Years ago I met a man at an event, well it wasn't the first time I had met him, but it was significant because he paid particular attention to me asking about a book I was reading and sticking up for me when I was getting a bit of pervy hassle. I was a little too pickled to really appreciate it at the time and as the months went by, I felt more and more guilty of not being appreciative of his attention and as I encountered more and more dawgs in my social life, his old fashioned Gentleman like quality became more appealing, I even sent him the book he admired with a note thanking him for the way he behaved. I sent it blind in the care of someone else and did not leave instructions for him to contact me or any sort of return address. I did not want to set up correspondence, I was happy with the dream.
Fast forward to a few years later and I ran into him again, he was shocked to see me, he looked a bit dumbfounded, pleased and yet sad....then I realised, he was completely and utterly tanked......and when I say tanked I don't mean binge drinking having a ball English tanked (I know that well enough) I mean compulsive, probably long term alcoholic tanked (sadly, I can recognise this one very well also) that is when I realised what I thought was sadness in his eyes was actually shame.
He had received the book, he tried to tell me how touched he was, but he was too drunk to make it eloquent. I was polite to him but I knew I was never going to get a conversation out of him, I told him that I would see him tomorrow, hoping that he might have sober up, but the next evening, he did not come, nor did I see him in the day time.
I was not hurt, nor did I take it personally, in fact I just felt sorry for him but I definitely learnt a lesson about putting people on a pedestal.
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