Baby, Can I Hold You

Emotionally Unsupported

November 10, 2025

relationships

I told this story the other day and I don’t know. I guess it felt like a useful reminder.

I started my first proper job in my career in January of 2020. I was so excited. It felt like people were taking me seriously, that it was my first step in this glittering career ahead of me. And one that I’d worked hard for. I’d studied for a qualification to get into this industry, and then worked a hard, thankless job for another year as the stepping stone that I hoped it would be into this job. A dream job I’d told people.

And those first few months in that job? Honestly felt amazing. It was super local to me, so the commute in and out of the office wasn’t bad, it was on the edge of the High Street and I joined the book group that ran out of the library. I had this lunchtime routine going for a long walk, I was close with my colleagues. My manager was a bit weird, but nothing was perfect. And I wanted to do a good job – and I did. Those first couple of months saw me doing so much and getting lots of great experience that I’d use later on.

But March 2020 happened and when everyone was sent home for that first lockdown, everything changed. My manager went from talking about promoting me and getting in a lower level admin to help assist me to calling me 20-30 times a day. She would ask me to cc her in all my emails as though she was checking in on me. She’d have me write handover notes most days so that she understood what I was doing every day, the implication being that I wasn’t working because I wasn’t sitting next to her in the office under her watchful eye.

And she started getting very critical of my work. I wasn’t doing anything differently but she’d pull me up on things with an edge in her voice. She’d say that she expected things sooner from me even when she knew how complex things were or that I’d been waiting on information from colleagues in the USA. At first I just put it down to stress or maybe worry about the state of the world, the future of our jobs, the unknown.

But what started off small kept spiralling and eventually I’d have multiple video calls a day where she’d heap criticism on me. I couldn’t do anything right even though I didn’t think I was making mistakes. I’d double-check and triple-check information I’d give to her but she kept changing the goalposts. She’d tell me she wanted something formatted in a certain way but when I sent it to her she’d say I’d used the wrong font when I hadn’t. She’s say oh, it’d be easier if she just did it herself.

I felt like my confidence plunged every single day. The incessant criticism got under my skin, into my brain. By that summer, I was crying every morning before I logged in. After work, I’d crawl into bed and not want to move. Feeling no energy to move. I wanted to cocoon myself away from her and her bullying.

When I spoke to my husband, he’d brush it off. He’d say every relationship with a manager has its rough times. But I was crying on my lunch break too. And in the evenings. So I said to him, I don’t know if I could do this anymore. I don’t think I can get through these days with being treated this way. I told him that I wanted to quit and what he said to me will stay with me forever.

He said that we might struggle a bit financially if I quit. We’d taken out a loan the year before and had our kitchen redone. The loan repayments were large but I knew that with his salary the only difference without mine would be a few less luxuries. And still, that was his response. To all encompassing depression, to the incessant tearing down of my confidence, to being flayed slowly day after day, the erosion of my mental health.

So I didn’t quit that day in August. But by November I was fired anyway. And the following January I sat down with my husband and I said this marriage isn’t working for me anymore. It took awhile for me to verbalise my reasons but when I think about my separation, when I think about my reasons for wanting a divorce I usually think back to this experience.

Having him put a minor financial hardship over my well-being broke something inside of me that I’ve worked really hard to fix. It took me months after that conversation to sit down and talk about what I was feeling but it’s always stayed with me. Like the biggest emotional betrayal I’ve ever had to deal with.

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Age Gaps

November 7, 2025

dating, relationships, sex

Awhile ago someone started a conversation about age gap relationships. They asked in particular, what are the reasons that women wouldn’t consider dating or seeing a younger man?

And I remember my answer was that it was primarily societal reasons. I remember growing up people talking about the predatory nature of ‘cougars’ or conversations not even specifically about me or anybody that I really knew about taking advantage, robbing the cradle, or other such things. All spoken about in a really negative light. And it’s only been recently that I feel like the opposite – an older man and a younger woman – has really had a spotlight shed on it with any questions or concerns about that distance.

It’s always felt more acceptable when the man is older.

Speaking of my own experience, I remember feeling uncomfortable when I met a couple who were in their mid-20s when I was almost 40 at the time. They were okay with it, if I put aside unfounded guilt, I’m okay with it too. The only thing spoiling the experience for me is the possible push-back from others who would be judgmental of that experience.

I did see a younger man for a bit. Lovely man, we had a great time together. But when I mentioned it to a friend she had a visceral reaction like I’m doing WHAT. And her reaction both really hurt and maybe also surprised me. I thought we’d moved on from such things. I’m an adult woman and this was an adult man. We had things in common, we enjoyed each other’s company. We weren’t together long enough for society and societal expectations to creep in and spoil things (we were perfectly capable of doing that individually!) but it probably was a thing that affected us, even subconsciously.

And it makes me sad.

I did watch two films recently, you’ve probably already seen them that covers similar themes.

The first was Babygirl which had so much hype around the sexiness of it, the subversiveness of it all. I watched it months after everyone else and I felt like it was just a mess. The entire story arc was chaotic and it felt like there wasn’t a cohesive message or takeaway from it. I didn’t much care for Nicole Kidman’s character or Harris Dickinson’s character. I didn’t love the implication that Nicole Kidman’s characters’ unusual upbringing led her to how she was. I finished the film and thought …I will never get that time back.

Did I think that it helped towards normalising an age gap in romantic relationships or sexual relationships? Not really.

And after that I watched Mad About the Boy, the Bridget Jones film. And Renee Zellwegger falling for Leo Woodall in this film was just pure joy. There was an age gap and it was clear to see the differences in their approach to stuff from their age. But it felt like Renee Zellwegger was able to live a little, have more fun in her life, feel sexy and enjoy pleasure, attention and everything else that Leo Woodall brought into her life. And he seemed similarly able to get real joy from being with her. It was lovely to watch. And honestly? I’d love to see more it.

I feel like everything moves so slowly in terms of changing perspectives on women and sex and relationships. But I’d definitely like to see more representation and acceptance of women who are choosing pleasure and joy whether that means being on their own, doing their own things, embracing their sexuality, fucking a younger man or whatever it might look like.

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Moving On And Being Friends

November 6, 2025

relationships

I was thinking about this the other day. The idea of moving on from a relationship after you’ve ended things but doing that while you’re still friends with that person.

It’s a tricky one and I feel like I’ve done it several times in varying degrees of intensity and all followed a similar formula.

Things ended with my ex and I thought really hard about what I wanted and what I needed following that relationship ending. Both with myself and from him, from our friendship. I knew that I couldn’t bear the idea of him not being in my life. I knew that right away. So initially, we just tried to carry on messaging as though not much had changed. But of course things had.

And there were now all these boundaries in place. I couldn’t tell him (or probably shouldn’t) that I was in the shower and something about how my hand grazed against my naked body made me think of him touching me or how when I fell asleep at night I’d close my eyes and think of being curled against him.

It felt like having the sexual side of things being off limits was difficult for me. But so was some of the emotional stuff. I liked going for walks with him and we went from seeing each other roughly once a week into never at all (it’s been nearly two years and I’m pretty sure I’ve only seen him once in that time, by accident). I found it a struggle to hear about his efforts to move on from me and it made me feel worse. Every time I noticed that he was a little bit vague or wasn’t telling me things in a level of detail that he used to it used to make me feel worse. Laughing at something funny he said would plunge me into despair.

So it wasn’t planned but I decided that in order for a friendship to continue there had to be a clear distinction between when we were romantically involved and when we are Just Friends. And to do that involved a big break in communication.

And that break in communication meant that I was focusing just on myself. On what I needed. I’d read books and listen to music and having flirty conversations with others and go out and meet those people. And at times I felt like I was keeping a mental list of all the things he missed out on my life like if we ever talked again I’d remember to tell him about the time I did this one cool thing or had this other great conversation. But soon, that mental list got too long to remember and I got out of that habit. I needed that.

When it felt like I’d no longer be expecting to see him on my lunchtime walks or when I no longer felt a pressing urge to tell him every intimate thought I’ve ever had, when it felt like I just miss hearing his thoughts on crime books or Netflix shows or whatever else it was then I reached out to him again. There was a moment where I had to stop and ask myself if there’s any chance that I’m reaching out again in order to reconnect with him in a romantic or sexual way. If yes, leave it a bit longer, it isn’t fair on your or him. If no, congrats on moving on from your ex.

That isn’t to say that I don’t still feel things for him or that I don’t still have moments where I feel twinges of longing or hurt or whatever from him. But for the most part? That bit of distance meant that I was able to grow into those areas that he used to fill.

I miss him constantly. And I’m crying a little bit as I’m typing this because I do really miss him and what we had. It’s different now but I know it has to be for there to be any level of healthiness to our friendship. Letting go wasn’t easy but in doing so I do get little hits of friendship from him. It’s worth it to me.

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Those Lips

November 5, 2025

dating

I was wondering what it would be like to kiss you with those lips

I think I was 12 or 13 the first time someone told me they thought I had ‘blow job lips’ – I wasn’t even fully sure what a blow job was at the time but I understood it was sexual. That it wasn’t something I wanted to hear or know.

These days, as an adult, thankfully people aren’t so crude. But I definitely still get quite a few comments and compliments about my lips. I get complimented on my eyes and lips the more than any other physical attribute.

And I think what surprises me about that is that I’ve disliked my lips for so long. I don’t know if I feel like I should feel bad about that or not. But I have freckles on my face (and generally) and those freckles extend to being on my lips. I realise that I don’t have a wide community of people around me, but I don’t think I’ve ever met someone else with freckles on their lips before. And for a very long time I’ve disliked that which makes me different.

Why did I get such bad luck to have freckles on my lips?!

But what I’m slowly learning is that nobody else really notices my lip freckles like I do. People just generally appreciate the size of my lips, the plumper bottom lip but both being fairly full. And here they are fantasising about what it would be like to kiss these lips.

It feels like a sign to pack away my own self hatred and switch my thoughts to feelings to something more positive, something a bit more celebratory, something even …sexy.

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Friendship Breakups

November 4, 2025

life

I remember reading somewhere that friendship breakups are so much harder than romantic breakups. And it’s so true. I still feel a little unsettled from the ending of a friendship that happened nearly 10 years ago. And I guess I’m going through it again.

Besides the huge loss of a friendship which is hard to handle just on its own, I think friendship breakups are harder because other people still in your life don’t understand it or support it in the same way as a romantic break up. There aren’t friends or family calling up after a friendship break to check in on how you’re doing or asking if you want to talk about it or watch shit telly and eat ice cream together. Friendship breakups feel lonelier, like not only do you have to go through it but you have to go through it alone.

I’ve written a bit about my best friend on this blog. She’s someone that I strongly connected with initially and just built on that connection over the last just over 10 years. We’ve been through a lot together. She held me together when I needed it, listened to me crying, laughed with me over the funny things, celebrated the wins with me.

And during that time I was there for her during breakups and a move to a different state, her marriage, the birth of her two children. I honestly thought we’d continue our friendship until we were old and grey.

But that’s not to be.

And I feel absolutely heartbroken over it. She’s fallen off the face of the world for over three months. And at first I thought it was that she was poorly, her kids were poorly, life stresses getting to be too much. But surely not for that long?

So I reached out to people in her life. Her husband, her ex boyfriend that she shares a cat with. I figured something must be wrong for her to just vanish from my life. And when one of them got back to me to say she’s fine, I spoke to her two days ago I thought … oh. It’s just me then.

And that feels like a rejection of me as a person. Of me as a friend. That kind of dismissal from me in her life makes me feel like I wasn’t important to her, that the friendship was never as strong as I thought it was.

It makes me question so many things about me, about her, about our friendship over the years. Was any of it real? Was it just me being generous with her, filling in those gaps how I wanted to see her or our relationship? I guess I’ll never know.

I wrote the above when I was still in the sadness portion of my grief. And it is grief. I’m grieving the loss of this friendship, there are still things that are happening right now and my first thought is to tell her about it. But I’m over the sadness part. Now I’m into the anger stage. And my therapist used to tell me that tapping into my anger is like tapping into the version of myself that knows I don’t deserve this pain or unfairness. My anger keeps me strong and with healthy boundaries.

And right now? My anger is saying fuck her. Fuck her and her choice to cut me out of her life. I’m a great fucking friend and it is her loss that I’m no longer part of it. I don’t want to spend anymore of my time second-guessing her decision or asking ‘what if?’ because that way lies madness. And I have no control over the thoughts and decisions of others.

All I can do from here is acknowledge the deep, deep pain I am in right now, look after myself a little more right now and throw my energy into the people and things that are worthy of my time, attention and love.

The people in my life are few but the ones I do keep around definitely mean a lot to me. I think this whole thing just goes to show that nothing is certain in life. And I’m grateful to those who do stick around.

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Anonymous Confessions vol. 7

November 3, 2025

relationships, sex

It absolutely thrills me to see your name pop up online. I like the way you think, the things you say. I feel like I’m the best version of myself with you and it makes me sad that there are things standing in the way of more.

I used to hold onto feelings a lot. So the above used to weigh on me quite heavily. I’d overthink it, maybe I’d think it tragic and romantic? I don’t know, it’s hard to remember past versions of myself.

Now though? Now I feel like I’m firmly walking away from a scarcity mindset. It didn’t work out? It wasn’t meant for me.

I know that I sent this anonymous confession out into the world but maybe it just needs to be set free. I need to let this one go. Let these words be the last time these bittersweet emotions are borne by me.

Let my future be one in which I get the same buzzy feeling about someone and it isn’t feel so much like insurmountable obstacles to make things work.

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Anonymous Confessions vol. 6

October 24, 2025

relationships

For whatever reason, my heart has decided to hook itself to you. Most days I’m okay with it. You’re funny and smart and sexy as hell. You make me feel safe. You do things to my body and it all feels so good that I swear sometimes that I’m in love with you. Some days I believe that. I just wish it were easier to tell you how I’m feeling, what I need from you. To understand your reluctance to open up to me.

This is a hard one. I’ve written so often on this blog about this man. I give him chance after chance. I even documented the build of a break up with him only to roll it back and be like, nah. I don’t mean that.

He’s the biggest blind spot I think I’ve ever had. I met him at a time when I was sort of spinning out of control after things ended with my ex and I needed a steady, safe person to settle my feelings on. I’ve often wondered if I’d met him at a different time in my life would I have developed the feelings I have for him? Or was it just the circumstances?

I can’t give a definitive answer. And I don’t think it would make a difference to try to rewrite history now. The damage to my heart has already been done. Because I do have feelings for him. I often have days, like I did when I originally wrote the confession above, where I think I’m in love with him.

And I’ve thought over the last few months, hoped really, that maybe he feels a little bit the same too. With absolutely no evidence of it. Just my hopeful nature.

And tonight he confirmed that is, in fact, not the case.

My heart is a little bit bruised tonight. I hope you’ll understand if I take next week off to rest, recover, relax. Take a little time to myself. And hopefully when I come back I’ll be feeling a little bit more myself.

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Hand Holding and Gentle Touches

October 23, 2025

sex

There are some people who are just incredibly lovely. And I was lucky enough to have sex with one of those people the other day.

I’d met him recently for a walking date and he is lovely but he doesn’t live particularly close to me. So when he said he’d be in my area over the weekend, did I want to meet up I said ‘yes’ straight away. We hadn’t even kissed when we met up for our walk so it was a bit of a leap that this meet up was going to be in his hotel room, but I’m here for this type of questionable behaviour.

I’d told him beforehand that I struggle with that transition from talking normally fully clothed into the naked sexy times so he was pre-warned for when I arrived and started babbling away. It was like I couldn’t stop. My mouth just kept opening and I was telling funny stories about my parcel of lingerie being delivered to the wrong address and maybe stories about my dog? I don’t remember.

But because he’s lovely he went with it. I don’t know how he knew but what he ended up doing was perfect. We were lying on the bed next to each other and instead of anything more forward he would nod and smile at my stories and at the same time start pulling me closer or gently touching me. I felt a little bit like a spooked horse that he needed to settle. But I’m glad he did it and all that touching helps calm me down anyway.

It’s a bit weird having sex with someone new, isn’t it?

I was familiar with his faces when he talks to me, his face when he’s smiling or laughing but I was not familiar with the really intense eye contact he gave me while we were at the actual event or his o face.

I had a fucking great time and a lot of that is down to who he is as a person. I could tell from all the eye contact that he was really interested in connecting with me on that level. He’d link his fingers or hands with mine like he wanted that physical connection all the time too. And afterwards, it was all this lovely cuddling and touching. And I couldn’t get enough of it. It’s one of my favourite things lying naked next to someone and just gently touching each other.

I hope to do that again and sometime soon. He asked if I wanted to see my favourite musical with him sometime soon. And it makes me smile to think about him.

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Reality vs. Fantasy

October 22, 2025

relationships

Do you ever have that problem where you are into the idea of something or someone and your brain runs away with itself? I think I’ve fallen foul of it quite often.

Sometimes, as I’ve written on this blog before, I’ve actively participated into fantasy thinking. Especially with others. Before I brought up divorce or separation with my ex husband I’d feel so unhappy and miserable that I liked a bit of imaginary release from reality. And at times with people I’d build pictures in my head about futures with these people online. Even at the time of doing it I knew it wasn’t real. But it made me happy for a time. And that had a place in my life then.

These days I thought that I was beyond playing fairy tale. But I caught myself in the act of it the other month. I was in Paris for a long weekend and at the same time my ex was on holiday and for a brief moment I thought … I wonder what it would be like if my ex and I went on holiday together?

And I played that game in my head for maybe two minutes. I allowed myself two minutes of that fantasy. Of seeing his beautiful face, of having the luxury of time together. I think we’d have a great time just the two of us, I don’t think it would matter where in the world we were. In my imagination I was thinking we’d approach any new place the way we approached visiting sex clubs for the first time. Maybe a bit of nerves, but some curiosity, some childlike excitement, together.

On the back of that fun note, I started thinking if other people in my life would share the same great thoughts if we went on holiday. I thought of my on/off person, what would it be like if he and I went somewhere on holiday together? And I knew the moment I thought the question that I had no answer for it. And that’s because we wouldn’t go on holiday together. There is no real world basis in it. I’d like us to be the type of people that would want to spend time together, do something intimate and exciting like travel together. But I know in my heart that it would never happen.

And it’s a sobering thought. That some people are reality and some people are fantasy.

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Call My Name by Lukas Graham

October 21, 2025

relationships

Every time I hear this song, I feel a little bit of shame.

I had this friend that I knew online. I knew he was really nice and we used to spend quite a bit of time online messaging back and forth about nothing terribly serious. Everything was very surface level, I didn’t know a thing about him.

Until the day he said he wasn’t logging into the place we had been messaging anymore, it didn’t bring him any value anymore. But he said he’d like to keep in contact with me and I said yes. So we moved to a different platform and we started actually getting to know each other.

And I was surprised. I hadn’t realised how much he cared about his family, how much effort he put into his career, the ambition that he had. When we were surface-level friends I thought he was sweet and funny. But seeing the depth in him I knew him to be determined and hard-working and incredibly loving to those he cared about. It wasn’t a massive circle of people but it was clear to see in how he spoke about those in his life how much they meant to him.

And it was all so appealing to me.

We were talking about music once and he told me that he’d had lots of thoughts about song and music recommendations for me that he’d never shared with me. Intrigued I asked like what?

At the top of my head, he said, I’d say Call My Name by Lukas Graham.

I wasn’t familiar with the song when he said that. But I did immediately go to listen to it. And I remember feeling so emotional listening to it that first time. I remember thinking how has this one person so clearly seen straight into my loneliness?

The song is about recognising the hard work of someone else but reminding them that they don’t have to do things themselves. Lean into me, I’m here for you. And I cried listening to it, thinking that that were words he’d heard and thought of me.

Briefly, we did a minor foray into something more romantic. But he was so intense in everything that I almost felt overwhelmed by the pressure he brought with him. I knew that if things remained in the shallow end of things, I’d be fine. But I also knew he’d never settle for that and at the time I didn’t know how to bring that up, how to deal with that. To deal with him.

So instead I didn’t. Bless him, a very toxic person came back into my life and I used the distraction of him as a reason to ghost this other lovely, gorgeous man. Instead of having an adult, mature conversation with him I just …stopped messaging him. I feel bad about it to this day. He didn’t deserve that. He deserved so much more than me. I’ve often thought about reaching out to find him to apologise. But too much time has passed and I know any apology I could give him would be more for my benefit than his, so I won’t.

He’ll never come across this blog so I won’t use his name. I’ve made a promise to myself to protect the anonymity of people I write about here. But if I could, I’d tell him that even though we weren’t in each other’s lives for long the short time he was in mine he made a big impact and I think about him still years later. I’d apologise for the truly shitty way that I treated him. He saw into my soul in that brief period of time and I definitely did not appreciate him enough.

So if you need a friend someone to hold your hand call my name and I won’t be far away

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