Agreed. Especially the very last one, a few months prior to meeting my wife. This final ex was so scared of me that she got her mother to telephone me to break up with me on her behalf. This is after three weeks of a so-called relationship which featured, among other things, her pretending to like sci-fi to try and impress me. I was utterly perplexed, and hadn't encountered such behaviour since adolescence. Suffice it to say, I was more than happy to end things.

In a rather bizarre twist, a couple of years later, shortly before I got married, the mother of this ex contacted me again, this time asking me to be a character witness in a court case, because my ex had been charged with dangerous driving. I refused as it would have meant lying. She was a terrible driver and I feared for my safety whenever I was in a vehicle with her.