It has been a while since I mentioned J on the blog, and there has been a good reason – I was trying to deflect his attention into ‘friendship’ channels rather than ‘relationship’ channels.

It worked – he finally backed off, and I have some breathing space, without wondering whether the next guy I date (whenever the dude shows up in my life) is going to end up at the bottom of the ocean.

I wish I was kidding.

Anyway, J and I have become pretty good friends, and therefore a great deal of tension has eased from my life – which leaves me to enjoy some of the incidents that take place because of him, with unmitigated amusement.

On Friday last, I had invited J over to my office for lunch. He is perpetually hungry and refuses to eat on his own. Part of my ‘phasing-out’ process was to meet with him platonically, and avoid intimate situations. So lunch at the office was perfect, because hello? it was AT the office.

He shows up, and we have a nice half an hour chatting randomly, whilst having lunch. Before he leaves however, he pulls stupid faces at another dude who works in my office. Why? Because the afore-mentioned dude had the audacity to come and tell me that J was married. (And a whole lot of stuff besides, but that isn’t the point.)

I find it almost prophetic that I refer to the idiot as ‘J’ on my blog, because it could stand for JUVENILE.

Anyhow, he trots out of the building, and I get engrossed in work. Five minutes later, he calls up – hopping mad – to ask why one of my colleagues has had him banned from entering the building.

Cue astonishment.

After a series of phone calls, I find out that my fellow editor was told that he was a dangerous character, wanted by the police and known for assaulting women. In short, the same stories that dude mentioned had told me.

Sigh.

J was reacting predictably, with a lot of shouting and a whole lot of “I’m going to do this!” and “They are going to regret this!” and so on. It took me AGES to calm him down enough, so that simple logic would penetrate his head: that if he pulled stupid stunts, he was cementing the bad rumours instead of dispelling them and therefore they were justified in banning him.

After dealing with a very volatile J, I was knackered. And it was only afternoon.