I’m in the Business of Making Friends.

“Do it! You’ll enjoy it!”
“I don’t think so… I’m not really that kind of girl.”
“Oh, come on! What have you got to lose?”
“Nothing, I just…”
“Come on! I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”
“… Okay, I guess… But don’t tell my parents, I’d die of shame.”

And that was how I was forced into prostitution.

No, that’s a complete lie, but it is how I was encouraged to download the app Tinder at the behest of a friend who enthused about it and said I would find it a bit of a lark. I did have my apprehensions because I have never had any desire to join on-line dating sites or anything like that, mostly because of my tendency to attract absolute weirdos; you know the type that dwell in the darkest, most bizarre areas of the internet and eventually crawl out when they see my giant eyes having a bit of a nose around. The whole ‘oh look, she’s weird and quite chubby; SHE WILL LOVE MY INCEST BANTER!’ (Never okay, guys), but also because I’m a lot more interesting on the internet and I always imagine when I meet people they look at me and visibly deflate in enthusiasm, especially when I trip over or walk into a door and they become horrifically disappointed in me for having absolutely no social skills whatsoever. Also because I’m terrified of being captured and forced into a sex ring a la Taken. My dad is not Liam Neeson, he’d probably just tell them to keep me.

I assumed Tinder would be different after reading the description. It’s a totally anonymous application, where if you reject someone it doesn’t come up with ‘this person rejected your face… let’s exact revenge!’ equally, if you click the like button on someone’s face and they don’t like you back, you’re none the wiser. The rejection part was generally the big pull for me, it allows me to reject humans without even having to speak to them, from the comfort of my bed when I have my hair scraped back and no make up on – it’s strangely empowering to a chubby, weird looking, presumably drunk girl like me. That does sound decidedly harsh, but I can only imagine that there are more than plenty of people who see my giant face appear on their screens and click the massive cross button that stamps my image with a big old ‘NOPE’ and I’m fine with that, because there is a definite sense of joy to be felt when clicking that big old button on images of men with their insanely honed abdominals threatening me with fitness, pants hanging ridiculously low on their beyond tanned and slender hips – I imagine these are the types of people who see me in real life and shudder with absolute disgust, not interested in knowing how hilarious and brilliant at everything I am, so it does feel quite empowering to be able to think ‘I don’t fancy you types of people at all, PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!’ and rejecting them happily. Although, part of me does want them to know that I find them horrendous, which is why I’m putting that on here – you’re all very unattractive, muscles are horrible, STOP OFFENDING ME WITH THEM!

I do have to admit that it’s not as hilarious as I thought I was going to be, because no interaction between the people you reject is actually not as fun as having someone valiantly try to chat you up for you to reject with a humorous anecdote in your comedy satchel for when you want to tell someone about your exploration into online photo appreciation, I guess. I’m quite annoyed by the whole thing if I’m being honest, because when I decided to take it seriously and started clicking the like button (I don’t swipe like everyone else, because I sometimes get my left and right mixed up and I’d smash my phone, screaming bloody murder if I ever rejected someone super interesting) I didn’t realise that people had, obviously, also been clicking buttons on my face and it came up with ‘It’s a match! Talk to this person!’ which is horrific and scary. I didn’t, because I’m a terrible person, but some of them do also chat to you and I’ve found that everyone I’ve spoken to has been really funny and interesting. Damn it all! I didn’t expect that. I’ve spoken to writers, avid readers, one particularly awesome Rolling Stone enthusiast and Chef, comic book nerds and people who have left me messages beginning with quotes from Goodfellas and they’ve all been able to hold pretty hilarious conversations. It has been refreshing, but also really bloody annoying, because my friend promised me I’d get some weirdos to interact with and I’ve only really had one, who I didn’t really interact with as much as I should have because I was drunk.

This guy looked normal and we did have a lot of mutual interests and a lot of his photos had him smiling with friends and wearing a dorky Christmas jumper and he had a really nice smile, with a kind face around it, so he didn’t look like he was going to be creep 101, in my defence. He’d already liked my face and then sent me a message, which was really normal, we said hello and asked one another how we were and what we did for a living etc and then, pretty much right after I told him I had a new job, he then asked me for my number so I could send him some nudes? What? Eh? No thanks, pal! I suppose that’s part of the deal when you download apps like this, but I didn’t expect full on perversion from a lanky dork in a shitty Christmas jumper. I told him no, because I’m a classy kinda gal and I’m also not a fan of giving my number to internet folk and he got really arsey about it.

“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“Why, what’s wrong with you? Are you fat?”
“Excuse me? Because I don’t want to send nude pictures of myself to an absolute stranger, it must be because I’m fat? Not at all because I have self respect, high standards and decent morals?”
“Other girls do it”
“Well, you must not speak to many intelligent, self assured women, then.”
“You’re not intelligent.”
“You fucking what?”
“You can’t be, you’re on Tinder looking for a lad”
“Actually, I’m on Tinder so I can write about it on my blog. Took a screenshot of your picture as well, pal, so you’ll be on my blog by the end of the weekend… Enjoy!”

And I sent him a link. I didn’t screen shot his face, nor would I ever be so cruel to someone, but I did instil the fear of God into him for a little while, at least.

Why That One Guy on the Internet Can Go Fuck Himself.

The above is a working title for an introduction I intend to write for my future autobiography. The general title of the novel will be, as ever, The History of Dildos: The Story of a Perpetually Single Red Wine Addict. You might laugh right now, but just you watch. I will write it and people will FLOCK to the shops to buy it as soon as it opens and I will read one of the funnier chapters in a book shop and people will sigh and tell me that I am their hero. Just you watch. But, I am not at the stage yet where I can describe myself as being ‘perpetually single’. I don’t really believe any of my teenage relationships count as being anything other than a few months of awkwardness and ill-advised sexual experiences followed by intense shame and self loathing. Either way, even those were so few and far between that I think instead of ‘perpetually’, ‘constantly’ is more apt. Equally so, even though I am currently a single lady, I wasn’t single for the past five years, so I have been far more ‘couple’ than ‘single’ for all of my dating life, which, in my opinion began when I was nineteen and finally grew into the whole awkward, doe eyed idiot phase of my existence instead of just being totally disgusted by the fact that I wasn’t the girl all the bad guys wanted and developing hugely significant crushes solely on the more unattainable and beautiful men that I have known, feeling the bitter sting of rejection solely through omission, because I am the queen of friend-zoning myself purely by talking and existing. Anyway, none of this matters, nor does it bare any relevance to the topic of my blog. I was just letting you all know that I will eventually be in a position where I will use my blog to catapult me into an accidental dream career and people will be desperate to hear my words in an audio book read by me, in my Geordie accent, laughing at all the bits I think are brilliant, prompting you all to laugh along and think I am a comedic genius. I am also about thirty per cent confident that my tactics will work, so shut your face, Judgey Mcjudgerson. Ahem. Sorry, here’s the actual blog (and if you’ve just started reading here, as opposed to the beginning because I’ve emboldened it, don’t read the rest, it’s not meant for you):

I receive a lot of emails and correspondence from people who, to be quite honest, applaud me for my honesty when it comes to blogging and writing about my life. I do agree that it does take a certain level of confidence and an I don’t give a fuck attitude to be able to write about myself and the horrific things that I have done in the most public setting imaginable. Slightly less embarrassing than standing at Grey’s Monument in Newcastle with a microphone shouting “I once knocked myself out after a blow job because I was laughing too much!” And having passers-by look at me with sheer disgust; on the internet it is much easier, because I can’t see any of you and even if you do have something horrible to say, I will assume that you are jealous of my comedic prowess and move on, confident that I am a genius – it’s a win-win situation for me, you see? But, as with anyone else who counts themselves as a Lifestyle Blogger, you’ll agree that it does take some pretty enormous balls to be able to talk about yourself in a candid manner and, until a few months ago, I didn’t actually realise I had huge, metaphorical testicles, so it’s something I am enjoying exploring both enthusiastically and wholeheartedly.

I have also received a few emails from men, who have questioned my reasons for writing and suggested that my topics of discussion weren’t very womanly. I agree, of course, that they aren’t, unless you count all the Ryan Gosling references, in which case, men, you should all be aware that every single woman has very unladylike thoughts about him and you should just accept that as one of those facts of life. You know, like women do fake orgasms, but have never done that with you. That type of life fact. Anyway, today I received a rather scathing direct message on Twitter from a user who will remain anonymous (because I’m a lady and that’s the type of shit we do for people), basically, in about 280 characters told me that I was going to die alone and am not at all attractive, not only because my eyes are too big, but also because no man could ever want me to be his girlfriend because I swear too much and make too many references to things that men don’t find attractive in a woman. I didn’t respond, but fully intend on sending him a link to this post in order to be abundantly clear when I tell him:

I don’t give a fuck.

 

You see, pal, about five months ago I came home to find that the person I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with had moved out without telling me and cut off all communications with me so that I couldn’t even ask him why he threw five years down the drain and left me in thousands of pounds worth of debts I didn’t even know about. Since then, through my friends and family talking to me and bringing me out of the serious funk that he had left me in, I came to realise that for the past five years I have also been manipulated and controlled by him and his mother, who in turn, controlled him. On a daily basis, I was made to feel really small and that my literary pursuits weren’t good enough to be published, that my writing was shit and that instead of pursuing a career; I should be settling down and eating as many carbs as I could in order to house a baby. I was encouraged to quit my job and focus on a baby I didn’t even want, by both my boyfriend and his mother because that’s how their family behaved. For a while, I rebelled against it and did what the fuck I wanted any way and he left me in 2011. I changed myself entirely in order to win him back and became exactly what he wanted, and in doing so, lost myself, completely and became a dutiful girlfriend who put her dreams and life on hold to sit in the house every weekend and miss out on so many fun opportunities and distance myself from all of my friends, just to keep him happy. Don’t get me wrong I loved him so much, but now that I am not with him, I see that I sacrificed far too much for far too little in return, other than getting a TV and an iPad that he forgot to take with him when he left.

I’ve never been an overly confident person and for the majority of my life I allowed myself to be forced into so many different things because I didn’t know what it took to be accepted. All I ever wanted was to be loved my someone and when I met my boyfriend and realised that he actually fancied me, I didn’t believe it, because I always had people telling me that I was too tall, that I wasn’t skinny enough or that I wasn’t particularly pretty enough and that I shouldn’t try so hard to be funny or I shouldn’t talk so smart… I haven’t been myself for a long time and in these past five months I have had time to reflect on my relationship and how miserable, antagonistic, paranoid and down right nasty I became to people who had once thought of me as friends, I realise that everything I have done up until starting this blog hasn’t been ME. For the first time in half a decade I can safely say that I like myself. Actually, fuck that, I love myself and I don’t think that that’s a bad thing at all. Since starting this blog and communicating with people via social media, who blog too, new doors have been opened to me and has also made me feel happy and more like myself than I ever have and I wake up every day with a smile on my face. It doesn’t sound like a really great life, but to me, it’s the best. I’m not one of those people who are really hard to please, I honestly just like to smile – and because of this blog and the people who enjoy it I do and in doing so, have become a more confident girl to the girl I was last year (last year I couldn’t leave the house by myself and now I toddle off to different parts of the country to hang out with people who actually think I’m nice and funny).

If, as you suggest, all men want to be with a really beautiful woman with perky tits and a perfect body, who doesn’t really have opinions or a sense of humour, then you’re absolutely right in saying that I will die alone. And that’s okay, because, as you so politely implied: I will indeed spend a long time fucking myself; because GOD FORBID that someone want to have sex with a woman who actually likes herself. And that’s okay too, because I am excellent company and have a lot of sex toys. Oops. Sorry, will rephrase that for you: ‘Don’t indulge in self-love because it’s not very lady like’. Is that okay? Prick.

Help! I dream sexed a lady and now I think I might be gay?

I have always fancied males. I was about five when I saw my first penis, because I blackmailed a local boy into showing me his boy parts as a condition of being allowed to play with me and in the same year, I also got wrong off a teacher in nursery school for running into the boy’s toilets to kiss a boy, but then backed out of the situation because I realised that if I kissed him, I would get his voice and he would get mine and I’d not be able to play Mary in our school’s nativity play any more and I really couldn’t have that on my conscience. Jesus would be so disappointed. Since then, my enjoyment of the male form has changed somewhat, I don’t ask people to see their male parts and I tend not to back out of kissing people unless they have bad breath or weird teeth. And, I’m sure you’ll all be pleased to know that I am not attracted to little boys and have also never stepped foot into a male restroom since that first time (unless, of course, you count the times I was forced in my youth when it was hilarious to throw girls into male restrooms and shout “AH, SHE’SA MAN, A MAN! WHERE’S YOUR COCK? EH? WHERE IS IT?!” and point in a dramatic and exaggerated manner so that everyone knows that yes, I am the man lady my friend is talking about). I have only ever had male boyfriends and have only kissed one or two girls when drunk on either spin the bottle dares or that one time I kissed a married ladybecause she put her tongue in my mouth and then told all the males at the party I was an excellent kisser (which I so am).

I have never found women attractive in the sense that I would like to have sex with them. Of course, I do find women attractive, because women are actually beautiful, marvellous creatures with their weird affinity for hair extensions, fake eyelashes and in some cases, padded bras (which actually makes me wonder, what are you going to do when you meet someone and he discovers you are, essentially, a mannequin? What happens there? Do you do some kind of big, Stars in Your Eyes reveal after a well timed steak and a blow job? What happens if he doesn’t like you any more? Is he a sexist pig for being attracted to you solely for the looks you lied about?) and when I’m out and about I do often spend a lot more time looking at women than at men because I don’t find men’s clothes all that nice, and I often spend time wondering how I could achieve that whole I woke up like dis look instead of looking like Medusa. I am also often a wing-woman for my lovely male friends in their Pursuit of Pussy (a term I came up with, because, I think I might be a bit of a misogynist. They, on the other hand frown at me and tell me not to wing-woman them any more.) But, in general, I do tend to find myself getting gooey and tongue tied over men, rather than women and I can safely say in my twenty five years of existence I’ve never thought yes I would like to have sex with that woman right there (because I imagine that’s exactly how men and lesbians do it… Right?).

However (and we all know there was going to be a massive, elongated, exclamatory ‘however’ in there somewhere, didn’t we?), these past few nights I have been having the most strange and realistic dreams, that would technically suggest that the idea of having sex with a woman has crossed my mind, even if I have never articulated this to anyone, or even subconsciously thought it to myself ever in my life. Now, let me set the scene of my dream before I go into the whole ‘what does it mean’ segment of the blog. I should warn you all that it could, technically, be the beginning of a very bad porn film, so if we have any pornographic writers in our midst, keep the fuck away from my dreams! I am, effectively, copywriting them, should I ever want to make a porn film. I mean, I can’t see myself ever wanting to make porn, but you never know what the future may bring. Maybe that’s why I am so lost and cast adrift in my career right now: Maybe I am destined to be a porn writer and this will be my big break and I can start a company called I’m coming for you, porn! Because my porn company will be a hilarious play on words and everything will have a whole Carry On! Theme throughout. I have given this far too much thought, let’s move onto the dream:

I was walking through a massive expanse of land; full of rolling hills, in different shades of lush green, contrasted beautifully against the sunset, which cast a warm pink glow over the whole land. I think I owned it, because I was looking around it with a sense of immense pride and I felt quite peaceful and at ease with everything. I was dressed in an extravagant red gown with really long medieval sleeves and I was carrying a ray gun, because there had been a series of murders on the land lately due to giant insects that kept hopping onto people and squishing them. So, naturally, I carried a gun, lest there be any threats on my life. Eventually, I got to what appeared to be an orchard (so dream me is a borderline alcoholic too), which was also a really long and winding road, with rows of neat and well kempt trees as far as the eye could see. I made a call on my mobile phone and asked for them to send Ana, who then immediately appeared from a gap in the trees, where some stairs had grown. She walked over to me, smiling, wearing a long pink gown with no sleeves and her long blonde hair was tied up, with tendrils framing her face. She had enormous blue eyes and a red, heart shaped, pouty mouth. I remember being really pleased to see her, which is weird, cos I usually don’t fancy blondes unless you count Ryan Gosling, but he could also have blue hair and a penis with a scorpion attached to it and I’d still want to have sex with him. Anyway, when she got to me I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her slowly and rather sexily (way sexier than I’ve kissed anyone in real life in a while) and then, the rest is really too filthy to write and I can’t be bothered to rehash the really sexy parts, just in case there is any secret perverts or porn writers reading this; if you’re looking for some cheap thrills, go the fuck else where you little creeps! But, I will kiss and tell because Ana thought I was really excellent with my dextrous hands and talented tongue and I am going to show off how great at lesbian sex I am through bragging, rather than actual descriptors. Overall, I am very pleased with how dream me performed. Good on you, Doris pet.

When I woke up, it was one of those things where I’d forgotten about it altogether and did a little stretch thinking wow, I feel really well rested, I loved that sleep! Then remembered I’d gone down on a sexy blonde in an orchard and got a little confused. I panicked thinking that maybe I was a lesbian and what did that mean? What would my mother say? My dad has often vocalised his support for any of his female family members being lesbians, so long as we only invite the really sexy ones round and not the butch ones that threaten his masculinity, so I knew I’d have his support. Would I have to adopt children or would we just have a fight and see who got to be the pregnant one artificially inseminated by a robot? It was all too confusing for the first thoughts of the day, if I’m honest. So, I decided to go for a walk with the dog and then consult the internet/dream books when I got home. And yes, the blog title is lifted from my google search. Anyway, this is the general result from all my searching:

If you are not a lesbian in your waking life, but dream that you are a lesbian, then it signifies a union with aspects of yourself. It is symbolic of self-love, self-acceptance, and passion. You are comfortable with your sexuality and femininity. (Via Dreammoods)

I’m not going to say that I wasn’t disappointed that I wouldn’t be changing the lives of lesbians everywhere with my evident superior sex skills (seriously, Ana was totally loving it), because I figured that if I was going to dedicate 2014 to trying new things, why not perform cunnilingus on a series of willing ladies? I mean, other than the fact that I don’t want to and am much more preferential to being on the receiving end, providing the cunnilinguist also has a penis, but whatever, I still maintain that I rocked dream Ana’s world and would genuinely be the greatest lesbian lover known to (wo)man. What I did like about the explanation is that it is actually pretty accurate to how I’ve been feeling. If anyone did actually read my blog earlier, I stated that I was actually the happiest I’ve ever felt within myself, and that through blogging and having an outlet and simply being alone has given me the opportunity to grow into someone who I actually really like, then my dream makes a lot of sense. I’m not sure why it was shown to me through fingering a really fit dream woman, but I can’t say I didn’t enjoy being a dream lesbian for a while. Dream women have proven to be far more responsive and appreciative of my sexy efforts than real men, which makes me want to sleep more, that’s for sure.

If you Fancy me and You Know it, be a Fucking Weirdo!

As a blogger, and a woman, I feel it is my duty to share with fellow women/anyone who appreciates a good laugh at the expense of an anonymous stranger, a few of the chat up lines I have received via social media. As someone who has always loved social media, being single and in my  mid-twenties is probably not the most opportune time to be re-joining the internet and socialising with men via text/internet. Because they’re, for the most part, fucking mental. Here are a couple of chat up lines I’ve received. If you want to contribute your own to the comment section afterwards, feel free, I’m super excited.

This first one contains Game of Thrones spoilers so if you’re, like me, not into spoilers at all AVOID IT! JUST DON’T LOOK!!

“If I were your brother, I would definitely Lannister you.”

This might be my favourite chat up line of all time and if it wasn’t intensely creepy, I dare say it would have worked. But, who, upon discovering that a girl really liked Game of Thrones then decides to use incest as a legitimate method of flirting with someone. If he were to say I would totally imprison you, murder your dad and then force you to marry my midget uncle I would be ALL OVER it and we’d probably now be married and I’d be pregnant and eating horse hearts, but no, he mentioned incest and now the relationship is dead before it even had a chance to blossom. What a dick.

“I know you’re going through a tough time, but I would love to help jigsaw your heart back together.”

Legitimately did not know what to respond to this one, so I blocked him from both Facebook, Twitter and my phone until he got the hint. Harsh? Maybe, but using lines that cheesy and vomit inducing is not at all good for anyone’s health and I genuinely believe that, given the opportunity, he would have stalked me to the point of murder. And I also have reason to believe he’s the type of person to have a wank over a profile photo, which, if I didn’t know about it, I probably wouldn’t care, but I also imagine he would send me a photo of the aftermath; my printed out face all wet and spunky, ripped a part where the mouth was in a distinctively cock shaped hole of horror.

“Your face could use a smattering of spunk.”

Because of all the health benefits, I imagine.

“You have a really innocent, but really filthy face. Like a naughty child, but not weird.”

Let me just point out to any fellas trying to woo a female with compliments on her face: Eyes, smile, even nose; totally go for it, women love to hear shit like ‘you have really nice eyes’ or ‘your smile could legitimately light up any room, do you want to do science experiments and see if we can harness energy from your STUNNING FACE?’ they might work… Telling a twenty five year old woman she looks like a child, but you still want to have sex with her? All the alarm bells going off, you dirty potential paedophile, you!

“I would love to stay in bed with you all day and watch Disney movies.”

I think sometimes men use these generic, stock chat up lines on women because they’re either too lazy to try or think all women are the same and therefore require exactly the same amount of flattery, wooing and chat up lines before she readily agrees to sit on their faces, but word to the wise, fellas, we aren’t. Not even close. And my idea of having a man in my bed all day definitely does not involve Woody and Buzz in the Toy Story sense of the word. Maybe see the above and realise that any references to childhood when trying to fuck a woman is weird and should be avoided at all costs.

“I can just imagine you riding on my massive cock, your enormous tits bouncing everywhere!”

Not so much a chat up line (although, are any of them, really?) as highly inappropriate. He also once told me that he thought I was really unintelligent and looked a bit easy because I am so clumsy and shy (Oh yes, I know this person, as in: I have met him. And some of his ex girlfriends. He knows some of my best friends very well and still thought saying shit like this was okay). If I wasn’t foaming at the fanny then, I must be now. Also, my tits don’t bounce everywhere. Seriously, if I could also give a tip to any man out there who wants to try and sound sexy through a good old fashioned sexting session (which, for the most part, I have no issue with whatsoever): Don’t be anatomically bizarre. Tits generally stay in the one place and bounce, but not like a lasso or those wacky inflatable arm fellows from Family Guy. And whilst we’re at it, I’m far too pedantic to be sucking someone off whilst hanging upside down, back to front, inside out with my hands all over my fanny. Honestly, learn to write, dick heads.

“If I were Ryan Gosling, you’d definitely be Rachel McAdams.”

 I just can’t even begin to emphasise the sheer amount of cheesiness involved in this… Girls love Ryan Gosling and for the most part, they really love The Notebook. But who does this actually work on? Certainly not a twenty five year old university graduate, that’s for sure. My skin is far too pale and my brain far too large to be duped by this generic chat up line. Seriously, stick to the girls who go to clubs purely so they can get fingered in a dirty corner. I, in the mean time, will be else where, showering in the glory of my own self respect.

There are so many more, but I actually had to stop. I was becoming sad and upset by the sheer amount of shit chat up lines I have received. They are amazingly bad and also highly entertaining, so I suppose I should be grateful that these folk are making me laugh, but I’m also pretty put off by men in general at this point: I am now tarring you all with the same brush. Guilty of being a mindless fucker until proven otherwise.

Please share yours with me, especially if you’re a fella, I would LOVE to know if women indulge in the same amount of ridiculousness as some men. Thanks!

I Kissed a Boy! And I Liked It!

I must reiterate, before I begin, that I have actually kissed boys before. Or men, rather, now I’m in my mid-twenties I should probably refer to them as men, lest people get confused and think I’m a pervert. I have also kissed women (not girls) and sometimes I will kiss my dog right on his mouth because we are best friends and that’s not weird at all. What I mean, however, is that I have actually gone out of my way to approach a boy (man) and put my mouth on his mouth. First! Without accidentally head butting him or totally misreading signals and have him laugh in my face (that’s happened). Admittedly, he was drunk, but fuck you guys, this is my moment! Hoorah!

Under the influence of a very heady mixture of merlot, gin and pinot grigio, I recently kissed a very tall, very muscly armed male with an excellent sense of style and generally nice stubble. I know this is probably the most uninteresting thing you have read in your entire lives, but for me – after kissing only one person for the past five years – kissing someone new is a HUGE deal, so you can all fuck off with your eye rolling and judging. Equally, in my twenty five years of existing, I have never been the type of girl who goes to clubs and kisses boys. Mostly because I very rarely go to clubs, but also because when I look around, I tend not to be looking at all the handsome men, but at all the girls who are far better looking than I am and assume that the males would much prefer to kiss them, so I just continue with tequila shots and dancing, thus alienating anyone who comes my way. I am also terrified of rejection – which is a weird thing to say considering at some point in their lives, everyone has dealt with rejection and handled it rather well, but I tend to avoid my feelings after having told two people in my life that I quite fancied them and had them both reject me and as much as I am not bothered about it now, it still makes me think ‘aah, but I was so embarrassed by those two insignificant moments in my life’s history LET’S NOT RELIVE IT, EH?!’ and again, reach for more tequila. However, I am pretty pleased that I ignored those feelings and simply went for it, because now I am really quite proud of myself. I’m like a Cheshire cat, or like a hostage negotiator, after a long day of negotiating over hostages, going home and having his lovely wife pour him a scotch and then regaling the children in the tale of how no one died on daddy’s watch during the big terrorist attack of the day because he is AWESOME at his job – it was that monumental.

Afterwards, I did the really mature and not at all trampy thing of just smiling at him and walking away, which seems utterly ridiculous, but I was actually that proud of myself that I felt I needed to do some kind of lap around the club, asking people to cheer at me and shouting LOOK WHAT I DID! Because I have never actually been that confident before, nor as bold or relatively enticing with my (terrible) dance moves and my pouty lips and ‘come fuck me’ eyes (I have those WHO KNEW?!) AND IT WORKED! The one thing that I have taken away from this experience (other than a lovely, cheeky kiss) is that I have regained my love for my single self. When I broke up with my ex, I was all over the place and I doubted everything from the way my face looked in the mornings to my choice of snack (usually cucumber, which could be offensive, I mean he did really hate vegetables); I had no faith in myself and lost even more of my spark than I had already lost in the past few years. Anyway, it made me remember just how much I love to flirt and how much I love first kisses, they might actually be my favourite kind. Although, I suppose ‘drunken smooch’ is a sub-category thereof and isn’t actually as fun as looking up into someone’s eyes, insides filled with butterflies, a small smile tracing your lips as you both lean in, full of hope and awesome expectations of WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN NEXT. Even so, it was a pretty good kiss, even if the sub-category isn’t the best kind.

I had also stopped believing in myself from a physical aspect. I mean, I’ve never been a big believer in people who tell me I look good or that I’m attractive; I’m always filled with self doubt that the people telling me this are liars and that eventually a camera crew will jump out and shout ‘WE TOLD YOU! HA HA HA WHAT A FUCKING IDIOT!’ Like in every teen movie I’ve ever watched.  When I’ve been told that people fancy me or that people think I’m sexy, I usually laugh in their faces or stop speaking to them until I am able to breathe without the aid of someone shouting ‘breathe, pet, just breathe, come on! You can do it!’ Like the runt of some puppy litter. Don’t get me wrong, I do think I’m pretty; my features are relatively symmetrical and not too goofy and I have pretty massive blue-ish eyes, which is nice, but I am, categorically, not the type of girl people would want to cross rooms to kiss or bend over the kitchen sink because I look fuckable in a pair of yellow marigolds.

I think of myself as a modern Doris Day, except I swear more and have a filthy sense of humour (which she would never have, she was the first feminist of Hollywood, after all!). In fact, not even Doris Day because she was really self assured and I’m not. I’m not sexy in the traditional sense of the word at all; I snort when I laugh and sometimes drinks come out of my nose when I hear something really funny and sometimes I smash glasses off the front of my teeth because I have absolutely no sense of self awareness and I wear glasses because without them I can’t see my hand in front of my face (and they have to be THINNED OUT because I am so blind that without doing so, they would be actually milk bottle lenses. It’s horrific and not at all sexy). I am either too approachable that people think we’re going to be best friends or stand offish because my resting face makes me look cruel. I’m not beautiful, by any means and I am not confident enough in my own skin to ooze sex appeal: I’m dependable and reliable, like a hazy eyed, elderly Labrador with legs that buckle when she tries to get up because she’s just that ancient, but when she manages, she’ll waddle over to you and put her head on your knee and look at you with massive eyes and say ‘hiya pet, do you fancy a cuppa, or maybe just a stroke of my head?’ You know, someone you adore, but don’t want to put your dick in. That kind of adoration.

So yeah, if I can take anything from this experience it’s that I enjoy kissing and I definitely enjoy being single again because I’m building all my old confidence back up. I think the next obstacles I am going to have to tackle are going to be ‘how to kiss a boy you actually like when sober’ and also ‘talking to and communicating with attractive people without your tongue swelling up, forcing you to run away and cry alone in a toilet cubicle’. I think it’s all just one day at a time type of stuff and until then, I’m quite happy living off the elation of my random smooch-a-thon for, you know, the rest of my life. Or until the next time. Whatever.

Is the Avon Lady Really a Mother Fucker?

Traditionally, I am not the type of person to make resolutions of any kind. Sometimes I will make them when I’m really drunk and clutch the arm of whoever I’m with, lean in close and whisper “I’m going to be thin by summer!” and then scoff an entire kebab in one sitting, then cry about it, pointing to my stomach and grabbing handfuls screaming ‘WHY DID YOU LET ME EAT THAT?!’ to my friends/family/partners. I make bold statements like “I’m going to cook with only the most fresh and healthy of ingredients and visit the butchers and greengrocers on a weekend! And invest in a wicker basket and poodle skirt! OH MY GOD, maybe I should buy a BIKE?!” and promptly forget about them as soon as the wine wears off and the hangover kicks in. I think at this point, people who know me tend to just take everything I say with a pinch of salt and agree, knowing that if they prompted me to remember I’d sigh, roll my eyes and tell them I couldn’t be arsed.

This year, however, I decided that, not only would I make an important resolution, but that I’d stick to it also. Which mainly stemmed from spending New Year with my family because they wouldn’t mind when it turned midnight and I burst into tears brought on by wine and heartache, whilst Gary Barlow sang romantic and terrible songs in my ears and everyone around me hugged and kissed their loves, whilst I stood there screaming THERE’S NO ONE TO LOVE!! And stormed off to bed. My resolution was to treat myself better. Not in terms of buying fancier wine or ordering salad with my steak, but just treating myself like a better person and not being ashamed of my own mind, my attitude or my behaviour. Because, I figure if I project the features about myself that I really liked, then other people would follow suit and I’d be less of a socially awkward ball bag and more of a gloriously tall Amazonian goddess. Maybe. Probably not. So, I decided to start this blog and write about my life in a manner that hopefully made people laugh, because, despite my crippling social anxieties, I have always fancied myself as a bit of a funny fucker and enjoy sharing humour amongst my friends and family like a plague, forcing them to laugh until their tongues dry out, then demand more because I’m needy. Also, to be kinder and say ‘yes’ to more things that would introduce me to new people and experiences, which is coming on leaps and bounds, if my current dating repertoire is anything to go by (it’s not).

In January, I invited a lot of my friends out to see a band with me in Newcastle. I was really excited, because it was the first outing I’d actually gone on since I broke up with my ex that didn’t involve the local pub or my  mother’s house (again, let’s give a round of applause for social anxieties, folks!) and quite literally an hour before I was supposed to leave the house, when I was already dressed and brimming with excitement to be socialising with humans who weren’t forced to by familial duty, every single person I’d invited out with me bailed and told me that, actually, something we’d planned a while in advance wouldn’t be happening. I tend to over think things and I assumed that it was because the people I’d invited secretly hated me and I had a bit of a cry. Mostly because I’m a really loyal friend, but also because these were the same people who hadn’t bothered to ask me to hang out or ask me how my relationship was going (they didn’t know I was single at the time) and it just showed me that people I really cared about didn’t care all that much about me. Usually, I would have retreated under my duvet and cried about it for a few hours, before having a shower and drinking some misery tequila, but because I’d made a decision to say yes to more new things, I thought ‘fuck you guys, I’m going for a dance’ and that’s exactly what I did. I tend not to believe in karma all that often, because I’m intelligent and well read, but the events that unfolded that night, made me question everything I’d ever thought about my friends, and guessed they’d all gathered and made a voodoo doll of me and then stabbed it repeatedly in the ankle, because when I was getting ready to jump in a taxi home, I fell off a curb and fractured a tonne of bones. I just fell… right off the curb, like I’d forgotten it was there and in a really tragic and slow motion type fall. I could see my friend making ‘oooohhhhnooooooowhaaaatiiishaaaappppeeeniiiiiiing’ faces as I crashed in painful slow motion and smashed a load of bones in my once lovely foot. It still didn’t stop me from smiling, though, because I was so fucking proud of myself that I’d gone out by myself and didn’t have any form of panic attack and this is exactly what I told the paramedics.

Paramedic 1: Have you been drinking?
Me: NO! I am just SO happy!
Paramedic 2: But you’ve broken your foot, you’re probably going to need surgery.
Me: Will I need my shoes?
Paramedic 1: No, sweetheart, you’ll probably not be able to wear shoes for a long time. (To my friend): Are you sure she’s not drunk?
Friend: *Shrugs*
Me: I’ll just walk to the ambulance.
Paramedic 2: You can’t walk on that foot, I’ll get the chair.
Me: AND LIFT ME? ARE YOU INSANE? YOU’LL NEVER BE ABLE TO; I’LL BREAK YOUR BACK!
Paramedic 2: I’ll be alright, just scoot over.
Me: Do you even lift, bro?
Paramedic 2: Yes, I am used to lifting heavy things.
Me: WHAT ARE YOU IMPLYING?!
Paramedic 1: He’s just being cheeky. So have you had a good night?
Me: Oh yes, I was ditched by all my friends and I went to see a band and met this friend here, who is now looking after me because I have broken my foot. My granddad is in hospital too, can I go see him?
Paramedic 1: No. (To my friend): Does she ever stop talking?
My friend: No.
Me: You haven’t seen me in seven years, how the hell do you know?!

Turns out I didn’t need surgery and they gave me crutches and I had to stumble, shoeless, to another taxi, which I didn’t fall in. But I did smash my knees off the stone steps as I crawled into the house.

I’ve also taken more steps to tell people how I feel and be more forthcoming with my thoughts and feelings, which I found was, restricted a lot last year, due to personal problems etc. But now, I tend to approach people like I used to and be really confident in talking to them. As I was waiting for a bus the other day, there were a group of elderly women approached and were talking about a house that is for rent along from mine and one of the old ladies said ‘Well, I hope we get someone nice because there’s a young girl living in number 23 who never opens her blinds. They’re always closed, like she’s hiding something.’ And her friend replied, ‘I’ve seen them open once or twice. At Christmas she had the house decorated lovely.’ I liked this elderly lady the most, because obviously they were talking about me. ‘Well, I heard she was living with a bloke and he left, so there’s obviously something not right about her. Anyway, I wanted to see what she’s done with the place, have you seen inside?’ to which I eventually responded ‘I’m pretty sure she doesn’t open her blinds because she murdered her boyfriend and used his entrails to decorate the living room. I know this because I AM THAT GIRL.’ And then I laughed a maniacal laugh and grabbed a smoke bomb out of my bag and just disappeared. That last bit didn’t happen, but I did say that I’d murdered my ex. I’m sure they believed me and I’m glad. This way they won’t come round and attempt a friendship. I’m already friends with too many of the elderly. That same day, I also punched an old man in the side of the head trying to balance myself on the bus. I’ve never seen fear in the eyes of a kindly old gentleman before, but I honestly think that those cloudy eyes will haunt me for the rest of my life. I also once accidentally grabbed a girl’s face on the bus as well, not realising she was there because I thought it prudent to grab the entire bus seat for some reason that I honestly couldn’t even begin to defend.

My favourite has to be the interactions I have when listening to music. I will sometimes start singing in public; mostly accidentally, but also because I secretly think everyone lives in a musical without me because they know I’d hog the lime light and mess up all the dance moves. So sometimes I’ll belt out lyrics from a particularly emotive Heart song or thrust my fist into the air whilst shouting ‘WE WILL BE INVINCIBLE!’ a la Pat Benetar. My post man (which I found out lives three doors down from me) has seen me twerking and also strutting Beyonce style down my hallway in a floor length cream dress as though I was having an imaginary sassy wedding to no one. My neighbour has heard me singing along to Doris Day’s Dream a Little Dream of Me and came to see me to thank me for singing it, because it was his wife’s favourite (there were many tears spilled that day) and recently, the Avon lady knocked on the door at the same time as my sister was supposed to arrive to pick me up and I screamed DR DRE, MOTHERFUCKER! Right in her poor, terrified face. Now, I’m not sure if the Avon lady is a motherfucker and if you have been reading this in the hopes of finding out (maybe you’re from my area, or maybe you just really hate the Avon), then you will remain severely disappointed because I have no idea, I just thought it was a pertinent question to ask regardless. She handled my vocal accost with great aplomb and simply asked me if I’d filled out an order, to which I blurted out an extremely disjointed apology mixed with hysterical laughter and crossing my legs and bending down screaming OH MY GOD I THINK I MIGHT WEE!! Before I managed to calm myself down and tell her that I hadn’t.

A lot of people roll their eyes at me and think ‘What an idiot’, before making conscious decisions about never speaking to me again and I am almost one hundred per cent certain that any of these revelations about myself will end in some emotionally stable and handsome individual falling head over heels in love with me. But, frankly, I really don’t care. I think for the first time in many, many years I am finally incredibly happy and incredibly content with who I am. Gone are the days of me pretending to like something because the boy I fancy does, and trying to make friends by not being myself is definitely a thing of the past. I may end up spending a lot more time alone after this revelation, but at least I know that if/when I do end up alone, I’ll be doing so with excellent company: Me. I think 2014 is a year full of life lessons and me being comfortable in my own skin and in my own personality is a winner. Because on top of everything else, I’m also finding myself a lot more attractive and I find myself smiling at my own reflection for the first time … ever, maybe. General Anxiety Disorder is a horrific thing and I do have my moments of crippling self doubt and I will have panic attacks at leaving the house or seeing certain people, but for the most part, I am becoming more self assured and confident than I ever have been and I enjoy myself a lot more too, which really, is what life is all about. If you’re not enjoying it, then really, what’s the point?

What’s With All the Dick Pics?

For those of you who know me well, or for those of you who don’t, but have been following my blog in the past few weeks (thank you, by the way!) it is no real secret that I am single after half a decade (how awful does that sound? I realised this recently and have startled myself into complete denial with that discovery) and am now somewhat tentatively taking my first unsure, unconfident steps back into the world of single men and the ‘dating game’ (which isn’t really a game at all, guys. A game should make you laugh and there should ultimately be a winner and possibly a trophy. It should not include anyone, under any circumstances making shit conversation and spending an entire evening bragging about themselves and their accomplishments whilst you sit there wishing your drink would automatically refill itself with arsenic so you could put yourself out of the misery of being in that horrific situation. Or, where you get so bored you imagine stabbing yourself in the ears so that you never have to listen to some jumped up narcissist in bad shoes speak ever again. And you’d get a free bus pass. It’s more like torture. Social torture. Dating torture) and it’s only very recently I realised that the concept of dating etc has changed completely and I am now a confused and floundering fish on land, hopelessly gasping for my life and flapping my body off the floor until my eyes get glassy and I drift off into a peaceful fish death, confident that my last moments of abject agony and asphyxiation were far more enjoyable than being a single woman in 2014.

I have always been a pretty modern, liberal woman and having grown up in an age where technology is insistently rampant and ever changing, I never thought I would become intimidated or terrified of being a smart phone owning single female. However, since becoming single, that is exactly what I am. I have been inundated with men who aren’t at all interested in me as a person or being my friend, but more interested in and persistent in showing me their dick. Or, if not showing me their dick, talking about it constantly in both its aesthetics, and its ability to make women everywhere squirt out their entire collective body fluids until they resemble a very old, very dried up sponge with flaky bits coming off and a distinct ‘stale’ odour emanating from their once fluid filled bodies. There isn’t even a preamble to this horrific revelation, no build up or warning at all, just a full on picture of their dick, invading my phone like a tyrannical war lord. When this first happened to me, it was through the app Snapchat, which I had previously only used to show my friends just how horrific I can make my face look by simply showing them my double chin or maybe a picture of overweight women with their thongs hanging out of their see through Primark leggings like string wrapped around piles and piles of flesh coloured wool. I had never even considered that my friends weren’t sending pictures back because they couldn’t find anything more horrific than my face and fat women in thongs, but because they were all too busy sharing ten second snippets of their fanny flaps and ball sacks. Who knew? Certainly not me! I was gob smacked and not just because this person had actually dressed his cock up to look like a human face (oh yeah, you read that correctly), but because I barely even knew this person in any other context than simple Facebook friends with many, many mutual friends. He was someone whose statuses I found really funny, not someone whose cock I wanted to see first thing on a morning wearing glasses with a playful ‘you like? ;)’ caption (FYI, no, I didn’t).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a prude. I think my previous posts and general cavalier attitude towards sex makes that abundantly clear, but I just don’t want to receive pictures of someone’s cock before I’ve even had my morning cup of tea. If someone were to do that in real life and thrust their cock at me for ten seconds screaming ‘LOOK AT MY COCK! DO YOU LIKE IT?!’ I could prosecute and have them arrested for being fucking creeps, so why is this now seemingly part of the process when chatting to men all of a sudden? I’m not sure if I’ve been in a relationship for too long, that I missed the cursory email society sent around saying that it was now obligatory for us to show off our intimate bits to the opposite sex before embarking on any form of polite conversation, but I’m pretty horrified. Or maybe it’s just the type of people I attract. Maybe I’m like emanating this lonely desperation and longing for some kind of cock catalogue so I can flick through it on a night time before strumming my clit until I’m practically humming the National Anthem in ecstasy. I’m not sure, but what I am sure of is that every male I have spoken to since breaking up with my ex has generally been uninterested in me in any way shape or form, other than in a sexual context. Even people who have added me on Twitter and sent me a ‘you’re hot’ message (Just out of curiosity, how are you supposed to reply to those and why do people send them? Surely a comedic quip and a dazzling of wit would be more appreciated? I mean, for me it definitely would be, because I just find my normal retort: ‘tepid, actually’ baffles them into thinking I must be thick, so they persist and tell me why they think a picture of my face equates to me being super hot and thin and smooth and fuckable) have immediately foregone any form of social graces and inundated me with terrible banter pertaining to my tits and how, because I’m single, I am of course gagging for cock (their cock to be precise) and I must want it in every possible orifice available. It’s not even subtle and there isn’t even any form of prelude through tantalising, flirty conversation or even a simple ‘what’s your favourite colour?’ type questions; it’s immediately sexual and as liberal and cavalier as my attitude tends to be… I just find it very off putting and infantile.

What happened, fellas? What happened to blossoming friendships and the uncertain potential involved with talking to a lady? Getting to know someone through staying up really late chatting passionately about books and films, instead of pushing your phallus right up to their faces, begging her to indulge your every fantasy with a sexting session? It just seems to me that no one seems to want to ‘court’ (old fashioned terminology, but it’s valid) any more – sex is put on the table almost immediately so that you’re pretty aware that the guy you’re talking to doesn’t find you interesting or funny and doesn’t care that you have a first class degree, you just have really nice tits and your face looks like it could do with a smattering of spunk (and yes, that line has been used on me before).

Of course, shit like this has been happening since the dawn of time and if Billy Crystal in When Harry met Sally is to be believed, men and women cannot be friends because the sex part ultimately gets in the way, but at least in those days there was at least the illusion of friendship, rather than Harry just whipping his dick out and asking Sally to suck him off. I mean, if you’re out in a club and you see an attractive person, then yeah, it’s understood that you are there to get off with them and have a bit of a feel, rather than standing in a corner having a passionate debate about this week’s episode of The Walking Dead. If you meet up in a club, it doesn’t really mean anything more than two people expressing their carnal desires whilst dancing to a terrible techno-y remix of a shit song. But, when you talk to someone over a social media platform, I just think that we should expect a sense of decorum; that it should be less blatantly sexual and more conversational, as though you’d sat down next to them in a coffee shop and asked them what they were reading or whatever. I don’t really want to open my messages from someone I’ve never met before telling me that he wants to bend me into awkward positions that might not actually be possible and fuck me until I am inside out and probably a bit broken. Call me old fashioned, I suppose!

I imagine that, ultimately, it’s because our phones are such massive parts of our lives now and regardless of where we are or what we’re doing, we are accessible twenty four hours a day. We’re constantly online and we can instantly message or chat to someone we find attractive and because we share our lives and opinions on the internet and are told to accept that this is ‘sociable’, it’s not really surprising to discover that some people will take it a little too seriously and use this as a method of meeting someone so they don’t have to go through the arduous process of meeting someone in real life. And, if they find you attractive, they can constantly see what you’re up to and who you’re with and because we can speak to them every day if we so choose, it’s easy to be duped into thinking that this is an escalated form of ‘dating’ or whatever and it’s also easy to be deluded into thinking that someone replying to your messages and liking your statuses means that your feelings of attraction are ‘reciprocated’ when really, they have no real clue as to who you are. I just feel, being newly single and all, people put too high a price on social media and it warps the whole experience into believing it’s something that it really isn’t.

I guess if there’s any knowledge I can impart onto any men who are reading this and have done or are considering sending a woman a picture of their dick: Just don’t do it, guys. We don’t really appreciate them as much as you think we do and we don’t want to pander to you in order to massage a fragile ego. Instead, maybe try to treat a girl online exactly the same way you would treat her if you met her in reality; you wouldn’t flap your dick around in her face in real life, so just don’t do it.

Dating: Society’s Cruellest Trick.

I do not like dating. Like, at all. It’s not something I’ve ever really enthusiastically participated in and now that I have come out of a long term relationship, it’s not something that I want to participate in, in my future either. I am actually quite seriously contemplating a life of spinsterhood except instead of cats, I’m going to buy pugs and eventually I am going to move to a big farm in the middle of no where and become a pug farmer, because how cute does that sound? I won’t sell these pugs or earn any money from the farm land I am on. Instead I will simply live a meagre life, writing witty things online in trade of wine deliveries made by a rotund, bleary eyed gentleman named Bob, who will always come in for a cuppa by the fire and before he leaves he’ll turn to me and say “It amazes me that you’re single, Doris, you’re such a catch and so skinny!” and I will nod and tip my wine glass towards him and say “Oh, Bob, if only you were fifty years younger!” and he will chuckle and pat his belly before getting back into his van and driving off into the sunset. Okay, I’ve gone off point, but seriously, seriously this should happen. Back on point: Dating… I don’t like it. Okay, here we go.

Living alone allows for some very awesome things. Like watching Johnny Bravo back to back on Netflix and doing the monkey with him during the theme tune from the couch, stuffing biscuit after biscuit into my mouth and washing it down with beer at 1pm on a Sunday afternoon. Or never leaving bed for an entire weekend, but instead of having awesome sex with a really hot person, I’m reading and napping for hours on end. Or ordering loads of takeaways and hiding the evidence in case my parents visit unexpectedly. But it does also allow for some pretty shitty things, like not being bothered about cleaning up so I can’t invite people round in case they judge me for being slovenly and then I descend into partial madness as I struggle to find things to keep me occupied now that I’ve watched all the cartoons on Netflix. My most loathed part about living alone is allowing myself to think. Mostly because my brain is a cock and she makes me think about things that I don’t want to think about like responsibilities and the future. So, of course, fuelled by wine, I recently decided to take a trip down memory lane and think about all the men in my past. Healthy, right? Yeah, tell me about it.

Somewhere in my mind, I decided to try and remember a really good date that I’ve been on and of course, my mind actually drew a blank. Instead, terrible dates and faces I’ve tried to suppress in the deepest, darkest caves in my mind came flying at me like the most terrifying 80s montage experience you can think of, the Rocky theme tune playing on a loop as memory after memory accosted my thoughts and I began weeping profusely into my wine glass at the prospect of dating humans in the future and that I should just ask Google to find me a sparse farm land somewhere for my future pugs to run around on. It’s not that I have horrific taste in men, or that the males I’ve been out with have been unattractive or weird (at first). I might have really high expectations of dating, or it might all be in my head and actually, I’ve never been on a date or been in a relationship, I’m just that socially awkward and hermity that I make it up in my head and tell people how terrible dates were in order to at least appear totally normal and functional and that my impending life of spinsterhood isn’t as tragic as it might sound to normal, emotionally stable adults. Then, I had another terrible thought and decided that it must be me that has the problem, because who would take a really sexy, fully functioning adult on a really shit date and then just tell her all these ridiculous things and do stupid things to make her repress them all in such a wobbly manner? I’m like a drunken, English, chubby Taylor Swift, except instead of writing horrible songs about Harry Styles, I repress memories and cry into wine glasses.

There was this one guy I dated for about two weeks who I’d met online. We had mutual friends and he went to the college near where I went to college. He was studying to make films and (no this isn’t going to end up with me half naked in a warehouse somewhere having enormous cocks slapped in my face as I cry and wish for simpler times… Calm down) he asked me if I knew any dramatic types who’d like to be in a film, so I said yes and we all met up to discuss this venture thing that would eventually lead to me being super duper famous because, low and behold, I was a writer and I was going to write it. Turned out I didn’t write it and the whole thing was just this weird ploy to get me to go on a date with him. He was really lovely and he was funny, so I let him take me out a few times and when I didn’t see him, we’d chat on MSN like everyone did back in the olden days. He would tell me I was pretty and liked my eyes, then photo shopped every picture of myself and changed my eyes into a totally different colour to what they actually are (blue/green became sapphire blue) and then he told me I looked like Anne Hathaway and Ariel the Little Mermaid and I’d forget that he changed my appearance at all and be charmed into thinking I was adorable. I don’t really know what happened to him, but I think he’s married now, presumably to someone who doesn’t mind being photo shopped into a better, bluer eyed version of herself.

Not long after that, I decided to accept a date from another person that I knew vaguely through some other friends of mine. One of my friends told me he was a bit of a douche bag and I didn’t believe him, because that friend didn’t like any males I dated because he used to like to get stoned and have sex with me and if I was dating, we couldn’t do that. It’s okay; he’s one of my best friends, so it’s not as sordid as it sounds. Anyway, this guy I went on a date with was really nice, I thought. He bought me pizza and didn’t judge me when I ate the whole thing in super quick time, then picked at the leftover chips on his plate. He then asked me if I’d like to go for a walk, which I was less enthusiastic about. Mostly because I’d just eaten an entire pizza, but also because physical exertion isn’t really high up on my list of things to do unless I’m shopping or running away from zombies. (Side note: Why do people run away from zombies? Don’t zombies traditionally walk really slowly? When did they start running? Like World War Z they all ran and I’m pretty sure they did in 28 Days Later too, but I can’t remember and don’t want to Google it in case I scare myself. Also, In The Walking Dead in the first episode, a zombie actually tried to open a door and another tried to climb a ladder… Zombies don’t do that shit. Seriously, what’s wrong with people?!) So we went on this walk and we were getting along quite well and talking about films that we liked, which was really great. Then he stopped and turned towards me, actually took my face in his hands and kissed me. Just like out of a film! No one had actually grabbed any body part of mine when they kissed me, unless you count my arse or a tit grab in a club one time, so I was pretty impressed the first time he did it. Less so when he did it every few feet, in the same chaste way before smiling and sighing, then taking my hand and walking a bit further. I was confused and also a bit sick of the face grabbing. Like, seriously, why was he grabbing my face and trying to control the kissing situation? I didn’t like it at all. Then I realised that he was doing this under every single lamp post we got to. It was winter and it was dark and the lamp posts were casting an amber glow onto us and presumably bouncing off my face in a really appealing way, hence the sigh? I started to get a little scared and wondered if he asked me to go on a walk so he could take me somewhere really secluded and hack me to death, then peel my face off so he could add it to the collection of faces he’d already collected from other girls he kissed under lamp posts. Needless to say, I ended the situation pretty quickly and made him take me to my bus stop and back towards civilisation in case I went missing (witnesses, guys, do not underestimate witnesses if you think you’re going to be killed). He asked me out again and I put him off for a while, until he quite bluntly asked me why I didn’t want to go out with him again. So I told him that it was the weird kissing under lamp posts and asked him what his deal was and he said it seemed like something Tom Hanks would do and ladies tend to like Tom Hanks. Oh, okay then.

I decided from a young age that I hated dating, but people tell me that this is how people find their future husbands and stuff like that, so I am encouraged to do this by all my friends and my family, who I’m convinced secretly hate me and set me up with fucking idiots so that I get drunk and cry about how terrible my dating history has been. I have also watched far too many teen driven shows about upper middle class American people who take the girls they like on really awesome dates like booking out the entire mall and covering it with loads of balloons and hearts or taking her to see Kelly Clarkson and then having Kelly shout ‘CHAD LOVES YOU’ to the crowd of however many fans Kelly Clarkson has as he hands her a bouquet of the most awesome flowers that actually smell really nice and not actually like a waste of money. So suffice it to say I do have a really warped expectation of dates. But, overall I think I don’t like them because I think it’s weird that people actually go out and feign all these social interactions in order to determine to themselves whether or not they like the person enough to want to have sex with them without getting really, really drunk first. Does no one else think that’s really weird? Like, why not just say to the person: Look, you seem nice, emotionally stable, you’ve got great tits, and should we have sex and see where this goes? I think dates would be a lot more successful if people were more up front. Like, one time, I went on a date with a guy and he actually looked me up and down as though I was cattle being sold at a market, then when he reached my face told me that he didn’t usually like tall girls, but he’d make an exception because I had really nice tits. So I knew that once I’d eaten the most expensive thing on the menu and drank two bottles of wine, that I’d ‘go to the bathroom’ before the bill came and then run away. See, being up front cost this guy a lot of money, but because he was an arsehole. But if executed in a more respectful and kind way, it’d be pretty successful, I think. I said to my friend a few days ago that I would quite like men to come with a CV and a covering letter, to lay out his plans and expectations of a date, and then I could decide accordingly whether or not I’d like to go out with him. Then I realised, I’m pretty sure that’s what online dating is for, then started to consider it before I snapped out of it and realised I’d rather die alone than meet some half breed online, who only resorted to online dating because there was so much wrong with him that women in real life screamed in horror and ran away as though they’d seen a hoard of zombies sprinting towards them over his shoulder and decided that they’d rather see him die than socialise with him in any way, shape or form.

So, after all the wine was gone, I decided that I will simply refrain from accepting invitations anywhere from men of any sort just in case they turn out to be weird or behave like Tom Hanks. Instead, I am going to buy an Xbox and play online with all of the other single losers who have no interest in dating because their gamer score is so high. And maybe buy a pug.

‘Tell your dad about your sex toys’

My sister, parents and I are a pretty tight knit group. I believe that this is a result of living in a foreign country, where I was bullied and my mother forced my sister to be my best friend. I mean, in the face of loneliness and rejection from society, who better to turn to for acceptance and forced friendship than your own blood? They have to love you. If they don’t, who knows what kind of resentments could take seed in your brain in order to lay waste to everything and everyone who vexed you? Look at Hitler: His mother told him his paintings were shite and he decided to take that rage out on the Jews*. Familial rejection can cause detriment only history and movies can truly depict – which is why, as a family, we have always been close.**

I have always enjoyed the closeness of my family and now that I’m in my mid-twenties and live on my own, I much prefer going home to see my parents and have my dad buy me a box of wine, rather than going out in an awkward social situation where I am more likely to fall over. Plus, I can do all of this in my pjs, it’s a win-win situation for me. My mother and I have become particularly close; we always have been, but now I think our friendship has gone to the next level and we are actually really, more than anything, best friends. In the midst of my break up with my ex, for example, she heard me scream the words ‘fucking cunt!’ numerous times without chastising me for swearing (I was heartbroken, this social discretion can and should be ignored) and has trawled through my Facebook page looking at single males she’d quite like me to have sex with. So, obviously, I share things with her that I probably shouldn’t have, but fuck it, I don’t really have any female friends who enjoy the true brazen attitude I have towards men and sex, I mean we allude to it, but it’s not really open for discussion with the majority, like they pretended it would be in Sex and the City.. I can’t say, for example, ‘he’s really funny, I’d quite like to sit on his face’ to my best friend, but I can say it to my mother. She laughs and I think she assumes I’m kidding. I mean, to an extent I am, if I wanted to grace the face of some canny lad I knew with my vagina, I’d probably not tell him about it and ignore him for the rest of eternity instead (YAY Anxiety!).

This can be a bit of a double edged sword. I mean, I’m all for a close friendship with my mother, but she has this extreme honesty about her, which means, anything I tell her, she ultimately tells my dad. Now, my dad and I are close, I am the apple of his eye and never far from his thoughts or his affections, even when he’s lecturing me for drinking too much or being messy or a bitch, but there are certain things, regardless of how close a woman is with her father, that should never be open for discussion as part of a familial debate. NEVER. I should also add that my sister suffers from this same boundary issue and something she and my mother deems to be open for debate, usually is, regardless of my protesting.

So during one of our family nights, my sister and I were talking about various things and I let slip to her that a friend of mine decided to provide me with a single girl’s survival guide which involved various Vibrators and Love Eggs. My sister was overjoyed at this concept and decided to tell my mother, who looked at me as though I was truly the most feminist woman ever in existence. I could almost see her brain working over time, trying valiantly to communicate how proud she was to have a daughter who would proudly take her sexual satisfaction into her own hands (literally). Her beaming grin quickly dissolved into a devilish, wicked, cackle of laughter before she screamed my dad’s name and shouted ‘guess what your daughter has!’ I protested as valiantly as I could to which she replied ‘ah, give over, he’ll just be pleased your getting some’ with which I promptly fled the room, but from all the laughter I could hear downstairs, it had been established to my dad, my papa, my father, his first born baby – that I have sex with myself with the aid of toys. Now I know how Harry Potter would have felt if he never got to go to Hogwarts and was subjected to masturbating in the downstairs cupboard of his auntie and uncle’s house whilst they watched News Night, turning up the volume decibel by decibel until the crescendo of his self-love came to a knee jerking halt to the sound of Jeremy Paxman discussing muggle events.

I stood with my head pressed against the cool glass of the mirror in our bathroom, scrunching my eyes tight, dreading to go back downstairs to my family, who presumably, would be waiting with baited breath to laugh and point at me for revealing this ridiculously personal thing about myself. What an idiot I have been, to assume my mother and I were friends when really, her loyalty lay with my dad. I was so angry and humiliated that I was almost relieved that there were no social minorities in the immediate area to take out unnecessary, unbridled and fucking stupid rage out on (see what I did there? Rounding off my blog with a nod to my intro; professional). Eventually I looked up at myself in the mirror and decided to go back downstairs to face my family like the independent, sexually explorative, feminist type lady I like to pretend I am and get on with my wine drinking. I could hear the laughter had abated and normal conversation had resumed, so I strolled back into the living room and no one said anything. Thankfully, I decided, my dad had taken a more mature response to my mother’s ‘hilarious’ piece of gossip and all was well.

Until a bit later when I got up to leave the room, he made a distinct buzzing sound and said ‘so that’s why you were asking me about batteries today, eh, Doris?’

Fucking families.

*Not historically accurate.

**May or may not be the actual reason.

“I’m going to die alone, aren’t I, world?”

You hear that? A single person lamenting their relationship status! It must be Valentine’s! Joy!

I love this time of year. The first two weeks of February are filled with hearts, cupid’s arrows and Hallmark board members masturbating furiously to the sound of cash registers flying open and slamming shut, as people in relationships everywhere succumb to peer pressure and buy oversized cards professing eternal love for their sweetheart. Novelty teddies are stripped of their Christmas hats and Santa outfits, replaced with tiny bear t-shirts exclaiming to love someone ‘bear-y much’. Equally so, single people everywhere undergo existential crises surrounding the day and behave as though Valentine’s Day is some giant secret that people in relationships have; that they all get together in a big group and bask in each other’s love-y glows, sipping flutes of romantic champagne, before indulging in a mass orgy conducted exclusively on the very best, super soft red roses whilst listening to Bon Jovi’s Always. No one has ever had the heart to tell any of them that Valentine’s Day, for regular couples, is just another day.

Admittedly, when I spent my first Valentine’s with a partner, I went all out and bought red lingerie with really small lacy pants that were so fragile and lacy, when I put them on I stuck my finger through, made a massive finger shaped hole and never wore again. I bought wine, I planned a nice romantic meal with candles and even made a really romantic playlist to listen to, then, ultimately, have sex to (and yes, Bon Jovi’s Always was the first track). In reality, all that transpired was that I made this huge effort to have sex and get a card with ‘I love you’ written on, which truth be told, I was too embarrassed to display because it said I love you and I’d only been seeing the guy for a few weeks and since then, I didn’t go to any such extremes, but did promise that if he got me a card, I’d suck him off and let him play Xbox all the following day, if I was allowed to get drunk and watch Mamma Mia first.

Don’t get me wrong – I like the day as a whole. It’s nice to see couples walking around with that purposeful, smug look on their loved up faces, knowing that when they get home, they’re going to try a sex position they’ve never tried before – probably anal – and eventually, she’s going to wear edible underwear that will be sexily nibbled off (painful elastic slapping onto extremities and awkward crunching be damned!) and that the chocolate body paint she promised to lick off his cock doesn’t taste at all like Galaxy or Dairy Milk. The day itself is so full of promise and allure, which is ultimately, I suppose, why truly single people feel so left out and let their imaginations get the better of them.

Valentine’s Day is not as romantic as the cards and novelty gifts suggest; it is simply a day where idiot couples fall into a consumerist trap and come up with ridiculous romantic situations that involve edible underwear and chocolates shaped like sex organs, which will ultimately get shovelled into someone’s mouth in front of the TV in a not at all sexy manner, when there partner isn’t even home or they’ve broken up. All couples ultimately do on Valentine’s Day is eat food, get drunk and have anal sex to music to make the whole process seem somewhat less uncomfortable and awkward. And, as is the single person’s adage every time this non-holiday comes knocking: We can do that any day of the year. So why bother making all that fuss?