Baby, Can I Hold You

Not Dating, Not Sexing

December 4, 2025

dating, relationships, sex

Has it felt kind of uneventful around these parts lately? Or is that just me thinking that?

I’m in kind of a slump. I’m not really meeting new people. And there have been zero plans made to have sex with people I already know and have a sexual relationship with. Not for lack of trying on either thing, I don’t think. But it turns out, if I’m not doing the dating then it leads to not doing the sex either. Sadly. For me.

Partly there’s the lack of availability with those I have connected with. Whether that’s a lack of wanting to get together I’m not sure – it’s best not to ask questions I don’t want answers to. Partly it’s that I haven’t been talking to new people to where we’ve gotten to the point of meeting. Part of that is that as I mentioned in a previous post I’m not hugely interested in a Just Sex situation. I want more than that. I deserve more than that.

I think I’m also in a phase right now (with those I have connected with) where I’m also really embracing a ‘meet you at your same effort’ mode. If you don’t ask me about the thing going on in my life right now I’m not going to delve too deep into the thing going on in yours. If you say your availability is nonexistent until next May? Then I’m not going to be the one pushing you for updates. If when I meet you and you say you’ll text me and then you don’t? I’m not going to be the one to text you first.

I think I’m just tired.

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Women

December 3, 2025

life

Have I already mentioned that I’m doing a Masters equivalent course currently? It’s work related and for it, every week I leave work early to travel to a place 45 minutes drive from me and sit in a room for 7 hours with a group of 20 somethings.

When I first joined the course I thought ‘oh god’ at the ages of everyone else. I felt like I wasn’t going to fit in, that I’d stick out, that I wouldn’t have things in common. But there’s 12 of us on this course. One man and 11 women.

And can I just say these women are all fucking incredible?

There’s something so wholesome about being around them. They give me energy, they give me joy, they make me happy. Every week that I’m there something happens that just makes me endlessly smile.

Last week as I was walking in two different people said to the youngest woman there ‘your hair looks great’ and she positively beamed. She said thank you and that nobody at work even noticed that she’d had her hair done and actually everybody noticed straight off as soon as she arrived.

The week before when hair came up, I’d said I was growing out mine but I hated this in-between phase where it isn’t short and it isn’t long and just feels scraggly and they told me to ‘trust the process’ and gave me compliments.

There are women there who are getting married this year and we’ve talked about flowers and dresses and venues. There is one woman older than me who has a daughter going to prom and we’ve shared the best places for dresses, for shoes, for accessories.

We’ve talked about going to the gym and getting into Hyrox. We talk about the food we cook, one woman asked for advice on how to ask for a raise. The women have all complimented each other on our coats, our trousers, asked where we’ve gotten our shoes. We give each other encouragement on our assignments, advice about what to do in tricky work situations.

This kind of friendship and fellowship is the reason I’m doing this course face to face and not online. You can’t put a price on this sort of interaction on a weekly basis. For the next two years.

Women are incredible. And going to this course every week makes me yearn for a better network of women friends like this.

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Cute Things

December 2, 2025

dating

A few weeks ago I was determined to delete my profile on this website I use to meet people. I had felt worn down from how tedious it had become. The same conversations, the same laziness from other people in their messaging. The same expectations from others. That we’d meet up for a social thing first and then the next time we’d see each other it would be for the sex.

I wasn’t having any conversations that excited me, I wasn’t finding people there that excited me. It all felt like a slow and steady grind. Nothing about it was bringing me joy. So I told a few people that I’d be leaving. One sent over their details to talk on another platform and the others gave me a cheery ‘take care, bye’ which told me everything I needed to know about my decision.

A friend did ask me my reason for leaving and I gave a version of the above. He asked what I’d do instead. And I said I wanted to do cute things with others. And I don’t think there’s an end to the list of cute things that are possible. But I want to do them.

I want to go on long dog walks with someone. I want to cuddle on the sofa and share our favourite cheesy films. I want to go to book events or art exhibitions, or just hang out laughing somewhere. I want to go to theme parks or museums. I’d love to play board games with someone. Or go to karaoke. I saw someone online that said she does Errand Dates where instead of going out for a drink or a meal, they get together and do the weekly food shop or go get their tyres changed and I love that idea. I love the idea of having company in my life.

I think it speaks to my loneliness that I don’t have people in my life to go to poetry readings with me or to take the tour of Highgate Cemetery that I’ve wanted to do for years and have never done. And I want to do those things.

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The Tracks of My Tears by Smokey Robinson

December 1, 2025

relationships

I was on a dog walk recently when this song came on. It isn’t surprising, it’s one of my favourite songs and it comes up on my playlist quite often.

But it hits me in a very specific way when I hear it. Every time I hear it.

I’ve written before about a relationship with an English teacher years ago that helped me realise how unhappy I was, how small my life was and how much I wanted to change things for the better. That man was married and it was after that (online) relationship ended that I made this connection with this song.

Since you left me, if you see me with another girl
Seeming like I’m having fun
Although she may be cute
She’s just a substitute because you’re the permanent one

I heard this song after things ended with him and this particular set of lyrics ripped me open. Because I heard it and it feels like it cuts through all my excuses, all the beautiful lies that I tell myself about being the Other Woman.

Although she may be cute (this is me Smokey is singing about me now, I’m ‘she’) She’s just a substitute because you’re the permanent one (‘you’ here is his wife).

No matter how cute I am, no matter how fun, no matter how great we are together, no matter if there’s love. It all feels like nothing because I was only ever a stand-in.

She’s the permanent one.

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Submit by sonnet

November 26, 2025

sex

I don’t remember where I first heard about Submit the memoir by sonnet about a woman’s journey as a submissive. But as soon as I did hear of it I was immediately intrigued. I love the idea of reading about how other people write about sex and their own journeys. Especially within submission, which is an area of sexuality that I am exploring myself.

I also, if I’m being entirely truthful, find it fascinating to see how other people approach sex and their experiences from a purely academic perspective. I love exploring word usage, anonymity, the displays of growth within a person’s writing. All areas that I feel like I obsess about writing this blog. So from that point of view I was also excited to read it.

I’ll say straight off, I don’t think I could relate to much of anything in sonnet’s memoir. Our interests in sexual preference did not overlap in much of anything. But that’s okay. I wasn’t reading it to be titillated by her experiences. I read it because I find other people’s experiences, thoughts and journey in sex to be fascinating. And I did find Submit fascinating.

One of the things that I liked most about it is that when sonnet realises something about herself that she wants to explore more, she really dove headfirst into exploring that fully. Whether it’s the physical pain of caning, erotic photography, anonymous sex. She was fearless in her approach. Being a lot more conscious of my own (and other women’s) safety, I found some of her experiences hard to read. But that’s just me and my own view.

I liked her relationship with her partner and also how many different experiences she shares (though all the caning got a little repetitive for me!) I felt like I really got a sense of the supportive nature of her relationship and how engaged she was within her own sexuality.

I’ve read other sex memoirs but this has been my favourite so far. I did read reviews of some backlash to two particular points (a comment she made about dogs and a scenario regarding race play) and both those reviews almost put me off reading it but I’m glad I didn’t. Because those criticisms are taken out of context.

Overall, I thought this was a solid memoir. While I didn’t agree with everything and I found pleasure in almost none of it I still found it thoroughly engaging and deeply interesting.

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Never Ending Stream

November 25, 2025

dating, relationships, sex

It’s funny how time can change your perspective on things.

A few months ago I felt very high on life and my certainty that I was following this beautiful path down the road of polyamory. I thought, yes! I’ve finally found where I feel like I fit in with the realisation that different people offer me different things.

I didn’t have to put so much pressure on my on/off person, for example, because voila! I can get the consistency or communication that was lacking in that relationship from somewhere/someone else and just focus on what I do get from that relationship. I could see other people casually and still get that hit of emotional connection I feel with him and the two should balance each other out.

I felt confident in this approach. Happy. Excited even.

Until I didn’t.

At some point, after seeing several different people recently I mostly just felt like I had a never ending stream of people coming in and out of my life and none of them were really giving me what I wanted or needed. It just felt like I was ending up with the leftover scraps in each of these relationships.

And instead of feeling elated or excited by it, I just felt …exhausted. Disheartened, demoralised. I haven’t felt very motivated in any of the connections I’ve made recently. And I’m questioning it all again.

Am I actually poly? Or do I sometimes try to convince myself that being poly is for the best when it’s really something I’ve fallen into not my choice but by circumstance?

I don’t have any answers for those questions. But it is something that I’ll think about more.

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Little Black Dress

November 24, 2025

dating

I went to a sort of party last month and I didn’t know what to wear.

This has come up before, when I worked with a younger bunch of women, we used to go out in the evenings quite a lot and I’d mostly just wear what I wore to work that day out into the evening whereas some of my colleagues changed into more suitable nighttime going out clothes.

I’ve never had a wardrobe like that. And I think it’s because I got married ridiculously early and my social circle mostly consisted of my (now ex) husband and people we knew. So there wasn’t really an element of dressing up whether or not that was to attract a partner or not. It just didn’t happen.

But now that I’m single, the whole idea of it has come up again. Before that party last month I messaged a friend to ask what on earth I should wear to this thing? I didn’t think I had anything suitable. I can’t remember what my friend suggested but whatever it was, it felt reassuring. I took from it that I should wear what I felt comfortable in and what I felt looked good on me. So I did.

But after that night, I went online and ended up buying a few dresses, mostly little black dresses that I figured could (potentially) double as work clothes. Or… could be the start of my nighttime going out wardrobe that I never had.

I’ve been to another party after that first one wearing one of my new dresses with a pair of fashionable tights and I just felt so much better in it. There’s something about dressing up and looking and feeling good that I think I’ve missed out on by not going out when I was younger. By switching into this role of wife and mother too soon.

So I will go out again and soon. I might even practice wearing heels.

I don’t know though, let’s not go too crazy.

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For Good

November 21, 2025

relationships

Last night I went to see a double-feature of Wicked and Wicked: For Good. I absolutely love musical theatre generally and also I love film versions of musicals. I was so excited to see Wicked last year and I’ve been looking forward to the second part ever since.

I kind of knew that most of the really good songs were in the first part but there is still For Good in the second. And I knew it would be emotional. And it was.

I cried all the way through the second half of the film and I cried through For Good. I was in the car on the way home after it and I was still crying.

And I think what hit me the hardest when watching that part of the film and also hearing the lyrics to For Good that I was thinking about loss.

I was thinking about the people that have had the biggest impact on me and on my life and how a lot of those people aren’t in my life anymore or that they aren’t in my life in the same way. And I just felt so much grief in that moment.

My dad. My ex husband. My ex. My best friend. Even the English teacher. The soldier. My favourite teacher from Year 2, the relationship I used to have with my mother-in-law.

There’s loss and pain there but there’s also gratitude.

Who can say I’ve been changed for the better?

But because I knew you

I have been changed for good

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Always On Alert

November 20, 2025

Uncategorized

I was talking to someone the other day and he brought it up in fact. He said something like, and as a woman you’re probably constantly just scanning men for tone and content to keep continuously checking their vibe is okay.

It was the first time I’d had a man acknowledge that that’s happening. I’d seen videos online of prominent men who make videos about gender that have said similar. But not an actual man standing in front of me. And it felt surprising. And also really comforting to know that there is this shift in men being more aware that women’s nervous systems are just constantly on alert at all times.

I feel like I exhaust myself from constantly processing things like word usage, tone, intonation, body language, intention, facial expressions, the meaning behind their words to constantly keep asking … is this person safe, does this person make me feel comfortable. And I feel like things can shift quite easily. A person might ‘feel okay’ initially and then tell on himself as our interactions go on.

This is something that I feel like I’m still learning and while I lean heavily on my intuition, I don’t think that I always get things right. It’s a constant process and one in which I keep learning things about.

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My Privacy

November 19, 2025

dating, relationships, sex

I really value my privacy.

This came up recently. I ended up getting slightly involved with someone who has a lot of connections with other people. Some of them involve sex with these connections and some are just social connections.

Either way, he’d asked me to remain vague about mine and his relationship with one of the connections that we both shared. And I told him there would be no way this connection would hear anything from me about us having sex (or not). And then I said ‘no’ to something that would make things very clear to this connection and a lot of other people exactly what our connection is (sexual).

And I guess I hadn’t really gotten through to him well enough just how private I am. I think for people where I feel exceedingly comfortable I do share a lot about myself and about my experiences. But there’s a line that I draw and I do draw that line everywhere.

I find it really uncomfortable sharing with others things I don’t think they’d share themselves. If I am sharing that information, I make sure that nobody knows who I’m talking about. Much like on this blog. I write very specifically using ‘he’ or ‘she’ without names and I’ve done that on purpose.

But I do that in ‘real life’ too. I don’t think it’s anyone else’s business who I’m shagging. Or who I’ve had sex with previously. Or why things didn’t work. I don’t think it’s anyone’s business who I have plans with, who I’d like to fuck or who I absolutely would not touch with a 10-foot pole. I really just don’t talk about those things with people. Unless you’re in my inner circle. And even then you don’t get their real names or any identifying feature.

It feels a little bit weird to me. Because I’m very open on this blog and I share a lot of things. But I guess I hope what you’re taking from reading this blog is everything that I’m willing to tell you about myself, my reactions to dates or sex or relationships. Every thought I have, every feeling, every impulse. Because I’m happy to give it. I’m just not happy to give much else about those people who wander in and out of my life.

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