LIZ JONES’S DIARY: He hasn’t texted me for 4 weeks. Has he given me an STD?

I asked him point-blank why he hadn’t texted me for four weeks. Ghosted me. When I had been so amazing to him. Introduced him to my collies. Let him eat Riverford steak and smoke in my house. Wear shoes. Have sex in my… let’s gloss over that one, shall we?

‘I would rather tell you face to face.’

Gaaah! This is exactly like people who still do voice calls. What is wrong with them??? Email me!

I can’t stand cryptic people making an unnecessary drama.

Unfortunately, it turns out he has been reading my column or has quickly brought himself up to speed before we meet for ‘a drink’* next week. He said I used his first name in my column. Guilty as charged, but I was angry. ‘Can it be private from now on?’ And why did I say he gave me an STD, when he doesn’t have one? And that he needs someone who ‘has his back’?

I am sick and tired of men dating a writer, dining on the fruits of my labours, then laying down rules. I’m not some desperate little woman, grateful for male attention. Well, I have some demands of my own.

I compose this text to him:

‘My last boyfriend was like a stalker, obsessed with my writing. I’d find him on page 146 about me on some insane online forum, but only when my writing was about him. Never took any blame for his behaviour and, in fact, expected rave reviews in my column when he behaved appallingly. A classic point scorer.

‘I won’t reveal your identity. Ever. Well, unless the paparazzi get us first. But you need to realise that when you have sex with a man, and he says how much he fancies you, that he is starting to have feelings, that he wants to see you every weekend (this all came from you, by the way; I demanded nothing), when he then ghosts you for four weeks, your imagination runs riot. Oh no, he must be a serial shagger, he must do this to women all the time! What have I done? Oh god, now I am very ill, he must have given me a disease! (I have since written in my column it was an abscess in my tonsils; I’ve been hospitalised twice.) Even a text from you to say, “Sorry, now is not a good time for me.” Or, “I’ve met someone/gone back to my nightmare ex.” “I have changed my mind” or “I realise I love my second wife and am moving to Outer Mongolia” would have allayed my paranoia. It’s the obfuscation. Fine, if my ex-husband thought I was too well connected, too rich, too kind, too funny, too talented for him to ever measure up, but don’t lie to me. Don’t make me live a life that isn’t real. It’s stealing. Yeah, I might have stolen his sperm, but he stole my life, my reality.

‘Silence is disrespectful. It implies you are a coward. You cancelled our spa mini-break, but didn’t even send a daffodil by way of an apology. I can’t stand lack of generosity. And you think only of yourself. After four weeks, I get, “How are you doing?” Hello? You aren’t a monosyllabic teenager. I need someone who is thoughtful, who communicates, is kind and generous and considers my feelings. If you are like this at the beginning of a relationship, goodness only knows how you behave six months in. I want an explanation (confidential), before I waste any time meeting you “face to face”.

‘Oh, and if we do meet for a drink, this time you’re paying.’

Ha!

Anyway, before I can press send, he replies to my previous text in which I accuse him of going quiet again.

‘Not at all. I’m sorry. I don’t always find my texts**. All is OK. I am going to my mum’s funeral this weekend.’

So now I feel really, really, really bad.

*We all know this means we are going to have full sex.

**If you are into someone, aren’t you like MI5, tracking a potential shoe bomber? It is eyes on, all the time.

JONES MOANS… What Liz loathes this week 

• You get to the hotel to find your electric toothbrush is dead, and you didn’t pack a charger. 
• I have already started to feel Christmas envy: ‘Oh, I’m off to the Maldives.’
• Wiring my new en suite, the electrician placed all the dirty, rotten wood from the space on..? Yes, you guessed it – my professionally laundered duvet, laundered pillows and mattress. What is wrong with these stupid, thoughtless men?