Dumped, Actually(80)

We sit there for a moment together in warm communion, before Dad eventually breaks the silence. ‘Just . . . Just try not to get a boner in front of any more baby deer, there’s a good boy.’

‘Leonard!’ Mum roars in shock.


We carried on talking, the three of us, for hours that day.

Not as two parents and a child, but as three adults. Probably for the first time.

And that is what was important – that I began to see my parents for who they actually are. Two flawed, but wonderful human beings, who have had their ups and downs in life, just like everybody else. By doing that I can accept that their relationship is not perfect, that it’s not the dream marriage I thought it was. That should give me more realistic expectations of what I can achieve. Which can only be a good thing.

And as we talked, I started to feel better. Much better, in fact.

I never realised how much pressure I had been putting on myself to achieve this impossible dream of the perfect relationship. Understanding that there’s no such thing has immediately alleviated almost all of that pressure. I feel like I’ve had a boil lanced.

Okay, there is still a lingering regret inside me as well. Regret that I lost Sam because of my unrealistic expectations. Regret that I’ve spent so much of my life looking at love from the wrong angle. Regret that I tried to force things with Sam, even though I had no idea if we were actually compatible as human beings. How could you after only three months? And the worst part of that lingering regret is that I will never know how things could have gone with her if I’d been more laid back and realistic about the whole thing.

But it does feel small now, somehow – all that regret. Like an afterthought. Like something I know I’ll be able to leave behind me as I move forward.

And funnily enough, I feel like I have a newfound sense of strength inside me.

Chasing an impossible dream all of this time has made me weak. It’s made me needy. It’s made me desperate.

But no more. Not from this day forward.

I am not going to chase that dream any more. Instead, I am going to face reality head on. I’m going to live in the real world, and I’m going to bloody well enjoy it. Because you can never really enjoy a fantasy . . . or a dream. You might as well try to hug smoke.


By the time I left Mum and Dad’s house that afternoon I felt like I was walking on air.

To finally have a real and proper understanding of yourself is a wonderful thing. To gain knowledge of what actually makes you tick is a gift that not many people receive in their lives. I should count myself lucky.

I have spent months lost in a fog of confusion and self-doubt – ever since that fateful day at Thorn Manor. But now, for the first time in a long time, I have a clear head.

Which gives me a spring in my step.


And now I need to do something . . .

Something big.

Something huge.

Something that I can only do now that the weight has been lifted from me. I feel a huge surge of energy coursing through me almost permanently at the moment. I’m like a cat on a hot tin roof.

And I need some sort of release. Some sort of grand gesture – to myself, and to everyone else, to show that Ollie Sweet has started a new chapter of his life. A better chapter.

One with more exciting words in it.

And I think I have just the thing I can use to show all of this, sat back at the Actual Life offices, waiting for me, in my email inbox . . .





CHAPTER ELEVEN

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE FINE

No. No. Stop it.

Seriously, stop it. It’s going to be absolutely fine.

I have to do this.

I want to do this.

I’m going to be perfectly safe. The company I found on Google is a well-respected skydive outfit that operates from an ex-RAF airfield. They have many, many five-star reviews on TripAdvisor AND Trustpilot. The guy who runs the company is an ex-paratrooper himself.

It all sounds legitimate, safe and expertly run. I’ve done my research. I will be fine.

So, are you going to come and watch me throw myself out of a functioning plane, or not?



The crowd that turns up at Harriston Airfield on a cool September morning is quite a bit larger than I thought it would be.

There’s about a thousand people here.

A thousand.

And all of them are standing around shivering, because I thought it would be a nice idea to ask the readers of ‘Dumped Actually’ if they’d like the chance to watch me do something totally out of character.

. . . but not at all risky. I will be fine. Absolutely fine.

You might argue that a thousand people isn’t all that big a crowd, given how popular I’ve been telling you ‘Dumped Actually’ is all this time, but when I say I only put the invitation out yesterday morning, would that change your perspective?

It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, obviously. I’d already published the story about the visit to my parents’ house a few days earlier and wasn’t planning on writing about the parachute jump until after the fact – but then I impulsively told Erica I’d like to invite people along to watch me do it, figuring it’d make for a good bit of publicity, and some more flavour for the story.

Strange, isn’t it?

Me – Oliver Sweet – being impulsive.

It’s like finding out that Joseph Stalin ran an animal welfare sanctuary, or that Nigel Farage was once nice to a foreign person.