After being attacked (verbally) for the past few weeks for writing about a bad date with a Chinese man that (apparently) ‘makes all Chinese men look bad’, I thought I’d move my attention on to a British man. Shouldn’t need to point it out, but it is a story about one man. The title is supposed to be ironic. But be warned people; I might just work my way around the globe here.
Love’s young dream. I’m such a cynic…
So I had been living with this man for a long time. We had long ago ceased to have anything in common; when I look back I’m not sure that we ever had that much. He liked to drink warm British beer and watch football on the telly; I hate sports and wanted to travel the world and experience different cultures. He wanted the bigger house, the better car, the surround sound stereo and I wanted to sell everything and go live in a commune in India. Or anywhere. I just wanted to do something and break with the routine of earn more money and buy more things, which wasn’t making me happy.
It hadn’t always been that way. When we first got together I imagined myself to be madly in love. But I was naive and young. Later I saw him for what he was: a control freak chipping away at my self-esteem. He ridiculed everything I tried to do, telling me I couldn’t do anything right (you name it, his ex-girlfriend did it better).
By the last few months we had stopped communicating at all. He’d go to the living room and switch on the TV and I’d go to the bedroom and read my book.
Yet still I didn’t want to give up. I’d invested a lot of time in the relationship and thought I was too old to start again.
I suggested a weekend away. We’d gone to Paris together soon after we’d met and I thought going back there might be just the medicine we needed. Surprisingly he agreed: ‘I think that’s a fabulous idea’ he said. 
So there was just this one weekend between football fixtures (that’s soccer to you if you’re American) when he was free to travel and so I went to book it. Except there were no spaces on flights to Paris that particular weekend and he could only travel that weekend because he couldn’t miss football. ‘Why not try Madrid’, the woman in the travel agency suggested. So instead of Paris I booked Madrid and off we went for a weekend I was hoping would recapture everything we had lost.
The weekend was a disaster. From his point of view, everything that could go wrong did and it was all my fault. There was a delay at the airport, leaving him grumpy and bad tempered and leaving me afraid to say anything to him lest he bite my head off. Madrid was unusually hot for the time of year (April) and he didn’t like the heat. Whatever I suggested doing he ‘didn’t care’. Do you want to go to the market or the art galleries or the park or get lunch? I’d ask him. ‘I’m not bothered’ was always his reply, as he walked around with a face like a wet weekend, behaving like a sulky teenager.
Football, should there be any confusion. You play it with your foot. That’s all i know (or want to know)
Then he discovered that there was a football match going on that he wanted to see after all. So I left him to watch at the hotel and went out into Madrid on my own. I had a lovely time, visiting the galleries and eating lunch al fresco and walking round the park.
When I got back to the hotel he was in a foul mood. He resented me leaving him alone and yet at the same time he wanted to sit indoors with the curtains drawn watching TV and drinking beer. Just like he did every weekend. That was the moment I finally realized it was time to give up. He wasn’t happy when I was there and wasn’t happy when I wasn’t there either. It was his problem.
I walked away from the relationship with just my clothes and effectively started again; it turned out I wasn’t too old after all.
I know so many men like this, thank goodness we both moved on!
yeah the crap you put up with when you’re younger ..
Hi Sara. This is Fred again. I hope that you remember me. I am so sorry to read that your British White knight was not at all what you had expected, and your anecdote is certainly not what I had expected also. I thought that British men are world renowed for romance and for their ability to seduce women. How do I know? I have spoken with several girls in the U.S. who have been seduced by British men while those British men were either traveling or visiting in the U.S. I have also heard some U.S. girls who have traveled and studied in Britain say that the British men were so chivalrous that they can win in any competition against U.S. men. They (U.S. girls) told me that their ability (British men) to romance the women was far superior to the American counterpart. That is why I cannot believe what you had written. Is your stroy true? Or are you simply trying to deflect criticism of your last account of your dating experience with a Chinese man wherein you had incurred much indignation?
These American girls told me that the British men would lift them off their feet and actually spin them in the air to arouse excitement. They also would buy them flowers and profess their love for the American girl without embarassment in public. They also said that the British men know how to treat the girls so well and speak so sweetly in the ears of the girl in their sexy British accent that the flair of romance escalated until the woman utimately succumbs by going to bed with the man.
I, as a Chinese-American man, am loathed with jealousy (jealous at the British man who has superior abilities to seduce and win the woman) when I heard these stories. I always wanted to learn from the British men how they can be so good at the skill and art of seduction. I,therefore, am shocked that your British man was not any where akin to the stories that I heard from the American girls here in the U.S.
By the way,what about the British girls? Are they romantic like their British male counterparts? If so, what are some of the methods the English girls use to get their man? Please advise.
All I ever write is stories about people I meet and experiences I have. It is never supposed to be taken as generalizations. The title is supposed to be ironic, since I got into so much trouble with the Chinese one. I think many people don’t understand the British humour.