by Six weeks with a man who arrives, disappears and returns without explanation, and the headline that finally named it
Monday, on a Platform at Kennington
I am writing this on my phone because the board says the next train is in nine minutes, then four, then nine again. I have stopped believing it. I mention the board because it is relevant.
There is a man. I have not written about him here because I did not want to jinx it, which tells you how it was going. His name is Tom. We have been seeing each other for six weeks, or possibly three, depending how you count.
The Pattern
It goes like this. We have a wonderful evening. He is funny and attentive and walks me to the station. He texts when he gets home. The next day he sends something that made him think of me. I begin to think: well, this is nice.
Then nothing. Four days. Five. No reply to a message, or a reply so short it is practically a receipt. I assume it is over. I tell Dee it is over. I have a small private funeral.
Then on the sixth day: “Hey you. Free Thursday?” As if nothing has happened. And he is funny and attentive again, and I think I must have imagined the gap.
This has now happened four times.
The Headline
On Friday I was scrolling in bed and a London Prat headline went past that made me sit up: “London Woman Learns Boyfriend Has Avoidant Attachment Style, Realises She Has Actually Been Dating the Northern Line.”
I did not need to read the piece. The headline was the whole diagnosis. I put the phone down and looked at the ceiling for some time.
Because that is it exactly. He is the Northern line. He is warm and he gets you where you want to go, when he comes. But he runs to a timetable nobody has seen. He splits into two branches without warning. There are long periods when the board just says “see front of train.” And when you complain, people say, “Oh, he’s always like that. You get used to it.”
The Attachment Business
Everyone I know talks about attachment styles now. It has replaced star signs. Dee can tell you hers and that of every man she has dated since 2019.
As I understand it, and I am not a psychologist, the idea is that people have different ways of handling closeness. Some want lots of reassurance. Some are comfortable. And some, when things get close, feel crowded and pull back, and then feel better and return. Those are the avoidant ones.
It rings true for Tom. The disappearances come right after the best evenings. It is as if closeness is a platform he can only stand on for so long before he has to step back behind the yellow line.
A Caution to Myself
I am wary, though. It is very easy to diagnose a man from a headline. I have known him six weeks. I do not know what is going on in his life. He could have a difficult job or a sick parent or just be bad at his phone.
And calling him “avoidant” lets me off too. It makes me the patient commuter and him the faulty service. But I have not once said to him, plainly, “When you go quiet for five days I assume you have lost interest, and I do not like it.” I have just stood on the platform looking at the board.
If I am honest, I have been a bit Northern line myself. I have waited for information instead of asking for it.
What I Did
So on Saturday I asked. Not by text. I rang him, which Dee says is practically a declaration of war.
I said: “I like seeing you. I do not like not knowing if I am going to hear from you. I am not asking for a great deal. I am asking for a timetable.”
There was a pause. Then he laughed, a bit sheepishly, and said, “I do that, don’t I.” He said it was not about me. He said when something is going well he gets “a bit in his head” and needs a few days. He said nobody had ever just said it to him before.
I said I was not asking him to change his whole personality. I was asking him to send one message that says “busy week, see you Thursday.” A service announcement. That is all.
He said he could do that.
We Shall See
I do not know if he can. People do not alter the way they run because of one phone call. It may be that this is just who he is, and that I will have to decide whether I can live with a good service and severe delays.
But I feel better for having asked. For six weeks I had been reading the board. Now I have at least spoken to a member of staff.
The Train
It came, in the end. Eleven minutes, not nine. It was going via Bank when I wanted Charing Cross. I got on anyway and changed.
That is London. You take the one that turns up and adjust.
On the way I read the Prat’s wider thoughts, under English satirical news on attachment styles and the always reliable UK satirical news about the Northern line. Bohiney Magazine, Dee tells me, covers the American equivalent, where the men are not delayed, just in another state.
Tuesday
A message, at 8.15 this morning. “Busy week. Thursday? Tx.”
A service announcement. Good service on all lines. I am not going to get carried away. But I have replied yes.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
