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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Falling really badly for gorgeous total stranger??? *long, sorry *

372 replies

Portmeirion · 13/10/2008 16:35

Namechanger

So the title says it all.

A few weeks ago I was in the park with DS, and there was this chap sitting on the grass with a model plane. DS watches him flying it completely fascinated, and the bloke saw this and then looked up and smiled at me, then he said to DS, Here, do you want a go? And he let DS fly this plane and fetch it back a few times.

After a bit he said he had to go, and stood up, and DS wanted to carry on playing with the plane, and he smiled at me again and said Sorry, is he going to hassle you to buy him one now? Then went off.

Pushed DS on the swings a bit, and then went for a coffee. It was busy and I'm looking around for somewhere to sit, and who do I see...yes, Model Plane Boy there already. DS saw him too and ran over, so I went over to get him back and MPB said we should sit there because he was going and we could have his table and sofa. He looked very pointedly at both my hands, checking for rings, then he asked if he could buy my coffee!!

Did I mention I really fancied him? He isn't my usual type at all, I like beefy rugby player types and he's thin and quite geeky looking but very good looking. Blond with big grey eyes but he has this lovely manner about him - stands up when I come in, listens without interrupting, and never takes his eyes off me. His name is Joel. I even like his name.

I had to get DS to nursery (he does afternoons) so had to go. J is out of work at the moment - he had meningitis and then got something else in hospital, so he lost a lot of weight and then while he was off work they laid him off. He doesn't care because he claimed on his insurance and had a lump sum, but he still gets tired easily. He sort of flops gratefully into chairs and then hardly moves, just lounges around looking chilled.

Anyway I couldn't see him because of work and stuff and also I don't want to see him with DS tagging along, getting attached to someone who might not be sticking around (anyone basically). But last week he rang me and we spent 3 HOURS on the phone! He has an older half-brother - his dad married his mum when she had a boy from a previous relationship so I guess he's not fazed by DS.

We got together yesterday (DS had a party) and had a lovely couple of hours - tea and chat outside on a sunny autumn day. He made a paper aeroplane for me to take home for DS which I thought was sweet. He says the most charming things in a very innocent way. He asked me if the coat I had on was expensive and when I said no he said Well you make it look expensive. He said he let DS play with the plane because then I'd have to talk to him...

He wants to take me out for dinner this Friday but I can't get a babysitter - I don't know many people round here except other mums from nursery who'd be in the same boat. Also I am thinking Wait a minute, he doesn't have a job, I don't know him, I don't know anyone who knows him and although I've got his phone number I don't even know where he lives. Why hasn't he got a GF? He says he broke up with someone last year. All I know is what he's told me.

Basically he is an almost total stranger but I can't stop thinking about him, I feel like we really connected on the phone and I really, really want to sleep with him (haven't had sex for ~2 years and I even told him that...)...I've been having very detailed dirty thoughts about him . But I don't know what to say about Friday, if I say no because of the babysitter, will he not bother again?

So am I being really rash? At times I think maybe that's what he does? Maybe he's a paedo who picks up single mums in parks? Or am I being paranoid?

OP posts:
Snaf · 19/10/2008 11:57

FA - I don't see how anyone's getting 'done over', though - it's just a thread about a date! The OP isn't trying to get money/help out of anyone or fooling people into laying their most painful secrets bare, is she? It's just a quite sweet/silly thread about a possibly theoretical date with a bloke who may or may not actually exist

I don't see what the big deal is, really. I hope it's true but if it ain't...meh.

Flightattendant2 · 19/10/2008 11:59

No you're right. I am getting cross for no reason other than I hate bullshit.

Ok.

As you were...

Snaf · 19/10/2008 12:04

Perhaps the clue's in the name - after all, Portmeirion isn't exactly grounded in reality itself, is it?

BananaSkin · 19/10/2008 13:19

The first post read a little strangely to me too. So much detail yet the important bits were missed out (like him asking for her number)... But I'm the world's worst cynic.

cheerfulvicky · 19/10/2008 17:00

Oh, well I started getting suspicious at the mention of "scent". Whaaat? I don't know a single woman who calls it scent instead of perfume. C'mon now budding author/tranny/whatever, if you're going to spin a yarn, you have to do your research

Seriously, if this thread is real I will be pleased, but I really doubt it is. The underwires... again, eh?? Underwired bras are worn by pretty much everyone, as far as I'm aware. They are not a special contraption! Nor are they unsexy . And I thought it was interesting that the OP did not respond to anyone who was skeptical. Very telling. But I agree we should all have kept quiet and seen how long the tale went on for - after all, it was quite entertaining I thought, kind of like chick lit. For free!

Flightattendant2 · 19/10/2008 20:02

Well, no update so far and possibly that's because we called her on some of our suspicions...if it was a genuine MNer I am truly sorry for doing that. If it wasn't then I hope she is now aware that we're not easily hoodwinked.

But sorry also to those of you who wanted to hear the ending, as I feel guilty about that either way. In hindsight I should have waited. But she might not have come back anyhow...she didn't post much on Friday.

Who knows...

witcheseve · 19/10/2008 20:24

FA, don't feel bad at all. I got suspicious when she said she then went for a coffee and guess who was there? IME once at the park with a toddler the last thing you do is go for a coffee at a cafe unless you are miles away from home. They are not the best coffee companions. Also chances that he was doing it in his home town is pretty slim.

Read the OP again its all covered in mist.

Flightattendant2 · 19/10/2008 20:29

Thanks witches

I got as far as the checking for rings bit. I think any bloke who looks pointedly at your hands before offering you a drink is just a slimeball really.

witcheseve · 19/10/2008 20:54

Lets face it, a woman might check the hands for a ring. Some wear one some don't but most gorgeous men are married.

honestfriend · 19/10/2008 20:58

some married women don't wear rings.

I reckon is Portm. was real, she/he would have come back by now- even if they aren't real, I though they might want to play along and try to convince us they are real.

Oh I do like a good thriller- this beats Miss Marple any day!

witcheseve · 19/10/2008 21:02

Men don't check hands, women do. It was a fantasy. Mills and Boon stuff.

zippitippitoes · 19/10/2008 21:03

well i think it was written in a composed kind of way

its the kind of chick lit style rather than normal post

freya north came to mind but i am not a chick lit specialist

scent is a bit of an americanism as might be the underwires thing

i have written loads of stuff on mn about dates and mine is generally illiterate maybe im jealous

i do think strange things happen to people well they do to me but in a post i dont write it up like a script unless possibly i was being ironic

my exdp i met when i got in his cab and asked him to take me to cornwall

he refused but drove me round birmingham for 6 hours instead

Flightattendant2 · 19/10/2008 21:05

I'd rather read about that tbh Zippitoes! Sounds rather sweet!

zippitippitoes · 19/10/2008 21:14

i had previously been to london with a dutch taxi driver who had never been there before..he didnt want to go to cornwall either lol

i ended up with exp for 8 years..i was awol when i met him

Portmeirion · 19/10/2008 22:10

Eek, there were 170-odd messages in this thread last time I looked and now there are 300+. Sorry, I'm not going to have time to read these till at least tomorrow night.

I am not sure how date went. Friendly enough but it ended in a very take it or leave it way.

He's been talking about the situation to his confidants and as good as said it all doesn't seem worth the hassle.

I suppose this means I am meant to disagree with him, except he is prob right...

OP posts:
ToughDaddy · 19/10/2008 22:14

And what about you. How do you feel?

honestfriend · 19/10/2008 22:17

"He's been talking about the situation to his confidants and as good as said it all doesn't seem worth the hassle."

??? what situation? Taking you out? C'mon. can't believe that. Are you seriously saying that you have not read any of the posts and that you are not going to comment on them?

Is this a qucik way of ending this thread?

after all the build up and advice your post seems slightly lacking in detail, to put it mildly!

Portmeirion · 19/10/2008 23:14

Having just got through the 150 posts I missed, I'm not sure there's a lot of point continuing is there?

As I have explained before...my mum crusades on my behalf and reads MN and possibly this very thread. So does at least one co-worker. No way am I letting on, sorry, except to say that I don't post often or at length and I am not an MN "name".

I sell things, four afternoons per week. I get by on support payments, savings, and my commissions. I live in the 2 bed garden flat I bought 13 years ago when I had the makings of a quite different career.

AMs I look after DS and can sometimes post from home, although if he sees the computer on, he always wants to use it. PMs I am at work and I read / post around these times if not with a customer.

"Scent" is shorthand for the various possibilities. Perfume is not the only kind of scent. Only one of my parents is English and I have not said where I live, IYSWIM.

I have not discussed J's finances with him. Would you? He has been self employed and insured accordingly because his employer routinely fires people who are no longer productive. Yes it's illegal. Yes it happens anyway. It happened to me when pg but that's another story.

The "situation" he discussed is that SWMs aren't his usual date and neither (so I am told) does he meet them this way. So he's talked about the difference this makes, which seems fair enough to me, since nobody here has yet suggested it shouldn't make any difference.

"Portmeirion" is simply my secret place.

DS can be safely taken for coffee for maybe half an hour as long as the babycinos are served with marshmallows.

I am not a writer nor am I attempting to mislead or entertain anyone, myself included. If I appear literate, all I will say is that I certainly should.

On Friday night I got in about 11 and didn't particularly feel like sharing, thanks. Yesterday I took DS to pottery class from 10.30 to 1, gave him his lunch there, and then took him to a fairly distant shop to have his feet measured and to buy him some new shoes. We then came home, he had his tea and bath, I settled him and then I spent several hours on the phone and then went to bed myself.

Today DS had a party to go to at 11 o'clock and we then had a Macdonalds, went to an outdoor playcentre for the afternoon followed by tea, bath and bed and I have just done a week's laundry followed by a tidy up.

So I'm busy, and it is after all just the internet. 'Fraid I can't reply to anonymous posters with no real point to make.

For what it's worth - I haven't heard from J and don't expect to, if I've understood him properly I'm supposed to make the next move.

OP posts:
BananaSkin · 19/10/2008 23:21

Does anyone else feel a bit [tail between legs]?

witcheseve · 19/10/2008 23:24

Sounds like it all went, to put it eloquently, 'underwired tits up'. Sorry but if anything you have kept us entertained

MrsSplat · 19/10/2008 23:33

I admit I've been checking out this thread off and on and pretty horrified at the turn of events on here. Portm - you really didn't deserve this grief and speculation- gone-mad, for not choosing to live on the internet this weekend! Jeez.

Don't take it to heart. Sorry the date didn't live up to promise, but your anticipation of it made v.entertaining reading. Good luck.

witcheseve · 19/10/2008 23:38

Glad that you are OK, which was a concern IYSWIM. x

Flightattendant2 · 20/10/2008 06:47

Still completely unconvinced.

Flightattendant2 · 20/10/2008 06:57

And I still don't get why the namechange, if nobody knows who you are anyway. It isn't like you didn't give us enough detail to be identified by anyone who knows you IRL. Quite the opposite in fact.

I apologise again if you are genuine and in that case I'm sorry it all did turn out to be a huge fantasy. But your style is like a novel and I hope you can understand why some of us thought that you were being disingenuous.

What a sad thread.

Flightattendant2 · 20/10/2008 07:21

Furthermore I am keen to know what age your son is if he is old enough to learn pottery for 4 hours yet needs placating with marshmallows in order to behave in a cafe for 30 minutes.

Or am I reading too much into that?