LIZ JONES’S DIARY: In which I’m torn between two men

Oh dear. As I write this, I only have two weeks before the Rock Star finds out I spent the night at Soho House with White Pepper Guy. I say ‘spent the night’, as what we did in bed only qualifies as sex if you are American and live in the White House.

I think it was the RS’s bad, disloyal behaviour at the funeral, and what transpired later that night, that made me nostalgic for WPG. I’d been clutching at straws, wanting to bask in the adoration of someone who says, often, he loves me. I soon regretted meeting up with WPG.

People are right: you should never go back. In our lovely room, not a single comment to say it was nice. When I showed him my brown arms and feet, he said, ‘Is that real?’ He turned the TV on.

He put a wet towel on the sofa. He couldn’t sleep, kept moving his arms. Told me my hearing aids are annoying, all the while his teeth were on the marble side table.

Then, over breakfast: so rude to the waiter. Such a misery guts. He said I lied, not just about him saying he was in the SAS (every man I’ve ever been out with claimed they only just missed out on either being a professional footballer or an assassin), but about him using his bread as a flannel at Lime Wood Hotel. ‘I wasn’t using it as a flannel, I was sniffing it.’

Who sniffs artisanal bread? In a five-star hotel! Where Angela Hartnett probably made it with her own hands!

Then he said, ‘Why did you say you’d bought your cottage, when you are only renting it?’

Note the word: ‘Only.’ And I knew he would bring that up, despite having amnesia about everything else.

‘Because I knew you would criticise me for doing it up. Unlike  you, I don’t wait for the council to change a lightbulb.’

When he flounced out, I realised how stupid I had been to even contemplate seeing him. His emails and texts and cards are always so respectful, loving.

But the reality? I think men on their own forget how to behave when they are with a woman. The reality never matches up to the anticipation.

They should make us laugh rather than moan about the toast not being buttered. I’d been excited to be viewing two flats in London later, but he put me off. ‘Liverpool Road, isn’t it busy and noisy? And no outside space – the dogs will hate it.’

I checked out. Dinner and drinks cost me £146 (he had three courses, complaining the tiramisu used cream, not the ‘more authentic’ mascarpone – this from a man who doesn’t own a teaspoon).

I felt like crying. I didn’t tell you what happened a couple of weeks ago when the RS turned up at my cottage when I was already in bed and had taken off my make-up. And if I do, perhaps this will explain my actions a little more.

When he arrived, late, part of me was thinking, well, he just wants to use my bathroom on his way to Scotland. And, more hopeful, perhaps he regretted not sticking up for me in front of his friends when I had driven all that way for a funeral of someone I didn’t even know.

He kept wandering around the cottage, four collies following him expectantly: Teddy does love to shove his head between your thighs, so you end up riding him. The RS opened the fridge: ‘Not got any Tanqueray?’

‘No.’

‘Milk?’

‘I’ve got oat milk.’

‘F***ing vegans,’ he’d said.

‘Why is there never any food in your house?’

I don’t approve of people swearing in front of my collies.

‘I wasn’t expecting guests. Are you going to apologise for being rude? Not on my side?’

‘Yeah, well, I should never have invited you. That wasn’t fair.’

I said I was tired, having driven all day, and that I was going to bed. ‘Yeah, OK,’ he said, pecking me on the forehead. ‘I’m going to get some milk. Honestly, women and calories.’

Me: ‘It’s not about that. It’s about the cows. And this isn’t London, the garage is shut.’

Him: ‘I’ll go to Tesco.’

And with that, he left. I went back to watching Monty Don on my iPad in bed. And do you know what? He never came back.