of the toxic male.’
‘I was doing them a favour. You know as well as I do that the dumper always feels better than the dumpee. I should be thanked, not vilified. It’s like those cautionary tales parents tell their children about the bogeyman to keep them safe. In the annals of crap boyfriendom there’s a whole chapter about me and my kind. Be warned.’
‘But that’s not who you are, Matt, and you know it.’
‘Maybe it would be easier if I was. The worst thing is that I knew exactly what was happening – we were growing apart – but I just couldn’t seem to pull us back together again. Nothing, not the holidays we took, the restaurants we ate in or the money we spent on the house made any difference. What we needed was love like we had at the start, but that kind of love just wasn’t there.’
Ginny looks at me intently. ‘You still miss her, don’t you?’
I nod even though I’ve barely admitted this to myself. ‘Is that wrong?’
Ginny shakes her head. ‘It’s not wrong but it is hard.’
We talk more about the break-up and I don’t know whether it’s the wine or the fact we’re so at ease with each other but I tell her things I haven’t told anyone else. Stuff about how I thought Lauren might be having an affair (she wasn’t) and how I nearly had an affair (with a woman I met while on a work trip in Munich and although I liked her a lot just couldn’t follow through with it) and stuff about my fear of facing forty divorced and alone. It feels like therapy.
I pick up my wine and take a long gulp in an effort to subdue my self-consciousness. ‘Anyway, enough about me, what about you? OK, so you’re not hitched, but is there anyone else on the scene? Don’t tell me you’ve been married to your job for the last six years.’
‘Oh, Matt, where to begin? It’s tough out there.’
‘Great! Way to cheer up the about-to-be-divorced guy!’
Ginny laughs. ‘Oh, you know what I mean. Funnily enough, I actually met a guy at your wedding who I saw for a little while.’
‘That’s the first I’ve heard about it. Who was it?’
‘Don’t worry, no one of your acquaintance.’
This is getting weird. ‘You mean someone from Lauren’s side?’
‘Look, if you must know it was the DJ.’
‘You got off with our wedding DJ?’
‘It was a whole thing. I went up to ask for “Dancing Queen” and the next thing I know he’s put on the twelve-inch of ‘‘Fool’s Gold’’ and we’re snogging behind the amplifier for the next nine minutes and fifty-three seconds.’
‘Classy.’
‘I know. We saw each other for a couple of months but I ended it when for the third weekend in a row he’d got me lugging his decks and lights in and out of numerous function rooms up and down the country. I realised that I’d become a sort of poor man’s roadie. He needed an apprentice, not a girlfriend.’
I can’t help laughing. ‘You know how to pick them, don’t you?’
‘That’s the understatement of the decade. After him there was Mr Serious Artist who borrowed six hundred quid off me and used it to part-fund his research trip to Goa and never came back, then there was Mr Sweet But Too Young, an NQT who bought me flowers, wrote me poetry and cried when I told him it was over; and after him there was Mr Safe Pair of Hands who was attracted to me because he thought I was arty and edgy but got bored the moment he discovered that I buy my pants from M&S just like everyone else.’
Ginny has me laughing so hard by the end of this sorry tale that I can barely breathe. I attempt to take a sip of wine but it goes down the wrong way and I have a coughing fit so severe that Ginny is forced to come to my aid.
‘But seriously,’ I say, pausing to take a sip of wine now that I’ve got my breath back, ‘It’s criminal that someone like you should still be single. Haven’t there been any real contenders in the last six years?’
‘There was one.’
‘What happened?’
‘We wanted different
‘I was doing them a favour. You know as well as I do that the dumper always feels better than the dumpee. I should be thanked, not vilified. It’s like those cautionary tales parents tell their children about the bogeyman to keep them safe. In the annals of crap boyfriendom there’s a whole chapter about me and my kind. Be warned.’
‘But that’s not who you are, Matt, and you know it.’
‘Maybe it would be easier if I was. The worst thing is that I knew exactly what was happening – we were growing apart – but I just couldn’t seem to pull us back together again. Nothing, not the holidays we took, the restaurants we ate in or the money we spent on the house made any difference. What we needed was love like we had at the start, but that kind of love just wasn’t there.’
Ginny looks at me intently. ‘You still miss her, don’t you?’
I nod even though I’ve barely admitted this to myself. ‘Is that wrong?’
Ginny shakes her head. ‘It’s not wrong but it is hard.’
We talk more about the break-up and I don’t know whether it’s the wine or the fact we’re so at ease with each other but I tell her things I haven’t told anyone else. Stuff about how I thought Lauren might be having an affair (she wasn’t) and how I nearly had an affair (with a woman I met while on a work trip in Munich and although I liked her a lot just couldn’t follow through with it) and stuff about my fear of facing forty divorced and alone. It feels like therapy.
I pick up my wine and take a long gulp in an effort to subdue my self-consciousness. ‘Anyway, enough about me, what about you? OK, so you’re not hitched, but is there anyone else on the scene? Don’t tell me you’ve been married to your job for the last six years.’
‘Oh, Matt, where to begin? It’s tough out there.’
‘Great! Way to cheer up the about-to-be-divorced guy!’
Ginny laughs. ‘Oh, you know what I mean. Funnily enough, I actually met a guy at your wedding who I saw for a little while.’
‘That’s the first I’ve heard about it. Who was it?’
‘Don’t worry, no one of your acquaintance.’
This is getting weird. ‘You mean someone from Lauren’s side?’
‘Look, if you must know it was the DJ.’
‘You got off with our wedding DJ?’
‘It was a whole thing. I went up to ask for “Dancing Queen” and the next thing I know he’s put on the twelve-inch of ‘‘Fool’s Gold’’ and we’re snogging behind the amplifier for the next nine minutes and fifty-three seconds.’
‘Classy.’
‘I know. We saw each other for a couple of months but I ended it when for the third weekend in a row he’d got me lugging his decks and lights in and out of numerous function rooms up and down the country. I realised that I’d become a sort of poor man’s roadie. He needed an apprentice, not a girlfriend.’
I can’t help laughing. ‘You know how to pick them, don’t you?’
‘That’s the understatement of the decade. After him there was Mr Serious Artist who borrowed six hundred quid off me and used it to part-fund his research trip to Goa and never came back, then there was Mr Sweet But Too Young, an NQT who bought me flowers, wrote me poetry and cried when I told him it was over; and after him there was Mr Safe Pair of Hands who was attracted to me because he thought I was arty and edgy but got bored the moment he discovered that I buy my pants from M&S just like everyone else.’
Ginny has me laughing so hard by the end of this sorry tale that I can barely breathe. I attempt to take a sip of wine but it goes down the wrong way and I have a coughing fit so severe that Ginny is forced to come to my aid.
‘But seriously,’ I say, pausing to take a sip of wine now that I’ve got my breath back, ‘It’s criminal that someone like you should still be single. Haven’t there been any real contenders in the last six years?’
‘There was one.’
‘What happened?’
‘We wanted different
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