Why was I cut off so cruelly after being like a dad?

DEAR BEL, UNLUCKY in love, I don’t have the kids I wanted so much. Three years ago, I was thinking of returning to Italy when I re-established contact with an ex-colleague and her adorable daughter. I’d first met them when I arrived here 12 years ago.

I quickly became close to the daughter — in fact, I thought I’d be a father-figure, helping her with maths etc.

I spoilt her a bit. She loved reading but her single mum didn’t buy her many books. So I did — and stationery, other things, and a contribution to her laptop.

She phoned each day. We spent much time together and her mum ( always knowing her daughter was safe) also started to come around more, as she was furloughed. It was lovely.

Last September, the girl told me I should walk her down the aisle when she gets married. But ten days later she asked an odd question: ‘If anything happens can I keep all my things?’ (Things that I had bought).

Then she said she’d be out of touch for a while to prepare for tests — even though I usually helped her with work.

Two weeks later I felt she was more distant. She’d got a ‘boyfriend’ (a good thing as this was her first and both her mum and I encouraged her) and I met him.

Then she stopped phoning and I asked if I’d done something wrong. She said she was ‘busy, busy, busy’. I asked her mum who said there was nothing wrong.

But after a month of ignored texts I asked again. This time the girl told me directly we were friends no longer. She’d been ‘ghosting’ me (that is, cutting off all communication suddenly).

You can imagine my surprise. I didn’t take it well. Her mum said I’d misunderstood, that they talk a lot about me and everything would be fine.

On Christmas Eve, the daughter called me to wish me Happy Christmas, so I asked again why she was treating me like I never existed. She said she needed to get rid of people but some were difficult to lose, as they are her mum’s friends.

That was the last I heard. She never showed any empathy even if she knew she had hurt me badly. I’d gone from walking her down the aisle to being no one.

Can you help me understand? GINO

Oh dear, I fear you have never before encountered the casual cruelty of teenagers. as many a parent will tell you, they can shoot from the hip, then step over your wounded body on their way out to meet friends, scrutinising their phone as they go.

They don’t necessarily intend to be mean; it is just a part of cutting free from the apron strings. Suddenly the delightful child who needed you and thought time with you was fun realises that ‘Mum’s friends’ are faintly embarrassing oldsters who cramp their style. It can be brutal.

and many a teenager proves short on ‘empathy’ simply because they find life such a struggle that all their pity is used up on themselves.

It’s bad enough for family, but you were in a strange, rather sad situation that left you very vulnerable.

To be honest, these days there are quite a lot of people who would worry at an older, unmarried man spending a great deal of time with a teenage girl, and buying her lots of gifts.

You are very clear in your full letter that you longed to be a father-figure, but unfortunately we live in a suspicious world and I find it absolutely believable that the girl (how old is she? 16ish?) and her new boyfriend talked and decided your slight obsession with her was . . . well . . . weird.

This will sound horribly unfair — but

honestly, you owe it to yourself to take it on board.

Three years ago, you were thinking of leaving England to return home, then this mother and daughter came into your life — and transformed it. They made you feel like a family, didn’t they?

It was enchanting to be needed by a blossoming girl, whom you could help with schoolwork and useful things such as books — just as you had dreamt of doing with your own children.

you grew to love the girl — and when she fantasised about you walking her down the aisle it must have touched your heart.

But she was growing and changing and once the boyfriends come along there is no time for adoring (and easily exploitable) old men.

I have no idea of your age, but to teenagers, 40 is pretty old. It’s sad for you, but you must have made things so much worse with all your texts and calls, which became increasingly desperate and made you more likely to be ghosted.

when you write, ‘I didn’t take it well’ — my heart goes out to you, but I regret to say you must have made yourself look fond and foolish. what next? you must realise that you and this girl were never actually ‘friends’ — and it is time now to build a real life, with proper friends.

you say nothing about your social life (and lord knows, it’s been taken away from us all) but now is the time to look forward and think how you want 2021 to shape. you may even take up your plan of returning to Italy.

But remember, it’s never too late to find love, if you face outwards to the world afresh.