1 October 2017

What seems like an age ago now I was informed I had to arrange a babysitter for Saturday, to attend one of his colleagues Birthday parties, just two weeks after my non event of a Birthday. He allegedly still wanted me to attend, as friends, although his drunken ramblings also informed me that the Birthday girl didn't want Girl 1 attending and she thought he was being all manner of idiotic swear word over the whole situation. So following my 'Man up' motto I decide to risk it all and attend the car crash.

He wanted me to wear a dress, unfortunately my newly curvy shape meant I had no going out clothes that fitted me, and my local area is a little short on things that don't resemble a flower garden. Even raiding charity shops I could only come up with 2 options. A white dress (I always swore that the only time I wore a white dress would be at my wedding, and that could come across a little bitchy!) and a red skin tight number covered in black lace (looked like a corset!). He laughed when I showed him the red one, so I bought nothing. It wasn't until we had been in the house half an hour he clocked that I'd bought nothing. He however had saw a suit jacket and a black shirt that he fancied, and because I hadn't proffered the money, he had to go back down before work to buy them himself.
Still benefit of the doubt and all that, after all he's always telling me to widen my social circle. I dropped the kids off with the arranged babysitter and went and scalded my skin in a bath for an hour. He said he'd be back before 9pm to collect me so I sat ready in a nice top and skinny jeans (Plus stupid make-up!) for almost an hour. We actually left the house at half past 9, and we still had to go to Tesco's to collect a bottle of something for the Birthday girl.
At the shops he collects his massive pile of alcohol and I find the smallest bottle of spirits I can, he disappears to the till and I point out I haven't got a mixer yet. I am told that I won't need it because the party is in a cafe after hours. Alright I can work with this.
We get to the party and he bounces around talking to everyone, leaving me standing in the door knowing no-one. Mills and boons got it so wrong with attentive men, and he never has been one of those characters. So I'm standing empty handed like a tool with half the people there knowing my current relationship mess, awkward?!
I find the buffet table and sit in a corner and spend 20 minutes fielding questions about why I didn't take my children (shit, I could have used them as a buffer to feel safer!) and how me and him have been together forever. All the while ignoring the pitying looks and whispers conversations and pointing.
Now because I had assumed he'd be taking Girl 1 to this event, I had made plans to have a 'Suddenly Single' party at the local pub. Why not show off what I had in the hopes of sympathy, compassion and friendship? So I snuck out for a cigarette and abandoned the farce, I darted up the road to attend my party with all my friends. No one was there. Not a single person had shown up, not even a desperate guy hoping to snag me on the rebound.
Two swift drinks in I gave up and headed back the party, explaining my absence on the babysitter calling. He actually seemed angry that i had left, everyone else seemed worried, so I decided to settle in for the night. I looked about for the soft drinks, but there were none. Everyone else worked here or had a partner who did so they were well attended, either ducking behind the counter themselves or their partner did. So I got to sit with an unopened bottle of spirits, trying to look like I was having fun.
Shortly after I got back he took a call and left without a word, people kept asking where he had gone. When he returned someone actually said he's been a while I wonder what he was up to. I just assumed that when he thought I had left the first time he had called Girl 1 to say the coast was clear for her. Then when I returned that mucked it up so he had to go and see her. That was it I was done.
I told the Birthday girl I was leaving, manners first, much as I would have loved to just vanish. She told me not to dare, that Girl 1 wasn't allowed anywhere near here, so I amended my statement to say I was just popping out for a cigarette.
I guess I wasn't convincing enough because I had barely lit up when he charged out demanding to know where I was going. I pleaded exhaustion to give him a solid excuse (I had been up since 4am and it was nearly midnight). He was really angry that I wasn't staying and kept chasing fellow drunk party goers away so they couldn't hear our conversation. He offered to get me lift up the road, and seemed confused when I said I was sober (Apparently it was a swoon worthy car, it was white?)
He kept telling me that this is how you make friends and that he wanted to share his social circle with me to stop me being lonely. Great you make friends by being with a bunch of people who don't care about you in the slightest and who all know him and count him as a friend. Pity mates? No thanks.
I headed home and ran another scalding bath to wipe the stupid make up and tears off.