Something rather lovely happened today and it reminded me of something else. And because I’m trying to keep some of the nice stuff just for me lately, I thought I’d share with you the something else.

Have I told you already how much I love voices? There’s something so intimate about voices. I have a real preference for sexy whispers or low voiced commands or the way pleasure can sometimes change a person’s voice.

But, and I guess this could be slightly weird, I also have a real thing for normal voices talking about normal things. I love it when I’m getting to know someone and they switch it from messaging into voice notes. Love. Listening to someone’s voice in real time? Give me more. Give me all of it. I like hearing the pauses between words, I like the fumbling of words, I like listening to the intonation of words. I like it all.

But I can sometimes like it too much. In a weird way. And that’s what my thing today reminded me of. I absolutely refuse to write a dedicated post about this man though I have mentioned him several times. He was someone I got to know around the time of my separation. He lives in Manchester (with a Manc accent) and …I’d describe our relationship as unhealthy. Toxic even.

We’d be getting on great and then out of nowhere an argument would happen, and I would shut down. He’d say mean things. I would think I deserve to be treated in that way and he’d apologise and I’d take him back. I think I maybe liked this roller coaster of emotion at the time.

Because after one such argument, he sent me a voice message. It’s of him and at first he’s apologising. ‘Sorry for the way I spoke to you just then’ and explains that whatever he’d said to me it was said because he was angry. Angry that I doubt things between us. ‘I’m a caring person, I care about people and I care about you’ and at the time he sent that I loved that voice note so much that I would listen to it over and over. I loved the way his accent shaped the words. I loved the emotion I could hear in it. In a twisted way, I even liked the sentiment behind it.

I loved it so much that I’d masturbate over it. I took his words and I romanticised it. The anger, the strong emotion. That feeling of how do you not know how much I care about you?

I still have the voice message. Not because I still listen to it or have any feelings for him still. I only have it because I delete nothing and it’s just sheer laziness that I still have it. Just to give you an indication of what a great guy he was, he left me a voice message when I’d blocked his number. I listened to it today two years after he sent it. He said ‘blocking my number you fucking cretin’ – who said romance was dead, eh?

I’m glad that I didn’t delete that voice message before. I’ll delete it now though. It served its purpose once and because of it I can see how much I’ve changed. I no longer want that kind of care or affection.