LIZ JONES’S DIARY: In which I transfer home and transfer on from him

It was the final straw, the pointless argument that was the nail in the coffin of my disastrous on/off, mostly pen-pal friendship with David 1.0. You simply cannot call what we have been resuscitating every now and then a ‘relationship’, given we’ve not had sex since October, and then it was disappointing.

The vintage physical contact took place in my lovely room at the Rosewood hotel in London, where I was staying for work. He had brought sex toys and a blindfold, so there was no skin on skin, no actual kissing, merely him rummaging, as though wanting to find Marmite in the back of a cupboard. I was not aroused. Instead I felt annoyed at the blindfold, given I could no longer admire the twinkling erotic edifice that is the London Shard.

Back to the camel’s back. He had turned up for the weekend (he slept on the sofa) to help me move a few things into my new house. We packed my car, and I stopped to get petrol. Big mistake. As we queued he asked, ‘Do you know how to tell which side your petrol cap is on the car?’

Me: ‘Well, I know it’s on the driver’s side because I looked.’ 

Him: ‘But without looking at the outside. See the little icon of a petrol pump? The hose is on the right, which means the petrol cap is on the right.’ 

Me: ‘OK, but I already know which side it’s on.’ 

Him: ‘But what if you were in a hire car?’

I said he was mansplaining; that the point of him is to be helpful and make me laugh, not give me a lecture. He went on for so long I had to snap, ‘Please stop talking about petrol pumps, you’re driving me insane!’ Silence, at last.

We got to the house, unloaded a few things. He looked at the shell of a kitchen. ‘You need cupboards,’ he said. ‘There is nowhere to put any food.’ 

Me: ‘Have you seen your kitchen?’ His has a stained cork floor, is mostly flooded, without a light, and has numerous pairs of jeans stiff on radiators, like the bottom half of a 1970s Van der Graaf Generator rock concert.

Him: ‘I have more cupboards than you do.’ 

I don’t understand why men have to be so combative and negative.

We drove to a pub for Sunday lunch, where he bagged the banquette, leaving me to perch on a hard chair. I paid. He was increasingly getting on my nerves. That morning he’d helped me turn out the horses. Unfortunately, when I released Swirly, like a balloon on the end of a piece of string in a strong wind, she barged into him. He was rooted to the spot for what seemed like hours. 

‘Did she wind you?’ I asked him, feigning concern. ‘She barely grazed me. It was the walk through mud that finished me off.’ He has trouble breathing; he has commendably given up smoking, but sucks on vapes like a kitten on a teat, only less endearing.

That evening he kept using my Vincent Van Duysen for Zara porcelain plates and bowls. He said, meanly, ‘Who keeps mugs in a drawer?’ Well. ‘I do. And even I haven’t used my Zara plates,’ I snapped. He clattered down a fork and stormed off. I went to bed to stream Ripley, relishing the murderous plotting. I woke next morning, half expecting him to be gone. But no, he was lingering.

I was in a rush, waiting for the removal men to arrive to load the last few big things. And he said the sentence that women everywhere have come to dread: ‘I can’t find my iPhone.’ Why do men always lose things? In Paris it was the gold-plated lighter I gave him. In one hotel he left his clothes in a wardrobe. 

And now his phone. Cue hours spent searching in my car, beneath cushions. He left without it, so I spent the rest of the day phoning the pub we had lunch in, retracing our steps, updating him.

I do feel sorry for him. He texted the next day (from his iPad): ‘I am going to start walking in the park from tomorrow.’ But it’s too late.

I cannot prop up someone else: I have a hard enough job looking after myself. He is that weird mix: arrogant, but nothing to back it up. He is like a combustible gas: he floats harmlessly, but light a match and he explodes. Some friendships buoy you up, others drain you. This is clearly the latter.

I have managed to move house. Most importantly, I have moved on. From him.

Jones Moans… What Liz loathes this week

• When a guest uses a towel, then hangs it with others. Now I have to wash all of them!
• When a guest asks you to watch The 1% Club quiz show so they can show off. I don’t watch TV before 6pm!
• When a guest uses your Carrara marble work surface to chop plums. They stain!
• When a guest complains that your set of Conran Shop knives (never used) are all blunt. Use the knife sharpener!

Contact liz at lizjonesgoddess.com and find her @lizjonesgoddess