A White Stick Is Not Carte Blanche

It would've been about the time I started writing this blog, I'll bet.

I was underground at Tottenham Court Road tube having just come off the Central Line, when I saw this bloke sort of standing off to one side looking a bit confused

(this is interesting in itself - do we learn appropriate facial expressions from copying them, or are they natural configurations of muscles resulting from emotional impulses? Gosh this has moved on a bit since the days of laughing about the lady who is proud to have thrush - don't worry I'm sure I'll get back on track once me eye's in again)

and I felt I should go and see if he needed any help (well it was a lunchtime, it was that or go back to work). He needed to get from the Central Line to the Northern Line, which is a bit of a trip, so I said I'd take him down to the platform. He was very grateful, and then he asked for my phone number.

I don't know why I gave him it. I wouldn't have given it to a random person who could see, so why did I do it? I was over-compensating I think. I reckon my thought process must probably have gone like this: he can't see, how is he going to ring it? why would he ring me? perhaps he's going to send me some flowers or something to say thank you. no he's not, don't be a twat. god you're selfish. oh... but he's blind. Aaaaaw, I'll give him my number. He's BLIND.

Well. That was about 4 years ago. His last call was a fortnight ago. THE BLIND MAN WILL NOT LEAVE ME ALONE. He wanted to take me out for dinner, he said he was loaded. He said he usually has a chauffeur to take him everywhere. At one point he had a "very rich, very beautiful" girlfriend. A couple of years ago he rang me, she'd died. He didn't sound too gutted, as he wanted to take me out for drinks and dinner that weekend. I grew tired of telling him how my boyfriend wouldn't like that too much; "we don't have to tell your boyfriend" was his greasy reply.

I was in a hole. The Blind Man was obviously not the full shilling, and how do you tell someone like that, in a nice way, to fuck off and leave you alone?

I started ignoring his calls. He got wise to this, and began witholding his number. The first time this happened and I answered, I was angry at myself - damn him for outwitting me! I thought quickly and told him I'd been going through a rough patch and hadn't been taking phone calls. TWAT! Such an extreme response can only believably be provoked by awful emotional upheaval such as a death, or the ending of a relationship. Well, I firmly believe in Karma, the Great Arse-Biter, and I won't say a death has happened when it hasn't. So, I reasoned (quickly) - the phantom boyfriend had to go. Can you see the hole getting deeper?

Well that was it, then. After that, when I'd accidentally and unthinkingly answered the phone to him, I passed it on to a nearby friend who knew the story, and who told him I'd given them the phone. Another time, I pretended to be Scottish. "Whoooo dear? Noo, this is Jeeeeeean, pet." I said I'd bought the phone on eBay. I thought he'd got the message. Phew.

Then two weeks ago he called again. It was first thing in the morning and as soon as I heard him say "Hell-oooo Joooooo" in his creepy sing-song voice I put the phone down. Immediately. I hope he's got the picture.

But I don't understand it - either he swallowed all that stuff about the friend, and Scottish Jean, and he believed that I wasn't on that number any more, or he didn't. If he did, why did he try to call me again on that number? And if he didn't, why would he bother calling me again, knowing I'd gone to ridiculous lengths not to talk to him?

And the moral of the story is, don't be kind to anybody because most people are bloody weirdos, and if they're disabled it doesn't necessarily make them NICE.