Baby, Can I Hold You

Unsticky

July 7, 2025

dating, relationships, sex

I first read Unsticky by Sarra Manning the same week it was published 16 years ago. I had been a fan of her YA books and I was excited to read her first foray into the adult market. It’s a book about a young woman who accepts an older man’s proposition to be his girlfriend in exchange for thousands of pounds per month. On a whim, I decided to pick it up again to see if I’d love it as much this time as I did when I first read it.

One of the first things that surprised me was that I was in my mid to late twenties when the book first came out. I remember being drawn into the story and loving it completely – but I didn’t have memories attached to my own age. I’d been married for nearly a decade when Unsticky was published and despite only being a few years older than the main character, Grace, I found that I had nothing in common with her. I didn’t understand her. Not just that she was in fashion working at a magazine. But all of it. Being single at 23. Living in London, going out and meeting people, having young people experiences. Part of the appeal about reading Unsticky was living vicariously through her experiences.

One of the most interesting things that I noticed about my initial reaction and how that opinion has changed is my reaction to the age gap between Grace and Vaughn. When I first read it, I was pretty shocked at him being 18 years older than her, and gasp, in his early 40s. I remember when I first read it I didn’t think people in their 40s were appealing to me sexually and when I read it I actually pretended like he wasn’t in his 40s but that his age hovered around the more acceptable 35 (god, I was awful!). Now that I’m in my 40s, shockingly my perspective has changed.

I think this time around I viewed some of Grace’s realisations about her own sexual pleasure to be a lot more interesting but also her views on relationships and dating. Obviously this is because I’ve been on my own quest towards figuring out my own sexual wants and needs and dipping my own toes into relationships and dating. Her cynical view of love made me sad then and it still makes me sad now. But there are things that are said in the book that still make me feel deep inside because of the truth of it.

I’m pretty sure the ‘whim’ I had was more to explore a story where the relationship the two main characters have seems cold and like a business transaction but not so deep down there’s real love and affection there. I think I wanted to read it because I want to pretend that the situationship I’m in goes deeper than it does. I want to pretend that at the end of our story will come declarations of love too.

And it was nice to slide back into familiar story for a bit. With the crazy highs and lows of fashion and high art, with bickering best friends and prickly men. It’s definitely a favourite for a reason.

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First Sexual Experience

July 4, 2025

sex

I was fairly young when I had my first sexual experience. I was maybe 13 or 14. My older brother was quite involved in sports and this meant a lot of time and scheduling that existed around getting him to places to play this sport. And I was pretty much dragged from place to place because of it.

Which was fine for the most part. I was a bookish, socially awkward child and young person. I always had a book with me to lose myself in and I was able to blend in (or disappear) around other people. But sometimes in order for the coordination of thing to work, my dad would join forces with another family to split the travel costs and driving etc. And when I was 13 or 14 we had paired ourselves with this great family filled with loud characters and laughter. They had a son the same age as my brother and two daughters, one of whom was a year older than me and one a year younger than me. I loved the whole family. I wanted the parents to be my parents, I wanted to live in their crazy household. I had a teeny crush on the older brother based on nothing much as he and I almost never spent any time together.

And the two girls? For sure both of them ended up being who I wanted to be. The older girl was effortlessly cool and sophisticated and the younger girl was ridiculously funny and the life of everywhere she went. I loved spending time with them. I remember I spent more time with the younger sister (cementing the older sister as being mysterious and brooding and interesting!) but when it was the three of us it all felt really easy and natural. I’d sleep over quite often as our brothers were out doing sport things and we got into such ridiculous scrapes. I remember we got really sick eating too much melted cheese once and I cried thinking we’d get into trouble when we accidentally broke something another time but their mother would bustle in and give me these quick comforting cuddles, just one squeeze that would let me know everything was okay. Their house was not like my house.

It was one of those nights where I stayed over that it happened. I was in a sleeping bag on the floor between their two beds when the younger sister said something in a frustrated sort of way. I was already half asleep so I didn’t quite catch what she’d said and the older sister told her to shut up. But they bickered enough and loudly enough that I lost that sleepy feeling and eventually asked what they were arguing about.

And it turned out to be that the younger one was annoyed that the older sister was masturbating before she went to sleep. I shared that I’d never masturbated before, that I didn’t really even know how to start. And I remember the younger sister throwing her head back in this UGH why did you say that sort of way.

Because then the older sister invited me into her bed, told me that I was missing out by not giving myself pleasure, and she asked if I wanted to give it a try. So then we were lying shoulder to shoulder and at first she was giving me instructions, where to put my hand, how much pressure to use, the movement I should be making. But at some point she had gotten impatient waiting for me to do it right and I remember it so clearly. She had turned so that she was on her side facing me still on my back and I turned my head to look at her and our faces were so close together and she whispered to me, shall I do it for you? and I nodded my head and then it was her fingers and my gasps as the feeling grew until it exploded between us.

Afterwards, I felt a bit awkward. Things was a bit strained with me and the younger sister. I think (probably accurately) that something had happened between me and the older sister and she felt left out. But I was also quite awkward around the older sister. I didn’t know what to say to her, I didn’t know what to do. I don’t think I’d fully grasped what had happened, just that it was big. It meant something. But I didn’t know how to articulate that, I didn’t know how to process that. So I didn’t. I avoided.

I remember the next few times we came to visit this family I stayed in the living room with my book or my homework. I stayed with the adults instead of wandering into the spaces I normally would have. And not long after that my dad had an argument with the other family’s dad. Things were said that couldn’t be taken back and we almost always ever saw them again except from a distance at the same sporting events.

I’d heard a terrible thing happened afterwards. The older sister had come out and been open about her sexuality, about her interest in girls. And the neighbourhood she lived in, the school she went to didn’t take kindly to her being different. A few months after she and I laid in bed together whispering and touching, just before school let out for the summer she was walking home and two boys followed her. She was sexually assaulted in a field, on a sunny afternoon, and when she reported the rape to the police she told them that both her attackers had done it to ‘show her what she’d been missing out with men.’

Our families weren’t close but people we knew told us the news. And I overhead the adults talking about it. I remember being shocked to my very core. I definitely didn’t understand then the scope of evil in the world, that boys like this could exist. I thought of this girl, how utterly cool she was, how pretty, how smart and capable and I couldn’t stand the idea of anyone trying to take anything away from her. It broke my heart what had happened to her.

And I think it also had a massive impact on me. I think there was a reason that I was in my 30s before I realised and accepted my own interest in women. Looking back on it, it doesn’t seem so surprising that I’d squash those feelings, that I minimised this experience so much that I had almost forgotten it. It felt safer to pretend like it hadn’t happened, to pretend my own part in the experience. I feel like I didn’t allow myself to be honest even with myself for fear of facing the same hatred and violence.

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Sex Compatibility Quiz

July 3, 2025

sex
I do this thing sometimes. It started off ages ago when I was mostly talking to people online. And I was finding that I was struggling to find what I was looking for. Either in terms of overlapping sexual interests and preferences but also in terms of communication. So the Sex Compatibility Quiz was born.

It’s something that I still use with potential sexual partners. Mostly it comes out when I already have an idea that I’d probably be interested in getting naked with someone and the answers to this question are more for my own curiosity. But I’ll still ask the questions.
There are so many things that I get from the quiz itself. This first question is the main point of the quiz. And what I want from an answer to this is to glean some idea of what sexual interests or preferences they have but also find out the language they use to describe these preferences. I have deliberately kept the first question very vague but I want them to answer in the way they want to answer. Whether that’s short, to the point, or more detailed with examples. Both answers will lean towards my reaction generally.

If they use vague language and skip over words like ‘pussy’ or whatever, then I get a sense of how confident or hesitant they might be. At least in terms of communication. But another aspect of this, the main one perhaps, is finding out how self aware this person is. How well do they know what they themselves enjoy about sex? But also, if they aren’t answering the questions with me in mind, considering how we might be compatible then that gives me a good insight into their interest in me as well.

The second, third and fourth question helps to delve into a person’s past (best experience), present (masturbation), and future (fantasy). I usually read these looking for recurring themes amongst the answers.

I get the most interesting answers from this quiz. Some men will try to tell me they’re really into emotional connection and sensual encounters (because that’s what I’m into!) but when they answer the following questions their favourite experiences included anonymous encounters, they’re fantasising about hot sex with strangers or masturbating over glory holes, for a very extreme example. But it just shows how the answers to 2, 3 and 4 can either confirm their answer to 1 or completely show them up.
1. What are you into?
2. What is your biggest fantasy and why?
3. What has been your best sexual experience and what was it that made it your favourite?
4. What did you think about/watch the last time you masturbated and what was it about it that got you there?
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Spontaneous Sexual Attraction

July 2, 2025

sex

I don’t often have spontaneous sexual attraction to other people. I’m both demisexual and reciprosexual which means that I don’t usually experience sexual attraction to others unless we’ve formed an emotional connection and the other person has expressed a sexual attraction to me.

But on the very, very rare occasion, it has happened before. The only other time I remember having spontaneous sexual attraction clearly is many years ago when I was attending Comic Con in London with my ex and a friend. We were sitting at a table furthest away from the halls where the convention was taking place eating food and talking when a woman wearing a nurse’s outfit started dancing and bending over and playing with the zip along the front of her outfit. I think all three of us (and many more amongst the crowd of people who could see her) was experiencing some sexual attraction in that moment.

But it isn’t a common occurrence for me. Which is why I was very surprised when I was on the train recently and experienced it.

I was getting the train from London back home. The train itself was fairly crowded and I’d walked through several carriages trying to find an empty seat. I remember I passed by a man sleeping where his rucksack was falling off his lap onto the empty seat next to him in order to take an empty seat with a table and three other seats that were occupied. I wasn’t sure if the three of them were together but I asked the older man who had the empty seat next to him if I could sit there and all three people around the table nodded and smiled at me.

Including this gorgeous man who ended up sitting opposite me. I get travel anxiety so I was really pleased to get a seat so I could take some deep breaths and try to relax. I’d had my headphones in and was listening to my soothing music playlist. And I think I relaxed fairly quickly after sitting down.

It was a warm day so after he smiled and nodded at me as I was sitting down, the next thing I noticed about this man was that he’d picked up his Oasis bottle and pressed it against his neck to cool down. He was wearing a thin white button up shirt and the first three or four buttons were undone showing off a slightly muscular chest and some little curls of dark hair. I didn’t want to stare because he was obviously with his wife or girlfriend and I heard him telling her that she could fall asleep if she wanted, he’d make sure they got off at the right stop.

So I started paying attention to other people in the carriage. The older man next to me had been on his phone and when that conversation ended, he left his phone open to his Notes app where he was writing a letter to his parish priest. He had put his phone down in order to retrieve a book from his bag which he opened and read with a pencil hovering under the words he was reading and I was fascinated to find out which words he’d underline and which words he’d skip over.

And as I was watching this older man it was like the Gorgeous Man opposite me was watching me watch the older man. He watched me check out the note on his phone, he watched me check out the title of the book, he watched as I had a half smile on my face as I was wondering about the underlined words. And I think it was that he was looking at me that caught my attention so I looked over at him and caught his eye and he smiled. One of those relaxed, carefree smiles which took over his whole face. One of those smiles that I had to look away from.

Who openly appraises another person on a train like that? I was doing all my looking as subtly as I could, unlike him. And I couldn’t stop. I had noticed that the woman sitting in the window seat on the other side of the train had pulled out a book so I turned my head to see if I could see what the title was. And then the person sitting next to her moved so that her skirt fell off her leg and I could make out an intricate sun tattoo just above her ankle that looked interesting that I wanted to see a little closer. And he watched me do that too. Even turned his head to see what had captured my attention.

He seemed fascinated not in other people but only in me and what I found interesting to look at.

And that was pretty much it. A ridiculously attractive man, with a kind face and an easy smile that welcomed me to sit near him and noticed me. That’s all it takes.

And in all that taking me in I started to wonder what it would be like to kiss this man? to crawl into his lap and have all that attention on touching me, licking me. To have all of his attention on giving me pleasure. How would he react if I pulled his lower lip into my mouth, if I licked along that neck he was trying to cool down earlier, if I slipped my hands along his chest, his back.

I was almost glad that mine was the first stop and when I’d gotten off the train he had already gotten up to find the toilet so there wasn’t any awkward eye contact. Was this one of those missed connections?!

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Scare

July 1, 2025

life

At the beginning of the year I had a gross cold and just as I was feeling that the cold symptoms were starting to clear I got this bad sore throat that meant swallowing was difficult and I was in a lot of discomfort. I couldn’t get through to my GP surgery so I called 111.

In the end, that day I spoke to three different medical professionals. By that evening, I had a prescription for antibiotics and also a recommendation to call my GP after the antibiotics course runs out if my symptoms persist or get worse. And they did. Persist. Get worse. So I called my GP.

And what followed was about 6 weeks of uncertainty, stress, confusion and worry. Based on the symptoms that I’d mentioned (difficulty swallowing for at least 6 weeks and coughing up blood) I was given an urgent referral through the NHS to rule out more ‘serious things’. There was a lot of euphemisms that were bandied about in those 6 weeks but essentially it was to rule out cancer.

Cancer.

God, that’s pretty serious, right? And I pretty much shut down while I was waiting for my appointment. Everything felt overwhelming and I honestly felt like I couldn’t function. I stayed in bed a lot. I listened to music and audiobooks but I couldn’t tell you anything I’d heard when I was doing it.

I had all these awful thoughts. Dramatic thoughts. I’d look at my dog, my perfect, beautiful dog and I’d think what if my dog outlives me? When I started thinking about my family I ended up being paralysed from the thoughts. There wasn’t any kind of depth I could go into with those thoughts. Just a vague what will happen? and darkness followed.

It wasn’t cancer. Tests with a specialist confirmed it, I had a camera in my throat, I did a swallow test. There was nothing unusual or abnormal in any of my results. It ended up being the smallest, stupidest thing – inflammation following a viral infection that went away on its own. I am ridiculously grateful to the NHS and everyone that interacted with me during that period of time for being so patient and kind with me.

But it really took its toll on me. There’s nothing like a cancer scare to really tell you what’s important in life. Who is important. Who shows up for you when you’re crying all day from worry and can’t think or talk about anything else.

For me, it also highlighted the ways in which my life right now don’t really align with the life I want. It feels like such a cliche to be faced with the possibility of death and for it to make you see more clearly what you want from life.

And it’s not too much to ask to want these things, is it?

A clean break from my ex husband. The freedom to make my own choices with my time, my finances. To live in my own space. To have better and renewed relationships with those closest to me. Plans to look forward to. A job that is rewarding and provides purpose. To continue learning and growing. To have an outlet for creativity. To be satisfied in my sexual and emotional connections.

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Questions

June 30, 2025

sex

I am a bit of an overthinker. In my everyday life it can be a bit exhausting in my brain as my thoughts zing off into lots of different directions. I have an anxious attachment style so in relationships I need a lot more reassurance and I deal often with thoughts of insecurity. I have negative thoughts about my body image, my face, and a lot of other worries and concerns.

But! And this is pretty great for me, one of the things I like most about sex is that if I’m with the right person, as in someone who lowers my anxiety and not someone who triggers it, all those overthinking thoughts go away. During sex, I am present in the moment and I’m not bombarded with things I might think when I’m not naked or someone else isn’t touching me. I don’t care if you can see my stretchmarks or that my tummy sticks out. I don’t care about the noises I make during sex or what my O face looks like. I don’t care if my body jiggles and I don’t worry if I’m too heavy to sit on someone’s face. None of those thoughts concern me because during sex? Pleasure is my only thought.

Having said that, I do start to have those thoughts and worries once the orgasm high wears off and also, there are times that I can get thrown out of that ‘in the moment’ mentality. I’ve sometimes brought it up with partners before and I’ve certainly brought it up with my current on/off partner. And that happens when I’m asked questions during sex. It feels like an automatic trigger into overthinking – what’s the right answer here? Does he have a preference? What do I do? What do I say?

I remember the first time he asked me a question during sex. I don’t remember what the question was I just remember my reaction. Which was paralysis. I didn’t know what to say or how to answer so I did nothing. Maybe I started kissing him again and hoped that action would mean he forgot about his question. And then later, when we had clothes on, I brought it up. I said about the overthinking, how I freeze in those sorts of situations. And he understood. He did.

But it was like he wasn’t fully accepting that I should just continue in that way? Because he continues to ask me questions. It’s not every time. But it’s often enough. And I do sometimes freeze and don’t answer. And that’s okay, he doesn’t push it. It’s okay to not answer. But with new questions and some confidence with him I find … I want to answer the questions.

When he asks me what I want I want to be able to tell him I want him to keep kissing me like that, or to pinch my nipples just a little bit or to circle my clit in the way I like. Sometimes I don’t have the words to be that articulate and I don’t mind just saying I want to come and hope for the best that he’s got a good idea for how to get me there. And those things, those things that I tell him I want help me get to the pleasure faster but so does answering the questions. It feels good to me that I can do that.

Some questions are still hard. The last time we met he asked me where I’d like him to come. It was a new challenge for me, he’d not asked me that question before. And it threw me for a minute. My eyes probably went really wide and there was probably a hint of paralysis. But this is new, confident me that can answer questions during sex. So I asked him if he had a preference and he gave me a little smirk before saying he didn’t. ‘Wherever you want it’ handing the ball back into my court. For my answer.

You should have seen his face when I told him my answer. Actually, you should have seen his face and heard the groan of pleasure he did when I said ‘in my mouth it is’ and I guess I’m coming round to the idea that what I want is the right answer.

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Visiting My First Sex Club

June 27, 2025

relationships, sex

One of the things that my ex and I had in common was that we wanted to have more (and a whole range of different) sexual experiences. I don’t quite remember when visiting a sex club was first mentioned but it was definitely an intriguing idea.

I remember looking online for descriptions of sex clubs, what they might be like, trying to get some idea of what might happen at them so I could picture things beforehand. I specifically remember looking at descriptions of local sex clubs and wondering ‘what’s a grope maze and how does that work?’ or looking at pictures uploaded to Instagram wondering ‘…but why is the pole so tall? For what purpose does that serve?’ And I think this just goes to show that I overthink things that are possibly meant to be fun.

We decided that we were going to visit a sex club nearby that had a sort of taster session event on Wednesday evenings. It was worked for our schedules but also it felt like a good beginner event to dip our (nervous) toes into. There was so much nerves beforehand. I went back and forth about what to wear to this thing. In the end I opted for a flippy black skirt over my favourite green lingerie. He met me at work and I drove us both. I remember driving to the club and rubbing my thumb over the grooves on my steering wheel as some way to regulate my emotions.

I had meant to switch my music over to play music from my soothing playlist but I hadn’t and I kept skipping songs as they came on, especially if they didn’t give me the right type of calming tone that I wanted. I can’t remember if it was this time or another time but Self Esteem by The Offspring started playing and I skipped it. My ex said ‘I was just about to say I haven’t heard The Offspring in ages and I guess I still haven’t’ and to this day it still makes me laugh and think of that moment whenever that song is played.

When we got there, it was fairly dead. For the next couple of hours? But I quite liked that it was just us. We were able to explore quite a bit. Every confusing thing in that sex club we ended up at least talking about. I remember the glory holes being confusing in terms of where the holes were and it didn’t make sense but it gave us something to laugh about. I also laughed at the idea of my ex (being very tall) trying to crawl into a cage in the dungeon (was that this club or the other one?).

I don’t really remember much about that night. Most of it is just memories of me and him together, moving from one place to another talking, focusing so much on each other. We spent time in a private room, and when we emerged again more people had arrived. A few single men sitting on the sofas and not making eye contact with others, some couples that might smile at us as they walked past us but didn’t stop to say anything. Maybe we weren’t that social with others that night but if I’m honest, I think I was so addicted to him that it was hard for me to pull myself out of his orbit and pay attention to other people. He was everything. I felt like I was getting a contact high from being around him, being able to have one ongoing conversation with him, touching him. I didn’t need anyone or anything else.

It got to a point that I actually forgot that there were other people at this club with us. Everything about that night seemed like it was just me and him. Some of that was perhaps designed, I don’t remember us walking towards other people but I remember us walking away from them to find a quieter, more secluded place for us to be together. We were in the dungeon, on a bed behind bars when it happened. We were lying on the bed talking and at some point I ended up thinking god, he’s so good looking and it’s impossible how much I adore him.

And somehow we were kissing and it’s getting heated and his head is between my legs and it all feels so good, I’m lost in the feeling of his mouth on me, and I’m lost in him that it’s several moments after my orgasm hits that I remember that we’re in a place where others can see us and in fact there’s a couple sitting just behind the bars watching us. The very second that I realise we have an audience mortification runs through me and I think I shouted something like ‘oh my god, did you know there were people watching us?!’ and it was like somehow, despite it all, he pulled me back into our bubble where it was just me and him again.

I don’t remember a lot of the other details of that night. Someone was doing some sort of rope demonstration in the dungeon but it seemed sort of boring. I remember leaning myself into him at these tall barstools and thinking how nice it was to just press myself against him. I remember when we left the owner/bartender tried to tempt us to stay by telling us about some action in the porn cinema but we both looked at each other and thought nah. It was nice in the car on the way home to talk about everything that had happened, to process our actual experiences against the expectations we both had.

All in all, it was a good first experience.

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‘Nice Guys’

June 26, 2025

dating

Is there anything worse than a self-proclaimed ‘nice guy’? If there is, I haven’t found it so far. And it really pains me to hate on the nice guys but not the actually truly nice guys. Just the ones that proudly bear the label and make it part of their identity that they’re one of the good ones, a nice guy, you’re safe with me sort.

I was speaking to one such nice guy who was very much of the I’m a decent sort, very gentlemanly (another red flag word!) and we were all set to go on a date when he asked for more pictures of me. I had sent him two different face pictures already but figured he’d just wanted a reminder.

He wrote back to say that’s all well and good, and he can tell I’m ‘facially attractive’ but what’s the point in meeting me if he didn’t see everything else beforehand too? What ‘everything else’ I asked? He said he didn’t want to waste anyone’s time and wanted to see pictures of my waist, of my arms, my legs. Just to make sure that he’s sexually attracted to me, you understand. Only no, I did not. And I cancelled our date on the spot. If the size of my arms is something a man relies on for attraction, count me out.

Another man I met at a social gathering. He assured me he was one of the good guys, that his women friends could attest to that fact. He’s always very respectable, him. Respected boundaries, respected women. It was really like he wanted a parade in his honour looking back on it. Because that wasn’t my experience. I told him that I wasn’t into him in that way but that I loved his company and his friendship. He seemed willing to just be my friend. Except any time he could, he’d make little quips about how ‘you could sit on my face anytime’ or he’d say he’d love a blowjob from me, he could picture it in detail. I bet he’s still confused as to why I blocked him, why I no longer want to be his friend.

I’ve already written a bit about the last man that springs to mind when I think of fake nice guys. But we met several times socially, we were going to go for a walk but we met up at his place first. Ended up talking on his sofa before one thing led to another and oops, his dick ended up inside me. I was okay with it though, he seemed ‘nice’ enough. Until he sent me a message to say that he was looking for something ‘wholesome’ and ‘proper’ and that that meant he and I could only be friends. Even though everything we had talked about doing together were dating type activities. That I wasn’t wholesome enough to date him because we’d had sex wasn’t hugely nice of him. But I’m glad he showed his colours fairly early on.

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A Fantasy

June 25, 2025

relationships

I went on holiday once to Italy, this was many years ago and I was standing near one of those places where everyone takes a certain picture of a very iconic view. And it was perfectly scenic and everything I imagined it to be. Except when I’d taken my picture and was waiting for those I was with to finish I looked in the opposite direction and I saw this thing that was so perfect that I’m sure it’s lodged in my brain as a core memory.

It was this couple in their late 40s or early 50s sitting on a bench facing the sea and her head was in his lap and he was reading a book. He probably wasn’t reading aloud to her but in my head, whenever I think of it, I usually think of him reading aloud to her from his book.

There are other inspirations as well. I recently rewatched Notting Hill and there’s a scene towards the end of that with a bench where Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant are acting out my Italy scene pretty closely. And there’s Alan Rickman as Colonel Brandon reading aloud to Marianne in Sense and Sensibility. And it felt like there was nothing more romantic than finding out that Pacey and Joey, after running away together for the summer on his boat had spent their evenings reading aloud to each other in their hammocks in Dawson’s Creek.

I get that there’s a lot of reasons that this particular thing is a fantasy of mine. But it has been since forever. With different partners the fantasy changes. With my ex, the fantasy was of him and I curled up together on (inexplicably) a single bed reading The Outsiders by SE Hinton to each other. With the English teacher, it was Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman and I wanted to position myself in such a way so I could see his face as he was reading to me. With a man I was romantically involved with for awhile, I thought of him reading Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery in his Mancunian accent. But the bones of it remain the same.

I love the idea of being pressed against someone as they read to me. I want the physical closeness of it, I want to hear their voice. I want whatever they’re reading to me to mean something, like it’s something we’re sharing with each other. It’s a pretty good picture of what I want with others – physical and emotional intimacy at the same time. And who knows? Hopefully we’ll soon be doing other things with our mouths other than reading aloud.

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What Does Your Music Taste Say About You?

June 24, 2025

relationships

I’m not sure if people realise this about me but I really love music. I’m almost always listening to music and I feel strongly about certain songs and certain types of music.

I have strong emotional associations with music. I listen to a song and I’ll think about the things I was doing when I listened to it or how about how it makes me think of a certain person. Or whatever. There are a lot of complicated and highly emotional reasons that I connect music with people. And I’ve always been aware that I listen to a song and it reminds me of people or places or situations.

But awhile back I was on a dog walk and I had my normal, long playlist with lots of different types of songs and music that I enjoy on it. And two songs in a row play called ‘Stay’ and it’s at that point that I think, huh, isn’t that interesting? It’s possible that at the time I was thinking about dating and relationships (and how he didn’t stay) but I can’t say for sure. But it was the catalyst for me to go through my music and realise that … there are two main groups of songs that I like the most.

The first, the uncertainty of love.

The first that stuck out to me was all the songs I love and connect with about the uncertainty of love.

Will You Love Me Tomorrow? by The Shirelles

I Can’t Make You Love Me by Bonnie Raitt

Stay by Rhianna

Stay by Maurice Williams

Stay by Shakespears Sister

You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me by Dusty Springfield

All of these songs are like … do you love me? Are you going to stay? Will you stay? Will you love me? And that feels like my personal brand. I am so called out by this group of songs.

The second, physical touch.

And the second group are songs that pretty much yearn for physical touch. As I do. I am so touch-starved, it is ridiculous. When I daydream about other people in my life, I mostly dream about hugs. Dead serious.

I Want to Hold Your Hand by The Beatles

Hold My Hand by Hootie and the Blowfish

Kiss Me by Sixpence None the Richer

These Arms of Mine by Otis Redding

Open Arms by Tracy Chapman

Baby, Can I Hold You by Tracy Chapman

Eagle eyed readers will notice that Baby, Can I Hold You makes it on that list. It’s no accident that I named my blog after my favourite song in the whole world. And that that song is about both the uncertainty of love and physical touch. It’s like my brain knows what I want and need and it landed on a favourite for a reason.

Maybe your taste in music tells you nothing about yourself but it was interesting doing a little deep dive into my playlist.

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