Passenger Four

I met Passenger Four in a bar. I was hiding from / ignoring Passenger Three at the time who was, as you may recall, showing off his new girlfriend's hotness to all of his / our friends. I felt the best option was to find someone new to talk to and, being the bold and slightly drunk type I crashed a conversation amongst three people I didn't know at all. Passenger Four and I hit it off straight away - there was witty banter, there was sexual attraction, there was a meeting of the minds, there was sexual attraction...

Think Bruce Willis in...well pretty much every movie, the broody, witty, slightly alcoholic tough guy. He even looked a bit like Bruce Willis, and I was not complaining. We immediately started spending all kinds of time together, and texting each other constantly and being generally lovey and obnoxious. A few clues that this was not necessarily how it would always be included the following
1. Him telling me that he sometimes liked to disappear for a week and not be in contact with anyone
2. Him having numerous children with numerous women at least one of whom refused to acknowledge that he WAS the father as she was with someone else.
3. Him telling me he broke up with four (count them FOUR) other women to focus on just me
4. He had a woman that rang him to obsess over him and he once held the phone to my ear so I could hear her and laughed at her behind her back.
5. The fact that he was a drug and alcohol rehab counsellor with a pot habit and a drinking problem.

However, at first blush everything seemed wonderful...until...I would ring and he would hang up his mobile without answering, he would ask me out for drinks and then not show up or answer his phone when I called to find out where he was, and generally he went from Mr Attentive to Mr Absent. Combine this with my sister starting a new relationship with someone who wanted to be with her ALL THE TIME and love her and adore her and tell her she was wonderful ALL THE TIME and the inevitable comparison between the two relationships and I started to get a little cranky with Mr Absent.

Mr Absent decided that he just couldn't handle being attentive to just one woman and decided to break it off. Not being of a mentally well pursuasion at the time that didn't go well for me...I got the paranoids and kept suspecting that when we spoke he was letting other women listen in so they could laugh at me (could you blame me? It's not like I was inventing that behaviour on his part). Sadly, we shared the same local, and so the atmosphere became a little strained as I acted like a slightly crazy person (ok like a completely crazy person...my sister and I even threw strawberries from our champagne glasses at him across the bar) and he acted like the man he was...someone who was into everyone and no one at the same time.

Interestingly, it was on one of these crazy nights shortly after the break up that I met Passenger Seven (not a typo) who asked me to come home with him and was turned down flat.
And the 'what happened next?' portion of the blog? Well...Mr Absent decided he WAS ready to be a boyfriend but (presumably) not with someone who expected him to be available on her terms. He made the mistake of insulting me in front of my sister, which resulted in the most hilarious showdown of all time as she abused him roundly, grabbed his mobile phone off him when he tried to use it while she was yelling at him and frightened every man in the bar in the process. He later apologised to us both for his behaviour on that night and walked away from us with a wary eye on my sister in case she came at him again.

Last I heard he was still a local at the same bar.

Passenger Three

Have you ever been in a relationship where you are crazy and they are crazy and somehow your crazies cancel each other out? Yeah...me neither. In my experience crazy + crazy = crazy x crazy. Mathematically incorrect, but we are not talking about maths we are talking about crazy people. Passenger Three came into my life at a time when I was not exactly at my best mentally, and since he was not his best mentally either we managed to amplify each other's crazy to the point where I was put under the care of a suicide watch team and he was put on medication for bi-polar disorder.

None of this was helped by him being a close friend of my younger sister, a fledgling emo and 11 years my junior (what can I say...not good in the head, I think I already mentioned that).The thing about guys who are much younger than you is that they may have great stamina, but they also tend to have attention deficit disorder. Your sister is hot! Jessica Alba is hot! That random chick over there is hot! Yes, my friend, other women are hot, but do you need to share that with me constantly?...no. Also, going out with a person does not mean wandering off to be with other women all night then checking back in at the end of the night...I'm just saying...and another thing...yes, my sister IS hot but she is my SISTER dude, don't tell me she is hot and then start a wrestling match with her...not cool...

And so it was that Mr ADD eventually got distracted by the next hot chick that passed his line of sight. Man that chick is hot! Did you notice that hot chick! Yeah! She's hot! I'm bringing her out to show her to my friends cause man she is HOT! Did I mention that she's hot? And so is that other chick I saw over there, and Hannah Montana is hot! And wow! Your sister is still hot!...uh huh...cheers, it's what every woman wants to hear. And what happened next?

Well Mr ADD's next hot chick was paraded around town for a while before quietly disappearing into oblivion, turns out she had ADD too but hers took a more active turn. Not to mention that she was secretly a stripper and happily encouraging other men with ADD to observe on her hotness to other men with ADD and so the cycle continued.

And me...? You guessed it. I met Passenger Four, an older man (but sadly not a better one). Stay tuned for that fiasco in days to come.

Passenger Two

I knew Passenger Two from what was known back in the olden days as High School. We slept together on his 18th birthday and didn't speak to each other again. Fast forward 7 years to the end of my first marriage (did I mention I was married twice?) and I flew to Perth to visit a friend as a way to escape the pressure of a youthful divorce. Went out partying at a pub one night and thought I recognised the hot bartender...yep, it was him. He told his boss "I just ran into the girl I slept with on my 18th birthday." The boss, being an understanding man, gave him the rest of the night off so we could relive some memories. We didn't speak to each other again. Fast forward another 7 years to the end of my second marriage and sure enough I get a message from Passenger Two via schoolfriends (you remember schoolfriends? It was how we hooked up with people we should have left as High School memories before facebook came along).

Still in Perth and this time with twin daughters we decided to see if we could make this thing last for more than one night every seven years. At first it was great, we called each other all the time, emailed constantly and I flew to Perth to spend time with him and get to know his girls. We talked about the past, we talked about the future, I spent money I didn't have on plane tickets and phone bills. I started thinking about moving closer to him and talked about maybe using the word "boyfriend" a bit.

And now we skip to the end. I scrounged up a bit of money for a trip over, arrived, stayed the night and was dumped. Apparently, he had been thinking about it for a while but wanted to see me in person to make sure he really wanted to dump me. Aww...he was so thoughtful...and I was so stuck! My flight back wasn't for a week and I had nowhere else to stay, his children were there and wondering why I kept bursting into tears all the time and there was no spare bed so we had to share even though Mr Thoughtful had made it clear he suddenly found me completely unattractive.

So, lets get to the really fascinating bit...what happens next

1. I finally flew home and almost immediately into the arms of Passenger Three, a story for another day.

2. Mr Thoughtful got cranky that I moved on so quickly...huh?

3. Mr Thoughtful later got in contact and suggested we get back together (sorry Buddy, you are already on The Bus)

Fast forward 7 years to the end of another long term relationship. Yep, you guessed it, Mr Thoughtful and I got back in touch. We even talked about catching up again, after all, a lot can change in 7 years...only when it came down to it, I met someone new, someone who has never been on The Bus and when it comes to a choice between a ghost and the real thing...you have to choose the real thing.

Last I heard Mr Thoughtful was still single and had never had a long term relationship (his twins were the product of a short term fling). He is no longer talking to me because I broke the 7 year cycle (This also prompted him to speculate that I was in some way responsible for him having commitment issues...huh?). And I learned a valuable lesson...A one night stand is a one night stand, even if it happens multiple times.

Passenger One

My first ever passenger on The Bus of Doom was a man I had been crushing on since I was a teen. We had not seen each other for years and when I came back from living overseas all newly seperated from my husband and worldly wise, fashionable and fit we immediately clicked.

He had been seeing someone for many years but they had seperated some months before, they had an interesting relationship to say the least as she had moved out of his house to live over the road. He explained that they maintained a friendship because he was still close with her children and she would have dinner at his house once a week. He often complained that she was still jealous, even though she did not want him. She would do odd things like turn up at his bedroom window at 5am, or peer into his visitors' cars to get an idea of who they might be. Hmmm...

They had dinner on Thursday night of every week. Every week he would ring me up Friday morning and tell me it was all over and he shouldn't see me any more. I would drive off to my sister's house for the weekend. He would follow me there and make up with me Saturday. It would happen again the next week. Why did I keep letting him make up with me? Did I mention that I was an idiot? No? Well...I was an IDIOT.

Now any normal, non-idiot might have picked up on certain obvious clues that there was a problem here. The constant break up/ get together pattern, his occasionally referring to our relationship as an affair despite insisting he was single, my not being allowed to call his house on Thursdays in case she was there and got upset...yes, you guessed it ...they were still engaged.

How did I find out? (Being a complete numb nut and in serious don't pay attention to the obvious mode) it was an early morning wake-up call that gave me the biggest clue. You do not want to hear this at 5am - unless you have a really important meeting you need to get to and alarm clocks just don't get your juices pumping well enough-  "You slut, you have been utterly disrespectful to me. If you ever go near him again I will DO YOU HARM!" hang up. As you can imagine this was then followed by a discussion with Passenger One with some polite queries about his relationship status where the words "She threw my engagement ring back at me" were mentioned and I calmly suggested he not spend time with me any more.

Let's not go into the bizarre decision to move out of your fiancees house and live across the road, nor the impulse that led him to sleep with me when he was still engaged, and instead focus on what happened after that fascinating day when I woke up to find out I was sleeping with Mr Unfaithful Jerkwad, the man engaged to Ms Crazypants and he became Passenger One on The Bus of Doom because it is always the events afterwards that entertain me.

1. She told him to cut off ALL contact with me which he obligingly did (as if I wanted to talk to him!)

2. She waited a decent period of time (a week) and then dumped his arse (completely this time)

3. He came crawling back to me begging to be taken back (sorry Buddy, you are already on The Bus)

4. I hooked up with Passenger Two...a post for another day

5. Ms Crazypants accused me of making crank calls to her place of business and generally suggested I was a stalker loony (sadly for her I was actually out of town in an area with no phone reception at the time)

I ran into Ms Crazypants again some years ago when I was co-owner/ editor of a small magazine. Shortly after seeing her all my advertisers were rung up by an anonymous woman complaining about magazine content and insisting they stop advertising with me. This generated great publicity for the magazine and the advertisers were thrilled that we were stirring up controversy. Clearly a woman to hold grudges. Equally clearly a woman who doesn't understand that creating buzz about a magazine is a GOOD thing.

Last I heard Mr Unfaithful Jerwad is engaged to another woman, he had been engaged to her for quite a long time...I wonder if she is also living across the road?

The Beginning of The Bus

I was 30 when my younger sister created The Bus of Doom for me. A naive at dating (I had been married since I was very young and only recently divorced) I was not good at understanding or coping with this new realitty of short term relationships, often (mostly) with selfish, sex driven jerks. I had difficulty letting go of these guys and my sister got fed up. Pulling out the crayons she quickly whipped up a picture of a flaming yellow bus with clearly dead and dying occupants. "This" she explained "Is the Bus of Doom. It is a bus on its way to the ex-boyfriend convention. All your ex-boyfriends are on it. On the way to the convention the Bus of Doom is destroyed in a firey crash." Scrawling words at the bottom of the picture she added "Sadly, there were NO survivors. Now write the passenger list on the back. If you see any of these men again you know they are just ghosts. You can't go out with them again because they did NOT survive the Bus. Got it?"

From that day on The Bus of Doom became a profound symbol for myself, my other sisters and later my girlfriends and their friends, of the end of a relationship. It also provided an endless source of humour as we reflected on the list of passengers and what they had done to earn their ride on The Bus. My passenger list being the first, and apparently the worst! I have been asked to write about my experiences as a failed 30 something romantic with terrible taste in men, so here it is...The Bus of Doom...I hope if any of your ex-( or current) boyfriends sound like these guys you will consider putting them on The Bus too.