Author: divorcedanddatingat30

Cold Sores & Bullshit – Part 2 of 3

divorcedanddatingat307 Comments

Apr-2017

You’d think that if anyone was going to go missing when flying between the UK and Canada, it would be the person on the tin can in the sky and not the other person patiently waiting at home, right? But somehow between me waking up in Edinburgh on the day I was leaving and me landing back in Vancouver 16 hours later, Malaysian Persuasion went MIA.

When we’d texted in the morning, saying we’d see each other incredibly soon (maybe that night depending on my travel tiredness), it was his night before and he said he would text when he woke up which would have been just before I got on my connecting flight in London. But ready to leave UK soil and head back across the Atlantic? There was nothing.

I figured I’d get off the flight in Vancouver and there’d be a text waiting for me. But finally getting back to normal cell phone service and data after three and a half weeks in the UK? More silence.

I texted him to let him know I’d made it back in one piece (I had a habit of fainting while flying so completing a trip without doing that was an achievement) but as I travelled back from the airport starting to feel incredibly unsure about what the hell was happening? More tumbleweed.

I landed back in Vancouver at 4pm, I probably texted him about 4.30pm and at 9.45pm that evening I finally got a reply. And I know, that’s not that crazy a timeframe for a reply, but in comparison to how frequently we’d been texting up until that point and the fact I knew he wasn’t doing anything that night… it was a red flag.

I’d mentioned something in my “I’m back!” text about grabbing food. I said I was pretty tired but it would, of course, be great to see him so if he wanted to get dinner to let me know. This was something we’d discussed in the weeks while I was away when we kept talking about when we saw each other, down to the point that we’d actually already discussed the restaurant we’d go to (my favourite noodle place) and the dishes we’d choose (him Kung Pao, me Spicy Peanut Noodle Box). So I wasn’t just throwing out random, last minute plans.

His response “Welcome back, glad you made it. Sorry can’t tonight.” And nothing else. No follow up to say why he couldn’t or that he really wanted to see me or “what about tomorrow night?” Nothing.

I can’t even describe how it felt. I was confused, I was also hurt, and disappointed, and offended. What. The. Hell. Had. Happened?

I left it a couple of days, trying to distract myself with getting back into my routine but it was incredibly hard when I had this big gaping text buddy hole in my life. And I was now in the same city as him! Eventually as we neared the weekend, I texted him one morning to ask how his week had been and what he was doing at the weekend. He did eventually respond later that night saying that work was crazy and he had a really busy weekend. But gave no specifics on plans, despite me having every minute detail of his weekend itineraries when I’d been away. Also, weird because prior to me leaving the UK he’d told me his week was an open book to be filled with me – his words, not mine.

In the next week we texted a bit, always me initiating, always hoping miraculously his response would click back into the voice and tone I had become so fond of and he’d answer enthusiastically and suggest we meet up. But he never did. He also never once asked anything about me. Not how my trip back had been or how the jet lag was or how it felt to be back. Nothing.

This 180 flip in his demeanour was just a giant head fuck. And I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, worse than hurting someone is confusing them. Particularly when, most likely, the person knows what they’re doing. To make someone question their own sanity and, in my case, start to over-compensate for that person and make allowances that you wouldn’t otherwise. I heard myself explaining the story to friends and saying “but maybe he is just busy?” or “maybe he is just really embarrassed about his cold sores?” – which was another excuse he’d given as to why he couldn’t see me. Cold sores!!!

Um, no, you lunatic, get a clue! We all know if someone wants to see you, they’ll make time. That’s why they call it “making priorities” – it’s an active choice. And cold sores never stopped anybody, that’s why herpes simplex is still spreading like wildfire.

I started to make peace with the fact that whatever the hell “it” had been, it was now well and truly over. But, as is always my way, I can’t just let things go. So I texted him and said “I don’t know what changed, I don’t know how much could have changed in the time I flew back over here, but something clearly did and the fact you can’t or won’t be honest with me is pretty shitty.”

He didn’t reply. For four days. And then responded saying “I’m really sorry, can we meet up on Saturday?” I was beyond pissed but my curiosity, as always, got the better of me. I told him I was going to a birthday party in Gastown as a way to explain I wasn’t free and he replied with “Ok, I’ll meet you after.” I told him I wasn’t sure what time it would finish but he said to text him when it was done and he’d come and meet me.

This new swift turn of events had my head spinning more than just a little but I did what any female would do – made sure I was preened to within an inch of my life that night, went off to the birthday party to have just enough alcohol to give me the perfect level of sass and then around 10.30pm I texted him to tell him to get a seat in a bar somewhere near where I was and I’d meet him there. He lived nowhere near where I was but within half an hour he was there.

I’d have been impressed if I wasn’t still so fucked off with him.

Clearly he had no clue that I wasn’t exactly entering the bar with a view to having a light and fun date, as was demonstrated when he greeted me with a smiley “hey! How have you been?” The alcohol-induced level of sass meant I took no time in telling him that I wasn’t there for that and to explain what the fuck had happened.

At first he tried to tell me he really had been busy but when I told him if he kept the bullshit going I was going to leave, he took a pause from all the excuses and shifted in his seat. He proceeded to tell me that, when I’d first left for my trip, he’d been worried I was going to be going home to sleep with all my exes. And he didn’t love the thought of that.

Of course, he’d never asked me. And if he had, I’d have laughed in his face. I had a grand total of maybe three exes at home, one of whom was my ex-husband and all three of whom had cheated on me. There was zero chance of any big romantic reunions featuring in my trip.

He did concede that as I was keeping him informed of my trip he admitted it didn’t sound like I had time to be seeing any guys in amongst everything else I was doing. So then once he got his head round that, in the week before I flew back he started to worry, as I had, about how things would be when I got back. But rather than do what I did and just figure we’d work it out once I was back, he swung to the entire other end of the spectrum from worrying about me sleeping with other people to freaking himself out that I was going to come back and want a relationship.

And naturally, obviously!, the best thing to do in that situation is make excuses about being busy and having cold sores, and go MIA at random intervals. Because, of course.

We chatted it out. For hours. I told him he was a fucking idiot and asked him why he couldn’t have just told me. He said he felt crazy. I told him that’s how he’d made me feel. He asked what he should have done instead and I told him he should have been a fucking adult. He admitted he’d slept with someone while I’d been away. I told him I didn’t care, there had been no discussion around that. He asked me how I saw things working out with us and I told him I didn’t know.

It was a long night of talking, in amongst ordering more cocktails and trying to avoid our awkward conversations being overheard by our table neighbours or our server. And somewhere in the midst of it all – me letting out my anger, him apologising, me wishing I’d had less to drink, him trying to be honest – nuggets were brought up.

And just like that, I lost my head. I want to be able to say I kept the boundaries I’d set for myself at the beginning of the night, that I didn’t let him charm me into forgiving his behaviour, but I can’t. I wish I’d made better(?), smarter(?) decisions. But I can’t.

The next morning, waking up with him in my bed, I wasn’t sure what the hell had happened or, maybe more importantly, what the hell was going to happen. But I did know that despite everything it had been lovely to see him again and hang out. It was also fun. And regardless of the fact I had been so pissed off with him less than 24 hours before, I couldn’t deny that there was part of me that didn’t hate how it had turned out.

What does that say about me? That I could be so easily swayed after someone was a complete dick to me? It’s not my finest hour. The only thing that marginally made me feel better was that I had at least been explicit with him about what I expected going forward. Consistency and honesty. It didn’t need to be anymore than that, just consistency and honesty. Easy. Right?

Over the next few weeks we saw each other a couple of times. The texting never went back to where it had been but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. We’d decided we should keep things casual and just see where they went. It seemed simple enough and the times we hung out were as easy and fun and incredible sex-filled as they had been before I’d gone on my trip. Just with the underlying knowledge that there had obviously been feelings involved at some point and we both needed to try and keep them in check.

And so the casual thing worked. For a while.

It was a long weekend with a Monday holiday so we made plans that on the Sunday we’d meet up in the afternoon to go to a local gin distillery, we’d maybe do dinner, then we’d come back to mine for a quiet night with a movie, he’d stay over and we’d have breakfast in the morning. If we were honest, we knew the movie was unlikely to happen but we were both glad to have a night that we could spend together and didn’t need to worry about not getting enough sleep.

He was going out on the Saturday night and I kinda of presumed he’d have a hangover on the Sunday. Just as I thought he messaged me late morning and said we might need to push our mid-afternoon meeting time as he was dying. He then messaged me mid-afternoon, saying it was taking a while to get going and said he would be over around 6.30pm. He then messaged me at 6pm saying he’d forgotten he had a family dinner also at 6.30pm, with a screenshot of a text from his Mum talking about the dinner as proof(?), so he’d go to that and then be at mine by 8.30pm.

To say I was pissed off would be fairly accurate. But I was also aware that we still had the rest of the night and the next morning so did it really matter? I mean, yes, some earlier heads up so I hadn’t actually wasted an entire afternoon and evening waiting for him, would have been preferable but I decided that when he came over I wasn’t going to say anything. It didn’t matter.

When he arrived though and started telling me about his day, my decision on that started to change. He began by telling me about the brunch he’d gone out for that morning with his housemate. Um… I thought you were hungover and dying in bed? Then he told me while he was at brunch their friends had called and told them they were at the beach, so they’d gone to join them. So I was blown off for you to randomly go to see friends? Then he told me that the family dinner had been arranged a couple of days earlier. You mean, when we’d already made our plans and yet you said yes?

I was honestly wondering if I was being punked. Like, how could someone be so fucking stupid not only to do those things but then to admit to them on their own accord. It wasn’t like I’d prised the information out of him!

And so of course I brought it up. I told him it was unacceptable behaviour and I couldn’t tolerate it. And then I explained that I’d really not wanted to have to talk to him about the fact it pissed me off, because it just made me sound like a fucking nag. We were supposed to be casual and so I got that making demands of him wasn’t the thing to do but equally, I couldn’t sit around and let someone make an absolute joke out of me. Consistency and honesty…

He said he felt like I was asking too much, like we were in a relationship when we weren’t. I said I had never wanted that and I was well aware we weren’t in a relationship. And in me saying that, something obviously triggered in his mind. Because he paused, looked at me for a moment and then said those fateful words – “are you sleeping with anyone else?”

Next post…

…previous post

Sweet Like Honey – Part 1 of 3

divorcedanddatingat302 Comments

Mar/Apr-2017

You know those times when you make an assumption about someone/something based on it simply being the unknown and then it turns out to actually be wrong? This story has one of those. It also has the other extended version of that: when you make an assumption, it first of all looks like you were proved wrong and then you end up being proved absolutely, 100% right but by then you’ve changed your assumption based on when you thought you were proved wrong. Following me?

As the multi player dating game was heating up with Frenchie, I happened to match with another 25 year old guy at the same time (the age range on my Tinder app still hadn’t been increased from rugby sevens weekend) and so my friends made the joke that if you put them both together I was dating a 50 year old, which might be more appropriate… (but the age debate is for another blog post!)

He was first generation Malaysian Canadian, in that his parents had moved here from Malaysia and he and his younger sister were the first generation to be born here. He worked for a telecom company by day and was also a ticket office supervisor at the hockey arena when there were games or events on there by night. From the outset, he seemed confident and fun. He messaged me first after we matched, asking me about my job as an operations manager as he’d done operations at university. It was a nice commonality to start off with, and he asked me out for drinks pretty quickly after us starting to chat.

We matched over the weekend and began chatting on the Sunday, and the first date was arranged for the following Sunday due to our schedules being busy in between. I liked that it had been arranged quickly but I half expected that the communication may start to fail in the week leading up to the date and thought it unlikely that we’d make it all the way to the Sunday with the impetus to actually still meet up. But we ended up messaging most of those 6 days in between.

He was funny and cheeky and flirty, and our text chats were easy before we’d even met. We would mostly text during the day when we were at work and there were a couple of times that the subject matter got a little Not Safe For Work. Part of me worried that, as is often the case when initial text conversations become sexually charged, he was only going to be after one thing and I did think there was a chance he was a typical millennial fuckboy. They’re truly not just urban myths.

He was 25, from stories he was telling me it was clear he liked to go out a lot (weekends, midweek, it didn’t matter, which to 32 year old me sounded exhausting), he was good looking, seemed to be a bit of a gym rat, his Instagram certainly looked like that of a wannabe insta-famous millennial and one his dating profile pics was him as a shirtless Trojan Soldier when he was doing promo for Trojan condoms at Pride Parade one year. (Fun fact – google Trojan Soldier on urban dictionary. You learn something new everyday. Or at least I did!) So there were all the ingredients for him to turn out to be a total douche but he also came across as sweet and earnest in a lot of his texts so I was interested to meet him.

Meet we did, one rainy Sunday March afternoon at one of my favourite local bars, which I chose because it had a fireplace and it felt like a day for drinks by a cosy fire. He’d never been to that bar and when I introduced him to their own locally distilled gin he was more than approving of my choice. I was struck by how much older he seemed than I expected. But, side note, am I the only person who always thinks people are older when they first meet them? I’m a terrible estimator – of age, height, weight, distance, anything, terrible – and I’m not sure why but when I first meet people I will always automatically assume they’re older than me. Even when I know they’re not, I feel like they’re older than I expect. There must be some psychological reasoning for it… but enough of that tangent for now.

I was also struck by how attractive he was. His white t-shirt was a great choice on his part to show off a hint of the ripped body I’d seen in the Trojan photo. As with our texts, our conversation over drinks was easy and fun but maybe a little less flirty. We talked family, and work, and life goals, and gin. He was just getting into gin so I began to extol the virtues of being a gin drinker on him and introduced him to the classic cucumber garnish. It was a really fun and easy date and the time passed super quickly, which is always a good sign. It was only dampened slightly by his acceptance of my offer to pay half the bill. But that’s what happens sometimes when you offer!

We said goodbye out on the rain soaked street, and I was more than a little disappointed that he didn’t try to kiss me. As I walked home through the puddles, I realised that in spite of how suggestive some of our texts had been he hadn’t been like that in person at all. And I didn’t know whether that was because he was actually all talk and more shy in person, or because when we’d met he had changed his mind about me. I hoped it was the former. This would also allay some of those fuckboy fears.

The next day though, the flirty texts were back and it wasn’t long before he mentioned that he regretted not kissing me the night before. Ok, so it wasn’t that he’d changed his mind about me, maybe he was just a little more shy / reserved / unsure in person. That wasn’t the worst thing and actually only made me want to see him again more.

His regret about not kissing me apparently made him feel the same and so the following night, he was working at a hockey game and with the arena being a five minute walk from my apartment, we arranged to meet up after. Initially it had been planned we’d meet for drinks but he ended up working later than expected so I told him just to come over to mine when he was finished. It was a Tuesday night and the thought of getting ready to go out for drinks at 9pm wasn’t super appealing.

Turning up on my doorstep, he was a smarter version than the Sunday white t-shirt and jeans outfit, in his work attire – and I’m a total sucker for a guy in a suit. I got us a drink each, gin of course, and we settled on the sofa to chat. Our text conversations carried over into real life chats and it wasn’t long before he made good on his regret not to kiss me on the Sunday. It was one of those kisses that makes you go a little weak at the knees and I don’t think we stopped for the rest of the time he was at my place. The only thing that broke up the make out party was the knowledge we both had to get up for work the next day. Otherwise I’m not sure where it might have ended…

We made loose plans for the weekend but they were very much TBC given that we were both busy so when we found ourselves out separately with friends on Friday night but mostly texting each other, we decided that at 1am we should have a McDonald’s rendez-vous. Honestly, I’m not sure there’s anything more romantic to me. A guy that wants to meet to eat junk food at 1am? I’m here for it.

I found my way to the Golden Arches first and started to use the newly installed self-serve order kiosks at the McDonald’s a block from my apartment. In a fairly gin soaked haze I was about $30 into ordering burgers and trying to decide on just how many nuggets to get when someone tapped me on the shoulder and said “I think you need more burgers”. The sound of his voice and his breath on my neck, plus his encouragement to up the burger order, invoked the knee weakness again.

We were both drunk and it made McDonald’s even more fun. We only ordered and waited for our food but somehow even that seemed like a great date. I ordered way too much food, and a tonne of nuggets because as we both agreed; nuggets are life. Plus, of course, all the dipping varieties. We were drunk and hungry and seemingly pretty horny. It was an interesting combo.

Heading back to my apartment, I’m not sure what we were more excited about – being able to fully make out or being able to crack into the nuggets. I actually think the nuggets had a slight edge. So sat cross legged on my living room floor with the coffee table covered in wrappers and boxes, we had ourselves a feast. The lasting memory of the night though, was that in amongst the dips I’d ordered, I’d apparently included a pot of honey… or else they’d thrown it in there by mistake? I don’t ever remember seeing honey in the sauces sections but there we were.

After much debate as to why you would (or wouldn’t) eat your nuggets with honey I decided to give it a try, I reasoned that it must be like having chicken and waffles with maple syrup. So I duly dipped one of the boot shaped poultry delights into the shallow pool of honey. And I can honestly say, in that moment, my life changed. I’m usually a sweet and sour girl with my nuggets but this was a game changer. It was so damned good and I was happy to be proven wrong in my original disgust at the thought of battered chicken with sweet honey nectar.

Malaysian Persuasion, as he would be known to my friends, couldn’t believe it was actually that good. He described my face as orgasmic and so as we made veiled references to having sex, which resulted in him hurriedly trying a nugget and honey, agreeing it was in fact life altering and then proceeding to undress us both in record time, before I knew it we were in my bedroom and all the sexual tension from our texts came spilling out.

I want to pause here to note that, while I welcome a guy who encourages late night McDonald’s, having partaken in said McDonald’s right before you are going to have sex with someone for the first time makes for a lot of mental anguish. At least, it did for me. Thankfully I’d been feeling pretty good about my body in the weeks around this time but after a quarter pounder with cheese, a dollar menu cheeseburger, six or seven nuggets and many fries I was hardly feeling like a sex goddess. But why let belly bloat stop you?

I put the body issues to the side and we got down to it. It was a fun filled night of incredibly hot and sexy, but also sweet and careful at times, sex. And again, as with Frenchie, it was proven that 25 year olds a) are incredibly giving in the bedroom and b) have the stamina of… I guess a 25 year old? After the sex, we slept, then we had sex, then we had more sex, we showered, we slept a bit more, then there was more sex, another shower, some more sleep and finally some more sex before it was mid-morning and we both had Saturday plans to get up for.

To say I was sleep deprived but incredibly satisfied for the rest of that weekend is an understatement. Who cares about eye bags when you lost count of the orgasms you had last night?  I mean, really though?

So it had been a fun first few dates but the following week I was leaving for my trip home to the UK for pretty much the entirety of April and I wasn’t sure what exactly that was going to mean for our daily texting and newly found sexual obsession with each other, as it turned out to be. Let’s just say the texting from then on was almost entirely NSFW.

We decided to fit in a last date on the Tuesday night before I left on the Thursday, so a couple of drinks followed by some fun back at my place was to be our last meetup. But on the Wednesday I found myself organised ahead of time for my flight the next day and so we decided on a last minute dinner at my place We ordered food from a fried chicken place and found to our enormous delight that they had an incredible beer infused honey that they serve with it. It was of course followed by more great sex. Is twice a habit? If so it’s a habit I was pretty happy to be forming. It was a perfect last night.

Before it was over, I decided I needed to bring up what was going to happen when I was away. I made it blatantly clear that I wasn’t in any way expecting him to be in touch and, in fact, if he preferred we could just put a pin in things and then see where we were once I got back at the end of the month. I fully expected him to take that get-out clause

Instead, much to my surprise, he insisted I messaged when I landed because he’d want to know I got there safely. So the next day we texted almost constantly – while I was finishing packing, on the skytrain to the airport, as I was going through security, waiting in departures and up to the point my phone had to go off as we were taxiing to the runway. I guess I was making the most of it figuring that once I’d informed him of my safe arrival that get-out clause I had offered would fully be taken.

Instead, furthering my surprise, once I’d sent him the “made it, jet lag is going to kick my ass but I’m here” text, our texting continued as if we were still in the same city. Albeit with an 8 hour time difference in the stage of our days. And so it would continue for the three and a half weeks I was in the UK. We texted day and night and with my jet lag keeping me up, it meant there was only a short spell while he was sleeping (the majority of my morning and into early afternoon) when we weren’t in contact.

He knew about every friend I caught up with, how all my dental appointments were going (the reason for my extended trip) and the joy I was experiencing with every home comfort food I devoured. I knew how each of his days at work were going, what he was doing each night, his weekend plans or that he was out at a bar craving nuggets, honey and apparently me. Yes, our texts were definitely sexually charged. It was fair to say a lot of it was full on sexting.

With the distance and suggestive texts driving us, the sexual anticipation only grew as the weeks wore on. More than once, one of us wondered aloud how many more nights it was before we saw each other and why we both couldn’t just stop with the sexting?! We’d save ourselves a lot of anguish. Instead we kept on, with each of us almost taking it in turns to start entirely inappropriate discussions when the other was having dinner with family, or trying to concentrate at work.

And I kept expecting the texts to stop, that he’d get bored waiting or get distracted by some shiny young thing when he was out at a weekend with his friends. But they never did. He bemoaned me being away for so long, told me numerous times he missed me and talked a lot about what he was going to do to me when I got home. And it didn’t just involve eating nuggets and honey.

In amongst all the sex chat, we also shared more about our lives than we may have even done if I’d been in Vancouver. He was hearing all about my family and where I grew up and I think it encouraged us to share stories and background that we might have otherwise never got round to covering in in-person discussions. We shared childhood passions and family dynamics. For all that there was a lot of suggestive, even filthy, chat, there was also a lot of foundation building it felt like.

I had a momentary wobble of trying to understand what the hell this would mean for us once I was home but as my very good friend Arms told me “why are you trying to work that out? You don’t need to think about that just now. Wait til you’re home and then you’ll either see for yourself or you can talk to him about it in person. Don’t do it in text!” He had a point, and so I put those fears aside and went back to texting him, likely something about his big, hard… never mind.

So as my trip was growing to a close and I was preparing for the emotional rollercoaster that is the ever-fraught family goodbyes, there was an added excitement about getting back to Vancouver to see him. I’d never had that before. I’d never had someone to come home to. Not that he was “my person” or that I even knew what the hell was going on but it was just nice to know fun awaited. As much as I knew there was definitely a conversation to be had around what the fuck had happened while I was away, with us texting each other everyday, and what that meant when I was back, if nothing else I was expecting some mind blowing sex on my return.

Or at least, that’s what I thought would be waiting for me….

Next post…

…previous post

Multi Player Game Loading…

divorcedanddatingat302 Comments

Mar-2017

In this world of online dating, the swiping and matching and compatibility scores make it all seem very game like, but when I entered it, I still expected it was going to be a two person game. Turns out I was wrong.

I wanted to write about this because my post earlier this week and the one coming up next week combine to very much exemplify the trials and tribulations of multi player dating, as I like to call it. I also had someone ask me “are dates with just one person not a thing anymore?” after listening to my Instagram stories over the last few weeks. And it was a fair question!

It’s true, I am knee deep in the world of multi player dating, that is to say that at any one time there may be multiple men I am chatting with on an app and/or going on dates with. It’s the done thing now, in a world where you can scroll endlessly through “options” as if shopping for clothes and you know you’re only ever a few swipes from a match at any time, it seems people no longer wish to be tied down too quickly, if at all. And I feel really really conflicted about it.

On the positive side, it does allow you to meet a lot of people, in a relatively short space of time, and give you good comparisons for what you are/aren’t looking for. At my age, I hate wasting time on anything, so at least this way it feels like efficient dating. And I’m all for efficiencies.

Plus, given the sheer level of flakiness of people – is it just Vancouver, or is it the same everywhere? – you could be chatting with ten guys online, have organised three dates and only one of those people will you actually end up meeting in person. So it’s kinda like making sure you have enough fish in the bucket to catch one, does that make sense? (Side note – is it terrible I’m comparing men to fish and dating to fishing?)

It does also help me stay a little more unattached than I might otherwise. I love to jump head first (into that fish pond) and I have definitely been guilty of getting ahead of myself when there wasn’t any foundation for it (this is a whole other blog post topic) but at least when there are multiple guys on the scene it allows me to not be motivated by a fear of scarcity and so build an entire life in my head with someone I’ve met once.

And at the end of the day, it’s how it is now. I didn’t feel that I could really not get onboard, unless I wanted to be the girl who was dating one person at a time when every guy I was dating was probably chatting to numerous other women. People who haven’t dated in years can’t get their head around it, and neither could I until I was thrust back into this dating life, and will say they couldn’t/wouldn’t do it but I’m not honestly sure there’s another way.

That doesn’t mean I love it, however. It took me a really long time to be comfortable (if I’m even comfortable with it now?) and I still have pangs of guilt at times because, you know, I have a conscience.

The whole practice feeds into the fact that people don’t give things a chance to develop – we’re so quick to move onto the next if the first date isn’t perfect, if the person doesn’t tick every single one of our prerequisite boxes, because we think the person we have a first date planned with tomorrow might! In the same way online dating apps can feel like online shopping, we also hope for the same return policies it seems.

And in having another first date set up for the next day are we setting the expectation that today’s date won’t be good? There’s a balance between not putting all our eggs in one basket and making sure there’s another egg available should the one we picked be bad. (Side note – now, men are eggs? Wow, all the comparisons are coming out today…) But there has to be something to be said for going into a date with nothing else on the horizon so you do truly give it the time and effort and mindfulness it deserves.

It also means you have to trust in the mis-trust, as I call it. You trust that the other person has the same level of mis-trust, that this isn’t going to work and so is also multi player dating. You never talk about it, you just assume that they know the rules of engagement, and so are also still swiping and matching and dating, and assume that they assume the same of you. There’s a lot of assumption, and let’s be honest, that’s never going to end well.

Where it does end normally is in an awkward conversation where one of you decides they don’t want to multi player date anymore and instead wants to get back to the traditional two player game, so has to ask “are you still dating other people?” No one wants the answer to that question to be yes. So the other tact is to go at it from the assumption route and frame it as “I’d like if we didn’t date anyone else anymore”, making it known you assume they have been and that essentially you have been also. It’s tres romantic. And let’s not even get into the health risks of sleeping with multiple people.

The whole thing just feels like being on a series of the Bachelor but you don’t get to see the other contestants, how’s that fair? You can’t beat the competition if you don’t know the competition, am I right?! Jokes, be yourself, don’t compete for anyone. But it makes my point.

And at the end of the day I like monogamy! Sorry not sorry if that’s boring but at the end of the day that’s what I’m looking for, that’s what I’m comfortable with, that’s the goal so why do I have to endure the uncertainty and ambiguity and secrecy that comes with multi player dating. And I always struggle with it because it makes me think lesser of the person (people!) I’m dating because I know they’re doing it…. but we all are!

What is it they say, don’t hate the player, hate the game. Though, if we’re honest, we could all be better, more mindful players too.

…previous post

Strings Optional

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Mar-2017

If you were to describe an ideal date for you, what would it be? A fancy dinner? Beers on the beach? A walk to some beautiful waterfalls? Or maybe it would be playing video games and eating junk food?

I didn’t know that last option would strike such a chord with me until I matched with a guy on Tinder and his opening line was “wanna play Mario Kart and eat ice cream?” and, dammit, the only answer I could give to that was a resounding “hell yes!”

And so we arranged a first date fairly quickly, which I always like. We did amend the initial plan, though, to just meeting for ice cream so that we would be in a public place, could both check out the other’s level of crazy and make sure we were both comfortable but, all being well, then a second date was going to be Mario Kart and ice cream at his place.

He was a 25 year old personal trainer, originally from France but had moved to Canada when he was 6 so was French accent-less, and was on some crazy bulking “diet” where he had to eat a ridiculous number of calories in a day – so the ice cream was really just to help him. And who am I, if not a supportive person?

We met at an ice cream place near where he lived – I went over a bridge for him. Well, technically I went over a bridge for ice cream, but… semantics. I wasn’t sure what to expect. If I’m being totally honest, I had 100% swiped right for the abs. The shirtless pic of him among friends had really got me. I still remember it, green leaf print board shorts, stupid look on his face, throwing some sign with his left hand that I’m not cool enough to understand the meaning of and with these glistening abs of steel.

As I’d found out with Arms, you should never judge books with good abs by their cover alone but his date suggestion, of Mario Kart and ice cream, was hardly a trip to an art gallery, so I didn’t know how much would be below the surface of the abs.

Thankfully, as we tucked into our ice cream, having been shown by him the best combo to have at this particular ice cream place, it became clear there was in fact a lot going on under that taught washboard stomach. He’d studied back in France for a year, found a lot of the North American way of life to be boring and vapid, was starting to build out his own business and loved repairing old motorbikes.

It was a good first date, even when his best friend and girlfriend happened to turn up for ice cream. They seemed nice, which is always a good sign, and it was an easy and fun chit chat that Frenchie, as he would be known, navigated smoothly. The only reason the date ended when it did was that he worked early mornings and so always had early nights. We said goodbye on the street, confirmed we’d do Mario Kart and ice cream next time and with a quick peck on the cheek, I was headed home.

Less than a week later and I was making my way over to his place – I travelled! Again! We’d also added pizza into the mix so essentially I was heading to a date dreamed up by a nine year old boy – pizza, ice cream, Mario Kart. And I wasn’t necessarily complaining.

It was a very fun night. I was absolutely abhorrent at Mario Kart, and devastated that I’d lost all the skills I’d had as a kid. It was most unfortunate considering we’d shared a fair amount of banter back and forth pre-date about who was going to kick whose ass. Turns out my confidence was misplaced.

My confidence that night in general was a little AWOL. In the week between dates, we’d had a fairly frank discussion about what we were both looking for and while up until that point I’d always been of the opinion that I was looking for a relationship, I was heading home to the UK for the entire month of April, so had decided maybe fun was a better option for now and when I came back I could re-assess. That sentiment worked with him and so the second date came with the unspoken expectation that while on the surface of it, it sounded like a nine year old’s dream Wednesday night, it was probably going to end a little differently.

And while over the months my confidence had been growing, there was something I found intimidating about the fact he was a personal trainer. It’s like when your hair needs doing and there’s a hairdresser in your group. Or when you’ve had some house renovations done and a contractor friend comes round to visit. You’re always worried about their judgement. In this case, I was worried that Mr Personal Trainer was going to be critical of my work-in-progress-body.

I know, I know, I know, body positivity is where it’s at. Who gives a fuck what someone else thinks about your body. Your body is incredibly strong and resilient and should be shown more respect than to be cheapened by numbers on a scale. But let’s be honest, when you’re thinking about being naked, particularly for the first time with someone you find attractive, there’s often a little voice in the back of your head hurling doubts at you.

But the voice got real quiet, when after Mario Kart and stuffing ourselves on pizza and ice cream – seriously, he might have been bulking, but I shouldn’t have been – the next, non-nine year old part of the date slowly but surely progressed and at the first stage of nakedness Frenchie stopped kissing me to say “your body is hot”. Umm, well, that’s not the worst thing to hear, especially from someone who improves bodies for a living.

Ugh, and I hate that I even wrote those last three paragraphs. I want to be one of those people that’s like “This is me bitches! Take me as I am!” And some days? Some days I am. Other days, most days, I’m like the majority of women (people?) who don’t always totally love everything about themselves.

Lying half naked on his couch with his compliment ringing in my ears definitely helped me relax and enjoy it more than I might have. Which was good, because his body, the sex, it all absolutely should have been enjoyed. There wasn’t a lot wrong with any of it. Apart from maybe the Mario Kart music going round on a loop in the background…

Despite the mood killer of the Mario Kart musical accompaniment, it was fun, we both seemed to enjoy it and as I left that night, saying I wasn’t sure I’d be able to see him before I left for my trip home, he asked me the most romantic of questions – “how do you feel about a threesome?”

My instant reaction was to ask which sex the third would be and he responded “whatever you’d want”. Hmm, interesting. I laughed and without answering kissed him goodbye and said I’d maybe see him in a month or so.

We weren’t in touch while I was away but when I got back I messaged him to catch up and see how things were. I realised that in the two dates we’d had before I left and now I was back, every time we texted it was easy, uncomplicated, straightforward, maybe slightly transactional? And I didn’t mind it. I always knew where I stood. Can you do this time? Yes/no. Does this time work? Yes. Great. Done.

Between his early mornings, my training for a half marathon and a busy social calendar, and his second job as a Butler In The Buff – yep, he’s one of those guys that has to serve champagne to drunken bachelorette parties wearing nothing but an apron – it was hard to get time to see each other but when we did it was always fun and it was always leading to one thing. No, not Mario Kart.

Most of the times I went over to his place, but I decided to put a stop to that after we ended up in his bedroom one time – yes, it had been the couch or bust before that but then he got a flatmate – and his bedroom was… questionable at best. Rancid at worst.

And, seriously, I need a clean and tidy surrounding to be able to fully get in the mood. The fact that his bed wasn’t even made, and I don’t just mean the covers turned up, I mean there were no sheets on the bed, and that you couldn’t see a surface because every inch was covered in.. stuff… it just didn’t make me feel super comfortable. Helped least of all by the fact that on the far side of his bed I noticed an open condom wrapper and bobby pins – neither of which had come from our interaction that night. It was definitely one of those “WTF – how did I get here?!” moments I write about a lot.

So I took a step back at that point and wasn’t planning on seeing him again, but he must have caught me at a weak spot because I ended up seeing him one more time but insisted he came over to mine. At least I knew where my sheets had been.

He came over on a sunny Sunday afternoon and brought some wine. We shared it on the balcony and chatted about life, his business, my dating. He was fascinated by me being 32, almost about to turn 33, and when he found out I was divorced – it had never come up in conversation prior to that day – it was a massive turn on for him. Which was just plain weird to me.

But regardless, whatever effect it had on him, it was a good one, we had some of the best sex we’d had that afternoon. Something I’d also learnt over this time; 25 year olds are unbelievably generous in the bedroom department. It was a revelation. And an incredibly welcome one. There is definitely something to be said for dating, or at least sleeping with, younger guys. Though maybe not as young as Billy The Kid…

Following the afternoon of sunshine drenched sex, we didn’t see each other for a few weeks due to conflicting schedules and two weeks later as I was out celebrating my birthday weekend, I got a text from him, about plans we’d made for the following week, saying he’d met someone and was dating her exclusively now but if I still wanted to meet up as friends we could.

It was a really weird feeling. Or rather it was really weird because there was no feeling. None. Other than “hmm, ok, nice.” I declined his offer to meet as friends, I hadn’t been on Tinder to meet friends and I thought it might be a bit weird for his new girlfriend. But it was the easiest “break up” I’ve had. There was no emotion involved. It had been purely about the sex and while it was unfortunate that that wasn’t going to be available anymore, it wasn’t like it had been happening that regularly anyway so it wasn’t a great loss.

And so a few days after my 33rd birthday I was able to confidently say that I’d engaged and disengaged from a no strings attached relationship. And, more importantly, my pride, my feelings and my self worth were intact. You really do never stop learning about yourself, even from 25 years olds. And the threesome never did come up again.

…previous post

Swiping For The Night

divorcedanddatingat302 Comments

Mar-2018

Are you one of those people who were young and free in their twenties and enjoyed all that went along with dating in university, when your end of term tests included a trip to the sexual health clinic too? Or have you always been in long term relationships and couldn’t image dating people casually, much less having a one night stand?

Maybe you’ve made the transition from the unbeholden youngster to the more stable “adult’? That’s the usual transition, the more socially acceptable one, from the former to the latter. I went from the latter to the former.

I had no experience of anything other than monogamous, fairly serious relationships up until the time I was 30. Even when I’d been at high school and university I think I maybe had one slightly wild night and ended up at some guy’s place. But it was a guy from my brother’s group of friends and nothing ended up happening.

I’d go as far as to say I was fairly judgemental about people who were looser with their sexuality, but I know now, as with most judgement, it came from a place of fear of the unknown. I was also probably jealous of the fact people had that level of comfort in themselves and their surroundings. It was totally alien to me.

When I got back into dating after my divorce, I was absolutely, 100% looking for a relationship. It never crossed my mind that I might like to date around for a while, keep things casual. And I don’t mean rush into a relationship, I obviously wanted it to be the right one. But to begin with I couldn’t even get my head around messaging multiple people at once so I never imagined I’d ever be just swiping on people for the night – like I had essentially been doing the weekend of rugby sevens or with The Tourist.

As I became more comfortable with myself, my boundaries, my needs, – and the more aware of the fact that a great relationship wasn’t easily falling into my lap – I also became more open to just having fun, exploring things, people, situations. Was I making up for my “lost twenties” (as one of my friends put it)? (Side note – I wouldn’t have said my twenties were lost, they were spent building a life I hoped I was going to be living for a very long time, in fact I think I remember planning for it til I died)

So at some point, needing to have a connection with someone or wanting something more than a night with someone was replaced with being ok with just having a fun night, or a fun couple of nights with nothing else likely to come of it. It was a refreshingly new outlook for me.

And I felt judged. I felt judged by myself – is that possible?!. I felt judged by friends – was that a projection of my own feelings?!. I felt judged by society – was society even paying attention?!. It was something I was worried about being honest about when I started this blog because of what light it might paint me in. I felt that there was the possibility that if the protagonist you’re reading about is sleeping around, you’re maybe not going to have quite the same empathy for her and her journey/struggles/stories. (Did you read the story about the 21 year old?!)

Society is undeniably judgemental of promiscuity – a synonym for “promiscuous” is “immoral” for God’s sake! And especially judgemental when it comes to women. Men get high fived for sleeping with women, while women get asked if they had feelings for them and if they used protection. Where the hell are my high fives?!

Of course there’s things to be said for being safe, sexually healthy and making sure all parties are free, or at least aware, of other ongoing relationships but in the cold light of day there should be no shame in the sex game! Creating a safe space to say that, to talk about it, to debate it, to explore it, understand it, question it, is something I have been trying to do more and more with my friends. There are some I’ve still not quite broached the subject with, but there are others who it’s totally normal with. I have two friends in particular that I know every time we meet up our conversations will always eventually turn to chats about anal. Yup, I said it – we talk about anal sex, normally while eating pie. Shocking… (where’s the rolling eye emoji)

For some of you, you’ll be like “what’s the big deal, you’ve slept with some guys and talk about sex?” but for a lot of women, me included, this isn’t or at least hasn’t always been the case. I’m grateful that this random life path I’ve found myself on has allowed me to explore this entirely new side to relationships and life and sex.

I’ve been told I talk like a guy now when it comes to sex… by guys. I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment or an insult. But it says a lot that just the fact I talk openly and bluntly about it, (note – there’s a difference between bluntness and crassness) means that I’m deemed less womanly, less feminine. Oh well, suck it! (pun intended)

Swiping for the night and swiping for Mr Right can be very different but sometimes when you think you’re doing one you’re actually doing the other so who knows… but the good news is I’m now comfortable with both, whether society is or not, and that is a happy place to be.

Next post…

…previous post

Are You On The Guestlist? And Do You Have ID?

divorcedanddatingat303 Comments

Mar-2017

This is a story I’ve been kind of dreading telling… You know when things happen, situations arise, decisions are made and then you’re like “wow, did that just happen?” That was how I felt come the Monday morning after this particular escapade. But you know what? I’m not going to shy away from telling the story, I’m going to own it and chalk it up to that great big wonderful thing you can’t get without fucking up every now and again – experience!

It was my favourite weekend in Vancouver – Rugby Sevens – and as well as bumping into Toronto Dimple Chin, it had been two days filled with Tindering and Bumbling while all the players (and referees – shout out to Mike!) were in town. My friends had made some questionable swipes and started some wholly inappropriate chats but in the midst of that I’d also matched with one of the players on the Japanese team and had been messaging throughout the weekend – yes, while he should have been concentrating on playing.

He was originally from New Zealand, but was playing for Japan through residency rules, and he had pretty good banter, including calling my friend out when she had taken over the messaging for a while and congratulated him on their most recent game, which they’d lost…

We made plans to meetup on the Sunday night, when the tournament was over. It’s always a pretty big night because the players can let loose and the rest of us have been drinking for two days straight. And those sensible among us, always take the Monday off work because, like I say, sensible.

By the time the Sunday night came around, most of my friends were very worse for wear and some of them weren’t sensible and didn’t take the Monday off, so it ended up being just 3 of us who were going to see it out and head to the bar that the players all go to once the tournament wraps up.

On reaching the bar, I remembered why I don’t like going to places like this – the lineup was insane, and I’m too old/mature/boring/lazy (*delete as appropriate) for that shit. In fact there were two lines – one going either way down the street from the door. What kind of merry hell was this?!

Two of my friends didn’t even want to find out, so they sensibly bailed right away. Which left me and one of my best girlfriends, who is one of the best wing women you could ask for. Her husband had already gone home, but she was stoic in her support of my rugby player plans and had already begun finding ways for us to cut the line before I could ask what she wanted to do.

She worked out one of the lines was general admission and one was guestlist. She then found a group of mostly guys about a third of the way through the guestlist line from the door, sidled up to them, confirmed they were on the guestlist and asked if we could piggy back.

This group of fairly fresh faced guys were probably thrown by the random English woman asking them if her and her Scottish friend could join them, that they just nodded in agreement and we duly slipped into the line at the back of their group.

To pass the time waiting, we naturally started chatting to the group who were gracious enough to let us hop on their guestlist group. It turned out they were all students at one of the city’s universities and a number of them were there on baseball scholarships. They grilled us on what we knew about baseball, we responded entirely with answers relating to either cricket or rounders – what can I say? We’re British.

Finally, we got to the door, the guys kindly told the bouncers we were with them and in next to no time we were all inside. Them scattering to no doubt go and check out the lie of the land, my girlfriend and I to the bar. Priorities.

Once we got a drink, we did a walk around the place. I’d only been there once before, on the Sunday night of Rugby Sevens the year before, and I forgot how dingy it was. But that’s where I said I’d see Japanese Kiwi Rugby Player so here we were. But he’d also pointed out to me that once he left his hotel he wouldn’t have any mobile data so he wouldn’t be able to message me and we’d just have to “find each other”. If the place hadn’t been such a hole, it might have been romantic.

It was at that stage I realised what a pain the arse that was going to be. It wasn’t exactly a small bar and it was packed out – hence the massive lines outside. How was I going to know when he got there? How would he find me in amongst the swathes of university students who were just out for their usual Sunday night session and bemused by all these drunken rugby fans and players?

Rather than worry about that we went to the bar a couple more times, engaged in some hilarious people watching, feeling every one of our thirty plus years, and bumped into our newly made student friends from the lineup outside a couple of times. The third time we saw them, the guy who we’d conversed with the most in the lineup asked us if we wanted a drink. He was cute and fresh faced and screamed naivety so we felt bad taking his money and instead offered to get him a drink.

As we’d watched them from afar it was clear he was pretty popular amongst his group, both with the guys he’d gone in with and with a few groups of girls who’d made a beeline for them when they arrived. I was having serious flashbacks to my university days, which were not all that recent in my memory.

Somewhere between that first drink we all got together and the third, after we’d each bought each other a drink (he insisted he wanted to repay the favour), I decided that I didn’t want to stay out much longer. The weekend was catching up with me and seeing as I had no idea what time Japanese Kiwi Rugby Player might turn up, I didn’t fancy hanging around forever, especially when there was a real chance he might not turn up at all, or he would and we’d never see each other.

At round the same time, my wing woman, our new found student friend and I took a picture together and I remember putting my hand on his back and being pleasantly surprised by how muscular it was. Who knew baseball players were so jacked? I naturally then checked out his arms and didn’t find a terrible sight there either.

What happened next is like when the waitress comes to take your order and you can’t decide but you know you’re really hungry and you don’t want to waste more precious time, so you make a rushed, maybe slightly questionable choice.

Somewhere between the back, the arms and the gin, I decided that maybe I shouldn’t bother waiting for the rugby player who was probably having the same conversation with ten different girls over the course of the weekend? Maybe I should just take this fairly eager young stud (yep I wrote that, yep I’m having a Jackie Collins moment again) and be done with it. I was pretty sure he was flirting with me…

Fast forward maybe 20 minutes, my girlfriend goes to the bathroom and I decided… well essentially I decided “fuck it”. I ask him if he wants to come back to mine, he gave a pretty positive response and before my girlfriend returned we were off. I know, props to my girlfriend who being the wing woman she is presumed after coming back to the bar and doing a lap of the place that we’d gone, and so promptly took herself home where I’m sure she wished she’d been hours ago.

While my friend was quite possibly doing her last look for us, with me leading the way and the student grasping my hand, we headed for the door making our way through the crowds. With the front door in sight, I couldn’t wait to get out the sweaty, noisy, dark, dingy hole but being so focused on the exit strategy it was impossible to miss a whole group of what looked like.. um, yeah… what looked like, unmistakably a team of Japanese rugby players.

The next 15 seconds happened in slow motion, I can still picture it in my head. I’m striding towards the street, there’s this whole group coming towards us and in the midst of nine or ten fairly fit looking guys, mostly Japanese, I see a face that is pretty familiar given the number of times I’ve looked at it on his Tinder profile, he looks up at the exact same second, sees me, the recognition sweeps across his face as it sweeps across mine, as we’re both getting closer to each other given that we’re going in opposite directions but in the exact same path, and as we pass by, within ridiculous close proximity of each other, given how busy with bodies the place was, he looks at me, looks down at my hand, looks up at the guy holding my hand and clearly following me, looks back at me and mouths “where the fuck are you going?” with a really confused look on his face.

And just like, with a sort of apologetic shrug, I kept going and we were out onto the street with student none the wiser as to what had just happened.

The rest of that night was a disappointing blur, we didn’t even get McDonald’s on the way home. What kind of a sick joke is that? Instead we got home and both absolutely crashed. The morning however was also an equal disappointment, with some terrible morning sex which I realised halfway through was being carried out while he was still wearing socks. White, ankle sports socks. Who goes out in those? Oh yeah, the guy who was also wearing a baseball cap backwards that’s who.

The sex, was also barely even sex, if you know what I’m saying. I don’t know if it was a hangover or he wasn’t used to strange Scottish women taking him home but he definitely wasn’t the virile mid-twenty-something I had hoped.

Instead we mostly lay and talked about his courses, baseball, his family, his life ambition, he asked a lot about how I could afford to live in an apartment like I did, how I’d got into the job I had now and why I wasn’t getting up for work.

As I explained I’d taken the day off but did need to get up because I was going to meet friends for breakfast – a total lie just to get him out of my place – he stopped me and said “can I ask a weird question?” Oh god, really… “Sure!” “Would it be ok if I showered before I left? Your bathroom is so much nicer than the ones we have on campus.”

Oh dear god, this is what has become of me?! How did this happen? Why did I not take longer to make my food order?? Why was I so hungry???

As he showered and I questioned my life, I was also texting my usual group chat of girlfriends, the wing woman from the previous night and two friends we have in London. Wing woman had presumed I’d ended up going off with student, or had maybe actually met Japanese Kiwi Rugby Player, and the two girls across the pond were wanting all the details of both. In amongst many of the details they asked, they also asked student’s age and just as I was about to reply with “24 I think”, my friend pipes up and in front of my eyes, on the whatsapp screen that had been making me feel better up until that point I see “21”.

WHAAAAAAAAAT?! No! He was not 21… He was not 11 years younger than me… He was not younger than my youngest cousin… He was not more than an entire decade away from me in age!! How had I not known that? At what point had my friend got that information and I had either not heard, mis-heard or decided to not remember? Mother of all that is good in this world, there was a 21 year old CHILD showering naked in my bathroom.

My girlfriends, of course, were of much comfort at this point. Not. The kid jokes started coming in thick and fast, and given what his name was, he was quickly referred to from then on as Billy The Kid. Never before have I ever wished so much that joining that line up the night before we’d not only asked them if they were on the guestlist but if we could, in fact, also pre-check their ID.

Next post…

…previous post

Full Disclosure Required

divorcedanddatingat304 Comments

Feb-2017

Nobody wants to be a downer on a first date and generally topics such as bad breakups or ongoing medical conditions might be left until a possible second or third date. But when does trying to keep things light and fun actually become hiding, or lying about, your current state?

I met Irish Tech Triathlete online, he was 36, so entirely age appropriate (whatever the hell that means) for me, we had a lot in common in that we both worked in tech and we both enjoyed working out, not that I was training for triathlons or iron man races, and he was pretty funny.

We matched on a Sunday afternoon and by 5pm he called me. Like phoned me. On the telephone. I forgot people used them for that. It was a pleasant surprise in a number of ways – a) no one calls anymore, everyone hides behind texts (me included); b) often online matches can take what seems like an age to actually get to the meeting stage which bores me and; c) he was just as fun on the phone as he was on text.

He had a busy week coming up, and so did I, so he suggested we meet for drinks in the next hour. Um… what? I’m lying on my sofa, covered in cookie crumbs, wearing bed socks and now I have to make myself presentable not just to the world but to a first date. Ugh… fine.

An hour and a half later, cookie crumbs and bed socks gone, and we’re in a bar close to my house, having a really fun time. He was a super funny guy, we got on immediately, with a lot in common and easy banter back and forth. It’s the one difference I’ve noticed between dating North Americans and people from “back home” or maybe just outside of North America – there’s a sense of fun and banter and sarcasm and teasing that I haven’t found with people from Canada and the US. That’s not to say they don’t get there eventually but in the first instance, with someone new I don’t feel like they’re entirely comfortable with being that way. Brits or Irish on the other hand are happy to absolutely take the piss out of anyone and there’s something strangely comforting in it!

As the date went on, we had more drinks and he probably had two beers for every gin I had but he was a big guy, like 6”2 and he was well built so I didn’t think much of it. However by the time we got ready to leave he’d had a good few pints and I was aware he was definitely tipsy, while I felt fine, thankfully.

I lived a block round the corner which I didn’t strictly tell him but when he suggested walking me home, I figured I didn’t mind him knowing where I lived. When we got to my building though he made a comment about the building I lived in and how he was interested to see the view from my apartment. I’d had no intention of inviting him up but for whatever reason, in that moment I decided I’d let him come up. I was actually surprised by how much I liked him.

Did I feel pressure? A little. Did I think it was easier just to concede to a half drunk guy? Probably. Did I feel threatened? No, not explicitly. But it was another situation where maybe I should have found and used my voice more vociferously.

Voice MIA, we go up to my apartment, and in my head I know it’s literally going to be a look around, let him see the view and then say bye, no offer of a drink, no offer of a seat, nothing. I’m aware that trying to get rid of him from inside my apartment is arguably more difficult than from outside my apartment building when my concierge was 20 metres away. I’m not saying it made sense, but it’s what I did.

We duly look at the view, I show him around my tiny apartment which takes all of 20 seconds and then I say it’s time for him to go and me to go to bed. Of course he makes a joke about us both just going to my bed, which I laugh off. Then he says “but how am I supposed to get home? I drove and I can’t drive now.”

This is where, previously, I would have started feeling bad, offered for him to stay, offered to drive him myself (even though I definitely couldn’t have either), just tried to fix it in some way. But after bending over backwards for guys previously and it coming back to bite me on the arse, I decided he was a grown ass man who could figure it out himself. How had he thought this was going to play out? That I’d just let him stay? Not tonight my friend, not tonight.

He pretended to be hurt that I wasn’t helping him solve the problem he’d created for himself and then conceded that he would get a cab and come back for his car in the morning. He kissed me goodnight and it was a nice, albeit slightly drunken kiss. As the kiss went on I could feel him exerting some of that 6”2 frame on me to try and get me towards my bedroom from standing by my front door. I tried to resist, but at 5”4.5 I was really up against it.

So I pulled away, called him out on it and said goodnight. He gave me another peck, then just as I thought he was leaving, came back and started to kiss me again, and yet again tried to move me towards the bedroom. At this point I realised he had to go, so I pulled back, opened the door and essentially, hand in the small of his back (which was about mid-rib height on me), ushered him out.

I was disappointed the night had ended like that, he’d been a really fun guy and I had wanted to see him again but feeling like he was pressuring me first to come up to my apartment, then to stay and then to get me into my bedroom – it didn’t feel great. I put it down to him being drunk, he hadn’t seemed like that earlier in the night, but even if it was “just” when he’s drunk surely that was enough to be a red flag. And I wondered if he was even aware of it.

The next morning he messaged to say he’d had a great time, that he’d picked up his car and he was sorry for being a little “worse for wear”, he hadn’t realised how much he’d had to drink. I appreciated that he made mention of it. I’d have found it more difficult if he’d just swept it under the carpet. I also felt bad for him that it was a Monday morning and he was feeling rough – not a great start to anyone’s week.

Still, the end of the night before had definitely left a sour taste in my mouth and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see him again. So I replied to his initial text, something light and non-committal, wished him a good day and left it at that.

We texted a couple of times over the coming week, just small talk around our days, jokes from our first date and then the next Saturday when we were messaging, he said was skiing up in Whistler but suggested meeting up when he was back down in the city. I figured a second date was at least worth a go, so told him to text me when he got back and then we could see what time it was and make plans.

Silence.

I never heard from him again. For two and a half weeks. No follow up to our potential Saturday night plans, no messages afterwards to say his day had changed or to catch up with me after the weekend. Then one random Thursday afternoon at 5pm he messaged asking if I was free and wanted to go for drinks that night.

I was already at happy hour with a couple of friends, but figured I could go meet him after that. In hindsight, between the weird end to the first date and him going MIA for over two weeks I should have called it quits at that point, but it seems I’m not a quitter, in the worst possible way, so we made plans and I headed to meet him around 8pm.

He was really apologetic about his disappearance, which I fully called him out on. He’d been busy with work and there had been a lot of stuff going on. I explained that inconsistency didn’t work for me, which he said he understood and it wouldn’t happen again. He’d wanted to see me, but had just needed to sort some stuff out.

In the next couple of hours he did a great job of turning around the situation because somehow we ended up back in my apartment, again, and this time I was more open to the possibility of him ending up in my bed.

He was really fun and funny and (despite the initial red flags) seemed to have his shit together. He had his own place, had a good job, seemed to have a busy social life. He also wasn’t bad to look at and that never hurts. The rugby sevens weekend was coming up and he hadn’t been planning to go but as we were talking about it he mentioned it would be fun to hang out together at it, so he’d look at getting tickets. It felt like he could actually slot into my life kinda nicely, if it came to that.

Back at mine, he was far more respectful and guarded than he’d been the first night. He didn’t seem in a rush either which was nice. Or at least, it would have been if it hadn’t been for the fact that as things were about to start getting kind of serious after a whole lot of getting naked (side note – triathletes have incredibly lean bodies!) he “lost that loving feeling” – as it were.

Now, I get it, shit happens, you can’t control that thing – I mean the feeling, not the actual “thing”, although I’ve heard it claimed many a time it does in fact have a mind of its own – but twice? I had to try my best not to take it personally and wonder if my less than triathlete lean body wasn’t quite doing it for him.

After the second time, it was clear he wasn’t up (pun intended) for trying to make it work and instead just lay quietly in the dark. I gave it a minute and then asked the darkness “so, what’s up with that?” I’m sure I could have been more sensitive but… fuck it.

He stayed silent for a few minutes as the question kind of hung in the air. A number of times I wanted to interject the sound of tumbleweed and make a joke or try and offer up a possible reason or solution but instead I let the silence fill the space.

Eventually, after what felt like a lifetime, he started to talk. With an arm over his face, like a little boy admitting to something he’d done. He explained to me that the ex he had mentioned briefly on our first date was not only an ex from just a few weeks ago (the most recent time they’d broken up anyway), she was in fact also the mother of his 18 month old child.

A child he was now in a custody battle for, but was already solely looking after. A child he’d had with him in Whistler those few weekends ago and so was never going to be able to go out when he got back to the city. A child that he was going to have at the weekend and so he was never going to be able to come to the rugby sevens. A child that meant he only worked 4 days a week, yet he’d made comments about being Monday to Friday. A child he’d had done a very good job of actively avoiding talking about. A child I didn’t know he had.

The fact he had a child wasn’t the issue. The fact that when he’d told stories, like how he’d been hiking the other weekend, he purposely neglected to tell me that the other person on the hike with him, had been his baby. That when we agreed about how great living alone was, he didn’t actually live alone, he lived with his child.

I get it, it was a second date, I was hardly about to walk down the aisle and was just hearing all this stuff for the first time but there was something about the fact that it was a massive part of his life that he’d left out, so the whole picture of his life he’d painted was in fact false. Plus, now that massive part of his life was impacting his ability to be present in this part of his life.

He had been trying to learn Canadian child custody laws so he could fight for sole custody without having to pay for lawyers he couldn’t afford, he’d had to get a restraining order against his ex to stop her taking the child out the country, which apparently she’d attempted to do a number of times, he didn’t have a huge support network here with his family being back in Ireland and the 4 days of the week he worked he would do 14 hour days so he was almost working full time hours.

When he was explaining the situation, and giving the backstory, he was clearly anguished, he was clearly stressed and, despite how little I knew him (clearly!), it pained me to witness it. I started having flashbacks to when I had felt trapped and unable to cope with a situation. But that was years ago and I wasn’t attempting to date while going through it.

I mostly stayed quiet throughout his explanation. There wasn’t a lot I could say. I quieted my first instinct to help and, I don’t know, offer to babysit?! This wasn’t my mess to try and fix and while I felt bad for him and thought it was incredible he was stepping up to be the sole caregiver and I hoped the situation would resolve itself, I knew that I didn’t have the capacity to support someone through something like this. And in fairness, he wasn’t asking me to. But he clearly also wasn’t able to put it aside, which is no surprise, and so there really wasn’t a lot else to say.

He admitted he had hoped that dating might help him take his mind off it and would bring some light relief to an otherwise fairly stressful life, but had realised that in fact he wasn’t ready for it. Well no fucking shit. If he’d actually told me the situation right off the bat I would have told him he was attempting a triathlon before he could even crawl.

I halted the dragging night from taking either of us down further with a swift and entirely inappropriately cheery “well, you should probably go now!” I’m not sure I’ve ever asked someone to leave as they were lying naked next to me in my bed. But I guess there’s a first time for everything? And this felt like the right time to try it out.

And that was that, Irish Tech Triathlete, and his complicated custody issues, was never to be heard from again.

Next post…

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The Real Love Of My Life

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Mar-2018

Why am I writing a blog about dating if I’ve already found the love of my life? Don’t worry, this isn’t a spoiler that I’ve found my life partner – although if she were single and we both swung that way I wouldn’t say no.

No, the real love of my life I’m talking about is someone I’ve mentioned a couple of times in previous posts, who’s always there to help me in my time of need, and knows just what to say.  The love of my life is Julia, my therapist. She who assists me in learning all the lessons I write about.

Talking about my problems, or really anything, has never been a problem for me, I’ll tell anyone. Sometimes I wish I maybe had a little more of a filter, but it’s how I am. Sharing is caring, right? So going to “speak to someone” about things like my ex-husband cheating wasn’t that difficult. I know for some people the thought of having to be vulnerable or self reflect is enough to make them run for the hills.

I had been to see counsellors back in the UK, when my parents divorced when I was a teenager and also when issues first surfaced in my marriage, and while I always thought of them as positive experiences I never felt I had any real “a-ha!”, come to Jesus moments in those sessions. I never really came out feeling all that much different.

Yes, I had maybe learnt some new coping mechanisms or better ways to communicate but in terms of feeling wholly better about the issue at hand? I wouldn’t say that there was an overwhelming feeling of change. So I’d let the time between sessions get longer and eventually stop going altogether.

My life changed though when during a particularly difficult few months of my new life in Canada, I found myself in a fairly dark, deepening spiral of depression-like symptoms and knew I needed to do something about it. I had begun to experience severe social anxiety as a result, which I hated because it perpetuated the issue. The anxiety made me not want to go out, so I’d stay in and the feelings would deepen, and the anxiety would worsen with the longer I squirrelled myself away. It was a never ending cycle.

I didn’t know exactly what was at the bottom of it, but given some experience with depression in my late teens, I was aware of what the feelings were and knew I needed to seek help.

And that can sometimes be the hardest part – just knowing you need help when you’re reaching breaking point. Thankfully my friend who is a therapist (she of brilliance who helped me craft the final text to Filipeen) recommended me to another therapist she knew to be good. Given that my friend can’t counsel me, it was the next best thing to get a recommendation from her, someone I trust.

My first few sessions with Julia were, as is normal with a new therapist/client relationship, mostly me just unloading all my experience (we don’t call it baggage) and explaining what I was struggling with. There was a lot, I mean I think it was session three or four before I was no longer telling her about another life dramas I hadn’t gotten round to with her yet. But at the end of every session she would ask “what was something useful today?” and there would always be something. Either a question she asked that got me to think about something differently, or a comment she would make or a story she would tell of her own personal experience to complement mine.

There was always something, usually more than one thing, that was useful. So while I wasn’t having any massive revelations in the first few weeks/months, it was definitely feeling beneficial right from the outset.

The sessions were hard, I would come out of them emotionally wrought and exhausted. I got into the habit of having them late on Friday afternoons, and then I would take my tear stained cheeks home and hibernate for the night. But despite the rawness of those sessions, with tissue in hand, I would text my Mum on the walk home and say what a great session it was. Every single time.

I started seeing Julia at the end of the September and by the early-February I had made contact with my father who I hadn’t spoken to in 15 years, had truly processed my divorce and started to deal with the residual bullshit it had left me with, and had started dating again. She was a miracle worker. And for the first time in a really long time I could say I felt happy.

For me, there was something about being able to see the change, being able to feel the release of years of tension and anguish and hurt and guilt. One of my favourite things to do is carry guilt about situations I had no control over, it’s a skill. And the impact that had on my day to day life and, more importantly, my mental state was huge.

Mental health is no joke. One in five people in Canada will experience a mental health problem or illness each year and in the UK that number is one in four. Mental illness affects people of all ages, education, income levels, and cultures and around 10% of adults will experience major depression at some time in their lives.

I truly believe that as a society we need to do more to remove the stigma around mental health and also accept the fact that you don’t necessarily need to be manically depressed to need, or be benefitted by, therapy. Life is hard, everyone’s life is hard – yes, even the people who seemingly have it easy. They likely also have struggles. Everyone does. Why do we pretend we don’t?

I get that it’s not the most glamorous or comfortable thing to talk about, but we do need more to make sure we’re creating safe spaces where people can feel like they can be honest about it and where they can get help. I know I’m lucky that I have the ability to seek out and pay for my own therapy.

Even if you’ve never experienced a big life trauma such as a divorce, or the loss of a loved one, or addiction, abuse, or another life event which you may seek therapy for afterwards, I still believe there’s value in having someone, in a safe space, you can be vulnerable and self reflect with.

As you may be able to tell, I am a massive advocate of therapy and have recommended Julia to a number of my friends. I’m also super happy to talk to my friends about anything – my issues, their issues – but just talking isn’t the same. A professional has years of training and, crucially, they also have no bias. As friends, or as anyone who in some way is connected to that person other than for therapy’s sake, we can’t say that.

Support networks are important, don’t get me wrong. Having my friends and family support me after I’d had a tough session or when I was facing big changes was key and I couldn’t have done any of it without them. But without Julia I don’t know that I’d have gotten to where I am now.

That’s not to say that everything in my life is now perfect, it’s not and it never will be. Nothing is perfect. I still see Julia every month or so, for “little tune ups” as I call them or when something shakes me I’ll go more often, like after Filipeen I was there a lot more frequently, unsurprisingly.

In this world of ever changing situations, and relationships, and myself, it’s important to keep reflecting and growing and Julia provides me with the ability to do that, which makes it the best money I spend each month, hands down. And I don’t doubt, as this journey still has many more corners to turn and curve balls to throw at me, that my dates with the real love of my life will continue to be some of the best dates I have.

Next post…

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Death By Dimple

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Jan-2017

As I stated in my very first blog post, there have been many What The Actual F^&% moments throughout the process of my divorce and since getting back into dating, in fairness I think that’s just life in general. But most of them were “WTAF is this shit?” Few are “WTAF this is brilliant!” But every so often, just now and again, those pleasant WTAFs do appear.

Having wallowed and reflected for a few weeks after Filipeen, I eventually felt better enough (read bored enough) to get back on the dating apps and see what was out there. It had been lovely not to be on them for three months while I was dating (and then getting over) him but here in Vancouver, it’s unfortunately the easiest way to meet people.

I’d gone super blonde in the week after Filipeen – what is it they say about “new hair, don’t care”? Well I had new hair but at that point I still did care –  so on the Thursday night that I got back to using the apps (Bumble and Tinder were my go tos), I updated my photos and began endlessly swiping. As I always find with Bumble, when you haven’t been on for a while, you get a string of really attractive guys up first to make you think you’ve been missing out, and then slowly it fades into the faces you’ve seen on there months before and didn’t swipe right (positively) for then and won’t be swiping right for now.

I’m always convinced those attractive bait ones are just made up accounts – the men are too pretty – but the next morning I was to be proved wrong when one of them swiped right on me, we matched and we started chatting when I commented on the fact he stated in his profile that he hated the cold – and we were in mid-winter. The conversation went from there and by the time I was walking out my office that afternoon for the weekend, we had made plans to meet up the next night.

Up until that point he’d been fairly serious, with only slight hints of jokes in his messages but that Friday night, as I was getting ready to go out with friends and we were texting, it became a little more banterful (how I prefer all my messaging) and flirty. He had finished up work just after I did and was meeting up with some friends for drinks and he thought a dinner. When it turned out the dinner wasn’t going to happen he asked if I was free to bring our date forward a night and meet up later that evening.

As much as I was excited to meet him, it was going to have to wait. I had a friend’s birthday I was going out for that night and I wasn’t sure inviting him along would be a great basis for a first date because a) my friends are liabilities and b) we were going to an amateur strip show in a super dingy bar on the east side of the city. Yes, yes, you read that right. It was a strip show with only two rules: entrants couldn’t be professional strippers and; no sex acts on stage. Otherwise anyone and everyone could have at ‘er.

However, after a couple of drinks at the birthday boy’s apartment before we all went out, I obviously changed my mind about this not being a good breeding ground for a first date and asked him if he wanted to join. We’d been texting almost constantly and I realised it would be easier, and less rude, for him to just be here than for me to be on my phone all night. At first he sounded keen, even when I’d provided full disclosure about where we were going, but then when he realised I was already with all my friends and he wouldn’t be meeting me first he changed his mind. I did offer to go meet him separately but he insisted I stayed with my friends and we’d just do Saturday instead, as originally planned.

I was kinda disappointed he didn’t come out, it would have been a great first date story, something we agreed on as we continued to text while I was in a cab to the bar with some of my friends. He mentioned we’d just have to make tomorrow as good a story, maybe with the same level of nakedness. I had told him the show was full nudity… so his message was presumptuous… but I didn’t hate it.

He was 29, originally from Vancouver, his parents were still here but he was now living in Toronto. He had just sold a business he’d built from nothing and was recently appointed President at a new sports tech business. He used to play basketball, still seemed to keep himself incredibly fit, was 5”11 and from all his pictures looked pretty god damn fine.

The fact he didn’t live here, albeit he travelled back here for work about once a month, and the mention of nudity on the first date, I was well aware that a date with him wasn’t likely to be the start of a beautiful long-term relationship. But at that point, I decided a sex date might actually be just what I needed to wash Filipeen out of my newly blonded hair once and for all. What is it they say about getting over a man, get under another one?

As my night became more debauched and drunken and naked (the strippers, you understand, not me) there were texts back and forth with him about private dances and eventually he admitted he wished he’d come out and instead he was lying all alone in his bed. Normally I would have thought that was a not-so-subtle invitation for me to go over, but given that he stays with his parents when he’s in town, it was unlikely that he wanted me to turn up on his parents’ doorstep.

We said goodnight and planned to be in touch the next day to make arrangements. It had been a pretty escalating day of chat, considering we only matched that morning, and I was really looking forward to meeting him – he seemed like a funny (dry sense of humour) guy, who seemed to have his shit together and if he looked even remotely like his pictures I was in for a treat.

The next day, over texts and a couple of phone calls, we made plans that he would come downtown after an early dinner he had with his parents. I tried to arrange to meet at a bar but he was insistent about staying in with a bottle of wine. And to be honest, still feeling a little shaky from the birthday antics the night before, I was ok with that. So, for the first time ever, I gave a man I had never met my address and had him turn up on my doorstep.

And I know what you’re thinking – ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS?! Always meet in a public place, never give your address until you know them, make sure they know you do kickboxing and can kick their ass etc etc!

Like I say, it was the first time I’d ever done it and part of me was horrified at myself, but the other part trusted my gut, and my gut told me it was ok, he didn’t seem like “that sort of guy”. You know, the sort to murder a Bumble date in her apartment. (I joke, but it’s a serious issue and I’m aware that women need to take care of their safety at all times, which I don’t take lightly.) And so just after 8pm my buzzer went and I apprehensively waited for the elevator to deliver him to the 10th floor and hear a knock on my door.

To say I wasn’t disappointed is the understatement of the year.

Things I hadn’t noticed or seen in his profile pictures – this unbelievably sexy salt and pepper hair, more expected on a man of 40 or 50 but hugely attractive on a hot guy of 29; arms that even under his jacket I could tell were going to be my favourite part about him; and this deep dimple square in the middle of his chin that I just wanted to nestle my head in forever. And something I couldn’t have known from his profile but had picked up in the couple of phone calls earlier in the day but was now confirmed; an incredibly attractive, accented, maybe east coast-ish, slightly husky voice.

This WTAF moment was possibly the best, most pleasantly surprising I’d ever experienced. I had to do all I could to pick my jaw up off the floor and make words come out of my mouth while simultaneously quieting the voice in the back of my head that was saying “well, he’s going to be disappointed with you”.

He’d brought wine so while I got that opened and he took a look at the view from my place, the easy chatting we’d had over text picked up in person. He was super easy to talk to and had led a really interesting life. He was also clearly a lover of the finer things (the wine he brought was not a cheap bottle, apparently he only flies business class and his taste in hotels includes some of the finest in the world) and I think knew he was very successful for his age, but in a matter of fact, appreciative, because he’d made so many sacrifices, kind of a way. And I didn’t hate any of it.

We discovered a shared love of rugby and spoke about the rugby sevens coming up in Vancouver in a few months, but he didn’t think he’d be in town for it. I realised I was already hoping to hear of any next visits to Vancouver he may have, and we weren’t even through our first glass of wine yet…

With so much talking, it took me a while to realise that either we were going to just have a lovely evening of wine and chit chat or he was going to have to make a move. Because I knew I sure as hell wasn’t. I also realised that surely being in someone’s apartment, other than it having easy access to a bedroom, made it more difficult for something more physical to happen naturally, no? At least at a bar you might be huddled around a table and able to get a little closer. Or moving from a restaurant to a bar there’s the opportunity for some contact while you’re walking. At the movies, there’s the potential for a brushing of hands. Sitting on the couch in someone’s house? You really had to make that shit happen for yourself. And I knew that I, for one, would not be the one to do that. No matter how much I wanted to get a little closer to that dimple.

We ended up talking about basketball at one stage, with me asking him if he’d always played, if he still played etc etc. I commented that, despite playing in high school, it wasn’t the sport for me given my short, fat fingers. As I said it, he leaned forward and took my wine glass out my hand, placed it on the table and took my hand to look at said short, fat fingers.

I was simultaneously distressed at the fact he was now examining one of the areas of my body I hated the most – why had I brought up my goddamn chunky digits?! – but thrilled that, other than a swift hug when he’d first arrived which I hadn’t been able to enjoy because I was so pleasantly stunned, we were now engaging in physical contact.

That physical contact seemed to be the only in he needed. He briefly dropped my hand, to have more of his wine, and then in one swift movement was over on the other part of the sectional sofa, half standing, half kneeling on the sofa over me. It felt imposing and incredibly sexy, and I was aware instantly, there was something about his energy in that moment, that he was probably very dominant sexually. This could be fun.

He was forceful in a very flirtatious way, so that not once did I have a concern about a man, whom I’d met only a couple of hours earlier and let into my apartment, ordering me around. To be honest, I was more than happy to comply. He took his shirt off and the delight I experienced when he first arrived, was elevated by about a hundred. His arms were, as I had imagined from that first in real life glimpse, delightful. That salt and pepper hair, which turned out to be outrageously long on top of his head when I actually ran my fingers through it, and matching stubble and chest hair was ridiculously sexy. And that dimple? Good God, that dimple.

The only thing I didn’t like was some of the chat. Now, I’m a talker during sex, I mean not like a “hi, how’s your day been” kinda talker, but I like keeping the lines of communication open, vocalising appreciation, making suggestions and laughing. There’s nothing I love more than when you’re comfortable enough with a sexual partner that you can laugh at the unavoidable weird/awkward/funny stuff that happens during sex. Silent sex does not do it for me.

But some questions, particularly when you don’t know your partner all that well, you know like when you only met him for the first time when he turned up on your doorstep two and a half hours ago, just seem a little forced and unnecessary. And I know for some people hearing their partner talk about what they like and want done to them, in the midst of sex, is a massive turn on and usually I’d be all for it but I found that I struggled a little with not knowing him all that well.

What I didn’t struggle with was when, after making out and getting pretty handsy on the sofa for a while, he picked me up, carried me to the bedroom and threw me on the bed. And I’m not just using that phrase because it sounds great. He actually threw me down on the mattress with such force I remember bouncing. I wasn’t sure bouncing was sexy, so I attempted to steady myself, find some composure and maintain an air of sexiness.

The sex was better than great. He knew what he was doing and obviously knew what he liked, but he was also suitably generous. The one thing I did notice, however, was that when we started having sex, the kissing stopped. I think there’s something that men, and maybe women, equate about kissing during sex with intimacy, and when they’re not looking for a relationship, they think that a way to avoid that is to minimise intimacy. There is, of course, the argument that sex in and of itself can be one of the most intimate acts that humans engage in.

What was a little more off-putting than the no kissing, was the lack of post-sex cuddles. I think I’ve said it before, I’m a massive cuddler. That closeness, that comfort, I miss that as a singleton. But similarly to the kissing, I think for some people that closeness after sex scares them because it feels too intimate. As if having your genitals entwined just moments before somehow wasn’t.

So instead we lay, slightly apart, in bed chatting until he said he should get going. I realised at that point that we hadn’t really had any particularly deep conversations. It was all fairly surface level. And despite the groping, the nakedness, the hot sweaty sex, I could have had almost the same level of actual conversation with him sat in public at a bar.

It was unfortunate to see him get dressed again but that dimple at least couldn’t hide behind clothes. We talked about maybe seeing each other on the Sunday, but we both had plans with friends and, as we hugged goodbye, we left it that we’d see how it went.

The next morning, as I was filling in one of my girlfriends, the girlfriend who helped craft the final text to Filipeen, about my previous night’s antics she commented that she knew someone who worked in the industry that Toronto Dimple Chin (as he was now Christened) used to work in. Within three minutes she came back to me to tell me that yep, her friend knew him, mostly in a professional capacity but that he was a good guy. We joke that she’s better at finding out stuff about people than the FBI. Those memes you see on Instagram about giving someone a first name and five minutes later they have the whole family tree? That’s this friend of mine. In fact I have two of them, and they’re hilariously helpful.

As it turned out Toronto Dimple Chin and I never caught up the next day, and he left town at the beginning of the week. He’d said it would be about six weeks until he was back again so I said he should text when he was next back in town and we could maybe catch up. “Catch up” obviously meaning, get together and have sex.

Four weeks later, I was with said FBI agent girlfriend and my best straight guy friend, the one Filipeen had concerns about, at a bar inside the sports stadium where we were spending the weekend watching rugby sevens. As they were ordering drinks, I happened to turn around, and see walking in our direction Toronto Dimple Chin and some friends. Despite the crowds, he saw me at the same time, said something to his friends who carried on walking and came over to where I was standing.

Jeez, I’d forgotten just how attractive he was. Is anyone else seeing this?!?!

As soon as he was beside me I remembered that my two, fairly drunk, friends were nearby and while, yes, they would indeed see it, I also hoped they’d keep their shit together and not embarrass me.

He and I hugged and said hello as they sidled up beside me, their drinks replenished in both hands, so it was an easy and quick introduction and then, in my friends’ defence, they said their goodbyes and headed back to our seats. Though I could tell by the look on their faces there was much they wanted to say.

Toronto Dimple Chin and I had a fairly quick chat, he said he wasn’t supposed to be in town but his plans had changed, that it was nice to see me and we should do something while he was still in town. I agreed, another quick hug, a glance at the dimple and I returned to where my friends were sitting and he headed off in the direction of his.

Before I even reached within earshot of our seats, I could tell the two witnesses were filling in the rest of my friends with the details of the bar encounter. As I approached my girlfriend stopped talking, looked at me and said “he is one of the most attractive men I’ve seen in real life, in my life”. And I couldn’t disagree.

It turns out even our straight, male friend thought the same. When they’d turned around and saw me chatting to Toronto Dimple Chin, he’d said “I don’t know who he is, but I’d do him” and then was apparently incredulous that I had in fact actually already “done him”.

It was a relief to know that I hadn’t dreamt up his attractiveness or remembered the cuteness of that dimple through inaccurate rose-tinted spectacles. And not only for me to be reminded of it but for friends to witness it as well – it made me sound a little less nuts when I was insistent that he was probably the most attractive man I’d slept with.

Despite the excitement of seeing him again and the pleasantries we exchanged in the stadium concourse, we didn’t meet up during the rest of his time in Vancouver. Instead we texted a couple of times and then it sort of went nowhere, which was kind of disappointing but if I’m honest, if he lived in closer proximity and I’d seen him more? That dimple could well have been the death of me.

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As Long As There Are Lessons

divorcedanddatingat304 Comments

Mar-2018

I try to look at every experience as a positive, in some way at least. Whether a dating experience ended horribly or it didn’t meet my hopes/expectations, if I can learn something then it was a good thing for the experience to have happened. And I do truly believe everything happens for a reason, even if at the time the reason seems unfathomable.

On every date I’d been on in the past year, I had learnt something – about myself, about dating in general or about men. The biggest learnings though had undoubtedly come from Canadian DJ and Filipeen. Arms gets an honourable mention because he was such a treat.

There were two lessons with Canadian DJ. The first was an incredibly positive one. I realised I could actually feel something for someone again. That wasn’t something I’d been entirely sure of since the end of my marriage. I was so scarred from that experience that for a long while my heart (and my vagina) had felt nothing. Remembering those feelings of heart flutters, hopes, excitement and burning loins (legit wrote that thinking I was Joan Collins) was like a re-birth for me. Knowing you will feel something for someone again was so encouraging for me.

The second lesson was that making allowances for someone’s behaviour based on what they’re going through (in his case his divorce) didn’t allow me to take care of myself and, instead, I put him first. And especially having come from where I’ve been in the past, I’ve realised I should always be my number one priority.

And as Julia puts it, it’s not always about making decisions which will make me happy in the short term, but decisions which when I look ahead two, or five, or ten years I know will be the best for me. As much as short term it could have been fun with Canadian DJ – who doesn’t want a trip to Mexico? – the red flags were already there in abundance and did I really want to live through another divorce, albeit not mine this time?

It could have been years of struggle and who knows how it would have ended up. That process changes a person so much. I know, I’ve been there. In trying to be sympathetic and kind and a good person, I allowed someone to be less than good to me. Be kind to yourself first, so you’re able to continue being kind to others. Putting yourself first does not equate to selfishness or unkindness towards someone else.

With Filipeen, it was a lesson in standing up for myself and not letting someone make me question myself and my self worth, especially when their sense of me seemed so warped. Don’t feel like you’ve got to be agreeable just so you don’t rock the boat. If standing up for yourself is going to tip the boat over, especially if it’s already listing, then let that motherfucker sink.

On reflection of this situation afterwards, I realised it was far more about him, than it was me. And I randomly happened on this quote, which felt incredibly apt – “If you are willing to look at another person’s behaviour toward you as a reflection of the state of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over a period of time, cease to react at all.” – Yogi Bhajan

Deciding what your standards of acceptable behaviour are is critical. Just because you’re not married & he’s not cheating on you & sexting people (i.e. me using my ex-husband as a yardstick), doesn’t make his behaviour ok. That’s not the only form of poor behaviour & anything that’s not as bad as that isn’t necessarily good. There’s a whole scale of shitty and unacceptable behaviour.

If I wouldn’t accept it for one of my friends, then I shouldn’t accept it for me. If I wouldn’t accept me doing it to someone else, then I shouldn’t accept it being done to me. And if by respecting someone else so much I end up disrespecting myself, it’s my actions that need to change.

As much as learning lessons is an enriching part of life, when it’s a painful experience to get to the lesson it’s natural to feel like you’d maybe rather have avoided it and either learnt the lesson another way (tip – there is no other way) or never learnt the lesson at all (tip – all these lessons are invaluable, deal with it).

I always ask myself how I can make sure I don’t find myself in the same situation again, not repeat the same mistakes or, rather, put my newly learnt lessons into practice. But you do the best you can with what emotional capability you have/the information you know at the time. And trying to never let the pain be repeated can mean you look to change some of your own inherent qualities.

As much as I can look at past experiences and think “if I hadn’t let it go so far so quickly” or “if I’d just stood back a bit and tried to get a better measure of the person” or “maybe I shouldn’t have given so much of myself”, ultimately I don’t want to become guarded. I don’t want to question my decision making ability. Especially when you cannot control what is coming at you from the other side of a relationship. You cannot control how honest or vulnerable or committed the other person will be.

Change is also unsettling. Adapting to a shift in your life – whether it’s a relationship, physical environment, career – takes time and can be challenging. This is particularly true when the shift involves another person, a human being who, for a certain time anyway, brought some love and light to your life. But there is something poetic about the ebb and flow of people into and out of your life.

However, a change which when it happens can seem so significant (whether that’s someone coming or going), can seem so irrelevant when looking back in a few months / years /decades. Being able to remember that these, at the time, pretty big / meaningful / painful life events will eventually all just become small threads in the fabric of your entire life can help with providing some perspective and letting you take a step back from the minutiae of the overwhelming feelings. In the end they’re all just really good stories in your life book.

And uncertainty is a given when getting into a new relationship. Which is unfortunate, because I like to have a handle on things. I like to know what’s what and know what’s not. It’s important for me to have a sense of control, feel like I know what to expect and be able to prepare myself.

I’ve always been sort of like that but the control requirement really got out of hand when my marriage unravelled and I felt like I didn’t have a handle on anything – my emotions, my husband, my life. It was a scary feeling.

So post-separation and divorce I held on for dear life onto any control I could get because it made me feel safe, it made me feel less vulnerable, it made me feel like for the first time in a long time at least I got to make proactive decisions rather than reactive decisions.

Getting into a new relationship, however,  doesn’t provide any of that – even in the best of circumstances when you know yourself, when you don’t doubt people’s honesty and when relationships don’t seem like a potential black hole of disaster (wow, I sound so positive!). But in my circumstance, when I can’t even answer the question “what are you like in a relationship?” it provides a whole extra level of uncertainty to the already pre-existing unknowns. So that’s… fun.

I don’t know what I’m like in a relationship because I’m not the same person I was when I was last in a relationship. It was over 5 years ago (jeeeeeez I’ve never seen that written down before!) and it was my painfully broken marriage. The experience of that situation changed me in ways I didn’t even realise until a few years ago and there’s definitely been elements I’ve tried to scrub from the memory bank. So my “truth” of how I was in that relationship is unlikely to be anything like how I’d be as a partner now, for so many reasons. And how I would be now, after so much change, is anybody’s guess.

A fairly unsurprising residual from my marriage, which broke down due to infidelity on my husband’s part, is of course the fun time feeling that is insecurity. While I never questioned that the severe misgivings in my marriage were his doing and not mine (albeit I don’t suggest I was the 100% perfect wife), women particularly seem incapable of not taking on an incredible – usually, unwarranted – amount of self loathing/self doubt in circumstances where cheating has occurred and I was no different. Was I not good enough, was I not smart enough, was I not attractive enough, not good enough in bed…

It’s indescribable how much it can eat away under the surface, like rot infiltrating the foundations of what looks like an otherwise stable home. And sometimes the “stable home” may only realise the extent of the rot when it comes time to potentially welcome a new dweller in.

Trust is the other bitch. It’s the thing that you hear so much about – you can’t have a relationship without it, you need to earn it, it’s a mutual thing, once it’s gone you can never get it back. Very little is spoken about trust in a superlatively positive way.

So when you realise that you’ve developed such a strong sense of mistrust, it’s difficult to figure out how you’re going to get around it when you meet someone new. And when I say mistrust, I mean in everyone. Every single person in your life. To the point that you genuinely think your friends are lying to you when they say they can’t go to a movie with you. And it’s no reflection on them. It’s you, it’s your mind, it’s the mental abuse you suffered when you knew something wasn’t right and someone you loved lied straight to your face. Over, and over, and over. About the biggest things and the smallest things. Did you sleep with her? No (I have a text from her saying otherwise and he later admitted it). Did you forget to take your lunch to work today? No (I’m staring at it sat in the fridge).

So how do you set yourself up for a new relationship when you already don’t believe a single thing that anyone says to you. And now you’re supposed to trust a stranger who wants into your bed and into your life, and you’re not sure which is their main priority.

I’d also moved to a brand new country, a whole other continent no less, so is dating here different? Are relationship roles/expectations the same as back in the UK? I don’t know how dating in this day and age works!

I also came here by myself, with my family thousands of miles away, so does that impact what I need/want from a partner? Do I need more stability, a ready made family given that I don’t have my own here. I don’t know, I don’t know if I would still be looking for those things if I did have my family closeby.

I’m also now 30 plus… so you’re looking for different things than you were in your twenties. It’s not all “oh I’ll just see how it goes”. I don’t have time for that. Your patience and your tolerance are a lot lower in your thirties I’ve found.

Based on the above I know it sounds like I lack self confidence, I don’t trust a single soul, I’m in a weird new place and I’m old… this isn’t all strictly true.

I spent a lot of time, and money, working on the self confidence and the trust issues, not least learning to trust myself and my gut again, so they’ve definitely had some repair work. My new location has given me an incredible new lease of life in the best possible way and the extra years of experience (we don’t use the word baggage) are invaluable.

Technically I could/should be in a much better place now than ever before to get into a relationship. And I don’t actually argue with that. But I do have an additional level of unknown. having changed so much in the last few years, Friends and family who have seen me through it all, have commented on how different I am. Thankfully, always in a good way, that I’m so much happier. But that change means I don’t know who I am in a relationship. I don’t know what to expect of myself.

So I’m trying to figure it out as I go and situations like Canadian DJ and Flilipeen, while painful and difficult at the time, are all part of that and I’m thankful for the lessons they provided.

(Sorry for the lack of jokes in this post, dating after divorce ain’t all funny stories and sex-ploits.)

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