Last year Lois and I had a wild night out. I don’t remember all of it and that my precious is the beauty of getting delightfully drunk. You don’t have to remember all of it. I blogged what I remembered and promptly forgot about it.
Until today. I get a call and it’s from one of the guys that I snogged. I think there were 2…no I’m sure there were 2. It was one of those nights. I barely remember him but I remember that he was younger, lived far (beyond zone 6) and hadn’t bothered to get in touch in about a year. There is nothing else to know. The other victim was older and looked like he had a hard life. I can’t confuse the two. Hard life hung around for a while but I couldn’t face him lying about his age again.
He starts by explaining that he was going through his phone and came across my number. I like that he’s honest and doesn’t pretend that our connection was so strong that he’s been thinking about me for a year. Bu
t I ask him why he’s calling me. And then he shares.
So he’s been unemployed for a few months, doesn’t have many friends as he has only been in the country for a few years and lives too far to go out in London much. There are not many black folk in his hood and he’s a little lost. So now he’s reaching out to relative strangers. He’s French African and I think he was cute but my memory is blurry. Aren’t all men cute after 2 bottles of prosecco?
Then he tells me that the last time we spoke I was dismissive of him and he didn’t feel comfortable calling me as he figured I had a man. I asked him if he asked me and he said no but that he assumed that I was seeing someone. Right….so you disappear for a year and somehow it’s my fault? I see through this as the excuse it is and quickly lose interest in the conversation. He has nothing to say as he is stuck in a place that all of us have been in. The low of recession or unemployment. I have been here and no one can get you out of it but you.
I hate this shit.
A guy that calls when he’s in a bad place has nothing to offer and is a potential energy leech. I know that years ago I would rush in and fix it for him. He stated that he doesn’t know many English people and that I was one of the few that he’s met that he likes. I recognise a cry for help but, I’m a selfish bitch 
and I can’t save another man. I can’t do it. It’s too exhausting and I need to save myself. Save someone else and they tend to leave you when they’re better for something younger and shinier. It’s fine to bolster a man you’re dating who goes through a slump but that isn’t the right way to start anything new.
Besides, I don’t think the snog was that memorable. Don’t judge my precious. I’m moving forward and not making the same mistakes I’ve made before .
© Chelsea Black
