I liked to reject Jason, but only, I suspect, because everyone else says yes. I see him from time to time, at parties, in the pub. We’re not exactly friends. Instead we have intersecting groups of acquaintances – none of whom understand Jason’s persistent pursuit of me or my constant rebuff of him. Jason is out of my league and we all know it.

Part of the problem is the first evening I met him. Like most Irish social occasions it took place in the pub. There he was, sitting a few tables over with Ellen, a girl I knew slightly. I popped over, engaged in the small talk necessary to maintain the acquaintanceship, delivered a bon mot or two and returned to my friends. Not ten minutes had passed when Ellen sidled up to me and whispered in hushed, almost reverential tones that Jason had taken a fancy to me.
I don’t know about you lot, but personally I think that dispatching an emissary to do your flirting is all very well at fifteen. It suggests a certain gawky shyness and a respectable regard for the feminine mystique. For a man in his thirties it smacks of sheer laziness. This is how I believe the A-list like to pick up civilians – being far too important and fabulous to bother with charming you themselves, they send a minion to do the dirty work, rather like hiring a personal shopper to keep you supplied in socks.
Now I don’t normally look askance when good-looking men display an interest in me – I’m willing to give them a chance, but this annoyed me. I am a woman, not a Domino’s Pizza, delivered within 30 minutes, hot and juicy. Tsk! I wasn’t having any of it and told Ellen that if Jason had any balls he might come and talk to me himself.
Nature, Fate or the Gods had been more than unusually generous to Jason. The scion of a wealthy family from Dublin’s more salubrious southern suburbs, he was blessed with the height and good looks of a Ralph Lauren model. He was exactly the kind of man that mothers love – being both well educated and well off, he had excellent son-in-law potential. Worse still, he knew it – and that got up my nose.
Girls flocked to Jason the way flies will to manure. In consequence, he never had to put in any hard graft to find a warm body to share his bed. Also in consequence he had a reputation as a bit of a man whore. No one minded this of course. Presumably his male friends were jealous, while the female ones could take comfort that his rejection of them as potential girlfriends was not a rejection per say – it was just Jason.
On another evening in another pub I ran into him.
“Why don’t you like me?” he asked, trying to look suitably humble but failing miserably.
I considered the question. “I suppose it’s because you’ve never done anything to make me like you,” I answered.
Jason looked taken aback, as if the idea that he might have to go out of his way to win someone’s affection or respect was a wholly novel idea.
“Okay,” he said. “Let me buy you a drink.”
He spent the next two hours on a charm offensive. He asked me questions, deferred to my opinions, kept me supplied with mojitos and wouldn’t allow me to do anything as crass as buy my own beverages, let alone one for him. He was a perfect gentleman, and as the miniscule amounts of rum and dim lights worked their magic I began to wonder if I had been just a little too harsh. Then he fucked it up.
As I drained the last of my drink he looked at his watch. “Let’s go,” he said.
“Go where?” I enquired innocently.
“My place, your place – whatever you prefer.”
Like sending Ellen to flirt with me, it was this presumptuousness that annoyed me so I demurred and he stalked off angrily to the other side of the bar.
Triona thought I was crazy.
“But look at him!” she hissed. “It’s not like you have to marry him or have his babies.”
This, of course, was true. In theory all I had to do was put aside my reservations to spend an evening in his bed – an attractive idea since I was horny – but I couldn’t. I was neither drunk nor desperate enough. For whatever reason – psychological, chemical, emotional – I just didn’t fancy him. Not one bit.
Jason struck me as a little too perfect, too manicured – all exterior and no substance – too self-assured and too used to getting what he wanted.
After that he gave me a wide berth for a while. Rejection may be good for the soul every now and again, but no one likes to be reminded of it. But after a while, his naturally optimistic nature won out and he resumed his pursuit of me. Perhaps the thrill of the chase energised him or perhaps he merely wanted to clear a blot on I what I presume was an otherwise perfect score sheet.
Somewhere along the line, I began to get quite fond of Jason. He no longer irritated me, and when I was feeling generous, I was prepared to concede he wasn’t the sexless Ken doll that I’d originally thought. At times he could be quite charming, even attractive. But something always made me resist his advances. I couldn’t let him… win.
After a while he stopped any kind of genuine effort to get into my pants. His flirting and my rejections were more like a game than anything else. Whenever he saw me, he’d ask yet again if I wanted to go home with him, and every time I’d give him an elaborate excuse – the position of the stars or political shenanigans in the Dáil – thus, such an event, although desirable, was impossible.
A few weeks ago Jason announced he’d fallen in love and was considering entering the blessed state of matrimony in the summer of 2010, Triona smirked that I’d missed my chance and I suppose that’s true, but it’s not something I’ll lose any sleep over. But it did get me thinking.
For years I’d castigated him for his arrogance – determined to take him down a peg or two – and I like to think he’s a better man because of it! But yet when all was said and done, I suffered from much the same flaw myself. I thought him vain and not being without vanity myself, I prided myself on being the one female who was immune to his charms.
Which begs the question: if pride comes before a fall, should you let it come before fornication as well?