1.2 That moment you realise… this isn’t going to work.

First date with the Welshman and he belts out “I’m sending my kids to boarding school at age five.” A wide-eyed smile was all I could manage thinking, “Christ! He’s got bad teeth”.

It’s that moment five minutes in, or five years on (in a relationship) when you huge-sigh-of-relief-realise: This isn’t going to work.

A pint and a Piccadilly Circus later I was home and could later play the ‘I’m not ready for a relationship’ card. Because I wasn’t sure how “I’m not sending my un-born children to boarding school” was really going to come off. And boy did he got annoyed with me – he actually wrote back a horrible message, then apologised the following morning asking if I still wanted to hang out and be friends. Yeah… nah.

His other favourite topic was bagging out his family – which, oh look everyone’s got a creepy uncle and a sibling that won’t shut up but, I LOVE my Mum and Dad, I talk to them a lot and I talk about them a lot. There’s nothing better than waking up to one hundred and forty three FB notifications on a Tuesday morning from Mum; “Lorenza that dress is a bit short! And who is that man you’re sitting on?!! He looks lovely!???”

So the Welshman wants to send his kids to boarding school at age five because you guessed it – HE went to boarding school at age five. Well now, that makes complete sense Welshy. When I was five I put water on my pasta because it was too hot to eat – doesn’t mean it was right does it. It was disgusting I tell you. Mum wrote to Readers Digest about that – Thanks Mum.

I can rant all I want about boarding school because I went there (only for a year because I screamed blue murder till I came home). It didn’t give me much more than a bullied, butchered self-esteem and a slight ‘dumb’ complex being compared to smarter siblings. Oh and how to menstruate with four hundred other women at the exact, same, time. Eww, gross.

Though at age twelve as a growing-breasts-overnight-monster it did teach me one valuable lesson. ‘You can last at anything a year’. It helped my first year living overseas. I’d chant “You survived boarding school a year, you can survive London a year!” Fist-pump the air and continue crying over Westminster Bridge. Oh look, London wasn’t that bad, this only went on the first eight months.

Back to Welshy – I know I know! I’m putting the cart before the horse, I don’t even know if this guy has nut allergies and I’m thinking, babies? It’s not about that though! If they’re serious arguments we want to have already, how is that ever going to change? It won’t. And besides I want to fight about who’s emptying the dishwasher, why papaw is spelt wrong on that stupid red tube and what year the word ‘ginormous’ was invented. (How many ladies just checked the Lucas Papaw in their bag?)

For me my ‘five year’ moment, well ‘three year moment’ was a relationship that was arguments and fighting over every aspect of the way we were living. I came to the stark realisation to throw a mortgage or child into that mix would be unfair to the both of us, so sadly the relationship ended. Also he didn’t peel carrots, who doesn’t peel the carrots?!

With the Welshman I knew it wasn’t going to work so I did what anyone with half a brain or heart would do. I ended it. I try to make sure a guy has similar values, morals and ideas about life, before even entertaining the thought of a relationship. Because if you don’t have that in common, then all you’ve got to look forward to is fights, divorce and really bad teeth.

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