Baby, Can I Hold You

Lord, I Wish I Hadn’t Bothered

August 7, 2026

dating

So I went on a date recently. Usually I opt for low commitment, low energy options like meeting for a coffee or a drink. But when this man suggested dinner instead I thought … yeah, okay. I don’t want to be closed off to opportunity or possibility. So I went with that.

Lord, I wish I hadn’t bothered.

We did message quite a bit beforehand. But we mostly talked about my recent holiday with which he happened to have a connection. We talked about food and work. I wish now that we’d strayed into some other topics because maybe then I would have seen the red flags before having a date from hell. But it happened.

I quite liked that he suggested dinner. And he chose a place and considered my drive time to get there compared to his. I chose the date and time we were meeting. I was excited by it.

And then he arrived in shorts and sliders and I thought …okay. Whatever you’re comfortable in. And we enter the restaurant and we start some small talk. It isn’t until we’ve had our drinks delivered that I realise fuck, this is going to be hellish to make it through.

I won’t go over every thing that was said. But the highlights include:

Him telling a story about work in which he was asked to do something ‘beneath’ him and said ‘What am I? An immigrant from Mexico?’

Him telling a story about work in which he said ‘No offence, but most of my team are Nepalese so their ability to speak English comes and goes’

Him telling a story in which he met up recently with his ex wife and mother of his children at a family event where he mimicked her voice in a high pitched way and what she said and at one point he had told her she was looking well but then as an aside to me in this story he admitted she wasn’t looking well at all and then made other derogatory remarks about her

He essentially told me I’m ‘not like other women’ but I can’t quite recall the reason for this elevation above other women

He rolled his eyes and made impatient gestures to the wait staff when they took longer to bring him his water or the bill than he wanted

He would ask me questions but wait until I stopped speaking so he could talk more about himself or his opinions on things

He made me agree with his opinion that non-monogamy shouldn’t be a thing and if two people were giving each other everything they needed that people shouldn’t want more

He told me in great detail his opinion on women who have full sex lives and have multiple sexual partners

He told a long, bragging story about holidays he’d taken when he was younger as though I was meant to be impressed by them

Even though I switched off halfway through this dinner and was only nodding my head, saying ‘mm’ now and again and mostly taking sips of my water he said ‘this is going well, isn’t it?’ and I wasn’t brave enough to say it’s really not

He then told me that he was apprehensive about meeting me because I came across as serious and without a sense of humour

He asked me if I wanted to come to his for a coffee afterwards

He leaned in as though he wanted a kiss as I was trying to leave

We did plan on going ice skating for our next date but I have no intention of following through with that and felt lucky to get in my car and drive away.

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Awkward, Morbid Curiosity

August 6, 2026

relationships

This thing happened recently that I’m not sure about.

For context, everyone knows of my rollercoaster relationship with him. He’s insisted in the two years that I’ve known him that he’s never been jealous anytime I’ve seen other people. And I do believe him.

But sometimes when he says he’s genuinely not jealous it sounds as though he means he doesn’t experience jealousy as opposed to just not feeling jealous over me.

And I know that to not be true.

One of the first times he sent me messages with lots and lots of words all at once it was to relay a story of a woman he’d met a couple years ago and he said he’d been ‘working really hard’ to arrange to see her again. And that when she was available, she’d chosen to meet up with someone else instead of him. And he was fairly twisted up over it. I think at the time he even mentioned losing all interest in meeting others or putting in the energy anymore for any of it.

And at the time, two things really stuck out for me. And both really hurt me. The first is obviously the jealousy he felt about this woman meeting someone else. But the second is maybe less obvious but hurt more. And that was the amount of effort he was putting into over an extended period of time to meet up with her.

I don’t believe he’s ever been jealous of anyone I’ve met. And I don’t believe he’s ever put in any effort to meet me.

So both were pretty painful. Following that conversation we had a falling out and then obviously reconciled. But the hurt from that is still there. It came up again recently, in fact.

But I mention all of this only for context.

Because what I was actually intending to write about today is that this woman is married and in a ‘hot wife’ situation and they have a couples profile on the website we all use. And this thing happened recently in which this couples account sent me a message the other day when I had decided I was no longer going to be messaging my on/off person.

And when I got this message from this couple, I didn’t know what to do.

I reached out to a friends group chat for advice (who all advised I delete the message and not get pulled into anything complicated) but you know me. I don’t make smart decisions sometimes. And I was struck by this awkward, morbid curiosity about why on earth THIS couple in particular had reached out to me.

So I opened the message. And I responded.

I’ve never interacted with her. It’s only been with her husband and while they do know that they and I both know him, they don’t know whether I know him in a platonic or sexual way. I figure it’s not my place to share that information.

And I guess while it started out as a weird curiosity about them what I’ve learned through maybe a month or more of messaging is that they seem like a normal couple. Who do normal things. I don’t think I was expecting to learn anything about his relationship with her or anything. And I certainly haven’t asked any questions that aren’t my business.

But it is a weird situation to be in. I think I’m still trying to roll around in my brain my reasons for pursuing this friendship. I fear the answer isn’t a good one but it’s also as though my brain isn’t allowing me closer to the truth of it just yet.

I put this out into the world for accountability. I hope I’m not being some sort of creep in this situation. Did I just want it as a means of getting back in touch with him? Did I want to use my own knowledge of this couple as a way of connecting with him?

Only time will tell, I guess.

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What It’s Done To Me

August 5, 2026

life

Grief is one of those things that nobody can understand, right?

I didn’t know how I was going to react to my mother’s (sudden, tragic, unexpected) death but I think these early days makes me realise life is too short and not to waste it.

I actually cringed writing that. Because that’s pretty cliche, isn’t it? But I guess it’s a cliche for a reason. And that is how I’m feeling. I’ve started to prioritise things in a way that I hadn’t before. Taking stock of what’s important.

But I’ve also started being more open and honest.

And that’s surprised me. I hadn’t thought I wasn’t open or honest before. But I’m saying and doing things now that I possibly wouldn’t have done before. And I’m going to chalk that one up to my mother.

I had a really blunt conversation about a friend and the situation he’s in. I knew at the start of the conversation that I wouldn’t just not say how I was feeling. And I didn’t shy away from it. Though it felt familiar to do so. Like, my body was used to shying away from saying the direct thing.

Later, I told my ex about the conversation, and was honest about how I felt about it. It was me expressing my gratitude towards him during our relationship but I realised that in saying the nice thing to him that I probably stopped myself from saying the direct things I’ve thought or felt.

I started being more open with him about what I wanted, what I needed. We had a conversation about my porn watching habits, about masturbation. About things that I’d fantasised doing with him. And it all felt so new. My relationship with him hadn’t been one where I have been that open but it felt good. So good that I’ll probably continue.

And not only that, I find myself being freer with my decisions. Choices that might improve my happiness. It makes no matter that those choices have not, in fact, improved my happiness. It only matters that I’m making choices that I feel are right at the time.

And this could be a trauma response. I’m not really sure. But for right now, I’m not mad that this has been the direction my grief has taken.

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At the Edge

August 4, 2026

relationships

Not so long ago I was going through this really awful time. Work was shit and I’d considered handing in my resignation immediately following this thing that had happened.

My mother was dying in hospital and I couldn’t get hold of my brother and I was forced to make lots of hard decisions. Nobody had given me a hug when I’d said things were bad with my mother and I just felt really, incredibly alone in everything I was carrying.

And instead of dealing with those things, I wanted to pick a fight. Probably. I only really realised that’s how I was feeling now as I’m writing this blog post.

But I was dealing with lots of really big feelings and I didn’t know how to deal with any of them so I ended up saying to him that I was struggling with capacity for certain things and could he please meet me? It was about 8:30-9pm. I only wanted to meet him for a few minutes (and said as much) so I could finally give him his Christmas present. I said it’s really important to me to give it to him before his birthday.

But he didn’t meet me. He sent a message to say that he was still working and needed to get some things wrapped up before tomorrow.

And I lost it. Not because he was working or that he wasn’t able to meet me. But mostly because he felt like the one person on this entire planet who could potentially give me a hug. And I knew that if he did come out to meet me if I’d asked him for a hug he’d have given one to me.

I felt like I was at the edge of what I could deal with and I needed that bit of physical contact. I needed that bit of emotional connection with someone else.

In that moment when I got his message I started to cry. And then I got mad. And I deleted him as a friend. And I archived our message thread on Whatsapp and I thought ‘well, fuck you then’ and I honestly, truly believed that would be that.

It wasn’t though. It never is.

We went about a week or ten days without messaging maybe before I finally cracked and asked him if he’d seen the latest about a thing we both follow.

And eventually I sent him a friend request.

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Didn’t Mean Anything By It

August 3, 2026

dating

I met someone recently.

We started messaging ages back. Maybe more than a month? It was fairly regular but not really in depth conversations. I felt like I got enough from him to think it might be nice to meet this person.

There was a misfire at one point where I thought I’d be able to meet him and then I needed to do a thing with my kid and it didn’t work out but he was fine about it and we rescheduled for a time in the next couple of weeks.

I hadn’t really given much thought about the actual day we met. But I’d been on a mini spa day and I arrived with oil in my hair from getting a facial and a massage and when I saw him and sat in a chair opposite I sort of melted into the chair. I felt so relaxed and boneless. It probably wasn’t a great time to meet someone but at least I wasn’t in my own head about stuff.

We stayed chatting in the sunshine for more than an hour and I wrote to a friends group chat afterwards that I’d just met a cute, kind man who made me laugh and everyone was suitably happy for me.

When I got home, we exchanged a few messages, he confirmed he had a great time too, that he’d like to see me again. I thought ‘fantastic!’ and thought things would be smooth sailing from there.

It wasn’t.

I’d sent him a message a couple days after we met and then he didn’t respond to it for a good 6 days despite messaging daily before we met up. I sent him a message pretty much saying sorry, I must have gotten my wires crossed about how well things went when we met up? I guess I would have expected more consistent communication than this and he apologised and said he ‘didn’t mean anything by it’

He did attempt to send more regular messages but I was still annoyed so only responded tersely.

THEN! Then I get a message from someone else on the website we both use. And the message reads something like this:

God, you’re hot. I see you’ve met my friend, he’s sat next to me right now. I would love to meet you as well, we are both sat here very horny with massive cum loads to drain

Let me tell you how disgusting I felt reading that message. That this man would talk about like this to his friend, that he’d be sat with some random man thinking this would be okay for anyone to send me.

I immediately deleted and blocked the friend of this man. And I sent the person I’d met a message to say I honestly can’t understand why he thought that message was appropriate but in the absence of doubt, do not message me ever again.

He wrote back to say his friend ‘didn’t mean anything by it’ and even though I wrote back to remind him in future to be respectful, decent and less of a creep I still felt horrible by the whole experience.

Mostly because I’d felt so hopeful after our coffee date. I was excited by him. Only to be slapped in the face with cum loads.

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Favourite Compliments

July 31, 2026

dating

I’ve had some really interesting compliments recently. Again, I’m playing fast and loose with the word ‘recently’ here.

Some were better than others.

You’re a really good kisser has been a favourite of mine. I like it when it’s said in a tone of almost disbelief. Like, I had no idea you’d be such a good kisser. Get in there with those low expectations is what I say.

You’re a really fast typer is a recent compliment that I’m baffled by. These happen when I’m in a chatroom with my cam on. Apparently I type loud AND fast. Double whammy there.

Going along a similar theme, someone read my profile and said to me You can actually spell and I wanted to fall over laughing. The bar? It’s in hell.

You have such good taste in music might my favourite compliment of recent times (it wasn’t that recent!). I was driving him to the train station after spending time in a hotel room together when In the Midnight Hour by Wilson Pickett came on my playlist. Every time I hear that song, I think of him and that compliment.

And it still makes me smile.

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Details

July 30, 2026

relationships

I said to a friend recently that sometimes I write these blog posts partly to be able to process my thoughts and feelings about things that have happened but partly to remember what happened. Sometimes the details of things just fly out of my head.

I saw on social media, you might have seen it too? A video where someone had gotten 20 random strangers together and paired them off to kiss. It was so magical to watch. There was something so captivating about their awkwardness, that some of them used humour to diffuse the situation, watching them touch each other, look into each other’s eyes and then kiss. The first day I came across that video I watched it several times in a row, and then if I came across it again in the next few days I’d watch it again.

I sent the video to my ex, to him, to other friends. It felt like a video that needed sharing. It was so beautiful to watch.

And somehow on the back of it I realised that I couldn’t remember what my first ‘proper’ kiss was with him. I remember our first kiss after we met that first time. Close mouthed and rushed and left me wanting something a bit different.

But (and was it because I didn’t write about it?) I don’t recall what our first real kiss was like. I have an idea in my head based on kisses I do remember that it was probably a bit like me throwing my entire body at him and devouring his mouth with mine. But it was killing me to not know for sure.

So I asked him. We talked about it. I don’t know if he remembered and just didn’t want to let on that he remembered after I’d told him I didn’t remember it at all. But what was lovely is that we talked all around that second date where we met up and had this kiss. I told him all of the things I was thinking, the things I remembered he had said or that I had said.

I even went for a walk that same day wearing the same dress I wore that day and the same shoes. Hoping, I guess, that by cosplaying the event I might remember more about it. But I didn’t. Some things just aren’t for remembering. And that’s one of them.

It was fun trying though. To relieve the memories I did have. Looking back at myself from two years ago. Thinking about how different she was to the me of now. How I still so badly want to kiss him after all this time.

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Really Very Judgey

July 29, 2026

dating, sex

Does this make me a terrible person? I’m really keen to hear other people’s perspectives.

Recently (and I’m being very, very loose with the word ‘recently’ here!) two separate people (who I have previously had sex with) had each said that two particular people were either a previous sexual partner or were a potential sexual partner.

And when I heard both people say who those people were it immediately gave me the ick and I no longer held a sexual attraction to either of them.

Is that terrible?

I feel like it is terrible. Because I’m judging both by my own experiences and perspective. Partly because it isn’t necessarily because either of those people is physically unattractive or that their personality is lacking (though, in the spirit of full honesty, I do feel one is really physically unattractive and the other is really lacking in personality!). It’s more to do with I think both individuals have displayed such low standards that they’ve overlooked these physical or personality attributes.

And I’m mostly writing this post because I feel so cringe about it. I’m embarrassed that I’m really very judgey about this. I can feel it in my bones that I’m being a terrible person about it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that! And I don’t know what conversations are being held in private. Why do I have such strong opinions about it?

But they are very strong opinions. And I can’t change how I feel.

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Park Runner?

July 28, 2026

dating

It had been awhile since I had seen or spoken to him but when he sent a message that read ‘I see you like to run, are you a park runner?’ I wanted to die.

I had had sex with this man just two years ago. My profile still sounded like me, the pictures still looked like me. When I got his message I thought oh my god, he doesn’t remember me.

Was I really not memorable enough to stay lodged and this man’s brain? Really? And then I gave it more thought and remembered that I hadn’t enjoyed the sexual experience that much and yet I still couldn’t shake this feeling of annoyance and anger. I made some comment in response, perhaps something like ‘are you being serious right now?’ and for whatever reason that kicked his brain into gear and he remembered me.

Or at least he pretended to. He wrote back to me ‘Haha, of course I’m not being serious!’ but I didn’t believe him.

He was a definite regret of mine. And seeing his name on my screen all over again made me cringe at past me. How did he get through my internal filters? How had I looked past the red flags that seem so obvious now.

Or am I meant to give myself grace for still being new to picking up the cues, that I can’t judge myself too harshly for past decisions made with the tools I had at the time?

In any case, he asked if we could pick up where we left off and if I wanted to meet up again sometime.

I politely declined. And when he was surprised and wanted to know my reasons for saying ‘no’ I deleted the message thread. So at least I’ve learned from some mistakes.

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I’m Still Here if A little Heart Hurt

July 27, 2026

relationships

I haven’t felt like updating this blog in awhile. You might have noticed.

It was a combination of a lot of things. A sinking depression about the state of my love life was the first thing. Work piling on the stress and bullshit. This thing with my car had a new little wrinkle to the drama of it. My mother died.

And somewhere in all of that, I didn’t quite feel like scraping across my thoughts on what does this text mean? or the back and forth saga of me and him. I’m not sure if I’m quite in the headspace yet for writing even now but something happened and it was the first thing that made me really think ‘I’ll write about that’

And usually when I think that it’s because I’m hoping that in the process of writing about a thing I’ll understand it more. I’m hoping that in the process of writing about a thing I’ll understand myself more.

I have a list that I keep on my phone called ‘Blog Post Ideas’ which I haven’t updated in more than a month. There’s currently 13 ideas listed there but one of them said ‘I miss him – cried over him today’

And I guess that’s what I wanted to write about today.

Because that happened. Probably a month ago, maybe longer as it’s more in the middle of the list and more recent ideas came later than that. Of course I didn’t write any other detail. At the time I figured ‘cried over him today’ was as much detail as I needed so I can’t even begin to wonder what made me cry over him.

But I know what happened this past week that made my heart hurt enough that I pressed my hand to my chest and had to take a couple of really deep breaths to breath through the sting of it all.

He forgot my birthday.

I give him grace more than anybody ever. So when he didn’t message on my birthday itself I remembered a previous year when he thought my birthday was the day after so I told myself he’ll remember, it’ll just be a day late.

And then the next day passed. And even though I didn’t want to, I sent him a message. My message wasn’t specifically about my birthday but it was deliberately sent to prompt him to recall that I am still here. And that it was my birthday.

And he responded and made no mention of it.

And it’s fine. He isn’t required to remember my birthday. He has a full life and other things more important on his mind.

But I did have a little cry this morning about it when his message did come in. Only a little one. Because it’s just another reminder of how far away we are from each other. I’m not the first thing on his mind, he’s not the first thing on mine. And that’s how it should be. I’m just a little sad about it.

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