20. Natalie - a big missed opportunity in My own struggles

Continuing where I left off from Chapter 19.

The downside of starting my new job and what this meant was I would be seeing less of my friends regularly as I was still initially living in Nantwich on weekends and staying nearby to Lichfield during the weekdays. This arrangement would last until June when I eventually moved to Doveridge. 4 of my closest friends were due to be first time parents around March/April period so seeing them regularly was naturally going to be reduced.

With that in mind, my social activities were left on weekends mainly still using the Meetup group. One of the things I had planned was a camping trip on the August Bank Holiday weekend which got some decent traction and interest. I created a WhatsApp group adding those who had shown interest so I could organise things from there and keep everyone in touch. One of the attendees was Stacey who had added her +1 onto the invite list. I assumed that this would be her husband that she was referring to, but in actual fact she was about to introduce me to Natalie. Little did I know how my year would about to change from this.

So I get Natalie’s number from Stacey. At this point, I reached out to Natalie just to check if she is OK being added to the WhatsApp group. Simultaneously she also requests to join the meetup group which at the time I helped run. She paid the membership fee and I allowed her in. My first impressions that she seemed lovely and chatty to talk to and her profile picture was very pretty! This was a brief first conversation. Next time she messaged me was about a week later and it was to ask if I didn’t mind if she didn’t drank alcohol during the camping trip which I said no problem to. She even offered to help out some of the organising which I thought was quite sweet to hear.

In the meantime, she would RSVP to another event which I put up which was a walk. That was when me and Natalie would meet for first time. The day before that, she would RSVP to another event which I put up at Donington Park. Admittedly this really got my attention and I was starting to think possibly if there was something more than just socialising, that maybe she was into me. On the walk itself, there were about 8 more people who were there. I’m quite a social bee so as much i want to talk to everyone, inside I really wanted to speak to Natalie particularly. It was the combination of her looks, the fact she seemed to have interest in joining me for events and what I had saw briefly from talking to her - an actual personality. When we did speak in person for the first time, she was quite shy and reserved. This may have been perhaps she was meeting lots of new people for the first whereas I had only knew about 7 of those who’d turned up. 3 of the group that day were new. I go would go around speaking to everyone as and when I could trying to catch up with those socially whilst at the same time. Natalie too was keen to listen in conversations around her. I must admit that I thought that Natalie was so reserved that any possible interest she had in me had faded.

One of the many topics among the walk was the camping trip I had been trying to organise. I started to notice a trend when anytime I send out a group message that Natalie would send me a direct message back and this happened firstly a day after the walk. At this point bearing in mind how reserved she was, I was she just being friendly. She actually offered to help me with any of the organising so she said to shout if I ever needed it. I said thank you to her for that, at that point I was very close to confirming the place where we would eventually stay. A few texts were exchanged, more so for camping and the following meetup at Donington Park but again no actual conversation sparked into life yet.

1 week had passed. The campsite was finally booked! I confirmed this to the WhatsApp group. And yet again, I had a direct message off Natalie asking about how she could spread the payment for what she owed towards the camping trip because of car repairs. Myself knowing a little about vehicle engineering (!) I asked what was up with her car and when she replied back about what was advised, I gave my prognosis. I think I could tell that she was keen to talk to me but I won’t lie in saying I was too, so amongst of the car repair and camping topics we engaged in I sent her a direct question stating “enough of organiser mode! How are you? Did you have a nice weekend?” And all of a sudden, this ignited the conversation which would go on for weeks getting to know each other lots and on quite a deep scale when at it. My attention for Natalie intensifies day by day looking forward to the day we would meet at Donington Park for the next meetup. But there was more to it. During this period, we both found that we would be at the Uttoxeter Racecourse the week after that so whilst we chatting, I ask her out to dinner after the races. She said yes! And 2 days before we were due to meet at Donington, she asked me if I wanted to come over to hers for a drink. I could not believe my luck! I went with my heart and accepted immediately. I felt so strong about the potential and where this was heading. It was making me excited and I felt I was on cloud 9. In all honesty, this was the first time in a very long while I had begun to feel this way about anyone since I dated Lauren 6 years earlier.

I couldn’t wait for 30th April to happen knowing I’d be seeing Natalie all day. I felt excited yet nervous at the same time. When I saw Natalie at Donington first, I immediately gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. We were joined by 3 other people during the day at Donington including one who I had picked up on the way and had to drop back. I’m quite a private person when it comes to showing my deep emotions. Nevertheless, I wanted to show some subtle affection to Natalie by holding an umbrella over her head and showing her some features she like at the track such as a diamond sparkled Ayrton Senna helmet. Among the group, I think I showed her a good time and despite the dampening weather towards the end of the day, she was smiling enjoying the company. After i dropped one of my friends back, I made my way over to Natalie’s. The nerves and excitement multiplied. I stopped at a service station to buy some mints. On the way over, I kept thinking and saying to myself “Don’t fuck this up!” I really felt this could be potentially life changing for me considering the many years of hurt and pain I had before.

Natalie had in fact arranged to cook dinner for us. The differences I had noticed between having her alone compared to her in a group was noticeable. Whilst she was still nervous as she was preparing the food, she was far more chatty directly in person to me. We chatted about our experiences in meetup group including the events which I had met Natalie on and I even got to meet her cat called Charlie. He was very friendly but he was more initially interested in our food than us although he did come and sit on my lap which made me happy. Then our conversation got deep. She confided a very personal traumatic story which not only required my attention but I felt like it required me to emotionally support her too. I thought it was brave and strong for her to confide in me and it showed how much she trusted me. I offered all my support for her incase she wanted to talk further. In the process I held her hand. From that moment, I didn’t let go and it lead to us cuddling. Charlie joined us to sit on my lap again. It was utterly bliss. Our heads got closer until we both couldn’t resist the urge to kiss each other. It was my final confirmation that our lust in each other was very real. We couldn’t stop kissing and then it lead onto her climbing on top of me to really passionately kiss me. It was turning me on so much she feel it. The urge really intensified so much that she asked if we should go to the bedroom. Bearing in mind that we had chatted loads and got on really, this was only the 2nd time I met her. I really wanted to too but I said we should if she was comfortable with this. We did in the end. It capped off a perfect evening and a perfect day. I droveaway from Natalie’s at about 1.30am in the morning with the biggest smile on my face and music blasting out loud. To date as I write this, this has been the best day of 2023 so far.

I thought I was potentially onto something special here so I wanted to make sure I was straight forward and honest everywhere I could be. This included my feelings generally as well as what was going on around me including unwanted attention from some people who I tried to avoid but rather than keeping this from Natalie I was always telling her straight away. Because Natalie confided in me about her past, I felt like i owed her my stories so I wanted to open up to her more. I shared her the link to the journals I wrote on here. Her response in sharing and reading this (as shown below) is without doubt one of the sweetest and kindest things said to me.

Without doubt, I was obsessed with Natalie. All happened very quickly but it felt so right. We still continued to message each other all day every day looking forward to the next time we would see each other, sharing our kisses and cuddles together. The Sunday night of passion helped the genie came out the bottle too as we now started to flirting over messaging. Not only was I feeling loved up but feeling turned on too. All of this was building up day after day until Friday where I had scheduled a pub gathering with Camping trip goers including Natalie. I would go over to Natalie’s before the pub and straight after work and as soon as I got through the door, the passion instantly ignited like where we left off from the previous Sunday. Pure magic. This evening of passion meant we were slightly late leaving hers and arriving at the pub but we didn’t care. At the end of the night, one of the people there called Lou messages me at the end of the night asking if myself and Natalie were an item. I replied we get on well rather than saying yes. I inform Natalie about the messages when we met at the races just so im honest with her.

Next morning and on the day of the races, I see more messages from Lou again about how happy she was for me although the tone of the messages was strange. Again I inform Natalie of this and as I was about to show her the messages in person, I found that Lou had deleted the messages she had sent the previous night and that very morning leading me to utter confusion. Lou was also at the races and Natalie thought she was blanked off by Lou. I wasn’t sure if this was a misunderstanding as I think Lou felt a bit awkward about the messages the night before asking a load of questions. Either way it put Natalie in an awkward spot as she was there for the same reason as I was, to enjoy herself and to socialise herself with others. So for her feeling blanked at this stage was perhaps a horrible feeling for her.

We finally had our official date night at an Italian restaurant after the races. Both of us had Ragu for mains and Tiramisu for dessert. I could feel that Natalie was ever so slightly jerked off from feeling blanked by Lou earlier. A lot of discussion on our date night resolved around meetup which given my negative experiences I had prior to meeting Natalie seemed to have come out also in a negative way. This perhaps looking on reflection now wasn’t a great look foe her as it appeared that I was being negative for negative sake. I wouldn’t know or realise this at the time as my head was still in the clouds being with her. I went back to her to stay overnight and have yet another night of passion. Afterwards when we were cuddling, I came out by saying that I felt being with her made me feel like the world stopped turning. In hindsight, I think I came on too strong and too early but in reality I meant this as I my feelings were so strong for her. I spent Sunday with her too, taking her to the shops for what she needed and for a coffee too. When we got back to hers, she started to go a bit frosty as soon as she wanted to wash her car. I had no idea why but rather than provoke her, I stayed inside to keep Charlie company. We were on 1 more meetup that night heading to Pizza Hut with 2 others to cap off a busy weekend. By that evening, I thought everything was good as anything.

However Monday morning after the weekend, I sent her usual good morning text sent. Unusually she seemed quiet. Like really quiet. I sent her a reply but yet i had nothing back. I asked her later that evening how she was and she said she was socially burnt out and wanted to be left alone. Which is what I did but i said for her to let me know if anything was bothering her and needed to talk. I didn’t hear from for the reminder of that evening. Nor on Tuesday either. Now of a sudden from feeling confident and on top of the world, my feelings switched to feeling anxious.

On Wednesday morning, I sent a message out to Camping WhatsApp group about some updates. As I was driving to work following sending that out, Natalie messaged back saying that the weekend was intense and that she only wants to be friends. I saw the message pop up as I was driving and my anxiety then turned into despair. I couldn’t believe it. From having someone who I felt was so into me and likewise I was into her to quickly stop. I shouted “No!!” to myself and hit the steering wheel hard. I felt upset and numb. I waited a couple of hours to respond when I got into the office. To summarise, I said I wasn’t sure about being friends and saying how I wasn’t happy how things went at a quick pace even though it should have been slow. The way I put that message across looked like I held her accountable but reality was I’m as much to blame for this. Unfortunately my response to her wasn’t took well and I upset her with how i handled with my reply and also initially deleting her number and cutting her off Instagram. This is something i immediately regretted later that day so after i calmed down, i tried to amend things by apologising and saying that i would like to be friends. Ultimately this would not work as she dismissed my offer. I regretted how I handled that day. And I still do today.

The same day following those texts, Natalie gets in contact with Monira who runs the meetup group we met in and confides information about something I said in private to Natalie during our date night about how Moniras handling of matters (particularly about me) gave me anxiety last year which I still standby saying that. I didn’t go into great detail with Natalie on this as I didn’t want her to be on the receiving end of any of the meetup drama which ultimately backfired. This was one of the topics during the date night which as though I was being negative for negative sake. Now all of a sudden, a private matter has now gone viral in my social group and as well as having to heal from the effects of having Natalie not wanting to see me anymore, I had to fend off false accusations from Monira. I got kicked out of the group as Monira thought too many people complained about me but apart from Natalie’s message to Monira, nothing else has been sufficient to tell so this is based off one person’s view against me.

I pop round to Natalie’s unexpectedly the following Saturday to give her some flowers, brownies and flapjacks as a way of apology. I had thought about this immediately after i upset her. I wasnt sure if this was going to work. I arrived outside hers as she was getting a parasol up in her garden. She looked at me with a groan as I parked up outside. As I walked up to her holding out the flowers in one hand and the food box containing the baked goods in the other, the first thing she said was “What are you doing here?” Inside as much as I was trying to amend things, I knew that this had backfired and was the wrong thing to do. I should have realised in hindsight the implications that this would have had as she probably would have thought something bad was going to happen to her. I said I’m so sorry for upsetting her and that I shouldn’t have reacted in that way and owned up to my mistake of making her upset. She just about accepted the flowers but rejected the baking. She said she needed time. I drove away from with the baked goods with an unbearing weight of guilt on my shoulders wishing how things could have been different and how I could have amended things properly.

Sadly I got blocked by Natalie a few days later, although I wouldn’t officially know this until I attempted to reach out one more time the following month in June. I messaged her with what I thought was a sincere message about that weekend and how I acted directly on WhatsApp but this never reached her. So I decided to message her via Instagram. Unfortunately again I got blocked from her on there too.

Needless to say I was beyond gutted. I had a house move happen around that time and I had sent that message a few days before heading down to Le Mans for a short holiday at the race track. I couldn’t get over her and with what had gone with Natalie and the meetup fallout, I never felt so lonely. To this day, things haven’t looked as bright as they once did. I still think about her and what could have been. I am aware given how I write these chapters, I struggle to let go. But if you want to understand why in this particular case, I only need you to refer up to the screenshot above. There is a kind heart there and I don’t come across many in my lifetime.