I’m not really into this Halloween thing. I’ve no strong feelings against the occasion but each year it comes around, I don’t find myself wanting to indulge in it. In my life so far, I’ve only been to one Halloween party, which was 7 years ago, and am still yet to be tempted to attend another one.

So why the Halloween post? Well today, on the 31 October, I bumped into someone. I’m not even sure how to categorise him, perhaps it’s best if I just tell the story. Let’s call him ‘Em’.

Heading home from work one Monday evening in mid-September, I was stood waiting at the bus stop when ‘Em’ walks past. Our eyes met. He smiled. I reciprocated. He carried on for a moment but then turned back and walked towards me. In the distance, I could see my bus approaching but slowly with traffic.

“Hi”, he said.
“Hi”, I replied.
He laughed a little, kind of nervously. “I’m sorry, I’m just stunned by you”, he explained
*Blush*, did I. A few other pleasantries swiftly ensued.
“Are you available telecommunicatively?”, he asked.
Now I laughed a little. My bus was getting closer, “Sure”.

I told him my number, whilst holding out my arm to beckon the bus. He just about managed to punch in the last digit before the doors opened. As I sat down, he was still stood there looking at his phone. Moments after, my phone vibrated for a few seconds before stopping and I presumed that the unknown number displayed on the screen was Em, so I saved it accordingly, under ‘Em’. He had promised to call the following day. And I waited to make sure he would do so.

The next morning, I received a message, bright and early. From a different unknown number though. Had I not saved Em’s details the evening before? Yes, I did. So why was he using another number today? Perhaps yesterday, he was caught off guard, accidentally saving my details into his work phone, and today was messaging from his personal number? I’m too polite to ask such questions as to why this was, so I just replied. He invited me out for a quick drink after work sometime. I accepted but suggested the following week would be better, which he agreed to. As much as I would love to say I was booked up with other engagements for the rest of the week, my reason for the postponement was to allow for the opportunity to see what chemistry we could generate, if any at all, in the lead up.

The next day was a busy one for me. I had a couple of meetings scheduled, was in and out of my boss’ office and generally spent much of the day away from my desk, and therefore, my phone. My first opportunity to check it was around 2pm, where I saw I had three missed WhatsApp calls. (Yes, I could have just said ‘calls’ but I feel there is significance in the use of WhatsApp for a call between two people who are in the same city. It borders on lazy and feels like more of a ‘young man’s game’ – and neither Em nor I are ‘young’.) I replied via message, saying I was busy. He quickly responded by trying to call me AGAIN. This one I dodged on purpose, only to reply to him later, again by message. He reciprocated this time, saying he had wanted to take me “on a lunchtime adventure”. While some might commend the spontaneity of this gesture, I just felt he was disregarding my previous suggestion. I politely reiterated my preference to meet the following week, and he again accepted this proposal.

The following day (this’ll be Thursday now) we had a few more message exchanges, until he tried to ramp up the heat a bit. I don’t know why and I promise you, there was no prior provocation for such actions but he felt it appropriate to send me a message with just a peach and a banana. In case the notion of this is unclear to you, allow me to explain it in terms that I’d be happy for my mother to read. If the peach is to be likened to the soft curves of delightful derrière, then a banana is to be likened to a…..you know…..

I was not happy, I was in fact offended. Here we go, I thought, another one in it for the quick gains. So I replied stating that I felt it was too soon for suggestive emojis. He neither acknowledged nor apologised, he just restored the conversation to the civilised level you might expect from someone you’d met only three days prior. This was followed up by another call later in the afternoon, to see if I fancied a quick drink. I didn’t. And I couldn’t understand why he was pushing to meet this week, when we’d already agreed on next. My patience was being tried but I kept my cool, “Next week would be better for me,” I said and he again accepted.

Now on to Friday. I had received a simple “Hi x” at some point during the afternoon but since this occurred amidst my six-hour drive to the coast for the weekend, by the time I arrived at my destination, ate and recovered, I didn’t actually get around to replying until Saturday afternoon. The joys of modern technology mean that you can pretty much keep tabs on people and I happened to notice that my message hadn’t delivered right away. Sunday didn’t prove to be any more successful and in fact, it wasn’t until Monday morning that I saw the double blue ticks. So effectively, my message had been in limbo all weekend.

He got back to me on Tuesday and we conversed back and forth throughout the day but my final message to him that evening had failed to deliver until the next morning. This was now strange and suspicions started to grow.

He tried to call me a few days after, late afternoon on the Friday but I didn’t have my phone near me at the time so I only saw the missed call. I took the opportunity to test my theory on evening and weekend non-deliverance, deliberately messaging about 7pm. Of course, it didn’t arrive with Em until Monday morning again.

It took another week or so for him to come back to me with “Hi x” and by now, I definitely didn’t care about meeting up, so I outright asked if he was married. He said no, to which I explained that he just didn’t seem to be reachable in the evening or weekends. There was no immediate comeback from him and by now, I was thoroughly off the idea of meeting up. He just didn’t seem interested enough, not in the right way at least.

Silence had fallen again for almost two weeks, until I received “Hi x”. There was no acknowledgment whatsoever of my prior observations. Nope, I decided I’m not having this, it’s too weird too soon. So I replied, “Sorry, I don’t see anything coming of this”. It’s not in my nature to be rude but for me, the lack of sign off in my message signalled a definite end.

You can imagine that when he messaged me AGAIN a whole two weeks later, asking to go for a quick drink after work, having already pretty much shut things down, I realised there was no reasoning with this person. And so I just blocked him, no response necessary. Done and dusted I thought…..I was wrong.

Of course, it was inevitable that I would bump into him again. And I did, on Halloween, only four days after I had blocked contact. I passed him on the way to the bus stop, momentarily (and regrettably) made eye contact but made no attempt to stop whatsoever. Thought I had gotten away with it too but sure enough, he had done an about-turn and was now approaching me as I waited for the bus.

“I thought it was you” he said, beaming his smile, “Do you remember me?”.
I steelily replied, “Yes”.
He looked relieved and then bravely yet foolishly leaned in to kiss me on the cheek. I have never reacted so quickly in my life! I swerved to the left and proclaimed “No!”, avoiding all contact.

Now I definitely knew he was crazy. To add insult to the insult of publicly trying to kiss me, he laughed it off and asked if I was still upset with him. Um, I’m not sure how he came to the conclusion that I was ever upset with him, he must have confused this with me just being genuinely disinterested.

Time to lay it all on the line. I told him there was something strange about his situation, that for whatever reason, he could never receive messages in the evenings and weekends and perhaps there was someone that he didn’t want to see he was being contacted. I didn’t know the reason, nor did I want or need to know, I just did not want to be involved.

I’m not sure what he was deliberating but he stood and thought for a few seconds and simply said “Take care” before he headed off back to where he’d been walking. Yeah, thanks for that, you weirdo, I will take care.

Even reading this back, the signs were all shown very early on. The two phone numbers, all correspondence taking place solely during the weekday daytime, always wanting a ‘quick’ drink after work since he couldn’t devote any more time than that in the evenings. Maybe he wasn’t officially married – he definitely wasn’t freely single though. And I’m hoping this is truly now the end of it.