It was about 10 years ago, while I was in Canberra. This was before dating websites were all the rage. It was when Netscape 3 was popular, and Internet Explorer was hardly heard of. ICQ and IRC were the chat programs of choice. But back then, I had only just started using the internet. I met this woman via a newspaper 'phone dating' service.

She lived in Sydney, was about 24 (I was 28), and sounded great during the phone conversations we had. After a week or two, I went to Sydney and stayed with my friend Peter for the weekend. While I was there, I met up with her. She seemed really nice, and we got along great. I spent most of the day with her before kissing her and 'making out' behind the Sydney Opera House, around 8pm or so. It was a very nice time. Then I bid goodnight to her and went back to Peter's place.

During the next couple of weeks, we exchanged quite a few phone calls, with her ending up coming down to Canberra. She came down by bus on a Friday night, and was due to go back to Sydney the following Tuesday. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out like that...

The Friday night and Saturday morning were awesome, with us having a great time and spending a lot of it in bed. I thought she was hot! And she was certainly willing to please. However, things quickly began to change. She was just TOO willing to please.

It was Saturday afternoon and we went out for lunch somewhere. I asked her what she'd like for lunch, and she said, "Whatever you're having." She insisted on it, nicely though, so I didn't think too much of it. We ate the same thing together. That night we went around to my friend Peter's place (a different Peter to the one in Sydney), and had a few drinks and chatted about nothing, before heading back home. We jumped into bed and she was once again being very willing to please. This was great, I thought! Until she started talking about moving to Canberra to be with me.

Whoah! Back up there! I explained to her that before anyone starts moving anywhere, we really should take the time to get to know each other first, and she was agreeable to that, saying "Whatever you want." And then giving me more of whatever it was I wanted....

By Sunday, things weren't going so well. I like to have some substantial conversation with people I'm with, and if they can handle the subjects I like talking about, I let them get close to me, and I open up to them a bit more myself. However, I wasn't exactly sure there was anything of substance inside her brain. Whenever I asked her what her opinion of something was, her reply was, "Whatever you think."

"Well, I know what I think, but what about what YOU think?"

"Oh, you know. Whatever you think. But hey, wasn't the latest episode of Days Of Our Lives awesome?!"

"...."

I realised that she 'wasn't the one', and it clicked that the only opinions she actually had were about McDonalds food and soap operas, so I began to look forward to Tuesday, when she would be returning to Sydney. It was a shame that I broke before that happened.

By Monday morning, after another night and then that morning of absolute inane chatter, where the only opinions she had were reflections of my own, and the only thing she wanted to talk about was soap operas or how much she really wanted to move to Canberra, I broke. I snapped. I dived off the deep end and was floundering. I needed some air, and waiting another day was gonna kill me!

I told her it wasn't going to work between us. We just weren't right for each other. I rang the bus company to rebook her bus and found that the earliest bus leaving for Sydney was 3 hours away. I helped her pack, got everything into the car and drove her to the bus station.

She was devastated! She was crying and blubbering, unable to believe what I was doing. And I was only having my attitude reinforced by how she was acting, absolutely convinced I had to get this woman out of my life immediately, before she declared herself madly in love with me and wanting to have my babies.

"Why are you doing this?" she cried.

"Because your bus is about to go," I replied, ignoring the obvious. My face was grim, my resolve was like a rock, and my hands were firm on the steering wheel. I might have even been speeding, but not by much.

"You're being so cruel!" she cried. "How can you do this to me, I thought you cared about me!"

"Nope, sorry. Don't care. We're not right for each other, and we're not going to be right."

We arrived at the bus station and I sat there at the driver's seat as she got her bags from out of the back seat, still crying. I waved, and drove off, never to see or hear from her again. She probably had about 2 hours to sit there, emotionally devastated, waiting for her bus.

That's the cruellest I've ever been in my life. I've never forgotten that incident. I was an absolute arsehole, and should never have done what I did. It still hurts me today that I could have been that way.

I hope she was able to forgive me, and able to find someone who would be good for her, who would love McDonalds food and soap operas as much as she did, although I'm sure that over the years she grew and changed beyond that. I hope she's happy today. My experience with her taught me a very important lesson.

Don't be an arsehole. It hurts ME too much. It was the first, and the last time, I've ever been that kind of arsehole.

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