Baby, Can I Hold You

Angel on My Shoulder

February 2, 2026

sex

I can’t even tell you how often I think of a conversation I had years ago with the Soldier. I guess I haven’t written about him as much as I have about other people but don’t be fooled. He was a very important person in my life and our relationship was hugely meaningful to me.

There are a lot of reasons for that. Him as a person was just incredibly appealing. He was the first person that inspired sexual fantasy in me. He made me think and feel and question who I am and why certain things affected me in the ways they did. And he was also such a great sounding board for me. I didn’t have people at the time that I could talk to about sex in the way that I did with him. I probably still don’t.

But I remember one time we were messaging and I’d said something about my attitude towards sex. And he asked something like ‘but why?’ and I had to think about it and when I did I responded and he had me dig a little deeper. And then he said this thing.

Essentially what I told him is that my life felt out of control. And through sex (primarily at this time masturbation) I could control something. I could make myself feel better and I liked the high of that feeling, I wanted more of it. Especially when I was stressed or lonely or sad. It wouldn’t make the problems go away but it would be a nice distraction.

And that’s when he said the way that he and I both thought about sex was one step away from being unhealthy coping mechanisms. That with an added element of being out of control with wanting that feeling it could very well be a sex addiction. Did I ever consider how close I was to letting the need for sex and that floaty high feeling to take over? he asked me.

And I hadn’t. Not until he said those words. And every time I turn more to sex, every time I am going through stress (like I am right now) and start thinking if I just had that feeling a little bit more I think of him and this conversation. He almost feels like the angel on my shoulder warning me not to lose sight of my control. Enjoy it but don’t depend on it.

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Growing Together

January 30, 2026

relationships

I mentioned a post about my ex husband and change. This is my attempt at that post.

When I first met my ex husband he had a million interesting hobbies. He was very musical, playing the piano and violin and writing and singing songs as he played. One of my favourite things was to read my book listening to him play the piano. Even as he struggled to get the right notes or whatever.

We started our own little book club together when were getting to know each other. It was cute. We’d get the same book, read it and discuss it together. We used to lay next to each other in bed and listen to each other’s music. He wrote a screenplay, he started drafting a graphic novel. We talked about going on a round the world trip, even had an itinerary planned out with places we both felt strongly about.

I feel like I was led to believe that our lives would grow together and that there would be some element of this creativity and connection and exploration. Exploration of ourselves and of the world.

And yet we were married for decades and …he stopped playing the piano. He never wrote again. Until recently (he found audiobooks) I could count the number of books he’d read on one hand. We never took that round the world trip.

And I don’t think I’d be writing this post if other changes had happened but it was like everything was the same. His taste in music, his taste in clothes, his hairstyle. Where he wants to go on holiday, what he wants to do on the weekends. It was gradual but eventually he just stopped growing.

It feels incredibly sad to feel like I’ve outgrown a person. But I don’t think I’ve ever stopped growing. I don’t think I can stop. And I don’t know how to connect with someone who has stopped engaging in change or growth. Even just an interest in how I’ve changed?

And the other side of the story is the way I’ve felt about his reaction to me continuing to change. The resistance to it. The laughing about it. The doubt about it. The questioning where it’s come from, the insecurity that it means further change. But it isn’t for me to make myself smaller for his peace of mind.

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Dating Disappointment vol. 5

January 29, 2026

dating

Ah, another installment of how disastrous and disappointing my dating life has been recently.

I recently started up a conversation with a lovely man, lives locally. We talk about general things, he seems respectful. There is overlap in people he knows that I also know. He’s big on taking things slow, letting things build and I have enjoyed getting to know him.

The problems started when we tried to make plans to meet. The first time one of us cancelled was because of me. There was a mix up in when my kid was leaving for university so I had to cancel coffee on a weekend. We arranged for something mid-week instead. Fine.

Until he had to cancel the morning of the drinks because he was feeling unwell. That’s okay, I thought. There’s still plenty of opportunity to meet up and see how we get on, right? Only three weeks have passed since then. Not only does he not seem that bothered about rescheduling plans but every time a weekend rolls around he also seems to have his child with him. Every single weekend.

I asked him recently, does that mean you have your child full-time? I was expecting that a divorced man might have some time on his own at some point? That’s a reasonable assumption, right? Only he seemingly does not. He said that he does co-parent but that there’s flexibility in his arrangement because of his work. Which I think sounds plausible, maybe? But to me something just seems off.

Unfortunately, even though he messages me most days to check-in, I am of the opinion that this dude is married or otherwise in a long-term committed relationship. And I don’t have any enthusiasm or energy to walk into the drama for this person.

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Changes

January 28, 2026

life

I have a list on my notes app on my phone of ideas for future posts on this blog. One idea in particular that I’ve been mulling over how to approach it is my ex husband’s fear of change. I had a few different examples I was going to write about, and I might still write about them. But something happened last week that has given me a different perspective on both change and my ex husband’s attitude towards change.

I’ve been in my current work role for the past almost three years. I’ve been applying for other roles in the hopes that I can get a promotion elsewhere that I haven’t been able to achieve within my current organisation. I would say that 90% of the time I am confident that I can do the promotion… but last week I attended a job interview with another company willing to consider me for a promotion into the higher role.

As part of the interview process they wanted me to carry out a 10 minute presentation followed by some competency-based questions. And I left that interview thinking …I feel good about my answers. I’m excited about this opportunity, I’m excited about the people that I’ve met, the description of the team, the role, the challenges. I felt like I was riding high on the possibility.

Until that weekend when I got hit with a massive case of imposter syndrome. I started thinking there’s a reason I haven’t been promoted in my current role, what makes me think I’m good enough to do the job at this other place? What if they realise fairly soon that I’m not up to scratch?

And to multiply some of that anxiety I also started thinking about the additional commute if I was successful in this job. How would that change my routine? How would I cope with the added commute times, with the journey, with my travel anxiety. I have no sense of direction, what if I start every day I’m in the office with anxiety about getting my train, being on the right platform, being on time, getting lost getting from the station to my office, to finding where I’m meant to be.

And from there it just spiralled back to what if they don’t like me, what if I don’t have the skills needed to do my job, what if I don’t pick things up in time, what if their expectations of me aren’t met, what if I’m just not capable of it all.

And at the time I was fully invested in this mental breakdown and nosedive in my own confidence and abilities. I didn’t really consider much else outside of those very specific worries and doubts. But now that some time has passed I do sort of wonder … how will I react when the divorce is finalised and I’m living somewhere new and on my own? What will change look like for me then? Will I be celebrating or hiding under my duvet doing breathing exercises until everything feels better?

We shall see.

Updated to add: I didn’t get the job.

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Dream Texts

January 27, 2026

relationships

I had a dream the other night. It was maybe two separate dreams but when I woke up I knew that two things had happened and I wasn’t sure what I felt about either of those things.

It was one of those realistic dreams where things happen and it was like I was lying in bed with my phone in my hand when a new notification came in or like I’d fallen asleep and then sleepily woke up (in my dream) and checked my phone for notifications.

And that’s it, really. Except that in this dream, it was that my ex sent me a text that read ‘I’ve been thinking and I’ve reconsidered us not seeing each other…’

And the other notification was that my on/off person had sent a message that read ‘Why don’t you come over and see what fun we can get up to?’

And lord, brain. What are you doing to me with either of these messages? I’m not sure that I necessarily need reminders of all the things I can’t have.

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Is This Thing On?

January 26, 2026

relationships

This post is actually about the film I saw tonight, the one with Will Arnett and Laura Dern. But I feel like the title is quite apt for this blog too. I’ve gotten out of the habit of writing lately. For lots of reasons. But that’s a story for another time.

Tonight, I was supposed to go to the cinema with my kid (and my ex, because we still do family things together) but at the last minute my kid decided that he wasn’t up for the cinema tonight. So my ex and I went instead. We don’t normally do things that feel or seem datey. We don’t go out for meals on our own, to the cinema. We’ll shop together because shopping feels safe and less confusing. But tonight there was a Scene Unseen showing at the local cinema and we went to see it.

It shouldn’t be weird. It’s been five fucking years of us being separated. And he knows I’ve had a million dates, and lots of sex with people and one very significant relationship with someone in that time. And yet it was weird tonight.

Because the film? Is This Thing On? I hadn’t realised it was about a man who starts doing stand-up comedy to help him process his feelings about his separation from his wife. That’s pretty much the entire story. About how these two people weren’t happy in their marriage, where it went wrong, how they both felt after it ended.

And it was a sweet film, it was emotional. I enjoyed it. But it was also weird because my ex husband can be really fucking weird about watching films or hearing stories or any mention of divorce. I mentioned in passing about a colleague getting a divorce and my ex husband went silent and weird. And I remember thinking ‘is the whole topic of anyone getting divorced off limits now?’

But I thought it was an interesting story. I wouldn’t personally turn to comedy or stand in front of other people to talk about my relationship. But I might write an anonymous blog. And I know how much that has helped me. So it was a lovely story to be watching.

Thankfully my ex husband and I don’t like sitting next to each other in the cinema so I didn’t have to sit next to him as he got weird about this story. But I did have to deal with the weirdness after. I wasn’t sure if when I left the cinema if it would be silent, awkward. Or if he’d react differently.

Tonight, he pounced on the conversation. Almost in a ‘SEE, see how cool I am with talking about this, I’m fine, FINE’ sort of way. Because as soon as he saw me, he said ‘So what did you think?’ in a kind of aggressive way. I was expecting us to have the conversation in the car so I was startled and said ‘It was …nice.’ And I don’t think ‘nice’ is the word I meant to use, but I was under pressure!

And so he rambled all the way back to the car about it. In a nervous way. In a ‘I need to keep talking to prove how okay I am with it’ way and it was like I picked up on that nervousness and every time he went quiet I filled that space up with more words. All the words. We just traded words back and forth, back and forth.

All the way home.

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On Being Reciprosexual

January 9, 2026

dating

I had a question today from someone that I’d only started conversing with today. On my profile where we met, I have displayed that I am demisexual and reciprosexual. I get a lot of questions about being reciprosexual. Like, a lot.

But today was a new one:

Does that (being reciprosexual) make you more submissive by nature?

I wrote back, no. Why should it? and he went on to confuse attraction with submission stating that because someone else makes the first move would that not make me more submissive?

Aside from the fact that the other person doesn’t necessarily ‘make the first move’ to trigger my reciprosexuality, my attraction or lack of it does not have anything to do with power dynamics. But also, just because someone expresses a sexual interest in me that doesn’t mean that I don’t have a choice in my own attraction to that person.

Which, I guess, needs to be explained to certain people?

I feel like this whole exchange annoyed me in ways that I cannot explain. It’s partly because why do I need to constantly expend emotional labour for others to understand. But also the effort of explaining things to someone using other people’s frames of reference. And also the leap from attraction into something else entirely annoyed me. Probably because I wonder if other people would make the same assumption?

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Dating Disappointment vol. 4

January 8, 2026

dating

Promising messages from two different people came in around the same sort of time over my Christmas break.

The first said he’d seen an enormous number of plays and musicals in 2025 but that it was a mixture of work and pleasure as he was a theatre reviewer. I thought ‘oh gosh’ I’m going to love this conversation. And I did. He asked my opinion on the different plays and musicals I’d seen recently, my favourites, we talked about his favourites. And I was so thrilled by it all. That is until we had nothing more to say to each other about musical theatre. Sadly, conversation didn’t extend to any other topics though several were attempted.

The second person had started his message with a picture of his absolutely stunning 10 month old puppy. I shared a picture of my equally gorgeous dog and I was so excited to send and receive messages to this man absolutely gushing about both dogs. And then we had no more to say about our dogs and attempted other conversation… all of which stalled and died.

Two bright sparks. Neither of which were cut out to go any further.

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Voices

January 7, 2026

dating, relationships

Something rather lovely happened today and it reminded me of something else. And because I’m trying to keep some of the nice stuff just for me lately, I thought I’d share with you the something else.

Have I told you already how much I love voices? There’s something so intimate about voices. I have a real preference for sexy whispers or low voiced commands or the way pleasure can sometimes change a person’s voice.

But, and I guess this could be slightly weird, I also have a real thing for normal voices talking about normal things. I love it when I’m getting to know someone and they switch it from messaging into voice notes. Love. Listening to someone’s voice in real time? Give me more. Give me all of it. I like hearing the pauses between words, I like the fumbling of words, I like listening to the intonation of words. I like it all.

But I can sometimes like it too much. In a weird way. And that’s what my thing today reminded me of. I absolutely refuse to write a dedicated post about this man though I have mentioned him several times. He was someone I got to know around the time of my separation. He lives in Manchester (with a Manc accent) and …I’d describe our relationship as unhealthy. Toxic even.

We’d be getting on great and then out of nowhere an argument would happen, and I would shut down. He’d say mean things. I would think I deserve to be treated in that way and he’d apologise and I’d take him back. I think I maybe liked this roller coaster of emotion at the time.

Because after one such argument, he sent me a voice message. It’s of him and at first he’s apologising. ‘Sorry for the way I spoke to you just then’ and explains that whatever he’d said to me it was said because he was angry. Angry that I doubt things between us. ‘I’m a caring person, I care about people and I care about you’ and at the time he sent that I loved that voice note so much that I would listen to it over and over. I loved the way his accent shaped the words. I loved the emotion I could hear in it. In a twisted way, I even liked the sentiment behind it.

I loved it so much that I’d masturbate over it. I took his words and I romanticised it. The anger, the strong emotion. That feeling of how do you not know how much I care about you?

I still have the voice message. Not because I still listen to it or have any feelings for him still. I only have it because I delete nothing and it’s just sheer laziness that I still have it. Just to give you an indication of what a great guy he was, he left me a voice message when I’d blocked his number. I listened to it today two years after he sent it. He said ‘blocking my number you fucking cretin’ – who said romance was dead, eh?

I’m glad that I didn’t delete that voice message before. I’ll delete it now though. It served its purpose once and because of it I can see how much I’ve changed. I no longer want that kind of care or affection.

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Insecurity Strikes Again

January 6, 2026

relationships

It’s so tiring when there’s literally always something happening that triggers my feelings of insecurity or jealousy.

I’d like to preface this by saying that things with my on/off person have been fine. I told him that I’d bought him a Christmas gift and he was sweet about it. I still haven’t had a chance to give it to him and I haven’t seen him in months. But I don’t need constant reassurance from him (that’s such a big positive shift!) and we don’t message as much and I’m really okay with that. The lack of messaging doesn’t get to me in the same way that it used to nor does the not seeing each other part.

And yet.

The website that I met him on has both a forum section and a verification system where people can write comments after they’ve met people via the site to say ‘this person is cool’ to let others know they are who they say they are.

When I’m bored at work, I’ll be on the forums more often. Joining in on threads or just lurking. I find it interesting and it’s a good way of learning more about a person. You get a feel for people from what they say or how they say things.

I saw a message on a forum thread from a woman that lives locally to me and I clicked on her profile out of curiosity. And that was it. Insecurity and jealousy spiked to an all time high. Because my on/off person had left this woman a verification.

And it isn’t about her. I’m sure she’s lovely. Her pictures are incredible. The few times I’ve seen her post on the forums she seems nice.

But I hate that I feel this way. This verification was left nearly three years ago, long before he and I even knew each other. He’s allowed to have met other people, to have said nice things about her.

I still read it and had lots of Big Feelings. Jealousy obviously. Insecurity about my own connection with him. Hurt that he’s never left me a verification. Annoyance that the times I’ve asked him if he ever did write a verification for me, what would it say? that he responded with a joke. Anger because I wonder if the reason he doesn’t write one for me is because he’s trying to hide his connection to me. Either from someone he is pursuing or because of some other unkind reason.

I don’t want to continue feeling this way.

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