Wednesday 29 December 2010

As I read the Facebook message my jaw literally dropped. It was him. It was clear that he had a girlfriend which was fine, after all, I had just had a little bit of my heart broken so the thought of rekindling our romance was the last thing on my mind.

As I read on though, it was as if we had never lost touch, he still seemed the same. Although this time he was living in Glasgow and I was the one living in Edinburgh. We agreed to meet up the following Friday night in Edinburgh at the City CafĂ© Bar, there was a lot of catching up to be done. I was a nervous wreck on the night. So much so that the perspiration had started to cause my coiffed hair to frizz. As I came around the corner and looked down to the entrance of the bar I could see him standing there looking equally nervous. I took him in for a moment before he saw me. He still looked the same albeit a little thinner on top. I didn’t get the same feeling I got that first time I’d set eyes on him in Safeways all those years ago, it was more a feeling of familiarity and contentment at him being back in my life.

It felt slightly awkward at first possibly by the fact that The Ace made it very clear he was extremely nervous, which in turn made me even more nervous whilst still trying to present an air of “coolness”. I could physically feel my hair increasing in volume. However, as always with alcohol consumption in these situations, we began to loosen up and the night passed very quickly. We ended up back at my flat not just because I had to relieve the babysitter but also because we’d agreed we would read through my stash of old Ace letters. The Ace admitted that although he had originally kept all the letters I had sent him, when he moved to London with BMW woman she had requested that they be destroyed after discovering them in a box.

When I suddenly realised that I had fallen asleep on the couch with my head resting on The Ace that night, I didn’t need the room to start spinning to tell me that I’d drunk too much. I composed myself as best I could and suggested that The Ace stay the night in my room and I would sleep in with Evie. My thumping head woke me up in the morning and Evie was amused to find me lying next to her in bed fully clothed with the previous night’s make up still on. She then quickly reminded me that she had football practice. What kind of sadistic teacher arranges football practice at 10 am on a Saturday morning? I am ashamed to say that I got up, threw a coat on and placed a pair of dark sunglasses over the blurry make up smudged eyes that would’ve no doubt exposed me for the drunken trollop that I had behaved like the previous evening. I left a note for The Ace explaining where I was.

The football practice was a blessing in disguise. It gave me a chance to try and think about how I was going to react with The Ace now that the alcohol induced haze had faded. That is, if he was still there when I got back, which he was when I finally returned back to the flat. Suddenly it all felt very awkward. I felt that I was in a scenario where I had to get rid of an unwanted one night stand from the night before. I was confused and quite frankly my hangover was not contributing well either. As I saw The Ace to the front door I tried desperately in my tangled up mind to figure out how I should say goodbye or whether this even was goodbye. I really was in a state of uncertainty, I simply didn’t know what I was doing. We gave each other a big hug and there was no doubt there was feeling in it. The Ace was really holding me. We smiled at each other and then he left.

I was an emotional wreck for the rest of the day. I hadn’t appreciated just how much of an effect mentally that the reunion with The Ace would have on me. A few days later he emailed me and it was clear from his email that our reunion had also affected him in a similar way. I found myself in floods of tears reading his email and I mean floods. You know, the type of crying where you are unable to catch your breath, perhaps sobbing would be a better description. I put part of this reaction down to my brother having just left Edinburgh for a move to Barcelona. He was my one crutch and I suddenly felt very alone, I was also still struggling with my reaction to the split from Mr Writer, the Ace’s email and the admission that his girlfriend was pregnant had just tipped me over the edge.

I really don’t know what I had expected to get out of the meeting with The Ace. He had written that he felt I’d needed “closure” and perhaps he was right but I also suspect that there was a little bit of hope at the back of my mind that we could rekindle what we’d never really had a chance to start.

However, the fact that his girlfriend was pregnant could only mean the end of the beginning. We did agree to keep in touch and start up our letter writing again though. I soon began to relax about the situation and it was great having The Ace back in my life, it was as if our original letter writing had never stopped. It was just this time they were in type and not in scribbled ink with various spelling/grammatical errors scored out.

As time went by I got involved with Mr Skinny Jeans, then Mr Offshore and The Ace went on to become a Father. In each of my relationships I was open and honest about The Ace and our letters. I can’t recall if I told Mr Rockstar about The Ace. Things nosedived in quite an extreme fashion in that relationship and so quickly that it’s all quite a blur but I know that I wouldn’t have kept it from him on purpose. Mr Skinny Jeans had no problem with it but of course Mr Offshore turned it into something seedy. He thought men were only friendly with me because they wanted to sleep with me and when I told him that The Ace had decided not to disclose our letter writing to his girlfriend, it only led to him to become more enraged and untrusting of me to the point where I had considered ending my friendship and contact with The Ace.

However, I’ve been thinking recently. Was there a grain of truth in Mr Offshore’s ramblings? Does a relationship with a man continue to be seen as just a friendship when his girlfriend doesn’t know about you?

Is it acceptable?

Am I “the other woman” albeit, innocently?

Have I inadvertently been having a sexless affair??!!?? Answers on the back of a postcard……

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Bird on a Wire
Imagine Carrie from Sex and the City morphed with Bridget Jones and a baby thrown in for added entertainment – that’s me, the ever optimistic romantic looking for my Mr Big but already with child! Read my blog from the beginning where I find out I am pregnant following a brief fling with my much older male colleague and fast forward to where I am now, stressed out working mum to my beautiful 10 year old daughter wondering if love really does in fact exist at first sight.
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