Top and Tail Tom

Top and Tail Tom 

Now this is a special tale of humble pie, let me set the scene. I was 19 maybe 20 at this point and desperate for attention as you can tell is a key theme in my life. I had been living in Portugal for a while the year before and a key character of this portion of my life was Tom, a childhood friend who I became obsessed with, like deeply obsessed with. I wanted to spend every day with him, know what he was up to, what he was thinking about every second, that kind of obsession. The only issue was that Tom, like me, was painfully avoidant. We spent all summer together laughing but I never knew where we stood. In the end I convinced myself that the only issue was that we were never alone together and only if I could orchestrate the situation just right then it would surely happen. Right? That’s some airtight logic.

Shockingly, this proved to be extremely difficult every time I tried to make plans with just the two of us. Tom would miss the hint (or not) and invite the rest of our group or his brother. Sometimes, I would think it was just us for lunch or drink and bam I'd turn around and his brother would be there. Still, this was not enough to deter me.

After a full 5 months of cat and mouse I was not put off just more convinced the timing hadn't been quite right. So, as any rational person would once back in the UK I invited myself to his uni house, keen to take him up on a very very nonchalant offer to come down and visit anyyytime. The only issue was that as soon as I got on that 5 hour train to Nottingham I knew I had made a mistake. I could not get hold of Tom. The whole 5 hours up there, I was in utter dismay as I had no other place to stay and had really convinced myself that he would be absolutely ecstatic at my impromptu arrival and welcome me with open arms and potentially if I played my cards right a big fat kiss. This, however, turned out to be fiction. I did eventually get hold of Tom who did not seem too pleased by my surprise visit and was also a bit confused by my lack of accommodation. But I persevered, i thought I'm not a quitter i just need to power through to this evening and then the rest will be history, he’ll realise he loves me and has the chance to make a move. 

The party I had been desperate to be in attendance of, ended up not really happening. It was summer of 2021 so there were still covid restrictions and I spent the whole night trailing after Tom round his house while he honestly tried his best to ditch me. The evening culminated in Tom insisting we should top and tail despite my insistence this was not necessary and me yapping until 7am about why I was now working on a helpline ignoring every sign and signal of him wanting to end the conversation and sleep.

What’s worst about this whole endeavour is I was at the time working as a barista at my local café and had told every single colleague of mine including the owner about this planned escapade so I could not return home with my tail between my legs pretending it didn't happen. I had to retell the story at length and excruciating detail for my colleagues' utter delight. 

I would be lying if I didn’t say this had a large bearing on me deciding to up and move myself to Barcelona (round one) only a month after this incident. It was the final straw for me in a long line of personal tragedies.