On Ilkla Moor Baht'at Baht Boyfriend and Baht a Lot Else Really (I did however, have my phone and a coat) PART 2

Months went by and everything was absolutely fine. It got to the 27^th December. I was at work and SB called me on my lunch break..

SB : What are you doing tonight?

Me: Seeing you hopefully

SB: Oh Good, I’ve got a surprise for you

I spent the afternoon telling all my colleagues he had a surprise for me, there was all sorts of speculation, engagement being one on the list. Ahaha :|

He picked me up from work, we kissed, we cuddled and I nagged him to tell me what he had planned. His mouth was kept firmly tight. I was excited.

We went back to mine and I picked up some stuff to go and stay the night at his house (where his parents had just about forgiven me for the previous drama)…

SB: You better wrap up warm as your surprise is outside

 (Don’t forget 27^th December around 7pm)

Whilst I was getting ready, frantically searching for some “outdoor clothes” (If you know me at all, you will realise these are sparse to say the least in my wardrobe) he sat on the edge of my bed flicking through my phone (note the trust)… And showed me a picture of someone from uni:

SB: Who’s this?

Me: That’s James, he lives in my block at uni

I didn't even bat an eyelid at this question.

…A long time before we got together, SB had gone on tour in Bosnia where he’d got a “Mine Awareness” t-shirt, he’d given this to me and said he’d been saving it for a special girl… It was a big baggy thing, that I only wore in bed…

Next question came…

SB: Where’s my mine awareness t-shirt?

Me: In that drawer *points*

SB: Will you bring it with you?

Me: Errr… yeah, but why? I only wear it in bed

SB: I just want you to bring it with you to wear in bed... In fact, I’m going to put it on for some extra warmth while we're outside

This was slightly more odd, but, again, I didn’t think an awful lot of it.

Wrapped up and in the walking shoes I’d bought days earlier knowing being with him would mean I was outdoors a lot more, we walked to his car.

I sat in the passenger seat and he put a hat over my eyes to blindfold me…

He drove up through Ilkley and onto the moors, drove all the way to the edge of Burley Woodhead where he must have changed his mind and turned back to head a bit further back towards Ilkley.

I got out of the car and laughed:

Me: I know exactly where we are!

SB: Where are we then?

Me: Well the Cow & Calf pub is in that direction

SB: YOU’VE BEEN FUCKING LOOKING

A bad reaction, yes, but not one that was totally out of place with his personality...

Me: Woah woah woah… Calm down, I’ve lived in Ilkley for 17 years, of course I know where we are

SB: Hmm.. Ok, well I guess you can take the blindfold off

I took it off.

He took my hand and started to lead me up the side of the moors, pitch black and scared of the dark this was not an ideal situation for me.

Half way up…

SB: Do you have your phone on you?

Me: No, why?

SB: I’m just going to go back to the car and get it for you, you might want to take a picture of your surprise

I shouted after him “OK, don’t leave me here”

Remember these? 

This happened well before iPhones and Blackberrys with fancy cameras filled the handbags of teenage girls.. Instead, he was telling me I needed to take a photo with that...

Q: What could he have done that’s so bright I could take a picture on my phone in the dark?

A: He must have written something in flames on the other side of the valley/arranged a romantic firework display

HA!

He returned with my whole handbag (odd) and once again started leading me up the side of the moors, occasionally tripping over bracken, rocks and other wildlife.

Once we reached the top, he turned to me and took my hands…

SB: Do you think I’ve been a good boyfriend?
Me: Eerrrrm… Yeah?

SB: Tell me some nice things I’ve done for you
Me: (I won’t lie.. I struggled) Errr.. You drive to up to uni to see me.. hmmm.. You bought me The O.C Series 2 on boxset? Errrr….

SB: WELL WHY THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN CHEATING ON ME WITH JAMES?!!?!?

Who. The fuck. Is James?

SB: James… The guy on your fucking phone

(Bear in mind I’d let him look through my phone with absolutely no problems or worries)

Me: Are you kidding me? What the hell? I barely know him (or didn’t at this point.. but that’s a whole other story).. He was with me and Alice when I bought my phone and I was messing around with the camera

SB: Well I know that you’ve been cheating on me with someone, you’ve slept with 2 of my best mates (in reference to Part 1), you’ve been sleeping with loads of people at uni.. I know you have, one of your friends told me

In all honesty.. Everything goes a bit blurry here, I was crying.. Sobbing and trying to understand what the hell was happening..

He was completely straight faced, not one ounce of upset showed in his expression, my heart was breaking and he was just helping it along the way…

I tried to explain and find out who had told him all this and where it had come from, why he thought I’d slept with his mates after all that bloody drama we had had and I just couldn’t get a straight answer.

At some point I dropped to my knees, I couldn’t understand what was happening. After God knows how long, it could have been 1 minute, 10 minutes or 30 minutes.. he started walking away… he sped up and then started RUNNING…

There was no way I could chase after him, he was trained to run in this terrain…

“SO YOU’RE JUST LEAVING ME HERE”

SB’s parting words: “Yes, just like you left me”

---

Hindsight is a wonderful thing:

1)    Oh, THAT'S why he’d turned round.. He was in fact going to leave me about 3 miles from anywhere, but decided against it

2)    Oh, THAT'S why he wanted me to bring his t shirt... He’d planned this down to the finest detail, he'd even got that back!

3)    Oh, THAT’S why he’d asked who the guy was in the picture

4)    Oh, THAT'S why he couldn’t see me the night before… Himself and his friend (the one who hated me) had planned this all out

But I guess at least he’d been kind enough to make sure I had my phone……..

Although this story tells you one bad story about an army relationship... Please remember... Always.

On Ilka Moor Baht'at Baht Boyfriend and Baht a Lot Else Really (I did however, have my phone and a coat) PART 1

As previously mentioned... I attract drama. I don't know what it is about me, I seem to have one of those faces. Many dramatic things have happened to me, but this was, by far, the most dramatic and bizarre moment of my entire life. The icing on the cake, the cherry on the ice cream, the angel on the Christmas tree (If you will). 

There are various versions of this story; The proper one, the mid length one, the short one and the quick fire one. Today... I will be gracing you with the full length version of this tale. 

Above is a picture of Ilkley Moor. As I stood at the top at around 8pm on the 27^th December.. Surrounded by darkness... and snow... and sheep... I wondered where it had all gone wrong.

I guess we’d have to go back a few months to the very beginning of the story.

Carringtons – Harrogate

I was back for a weekend from my first year in university visiting my army boyfriend. We’d gone out and my few short months at uni had taught me how to hit the vodka and if I wanted to, hit it hard... This particular night, I think i'd managed to down about 

9 double vodkas and orange in about an hour and a half... 

The night is very hazy, but I remember clearly leaning against a pillar talking to Soldier Boy's 2 best friends (who I had known since I was around 14) and they as always were being totally inappropriate... Telling me to come back to theirs so they could do God knows what with me... I was laughing it off, using the usual stupid (jokey) lines such as "Yeah Yeah I'd love to, but no, I'm with Soldier Boy" etc etc etc... 

It was at the point I turned round and saw Soldier Boy standing pretty much right behind me on the other side of the pillar, I realised he'd heard the whole Go'damn thing! My face must have fallen because I knew he wouldn’t see the funny side of this and probably hadn’t heard anything his friend were saying, essentially making me look like a cheating whore.

The storming out of the club and arguments started… I remember very little else until we got back to his, screaming at each other in his parents’ house kitchen, getting occasionally yelled at by his dad to shut the hell up…

I was obviously getting all the blame, until a text came through, it was one of the friends...

At this point, I had to make a decision, it was me or his friends, who had obviously been a lot more serious than I thought and obviously weren’t as good friends as he thought.

I showed him the text.

I’ve never seen anything like it, “I’m going to beat the fucking shit out of him”

He grabbed his car keys and started walking out of the kitchen.

I grabbed his arm and dug my nails in, crying and begging him not to go.

Bearing in mind I am not a small girl, he dragged me along the kitchen floor.

There was nothing I could do.

I cowered in a kitchen corner and suddenly realised he was probably as drunk as I was and about to get in his car.

I went tearing out of the house and… avoiding the drive jumped over the wall… and collapsed to the ground.

That’s right, I’d sprained my ankle jumping over a ONE FOOT WALL…

I crawled up to the car and knocked on the window and weakly said “I’ve gone over on my ankle”.

He looked at me.

And drove away. Cheers.

Looking back, I don’t really know how I managed it, but I got up and WALKED into the house, collapsed on the stairs and called for his parents (Mortifying)..

They rushed downstairs, his dad clearly in the most horrendous mood and shouting at me, at this point, I had to explain everything that had happened while my ankle got bigger.. and bigger.. and bigger...

SB’s (Soldier Boy’s) dad got in his car to go and look for him while his mum took me to hospital. Whilst me and the mother had time to bond and chat and had quite a good old heart to heart, however, the father was so angry with me, it never really got back to normal.

I had my ankle strapped up and got driven home. SB was in bed when I got back, told me what had happened (essentially a pretty big brawl) and had a chat, all was fine... I thought.

The next day he came over to my house to break up with me... He never went through with it, but from then on, his best friend took a severe disliking to me and the trust never really totally rekindled....

TO BE CONTINUED...

Bridget Jones

Two entries in one day, is that allowed in the World of Blog? I know many do these things on a religious weekly or bi-weekly basis… But I have a lot to catch up on…

PLUS

Bridget Jones is on the TV, so I feel I must take this as a blatant and very apparent sign.

So where do I start? From now and work backwards? Or from the beginning? No no, that would take far too long.

I guess I better start off with why I feel I, am experienced enough to give this advice and why I have so many stories in the first place.

I seem to be a drama magnet, my friends are continually shocked as to how these things happen to me. I have to admit, I’m a relatively dramatic person, you may learn this, but even so, it just follows me.

It all got a lot worse when I could find dates on tap (as it were). At the age of 21, I discovered Internet Dating... the match.com adverts SUCKED me in and since then I’ve had a couple of long term relationships, met a couple of friends, had numerous dates and hundreds of weird messages.

A lot of people still think of the below as the typical internet dating…

For the most part, it isn’t, but there are some people that aren't so great. They will bend the truth and some are certainly are not who they say they are. 

(I'm sure there are some people who will say the above picture is a self portrait of myself if they ever come across this blog.)

This blog, as well as covering the DOS and DON’TS of “normal” dating, it will also cover the DOS and DON’TS of internet dating, who to avoid and how to tell they’re genuine. I will also talk about the game playing that seems so rife nowadays, teenage dating and I guess I will throw a few personal stories in there for the entertainment of any readers I may get along the way.

An Introduction

I have been threatening to start a blog for a while now, but today is the day.. 

I have been waking up on a Saturday morning hangover free for as long as I can remember. After another Friday night staring at the television (alone) and waiting for the phone to ring, I decided this boredom has become too much, these Saturdays will now be used for something useful, if indeed this can be described as useful. 

So what to start blogging about? 

Well, I went to an all Girls school from the age of 3-18.. I don't have any brothers, I saw my dad once every fortnight, my mother's never had a boyfriend and we never really spent time with mothers who had sons... It's safe to say, I didn't really discover the male species until I was about 13 and by that time it was too late.. 

I'm not sure how to describe what followed;

An addiction? An obsession? A craving? A need? A want? A desire? 

But since then, I haven't been able to turn my brain off and I have tales to tell and advice to give, it's not enough to just share with my friends any more, I need to do something bigger, better and FAR more public..

I've never actually watched Sex and the City... but knowing that a lot of the people who will inevitably read this (my friends) are big fans, I will use some relevant references... Think of me as the UK based Carrie Bradshaw.. However I am yet to find my Mr Big. 

Who knows.. This might be the start of many different blogs, I might even start vlogging and splash myself all over YouTube, get myself a publisher.. But right now, this is my online diary, past, present and future.