LIZ JONES: Here’s the final straw that ended my disastrous relationship

It was the final straw, the pointless argument that was the nail in the coffin of my disastrous on/off, mostly pen pal friendship with David 1.0. What we’ve rekindled every now and then simply can’t be called a “relationship” since we haven’t had sex since October, and back then it was disappointing.

The vintage physical contact took place in my beautiful room at the Rosewood hotel in London, where I was staying for work. He had brought sex toys and a blindfold, so there was no skin to skin, no real kissing, just rummaging around, as if trying to find Marmite in the back of a cupboard. I wasn’t excited. Instead, I felt irritated by the blindfold as I could no longer admire the glittering erotic building that is the London Shard.

Back to the camel’s back. He showed up this weekend (he slept on the couch) to help me move a few things into my new house. We grabbed my car and I stopped to get gas. Big mistake. As we stood in line, he asked, “Do you know how to tell which side the gas cap is on the car?”

Me: “Well, I know it’s on the driver’s side because I looked.”

He: ‘But without looking at the outside. See the little icon of a gas pump? The hose is on the right side, which means the gas cap is on the right side.”

Me: “Okay, but I already know which side it’s on.”

Him: ‘But what if you were in a rental car?’

I said he was mansplaining; that his purpose is to be helpful and make me laugh, not to lecture me. He went on so long that I had to snap, “Please stop talking about gas pumps, you’re driving me crazy!” Silence, finally.

We got to the house and unloaded a few things. He looked at the shell of a kitchen. “You need cabinets,” he said. “There’s no place to put food.”

Me: “Have you seen your kitchen?” His has a stained cork floor, is mostly flooded, has no lights, and has countless pairs of jeans lying stiffly on the radiators, like the bottom half of a Van der Graaf Generator rock concert from the 1970s.

He: ‘I have more closets than you.’

I don’t understand why men have to be so combative and negative.

We drove to a pub for Sunday lunch, where he packed up the banquet and sat me on a hard chair. I payed. He was getting on my nerves more and more. That morning he had helped me turn out the horses. Unfortunately, when I let go of Swirly, like a balloon at the end of a string in a high wind, she crashed into him. He sat transfixed for hours.

“Did she turn you on?” I asked him, feigning concern. “She barely grazed me. It was the walk through the mud that killed me.” He has trouble breathing; he has commendably given up smoking, but sucks on fumes like a kitten on a pacifier, only less endearingly.

That evening he continued to use my Vincent Van Duysen for Zara porcelain plates and bowls. He said meanly, “Who keeps mugs in a drawer?” Good. ‘I do. And even I didn’t use my Zara plates,” I snapped. He clattered past a fork and stormed away. I went to bed to stream Ripley and enjoyed the murderous plot. I woke up the next morning half expecting him to be gone. But no, it stuck.

I was in a hurry and waiting for the movers to arrive to load the last of the large items. And he uttered the phrase that has come to scare women everywhere: “I can’t find my iPhone.” Why do men always lose things? In Paris it was the gold-plated lighter I gave him. In a hotel he left his clothes in a wardrobe.

And now his phone. Spent hours searching in my car, under the cushions. He left without it, so I spent the rest of the day calling the pub where we had lunch, retracing our steps to let him know.

I feel sorry for him. He texted the next day (from his iPad): “Starting tomorrow I’m going for a walk in the park.” But it’s too late.

I can’t support someone else: I have a job that’s hard enough to take care of myself. He’s that weird mix: arrogant, but nothing to back it up. He is like a flammable gas: he floats harmlessly, but light a match and he explodes. Some friendships excite you, others exhaust you. This is clearly the latter.

I managed to move. The important thing is that I have moved on. From him.

Jones Moans… What Liz Detests This Week

• When a guest uses a towel, hang it up with others. Now I have to wash them all!
• When a guest asks you to watch The 1% Club quiz show so he/she can show off. I don’t watch TV before 6pm!
• When a guest uses your Carrara marble countertop to chop plums. They stain!
• When a guest complains that your set of Conran Shop knives (never used) are all dull. Use the knife sharpener!

Contact Liz at lizjonesgoddess.com and find her @lizjonesgoddess