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london1967) wrote2010-02-21 07:32 pm
Bittersweet memories
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london1952 ) is visiting his mother in Leeds and to keep myself busy and out of trouble, I did a bit of tidying up (nothing major).
I sorted out a large box that contained a few magazines and some old stuff from what it feels like a previous life.
Are you ready for a trip down memory lane?
I moved to London in January 1997 and I was sweet, polite and quite naïve too. When it came to gay life, I was like the proverbial child in a sweet shop and not that much experienced either: I didn't really know what was in all those jars and had to open them one by one.
It was the days when my life wasn't "enhanced" by the internet and I had to do things like booking flights at the travel agent's. "Lonely hearts" adverts in magazines were more popular than they are now and in May '97 I placed one myself:
( ALAWP meant "all letters answered with photo" but I don't remember the meaning of PA - I know that it wasn't Prince Albert!)
I received two replies! One was from a guy in London who later didn't like the picture I sent him, and one was from a man in Bournemouth:
A few weeks after I went down to Bournemouth for the week-end, and we started dating. And we soon became an item and I spent almost every week-end down in Dorset.
It was all very new and exciting to me but at the same time difficult, since Graham (who turned out was 49 instead than 47) had "done it all". We belonged to two different worlds and this caused a few frictions because we spoke different languages.
His was the idiom of a person ready to settle down, who insisted on monogamy, wanted me to move down to Dorset and, to some extent, control me; mine was the tongue of someone who didn't want to get tied down quite yet and was still discovering what was out there.
Not a good combination!
Very often when he was drunk (and he happened a number of times), he'd say "I know that you'll be leaving me, but nobody else will ever have you the way I did".
Still it was nice while it lasted - despite the drunkenness and the occasional row.
This came with a little parcel and I think it contained the keys to his flat
In the spring we went on holiday to Rome and the Amalfi Coast. I later discovered that the holiday saved me from getting dumped as before we went, he had already placed an ad and met someone else once.
Things came to an end in late August '98 when one evening he rang me at home and as he didn't find me decided that I was out having "fun". He never returned my call later that night or the following day, and two days letter I received a "dear John" letter!
(I really do not understand you at all. A relationship should build over a year, and yet you seem to be determined to destroy it.
I just have to keep going, I don't have the luxury of thinking what do I want and where shall it be.
I used to be so proud of you, now I'm ashamed and even more for myself for allowing it to go on, that is having lost one's pride)
I was upset, but when another note came a few days later asking to go back to him, I had made my mind up and said no.
"My Dear Franco,
Thank you for your letter which I received today.
I must confess I was rather hoping that you might have felt you would like to try to build on what he have and make an effort to try and find in time a job nearer here like the one you saw advertised as that offered travel and a good wage.
I had also hoped that being together would help stop your "fun". I didn't mind the locker room at the hotel and perhaps if we were on holiday together from time to time when we are together.
I don't want to think of life right now with you not here. I'm not sure if I can face meeting on Sunday but I ....we will have to meet.
Please do keep the other things that important to me."
So what happened to Graham?
I saw him once after that when the following spring I was invited to his mother's 70th birthday. Then only polite but distant Christmas cards.
Once he also rang and left a message on my answering machine during the day (I assume because he expected me to be at work) to let me know that his mother was at a London hospital receiving treatment for her heart condition. He couldn't go to visit her and he hoped that I would (and indeed I did).
About three years ago, I received a postcard from him to say that he had retired and moved to Egypt.
There was no address and that was the end of our correspondence.
Graham was my first relationship. A few months after it has finished, I met by chance mr. Wonderful and mr. Right (that's the same person!).
I count myself very lucky to have found true love at the second serious attempt!
No trip down memory lane is of course complete without some photos.
How young and slim (perhaps even under-nourished) I look here!
And now I am ready for these letters to join the other ones already in the archive... the shredder and the recycling box!
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Reminds me of some classic UK ads:
The wonderful Leonard Rossiter, Joan Collins....and Counselor Deana Troi as the flight attendant.
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Space is at a premium here!
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I think space is at a premium for most people. However much I try to thin things out there's still too much. Luckily my landlord let me keep the hamsters in the living room!
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Now we have a lovely semi-detached Victorian cottage but never enough room - I had to get rid of half of my clothes!
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I've had a couple of them too, through newspaper ads I answered... wrong men, definitely. One of them had a friend who tried to hit on me behind his back, LOL. I even have a black-and-white photo of him (the ad young man, not his friend) somewhere (colour photography was slow to come here). The other insisted on wanting a virgin girlfriend in a very rude way, and I felt offended although I was still a virgin all right.
Well, it's good that your memories aren't bitter.
You do look undernorished in those photos. :)
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Sorry to hear that you had such bad experiences with "lonely heart" ads.
Yes, I was always quite sickly at the time; I feel much healthier now with a few more (well > 15!!) kgs on!
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Oh, my luck with straight men! The story of my life can make a very long soap opera. :)
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And "under-nourished" is absolutely correct!
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The funny thing is that at the time I never really thought of myself as slim!
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xxxxx
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This time I decided that I could get rid of them but I compromised by scanning the ones you see here before shredding them.