169 Tales of a Real Life Romance - The End

I'd asked him, 'Will you still encourage your children to like football even though you don't?'

He'd replied, 'I don't want kids.'

A short and seemingly innocent conversation to anyone listening, but one that changed things forever. It was the beginning of the end of Hands and Rapunzel.

Jeremy Kyle informed me that it was my own fault. He said I'd scared Hands off by asking if I could have his babies so soon in the relationship. I tried to point out that it was a general query about children that had revealed this news. There was no second part to the question where I'd asked '...and also can I be the mother of these kids that may or may not like football?' I hadn't even said it under my breath.

Perhaps Jeremy was right though and it was too early to have that talk, even if it was unwittingly. It was definitely too soon to know whether I'd want to invite Hands to a breeding party, but when is the right time to know whether it's a guest list he'd ever even want to be on? We were on Date 8. How many more dates until it would have been acceptable chat? My friend was adamant that as we were at a certain age he should have mentioned it straight away, perhaps on Date 1 when he said that he'd never wed or bred he could have added that he didn't fancy the latter in the future either. 'Then you would've known if you were on the same page from the outset,' she added wisely.

Perhaps, because several dates on and just as I was really falling for him, I felt sick to discover that we weren't, and in fact were reading from completely different books.

We didn't discuss it anymore and just continued having a lovely evening. We didn't need to talk about it. We both knew that there was no point carrying on when we wanted different things. We both knew it was the end.

As Hands drove me back to Manchester the following day I spun my ring round my finger trying to concentrate on not crying.

'I'm going to miss your big rings,' he said.

'I'm going to miss big you,' I replied.

He pulled up at the Tower, we said a quick goodbye and I got out of the car.

A group of guys in a taxi waiting at the lights nearby rolled down their window and shouted at me.

'Hey gorgeous! Come with us!'

So I did. And cheekily blew a kiss at Hands as off I went to party with my new friends.

Nah I didn't really. I was too emotionally drained. I just went in to my apartment block. But secretly prayed that Hands had heard what they'd said.

He texted me later to see how I was and added that from what he'd witnessed when he dropped me off, he didn't imagine that I'd be single for long.

Maybe not but I'll never forget my short-lived, but lovely, real life romance with the guy with the big hands.

THE END