY awkward.  Hum.  Maybe should think about that next time.  Don't force a confrontation when you still have 12 hours to spend with somebody.

Still, as a friend later said to me, "At least you called him on it, and didn't just let him get away with that sh*t".  And you know what?  I have to admit, as awkward as it all was, and how much his quasi-rejection stung, I have to say overall it was a good thing.  I now regret the time I spent on him in the past, but at least you can be sure I won't be wasting any more time on him in the future.

Another friend said to me, "What do you have to lose?  It's not like you ever have to see him again."  So true.  He's not part of my friendship circle, he doesn't even live in London, cutting the ties can be done incredibly efficiently.  And so, I think that confrontation was good, because it so readily enabled me to just give up, to say, "screw this, I don't need it."

So we got home, I went to bed, e-mailed some girlfriends the whole ridiculous saga, and turned over to go to sleep.  What an arse, but soon he'd be out of my life...