Underneath It All

Another Alfie sighting to report. The bugger came into my work again, just before five. He looked much better than he did last Friday. I'd been working upstairs and came down to report to my supervisor, Nutter, and Alfie was standing there chatting with her. "Hiya, you all right?" I said, and handed Nutter a slip of paper, as she voiced possibly the worst question she could have done at that moment: "So have you got a girl yet, Alfie?"

Any ability I had to muster a conversation piece or simple pleasantry went straight out the window - I kept walking. I heard him laugh and joke "three." I walked towards Lila, who was laughing at me. "Don't say a word, Lila, don't even look at me!" I joked. Then I sort of floundered, not knowing what direction to take or what the blazes I'd been about to do. I took a very strangled route to the staff room whilst deciding, and heard hurried footsteps behind me. I heard my name and turned, and there was the mighty 'Muffin running towards me. "I know, I've seen him." I answered before he said anything. The gorgeous little bunny had been searching the building for me to warn me before I came down! (He rocks.)

I got my coat and went to clock out and heard Alfie saying goodbye to everyone. 'Muffin reports that when he came in he was like: "Look who's here! Alfie's in the house!" and everyone just looked at him. He also had the audacity to criticise what 'Muffin was wearing - like he has any right to talk after Friday's Eldorado effort!

So, on my way out 'Muffin is counselling me and who walks past again but Alfie. I had to walk out of the building behind him. I've got to give it to him, his arse looks great in jeans. And from the back you can't see the forehead, ha! Outside the doors, he stopped to say hello to someone and noticed me. I didn't make eye contact and headed for the crossing. He crossed in the middle of the road, but was parked right behind Boyf, who'd come to pick me up from work.

I got in the car and Boyf said: "Is that (Alfie's real name)? He looks like a tosser. He looked at me so I just stared at him." Then he ranted about what an idiot he was for about twenty minutes, suggesting we go out with 'Muffin and 'bump' into Alfie so that he could take him down a peg or two. Lord.

Anyways, my sister's diagnosis is this: what a plonker, he sounds very lonely to me. And when I think about it, Alfie is always surrounded by people, but they're acquaintances, not good friends. He puts on such a front that nobody really knows him. Everything about him is overstated and flash - there's no substance, nothing real. When you start getting close to him, you can practically see the force field coming up, the bullshit becomes more obvious, the standard lines he uses to deflect questions that might delve deeper than the surface image he projects. And that's really sad, for him.

He confounds me. Afterwards, I started thinking about all the things I should have said again, but then I thought: no, this is my workplace now, not his. Why is it up to me to make things less awkward? It was him that messed me about, I put all my cards on the table. So if anyone has amends to make, it's him.

He never will of course, his ego will just gloss over all that and put my sudden nonchalance down to bitterness. I may be gutted that things didn't work out, but I'm not bitter about it. Last week, I told 'Muffin and my sister that despite how things turned out, I would do it all again. Yes, I have my regrets. Lying in the arms of the man of my dreams, stroking his hair and listening to him telling me my body is amazing while I fall asleep? Worth it. Sorry, but worth it.

If you were crazy about someone, and a Fairy Godmother came and said, you can only have one night, one night to be close to them, in the morning they will forget, but you will always have the memory... what would you do? And I'm not talking one-night stands, and I'm not necessarily talking sex, because that's not what happened.

I posed that question to Mybug and his answer was this: I wouldn't choose the girl I love. I wouldn't ask for that bridge to throw myself off. Memories are the bricks of personality. Know what I'm saying?