The morning after.

So yeah, continuing on from the last post, things got good, but, as you can probably guess, the day after i got a ‘can we just be friends’ text.

I’ve not had one of those before, and i’ll be honest, it took me a while to work out how i felt about it. On the one hand, i felt we’d connected, and that there was potential there for something more, but on the other hand, it was a pretty great night, and boosted my self confidence no end.

It’s tricky.

I think one of the problems I have/had ( not sure if it’s past tense quite yet or not ) is that at the time, I was clearly attractive enough to want to sleep with, despite my extra complications, but after the time, i wasn’t attractive enough to be with, because of my complications. It’s a contradiction, of sorts, right down to the fact that it’s also not a contradiction as well. My lovelife has gone all quantum physics on me.

I guess we also have to take into account alcohol, nighttime, ambiance and horniness ( Ugh, I hate that word so much ). It’s a perfect storm, where as soberness, daytime, hangovers and the satisfaction of getting laid after a dry spell are kind of like the perfect calm.

Overall i’m looking at it as a very positive experience, i wanted to have some intimacy ( which was pointed out by one of my friends, apparently i’d said this only a week ago, although maybe a little more crudely ), and I got it. It feels good to know that someone wanted to sleep with me, and wanted to do it enough that they actually well, did.

I think that things are looking up, and that i’m discovering how to have a sex life again. I think that means i’m not as fucked up as i thought i was, I think that means I could just be on to something good.

One night

So, I went on another date. This time it was with a woman, and I did find her attractive, Rule #1 win!

It sort of went really well, and also really not so well, which I know seems like a contradiction, but well, you’ll see.

We meet, as usual, in a local pub, and we got chatting, we got drinking, and there seemed to be a thing going on. We had the eye contact, there was flirting, although I was also at this point quite drunk so how good the flirting was is another matter entirely. I’m going with top notch, mainly because we kissed, and then she asked if i’d like to go back to her place.

And this is where it gets complicated.

But how, i hear you cry, its going good! What can possibly make this seemingly perfect situation get complex?  Well dear reader, I make it complicated.

I’m not conventionally gendered, in that i am a woman, but i also have some male bits knocking about as well. There are a wealth of terms for how I am, but basically if you imagine a woman, with a cock, you’re getting close, albeit in a kinda crude and  possibly NSFW way.

So we talk about this, and what it means in regards to getting it on, cause we’re adults, admittedly very drunk adults, but adults none the less. It’s a surreal thing to talk about, but also it’s good to talk about as well, for obvious reasons. Anyhow, there’s talking, and we work out how things might go, and we go back and we get it on. We get it on, and it is good. Admittedly for me it’s been a while, but even so , it was good. I’ll leave it to your imagination. I’m sure you’ll do it justice, you filthy beasts you. (I’d insert a smiley here if this was a text, just so you know i’m just joking when I call you filthy beasts, but it’s a blog, and we don’t do that sort of thing.)

So, I know what you’re thinking, this all sounds good, whats the problem kid? Well, the problem, it seems, is the cold light of day. I’ll explain all in the next post…….( see what i did there? It’s like an ad break! I’m a leaf on the wind, watch how i soar! )

First Date

I went on a date last week. Yep, an ACTUAL DATE. For Reals. It kind of sucked. Allow me to elaborate….

You know how i may of mentioned that you should only go out with people you find attractive? It was like a rule of dating I was imposing on myself, and stuff.

Anyhow, totally broke that rule.

In my defense, my date was a man, and its been an age since that happened, so I was curious, but still, should of listened to the rule.

We met in a local pub, which seemed like a good idea, public space and all that, and it would of been ideal, if it wasn’t for the fact that the whole evening was just plain awkward. There was no chemistry at all, which to be fair, was to be expected ( see the whole thing about finding them attractive ) and as a bonus we had some lovely visits from the God of long silences, despite my ( best? ) efforts.

In the end I cut it short with the classic ” I have an early start with work tomorrow” line, and left, which I’m sort of proud of doing, as old me would of probably just let it spiral onwards into a self destructive heap of awkwardness, so in that respect things have progressed, so yay me I guess.

Anyhow, onwards and upwards, plenty more fish, get back on the horse, and any other number of cliches you’d care you throw out there, I think a valuable lesson was learnt by all. I certainly learnt that you should definitely only go on dates with people you find attractive, and I think he learnt that talking about how you’re also currently having internet sex with a woman in Missouri, whilst on a date with someone else, is maybe a bad choice for a conversation starter.

No, really.

 

On dealing with okcupid.

So, i’m using Okcupid to broaden my dating experiences, and I’ve noticed a few things. Allow me to expand in a list type form…..

1. Writing messages to complete strangers you find attractive is tricky, and awkward.

2. Replies to said messages are quite often few and far between. I can assume this is because of one of these things..

a) I’m not attractive to them

b) they can’t be arsed to reply through laziness/apathy.

c) I write shit messages to complete strangers i find attractive.

3. Rating people with stars is both slightly creepy and objectifying. It’s also strangely addictive.

4.Having to pay to see all the people who have rated you 5 stars is a rip off and tempting at the same time. *shakes fist at ego*

I’ve yet to get a ‘hit’ so to speak, there have been vague messagings back and forth between various people, but nothing promising as of yet, although one person did ask me if London was close to where i live, which would be a positive message if it wasn’t their first message to me, and if wasn’t literally just ‘ how far is London from Brighton.’  Nothing like cutting to the chase…..

Keen

So I decided, the other day, to put a profile up on a dating site again. So i’m busy filling in the various easy answer questions, where you click on the drop down menus and pick a choice, updating as I went along, and I get a message saying someone ‘likes’ me.

Erm……. right, you like me, even though the only things you know about me are that I like cooking and that I don’t have any pets. Honestly reader(s) I hadn’t even done the difficult about me bit where I actually have to write stuff.  Liking might be a bit preemptive I think.

I suppose this is the world of online dating, my like-ie might be a perfectly lovely person, but it just seemed a little desperate/creepy to me.

Anyhow, we’re going on a date next week, so that’s nice. ( kidding! obvs )

 

 

NYE

Ah, New Years Eve, how quickly you come round again. I’ve never been sure about it really. The expectation, the hype, the absolute necessity to have an excellent time, it’s all, well, a bit too much sometimes.

What if I don’t have a good time? What if i fall asleep before midnight? What if I drink way to much and can’t remember anything?

What if it comes to midnight, and everyone is Happy New Year! and having a great time, and i’m like the singleton in the corner?

So many what ifs to potentially screw things up. But then again, they are just what ifs, not actual reality. NYE is loaded, loaded with disaster, anticipation and disappointment, but it’s also loaded with hope, excitement and optimism.

So I might not hook up with anyone, but that’s cool, they’ll be other times. I might just have a shit time, but hey, it’s only one  night, I can just go home if it’s that bad. I might have too much to drink, but hey, that’s entirely my own choice, and I can live with that.

I’m going out tonight, on New Years Eve. I may see New Years day in having a drink in a pub or dancing my ass off to some obscure indie tunes or maybe even in bed. I don’t know, but whatever happens, i’m seeing it in with hope, optimism and excitement. Twenty-Thirteen, i’m coming to get you………

Tiny Furniture

I went to Ikea the other day. My nearest one is a bit of a trek, in a 4 hours on a train sort of way, but hey ho.

So anyhow, I went to get shelves, cause my room needs more shelves to put all my stuff on ( even though I’ve cleared out ‘stuff’ there’s still more of it that I can’t quite get rid of ), and also to hunt for Christmas pressies, as it’s that time again.

I get there, and decide that the first port of call should be the restaurant, for a lovely bowl of meatballs ( they are divine, no trip to Ikea is a trip to Ikea without them ) and I’m sitting there, noming away, and a huge group of schoolkids come in. They now do school trips to Ikea. I don’t understand.

They also were partaking in the meatball feast, and I thought maybe it’s just a large group of kids on their lunch, but no, it was a proper trip. Now when I was a school we didn’t go to Ikea for field trips, we went to South Wales to look at mining facilities and devastated rural communities ( who would throw bricks at our bus – true story ). It was cold, wet and depressing. There were definitely no meatballs.

I mean I’m guessing that they’re learning about retail and furniture and stuff, but still, it seemed a little bizarre to me. Although they seemed to be having a great time, walking round the shop I kept seeing little groups loading up on tealights and useful storage solutions.

Anyhow, my trip was a sort of success, I got shelves, and I ate meatballs , although a part of me feels that 4 hours on a train to get this might of been slightly erm… a waste of time? Hmmm….

Love steals us from loneliness

I am pretty good in my own company. I like time with myself, and am comfortable being alone. Sometimes though, just sometimes, I’m less so.  These times come and go, and don’t follow a rhyme or reason, and they inevitably lead to introspection.

When they come, I often wonder about the reasons I get into relationships. I don’t think that relationships are actually great for me. They rarely end well, and tend to leave me feeling trapped, frustrated and controlled. Melodramatic, I know, but that’s they way it seems to go with me. So why do I still get into them? why do I rush headlong into living with someone, like there’s no tomorrow?

Some of it I know is the desire to fit in, to be normal, and to act like everyone else does. This isn’t, as you probably can see, a good reason to make such a commitment. Thing is, It has played a part in how I deal with relationships. I do tend to fling myself into them headlong, because I feel they’ll fix what’s not right with me. Be with someone else, settle down, stop being wild, have kids, do what everyone expects you to do. This is how I’ve seen things. I forgot to see things for myself, I forgot to do things for me, and to do things that are good for myself, not everyone else. Until now that is.

Now, after 38 odd years I really can see that the buck stops with me. Only I can decide what I really want, not family, not friends, not society, just me. I used to think I was broken, now I know I’m not. Yay me.

And loneliness? It does get to me a little sometimes, but I’d rather feel that, than what I felt whilst in my relationships.

How to be a good person

I think I’m a good person. It’s kind of hard to tell, as self praise is, apparently, no praise, but I’d like to think I am.

Thing is, it’s really hard to tell. Going by some religious standards I’m not a good person. I’ve broken 7 of the 10 commandments, and my Mortal Sins are numerous ( see Divorce, Blasphemy, Deliberate failure to go to mass on Sunday, Masturbation and Homosexuality amongst others ).  I’m all over the 7 deadly sins, and if they actually were deadly, then I’d be in a lot of trouble. It looks, on paper, as if I’m a pretty bad person.

Except I know I’m not. I have my own moral compass, shaped by my upbringing, and the people around me. It basically boils down to “Be Nice” and “Don’t be a dick” ( with addendum’s as and when events dictate ).

I was brought up in a Christian household, and I spent a fair proportion of my childhood being very scared of God. The idea of something you can’t see, but that can see you, and spends all it’s time judging every little thing you do, for some reason, freaked me out. For a while God have to go live in the garden in a specially erected tent, such was my paranoia of him and his stalker ways.

I remember going to church, and being told that we all have sin inside us, and that we are bad people, not even worthy to gather crumbs from under Gods table. ( the image in my little child brain that went with this got mashed up with the story of  Jack and the Beanstalk for a bit, I imagined God to be like the fee-fi-foo-fum giant ) It all got very messed up in my little head, which of course lead to lots of questioning of what would be considered a sin. Couple this with my own slightly screwed up gender and sexuality issues ( did I mention those? I have those, they’re complicated, we’ll talk later ) and obviously we’re about to board the train to Fuckedupville ( quite possibly it’s the fast service as well ).

All of this shaped my early moral compass, and as time went on and I grew up, it became more defined, and flexible, as I realised that we all do bad things sometimes, but it’s rarely as simple as right and wrong. I try to be a good person, and sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don’t, but I’m not a bad person, I’m not sinful and I am most definitely worthy.

Thoughts on being older

I’m nearly 40. This, to me seems old. Not old old, but still, old. I remember when my mum and dad turned 40, and i also remember thinking then it seemed really pretty old, and now here I am as well. I’d like to think that I’d learnt something in the years I’ve been here, that I’d have some amazing nuggets of wisdom, but honestly, the only thing I’ve learnt is that it goes by so very quickly.

I’m a lot more confident, a lot more self assured and together than I was but I’m still fucked up, just much less so than before. I sometimes think if only I was like this when I was a teenager, but truth be told, it was not being like this when I was a teenager that made me like this now, so I don’t think I would trade after all.

I’m not successful, I don’t really have a career and I’ve never earned more than £20,000 a year, but I’m  okay with this. My parents are a little confused by this, they say don’t you want more money, wouldn’t it be easier? Which is true, it would be easier, but happier? I’m not so sure. Besides which, I still don’t know what I want to do, I’m still working on that one…

I’ve been married, divorced,  and in two serious relationships so far. I’d like to be in more, but sometimes I worry that I’m too complicated, too independent, too set to be in one now. Even now I still also worry that if I do end up in another relationship that it won’t be enough.

So many things have happened, so much time has gone by, and so very quickly, faster than you could possibly believe, and you know what? I do have one nugget, one thing I have learnt, one thing that has helped me.

Live life, make the most of it, just in case this is all we get. Have fun, take risks, laugh, learn, don’t settle for okay, do what you need to do. After all, the only person who’s there all the way though this is yourself.