Note from Iain: Dan Silver, ex of the Mirror, now with The Sun is a transfer deadline day signing for WHTID (for an undisclosed fee!). Please welcome him, as he will be writing occasional columns for us
Dear Sam,
I’m sorry, but I don’t think we should be together any more.
Am sure this won’t come as a surprise to you. You must have noticed how things are different when we’re out in public now. How every little disagreement we have becomes a major crisis, how neither of us can seemingly do right in the other’s eyes.
It wasn’t always this way, of course. In the beginning it was better, beautiful almost – although in hindsight, perhaps we were both a little desperate.
I was still scarred from my previous relationship with the older man everyone warned me about but whom I allowed to drag me down anyway. You’d been on your own for a while after being unexpectedly jilted by your previous partner, unsure perhaps whether you’d ever find another.
We were both in need of a change. A fresh start. A chance to rebuild our lives. Perhaps that’s why we chose to ignore those nagging voices at the back of our minds insisting we just weren’t suited.
Looking back now, I hardly even recognise myself from those days. I ashamedly acquiesced when you pointed out that I’d never been anything special in the past and said I needed to change my ways. You talked yourself up at every opportunity while also putting me down and I lapped up your every word.
You seemed to think I was out of your league, that I was lucky to have you. When my family stood up for myself you sneered and called them deluded. I swallowed it whole. What can I say? I was vulnerable.
There were good times, though. That I would never deny. You took me to Wembley, a memory I’ll treasure forever and will always be grateful to you for. There were also those delirious days out in North London too… but in all honesty they were too few and far between.
When I think back now I can only remember the bad times; misery in Manchester and Merseyside; nightmares in Norwich and Nottingham. God, Nottingham… I should have ended it there and then but, again, I fell for your excuses, believed your promises. Things would get better, you said. You’d change.
But you never did. And, I’ve finally realised, you never will.
Friends say I shouldn’t be hasty, that I should put up with you and your ways. They tell me how reliable you are, how things could be so much worse with someone else. They tell me I should stop complaining, that I don’t deserve anything better. In truth, I think some of them are more your friends than mine.
They’re also wrong. I’m not a silly dreamer or starry-eyed fantasist. I don’t believe I’ve got a God-given right to mix with megastars or travel to exotic European places. But I do crave excitement.
And before you – or they – start, what happened this weekend wasn’t the final straw. Yes you embarrassed me in public, but Lord knows it’s not the first time. In fact, it wasn’t even the first time this week. But we’re beyond individual incidents, now.
I look around at people less fortunate than myself enjoying their lives and I’m jealous. Maddeningly so. And, yes, I might not be better off without you, that’s a chance I’m now willing to take. I’d rather try to fly and fail than continue crawling along the ground.
I want to feel proud of myself. I want to feel alive again. I need to learn how to be me again.
Please know I don’t blame you. You’re a strong man who’s stuck in his ways and I was naive to think I could ever change them.
It’s not you, it’s me – and I’m sure there’s somebody out there who is perfect for you (maybe back in Bolton? You seemed to be happier there). But it is time for us now to go our separate ways.
Yours,
West Ham
PS: You can keep the Meatloaf CDs x