Category: dating

The End

August 22, 2025

dating, sex

It’s been a long time coming but I ended things with my on/off person. He’s been one of my favourite people to write about on this blog but in the end I realised that I was holding onto something that was hurting me.

I have such a tendency to see the good in others, see their potential. But it’s like I’m seeing what I want to see when I do that. Instead of what was right in front of me. Which happened to be a million things that didn’t work for me.

The stop and go communication

The inconsistency of his messages

That he never agreed to meet me in public

That he was never in a position to make plans or look ahead

That he’d never put in any effort in meeting me but he told me he’d been trying to meet another woman for ages and got upset when it didn’t work out

That he never told me things about himself or his life

That he left me on read more times than I can count

That he’d say he’d do things for me and then he didn’t actually do those things

That he had the link to this blog but didn’t read it until I told him I wrote about him extensively on it

That he never asked me any questions about myself and when I asked him about it he told me I was always so open so there was no need for it

That I never really knew how he felt about me

He was telling me who he was all along. I just wasn’t believing it.

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What Love Is

August 21, 2025

dating, relationships

I saw this post on Instagram today about a woman whose dad sent her news about her favourite music artist, her sister ordered her food at a restaurant and remembered to ask for it without a topping she doesn’t like and the woman ends her post to say that love is just being seen.

And I cried when I read it. It feels so true.

I feel like in every single significant relationship I’ve ever had whether that’s family, friends, romantic or sexual that I’m always overlooked. I don’t feel seen.

I feel like at a very basic level that’s all I really want.

It’s such a small thing but it feels so important.

I want to find someone that sees me enough to know that I don’t like blueberry muffins, or that I’d choose anything else over chicken in my burrito. Or that remembers that it was me that sent that link about that interesting thing or it was me that recommended that book to you.

I want to find someone that values me enough to know things about me. That is curious enough to find out things about me. Where if I give him the link to this blog he’s intrigued enough about my writing that he reads it whether or not I’ve written about him. Just for that glimpse into the way I write or think or feel.

Is it too much to ask to be seen by others? To be important enough that they pay attention?

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Martyr Points

August 19, 2025

dating, relationships

Someone asked recently if I’m the type of person who gives second chances? And my honest answer is that I’m the type of person that would also give third and fourth chances. In fact, when I look back at relationships with others over my entire life I feel like I’ve given million of chances to all sorts of people.

Family. Friends. Colleagues. People who are happy to take advantage of my generous nature. But also people in romantic or sexual circumstances. People who have let me down, people who have disappointed me, people who have said mean things to me, people who have treated me badly. But somehow at some point I feel like I’ve made it part of my personality that I’m a soft touch with others.

I remember that I had this roller coaster of a relationship with a very frustrating man online for awhile. He’d ghost me in the middle of a conversation, disappear for months. I once seriously searched online to see if he’d died to excuse his absence. He put me through the worry of thinking he was dead and I still took the man back when he came crawling back. I even wrote him this dramatic message all ‘I feel like my lot in life is to always love you and for things to never work out’ like … I was thinking it was romantic? That this guy was someone when really he was just one of many scumbags that litter the dating field with their bullshit.

So, whatever. I’m exhausted with collecting martyr points. There’s no award or reward for the number of times people steamroll over my wants, needs, or boundaries.

I’m no longer the type of person giving out those third or fourth chances. Get it right the first time. Do not fumble me, I’m worth more than that.

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Modern Dating

August 18, 2025

dating

I watched The Materialists yesterday. I hadn’t really known what it was about, just that I’d seen Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal in some of the press tour for it. It looked a bit like a romcom and I like those so I thought I’d give it a try without watching the trailer.

I hadn’t realised it was Celine Song’s follow up after Past Lives.

And I guess I’m not really sure about how I felt about it after I finished it. It was okay? Pedro Pascal is ridiculously charming. It felt obscene to watch wealthy people dating and discussing the casual way money is brought up with no real understanding that most normal people are broke because of the cost of living and how the world is on fire? So it was hard to relate to some of it where people are like, I couldn’t possibly consider someone who doesn’t make 350,000 a year. In what world is that even realistic?

But other parts of the film? Yeah, I could get behind some of it. In particular when a white woman has a shifty look on her face when she says she is open to all ethnicities … but preferably start with white people. And I’m glad Dakota Johnson is in her cynical part of the storyline so that she could say ‘are you actually saying to me ‘whites only’ right now?’ because I’ve had to say to (white) people that I’ve matched with that I’m not white before. Especially if in the past it was just for a hook up.

I’ve had people tell me I was ‘too dark’ for their preferences. I’ve had people try to ‘collect’ my ethnicity before. I’ve had one person who was interested in me until he found out that I’m mixed race and then changed his mind. But no offence. It’s just his preference. I get people asking if I’m into interracial. ‘Into it’ – like I have a choice. Like, it’s a luxury item that you can pick up or put down depending on the mood you’re in. It’s gross. And I hate how racism plays into dating.

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First Love

August 15, 2025

dating, relationships

I started life online at a really young age. I was 14 the first time I joined my first chat room. And through that first chatroom I had my first chance at really expressing myself. With strangers, usually across the world from me. But once I had that opportunity I felt fairly addicted to it. I wanted more of it.

But nobody wanted to talk to a silly 14 year old girl. So at first I lied about my age. I went by a different name. I made up things about myself to appeal to a wider audience and …made friends. Friends that didn’t really know who I was as a person, sure. But they knew enough. Eventually time passed and I became a silly 16 year old girl trying to make connections.

The chatroom that I liked the best was fairly quiet, not very well populated. Which just gave me more opportunity to get to know the people who did log in. And some of the people who logged in were three mates, young university students who were also roommates.

I had crushes on all three of them, one after another. One was dark and broody and mysterious. He talked to me about gloomy music and philosophy that I didn’t understand. He was the first to get a life at university and stop logging in. I remember feeling bereft at the loss of his company and I started chatting to one of his roommates to get updates on his life away from the chatroom.

This roommate was a lot more fun and interesting than I had realised in how focused I was on his friend. This roommate made me laugh. He helped me with my economics homework, he’d ask me questions like ‘what’s the most romantic song you’ve ever heard?’ and shared his website he was working on which seemed to take the piss out of himself and all of his friends. He included me on it and I remember being flattered.

But it was the third roommate that I absolutely fell for. To this day, I can’t even tell you what it was about him that was so appealing. I only ever saw one picture of him, dressed up in cosplay for some geeky thing he was into. It wasn’t his physical appearance that I was drawn to. Perhaps his charm? The way he made me feel like I was the only person in the world and all his attention was on me? The way he’d ask questions and actually listen to my answers?

We used to chat on the phone. Him, the fun roommate and I. Sometimes just him and I. And I loved the sound of his voice. I loved the sound of his laugh. But he mostly let me talk.

Once, I got into a bit of trouble and he (bafflingly) sent me £20 in the post to help me out. I don’t remember what the bit of trouble was or if 20 quid really helped or not but he did it. He was like my actual knight in shining armour.

And I was smitten. So smitten. I used to daydream about him. I’d write him emails and never send them. I used to hint to him in conversation about my feelings for him. He was never patronising with it, he never made me feel like I was a silly little girl. It was like he knew how I felt and probably liked the attention but he didn’t exploit it, he didn’t make me feel bad for it. He also never encouraged me with any of it.

Apparently, his charm and single-minded focus were also skills he had outside of chatrooms and he was quite popular with the ladies. And that little nugget of information absolutely crushed my poor heart. Every time I heard about him out with another girl it felt like he was tearing strips away at my heart. And through it all, he’d be the one person in my life who was still asking me questions, still listening to my answers. Still being (what felt like at the time) my one true friend.

Eventually I ended up on my first date which led to my first boyfriend. And I ended up less and less in that chatroom. I still kept in touch though. I added the second roommate as a friend on social media years later and he got me in contact with my first love.

And I told him I was married with a family. And he told me he was engaged and with a baby on the way. Even though the news still brought a little pang to my heart, I was genuinely thrilled for him.

I asked him if he wanted me to send him that £20 back and he said ‘nah, you keep it’ My birthday was coming up and he said it was an early birthday gift for me. I think he mostly just didn’t want this crazy obsessed fangirl knowing where he lived, but I like to think he was just being kind just as he always was. My crush? It lives on.

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Can We Be Friends?

August 13, 2025

dating, sex

I had a difficult decision to make recently. I’d met someone earlier this year, we got on like a house on fire. Everything felt easy between us over messaging. When we met up socially, I ended up laughing for hours. I liked his face, I liked the way he made me laugh, I liked the way he made me feel funny and sexy and interesting.

We met up again after that a few times where sex happened. And the sex was great too. But it was in those intimate times after sex where we’re naked cuddling and talking that I felt the closest to him. We honestly were really good friends. There was no end to conversation which could be lighthearted and silly into really heavy, deep subjects. But there was always sensitivity, there was always understanding.

But it wasn’t all puppies and rainbows. Whenever there was stress in his life, whether that was family or work or whatever, it would be like he’d stop communicating. He’d stop reading my texts, he’d obviously not respond to them either. And actually, if he’d just said ‘things are shit, I’m not handling it well’ I wouldn’t have minded. But he didn’t. He’d spend time online, posting status updates, responding to forum threads. And it often made me feel like, why are my texts being ignored? Are they too …much? Am I too much? And I’m not. But it is how I felt.

The first time it happened, I just got silently annoyed and nursed my wounded feelings. The second time it happened I probably did the same. And the third. But eventually I did tell him that that they way he communicated (or more accurately, the way he didn’t) made me feel a certain way and it scraped against my insecurities. That paired with a time our wires got crossed and he booked a date with someone else on the same evening he and I were planning on seeing each other kind of nailed the coffin shut on anything we had going.

But I still held on. I thought, can we be friends? Still? Can we go back to a platonic thing, can we go back to a simpler time where there wasn’t expectations on our time and attention? I tried it for awhile, but I don’t feel platonically towards him so no is the answer. I can’t force myself to feel a way about him that I don’t. So as ‘friends’ he was still hurting me, still making me feel insecure or annoyed or whatever else.

So I made a decision. I sent him a message that said ‘I don’t think I can be your friend’ and ended things like a mature adult. I’m crying as I’m typing this right now because it feels so unfair. But I knew I couldn’t carry on trying to be someone’s friend when I was feeling like I do. I don’t want things to turn sour between us, I don’t want there to be a slow death, I don’t want there to be dragged on hurt.

So I guess sometimes we can’t be friends. And that still hurts.

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Unrequited Feelings

August 12, 2025

dating, sex

Do you know how hard it is to feel things for someone else and for those feelings to not be returned? That’s the situation that I’m in and have been for quite some time.

I go through a range of emotions about the situation – sometimes I feel really sad or miserable about it. But other times I feel annoyed. Or angry. Sometimes at him for not returning my feelings, but sometimes at myself for carrying on with this thing knowing that the only person that’s getting hurt is me.

Sometimes I think it’s my fault. Because he’s always been honest about what he wants and about how anything ‘more’ isn’t something he’s willing to give for a whole range of different reasons. And I knew that, I’ve known that. But it hasn’t stopped my stupid heart from wanting more than that. So sometimes I do think yes, this is something I’ve created myself. I knew the stakes before we started and when things started to change the simplest thing and the least hurtful thing would have been to end things. But I’m not the greatest at making the smart decisions with these things.

I have tried in the past to put in healthy boundaries and set up certain ways of thinking that will help me. I try clearer communication (‘this is what I want and need from you’) and sometimes that helps. But it doesn’t completely solve the problem. It just delays what I feel is the inevitable.

I want more from him than he is willing to give me. I want to see him more often, I want him to open up to me. I had this frankly horrifying realisation the other day that I consider him a friend but I don’t think he considers me a friend. And do you know what a stab to the heart that is? I brought it up with him but I don’t think it went very successfully.

Sometimes it actually just hits me that I feel like I have to convince this man to see me. Like, ever. If I’m not the one instigating us getting together then we just wouldn’t. And it really hurts to think that I’m so unnecessary in someone else’s life. That it wouldn’t matter if I just disappeared from their life at all. Because I’m not ever really part of it.

I guess the point is that I want a lot of things and I guess, historically, I’ve always felt like I’m being unreasonable to want ALL THE THINGS. But when I look at things now I think … it’s not unreasonable to want the things that I want. It’s not unreasonable to want consistent communication or to spend time with another person that you care about. I get frustrated with myself because where did I go wrong in thinking that the basics are too much?

I guess my hope is that things will change. But I also think I need to have an element of realistic expectations and plan for pain and heartbreak. Will keep you updated.

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Birthday Wish(es)

August 1, 2025

dating, life, relationships, sex

It was my birthday recently. It …was not my best birthday ever. But in an attempt to bring in some positivity, I spent an awful lot of time thinking about my birthday wish for the actual day and the upcoming year.

I think my birthday feels like a new beginning in the middle of the year. Almost like another New Year’s Day where the year starts again and I can think of different or better ways to spend my time.

And there are so many things that I wish for myself this year. I want my divorce finalised, some freedom in terms of my finances, my space, my choices. But those things aren’t always in my control.

So instead I think my focus will be on ways to bring happiness into my life. I want to spend the rest of this year with more joy in my life. I’d love it if I could go on adventures with my family, with my dog.

I’d like to make more friends, I’d like to feel part of a community or a network of some sort. People to lean on when times are tougher than they should be. I imagine this looks like renewed friendships with those already in my life but also new friends who are possibly in sex positive communities or the LGBTQ+ community.

I’d like to grow this blog more. If you like what you’ve read, I’d appreciate more subscribers, more likes, more (gasp) comments. I like the creative outlet this space gives me. I like having the ability to process and give some real thought to my experiences, to my feelings.

But maybe most of all, I’d like to find regular sexual enjoyment. Whether that looks like regular pleasure with one particular person or if that’s a wider net with multiple people I don’t mind. But I feel better when I have sexual connection with others and when I have pleasure to look forward to. I want more of that in my life.

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A Fantasy vol. 2

July 30, 2025

dating, relationships, sex

I mentioned in another post that something I daydream about with others is about falling asleep with them and today I thought I’d share a little bit more about that.

There’s something about falling asleep with someone that I feel is incredibly intimate. I had someone I was briefly having sex with recently that kept inviting me over to his place. Like, to stay overnight and I just found the very idea of it too much. It felt like too much too soon in any case. So it never happened.

I think part of that is because I’ve only ever ‘stayed over’ with one person. My ex husband, who I was married to for literal decades. And now that I’m in this situation where I might stay over with a new sexual or romantic partner? It feels a little bit scary.

Which isn’t to say that I’m not into the idea of it. I’ve talked a lot about my English teacher friend. How much his friendship meant to me in me figuring out things about myself and what I wanted in life. What I didn’t want in life. And at the same time I was having this epiphany in my romantic and sexual life I was going through the actual worst time in my personal life. My dad was very poorly and he wasn’t getting any better.

And it was during this time that I started having daydreams about my English teacher friend. And they mostly just involved me putting my head on his shoulder until I fell asleep. Because I was always tired at that time. I wasn’t sleeping well from the stress and worry. And I wanted to be with someone who would just be there with me and with whom I could do what I needed the most. Sleep. Sometimes I thought about him hugging me or falling asleep nestled into him. But mostly it was just me leaning on him and dozing off. Knowing that I was safe to do so.

It always felt like ‘fantasy’ was about safety, about comfort.

Years later, when I was with my ex, my daydream had changed. I still thought about falling asleep leaning against him. And once, when we were together he did fall asleep. It became one of the things that I think back on our relationship and remember really fondly. But it wasn’t what I ended up thinking about with him. We had so little time together that my thoughts of him ended up taking on other paths.

With him, I always thought of waking up and seeing him. I vividly remember fantasies where I opened my eyes and there he was. For me, with him? It was always about him still being there. About him staying. That I could close my eyes, that I could sleep, and the dream was that when I woke up, he’d still be there.

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I’m Tired

July 24, 2025

dating

I’ve been struggling with what to write on here lately. And a lot of that has been down to just being exhausted from all the interactions I’ve been having lately.

I arranged to go on a date the other day, he cancelled way last minute. The reason given was work when up to this point he said he chooses his hours and time commitment to work. So, okay. I do generally give one chance and so tried to rearrange and he said ‘how about next month?’ (at the start of the month) and I just can’t even.

I started talking with someone else. He immediately asked to meet me. I said ‘no’ so he started asking questions about me and my interests, I responded. Asked him questions but he didn’t volunteer much. I think that he thought ‘tick’ we’ve powered through the getting to know you bit so he asked to meet me again. I said I don’t meet anyone until I know enough about them that it won’t be awkward chatting for however long it takes to finish our coffee. This isn’t unreasonable. He was game so he sent a message with things about him. I said ‘that’s a lot of words and yet you still remain incredibly vague’ He then went on to say he didn’t know much about me either and I copy and pasted everything I’d already told him about me into a more recent message. He responded by asking me out again.

I met someone recently, had a wonderful time. Told him I’d like to see him again. But over the next three weeks he didn’t message me first, when I messaged him he’d say ‘funny, I was just about to message you’ he talked about his plans with other people and then told me that he ‘wasn’t sure’ if I’d changed my mind about seeing him again.

When does the bullshit stop? I’d really like to know.

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