So I'm stalking now?

You meet a guy, you get on really well, you kiss, you agree to go out one night next week. So far so great. However, in this technological age you don't simply wait until the date to find out what he's like. Oh no. Because we have Facebook, and therefore we have as much information as we can get out grubby little hands on (privacy settings allowing...).
So he 'adds' you, and rather than being overjoyed at the new virtual connection, you stalk, like a reclusive detective on one of those crime scene shows, every aspect of his life that he has chosen to project across the Internet. First up - basic info - checking the stuff he told you about himself was true (well a girl can't be too careful, you don't want to think your dating a 24 year old marketing exec with a thing for his Sunday football club to discover you're actually seeing a 20 year old public toliet cleaner with a thing for his Sunday train spotting club).
Next up, photos. And now this really is where technology has, in my opinion, started to kill old fashioned romance. Because in going through this guys photos I've seen things you aren't supposed to see before a first date. I've seen him drunk, being pranked by his friends, grabbing hold of slutty blonde girls in tasteless clubs, and a whole other host of senarios that I don't know him well enough to forgive. And the very worst thing for a new romance? His friends are hotter than he is. Ultimate disappointment.
The date is Friday, I'll let you know if it manages to rebuff the hits it's taken courtesy of Facebook.

So i’m too old for you now?

 As a twenty-something girl, biologically being forced into adulthood, I’m beginning to have conundrums that have hitherto been irrelevant. Specifically this weekend that of the younger man.

This weekend I visited my university town to see some chums and tie up some old threads. During this visit I was kindly accommodated by some friends that were a few years younger than me and so indulged in nostalgic uni behaviour – going out three consecutive nights, spending all day collectively watching shit TV, eating massed produced bacon and bagels, not getting dressed until 4.30pm, wearing a onesie (borrowed), getting high and scraping coppers together to buy ciggies.

It was bliss. However, as part of this uni experience I engaged in a mild flirtation that has left me rather perplexed.

So let me set the scene, we’ve done getting ready together, we’ve done pre-drinks, i’ve stopped in at the (lovely) house party that was also on to see some other friends, and we have reconvened in the town centre.

The drinks are flowing, the shots are shotting and we’re all dancing like we’re 1990’s kids TV presenters – over enthusiastically with very little self awareness. We are, in other words, having a ball. At some time well after midnight someone slumps onto the arm of the chair that i’m catching my breath in. A familiar face, slightly bearded and slightly blurred through my vodka goggles.

Me: “Is this the part of the night where you flirt outrageously with me and try and kiss me in front of all our friends?”

(this has happened with this guy before)

Him: “yep”

So I gently rebuff his less-than-valiant efforts and continue with the evening.

Dont get me wrong, I do really like the guy. He’s funny, a bit of a geek (i have a thing for certain types of geek), more than satisfactorily looking (if a little skinny for my tastes) and we’ve always got on quite well. The thing is he’s 3 years younger than me. So it would be weird... right?

It’s an odd paradox I seem to have with age gaps. 3 years older, no problem, preferable if anything. And 6, 6 years older – that would be fine too. Interesting, fun, and hopefully they’d pay for dinner.

But younger? I don’t know why but it seems to be a bit of a mental block when it comes to guys.

Now this particular group of friends is a mixed bunch of ages – a consequence of gap years, years abroad, and the fact that our course seems rather a little incestuous within itself so boyfriends and girlfriends are often a few yrs above or below, thereby bringing a few more people into the mix. I am, however, at the top end of this age range. He’s at the bottom. What to do...

We spend the chilled out days lounging around, leaning on eachother and having probably more hugs than is normal for general social interaction... hugging when entering a room for example... so we’re flirting. So I must quite like him...

I run the idea around my mind a few times to see how it seems... he’s skinnier than anyone i’ve ever been with, which doesn’t help the age dilemma. Would kissing him make me feel chubby...? Maybe. Which means that sex would... well increasing insecurities is the exact opposite effect I want from sex. So maybe that’s not a good idea.

But we do get on, very well, and he clearly fancies me, and it’s not like I want anything serious... but I would eat him alive I think. I’m settling into my twenties and think I may be just a little too... mature is the wrong word... neurotic... no... cynical maybe? Old. I think I may be a little too old for him. It’s not necessarily even the age, its the stage in our lives that’s so separate it makes it seem like we’re worlds apart. And I know i’m over thinking it, and I know it shouldn’t matter if I don’t want a relationship with the guy, and I know I’m single so other people’s opinions shouldn’t count... but they do. I think my friends – or his friends at the very least – would devour that morsel of gossip like a pack of hungry hyena’s, the world and his wife would have an opinion on the fact that anything had happened and I don’t want to be the centre of it anymore. I’m too old for that shit.  

So i’m over you now?

I think it’s strange, some of the things we’re all supposed to do. Girls especially. The things that are expected of us. Like, we’re all meant to smell like roses, or vanilla or essence of ylang ylang (no i’m not sure what it is either, but it’s a cool pair of words). Now that’s easily achievable, a splash of perfume every now and again and we’re off on our bouquet scent way, but it’s not exactly natural is it? Or like how we’re meant to have smoky black eyes, yet no dark circles. Just invert my eye sockets shall I? Or like how, in a breakup, we’re meant to be something impossible. Girls are simultaneously expected to show signs that the loss of the relationship is significant, yet not be specific about how.

There is nothing worse than a girl moaning publically about a break-up, especially if the breakup was over a week ago. It’s cringey and uncomfortable and we all kind of want her to get a grip. It’s pathetic really, someone that won’t let go like that, stalking or moaning or bitching in a continued fashion. The expiration date of our tolerance to dumped women comes incredibly fast. It’s like soft fruit.

 But, conversely, if a woman post breakup does let go, go out with her mates (in a non-im-going-to-get-so-drunk-im-going-to-cry-all-night-kind-of-way) have fun, meet new people, smile publically and move on with her life, she’s either a cold hearted bitch or lying. And that’s not really very natural either, is it really? We can’t cry, we can’t smile – we have to somehow balance a look of internal suffering with a brave glaze of optimism. But not for too long, there’s a careful social balance where you steadily have to fade out the suffering (over a period of about 2-3 weeks) and blend in a new found confidence and peace with the world. As if the bloody breakup wasn’t hard enough we’ve got to be facial contortionists as well?

I’ve got to thinking about breakups because someone I know has publically, on a social networking site, chastised her ex for being a selfish player. Now I think this is a bit embarrassing to be honest, it’s the cyber equivalent of crying and screaming going up and down the street after him. It’s not a route I would chose, but let’s be honest, who hasn’t done something they regret during a break up because they’re in a rather painful place. I certainly have, a story of too much booze and having his friends shoulders to cry on. Literally. They had to change their shirts by the end of it. I woke up mortified the next day. Embarrassed about what... that i’d told the truth? That I was in pain? But we don’t do that, do we. Tell the truth in public.

And that’s the awful thing. Breakups are painful, they bring to the surface issues and emotions that are simply too raw for normative behaviour, and the pain makes behaving like a sane human being more of a challenge. You are, in effect, grieving for something, the loss of a future or friend or lover and knowing it won’t ever be the same is, well, bloody awful.

And the process of getting over that loss takes time. Not for everyone, not for every relationship, but what I resent are these socially constructed time limits we seem to have applied to breakup etiquette. The pressure people feel to be seen to be moving on is enormous; they’re in a race, trying to beat their other half, or the rest of society, or against the voice in their heads telling them they’re not really ready. We’re expected to fall in love fast, and hard, to open ourselves up to another person and share the most intimate parts, lay our emotional selves bare and give trust that person implicitly; and then, when it all goes wrong, we’re expected to pack up shop and get over it. Logically it can’t work like that. It takes time to gather our emotional belongings and vacate the relationship.

And sometimes, just when you think you’re out the door, you realise, all of a sudden that you’ve left something behind. I’m always doing that, on buses and stuff, so how much crap do I forget to heave out of the relationship with me? Forget to check under the proverbial seat for that feeling I get when he calls me that nickname, or the time he tried so hard with my friends and I realised I loved him. This emotional baggage takes time to collect.  Now I can just about tolerate being hurried off a plane or a bus the moment it opens its doors, heaving my luggage behind me, but these are our relationships were talking about here, and I think we should be allowed to take  our own sweet time. 

So i'm tweeting now...

Part of the trouble with doing this anonymously is that I cant tell people to read it. Coz they'l know its me... you see. So, on a very good friend's recommendation I have set up a twitter account for the blog, in order that people can know it exists before they chose to judge or ignore it. Follow me - @inimitableblog if you like.

Also I needed a photo becuase people will just ignore me on there if i'm that weird egg thing. So this is the image I have chosen. This, for the purposes of this blog, is me.

So i'm bailing now...

You know it rained yesterday? Quite hard? Well apparently a little rain is enough to get you out of a date. A date you were conned into going on in the first place. On a friend's advice I rang him and said I was flooded into my house. Genuinely. I said a lake near my house had burst it's banks and I was flooded in. This, in hindsight, is perhaps not the most believable of excuses and I don't really recommend it, but it has the bonus of being so outrageous that the recipient cant actually call you on it, because who would lie about being flooded into their house?

So i'm back to dodging call's and ignoring messages. Lesson? Free tickets are not worth bad company. Unless you are absolutely sure they really exist.

Next date is Friday with a posh boy I met in a hideous club. Am I worried the first thing he asked me in the noisy club playing terrible music is "where did you go to school?"... You betcha.

So i'm dating now...

First of many (disastrous - i'm sure) updates on the whole love life thing.

So, i'm dating. I've never really done 'dating' before. I've been on dates, with boyfriends, or people who will very soon become my boyfriend, but I've never done 'dating'. Like as a verb. As in having more than one, or with more than one person. It's new. It's not altogether unpleasant, but it's going to take some getting used to.

Firstly going out to dinner with someone you barely know just becuase the only thing you both have in common at the moment is that you find each other vaugely attractive, or at least less than hideous, is a very daunting task. What if they're a total weirdo? What if you have nothing to talk about? What if they suddenly burst into song? All of these things are viable concerns.

So the worst experience i've had so far? A two fold affair.

Part A: We met. On a rooftop bar in the drizzle when I was visiting a theatre festival and I'd lost my lighter and he had one. All went swimmingly, conversation flowed, very similar interests, his mate seemed nice, normal and that - always a good sign I think. We had a lot in common, made each other laugh and flirted outrageously. Swapped numbers. So far so good.

The next day, he texts me.
Great. I text back.
He text's back... within seconds.
I text back.
He text's back almost instantly with a two page message.
I leave it.
He texts again. I give him the benefit of the doubt and accept his friend request on facebook.
He messages me.
I pretend to be too busy to talk.

I end up back at the festival the following weekend and I know he's still about becuase it was one of the things we'd talked about in the rain on that rooftop. I've got a spare few hours so we agree to meet for a drink. And it's fine for a while, we talk, and laugh, and he tells me how lovely I am, and I laugh and tell him not to be stupid. And then he tells me how 'psyched' he is to see me again. And he keeps using my name in the third person, as if I don't know it or something. I know my own name. I've been called it for twenty-something years. And then he recites a Shakespearean sonnet off the top off his head in which he calls me a goddess. I'm smoking a fag in the rain so my hair is growing ever frizzier so I know i'm no goddess. I laugh, awkwardly.

Then he recites the entirety of Puck's ending monologue from A Midsummer Nights Dream, the only alteration he makes is changing the ending from "give me your hands if we be friends" to... "If we be friends give me a kiss". And leans in, eyes shut. I inhale a drag of Marlborough light and try not to laugh in his face. Which is now wet from the insistent rain. After a while I make my excuses and meet some other friends, reeling from the intensity of the evening.

Part B: So i'm dodging his texts and avoiding his calls and saying 'just about to head out, sorry g2g xxx' every time the chat thing pops up on facebook... when he texts me. With two press tickets to a show I really want to see. My favourite play with a brilliant actor and to a production that's been sold out for months. Would I like to go?

"I'm so sorry I haven't got back to you, I've been totally swamped with work all week and was with my family all weekend. How have you been? I'd absolutely love to, thank you so much for inviting me xxx".

Hell yes I want to go. So I move some stuff around and clear my evening next week so I can go and see the amazing play with - whom i'm kidding myself into believing will just be a 'nice new friend' and I have this plan to either tell him how it is, that I just want to be friends, or lie and say I'm back with my ex so he'll leave me alone after - depending on how cowardly i'm feeling.

Then he calls me. He's really sorry but the tickets have been revoked by the theatre becuase they're over capacity and he's getting a refund. No tickets. But, to say sorry and AS HE NOW KNOWS IM FREE would love to take me to dinner on that night. How's Seven?

I've been conned. I've been conned into a bloody date with the intense guy who was more than a little overwhelming  Duped. Tricked. I've been date mugged. I can't say no now can I. I'm not a total bitch.

So the date's next week. I'll let you know how it goes. If I don't get back on here soon, go looking for fresh graves in local forests. Perhaps with a quote by Shakespeare on a makeshift headstone.

So i'm single now...

Yes, it's true. I'm a newly single twenty-something and I have to say that for a girl who has for the past 6 or 7 years jumped from one long term, prematurely serious and monogamous relationship to the next, it's a bit of a revelation. This is the first time i've ever actually enjoyed being single... usually it's the down time of two months or so in which I simultaneously get over one relationship and fall head first into another - usually with which ever male friend i'm closest to at the time, for ease. I'm usually just waiting for my next boyfriend to occur. 

This time however it's different. I'm older for starters, i'm not sure how that makes it different but I have the feeling it does. I am, for the first time in a long time, enjoying my own company - not too much of it, but little and often is quite nice. I get to do things like develop music tastes, something I have previously been too busy meeting parents, planning mini breaks and having afternoon student sex to the otherhalf's play lists to have the time or inclination to do.   I feel liberated and independent, i've gone on some pretty spontaneous adventures this summer, something I would never have had the time/yearning/money to do had I have spent the summer driving to and from a guys house.  I'm planning to go travelling at some point in the next few months - alone. Me. Alone. In another country. It's hither to never been heard of. It'll be great. 

I've no one's permission to get, no one else's feelings or pride to worry about and being single has opened me up to meeting some brilliant people. Not just men, just people. In a relationship I tend to glare at anyone in a bar or club, or even in Tesco's, giving out silent "i'm taken so don't bother" telepathic signals. I'm so resistant to meeting new people, so content am I in the bubble that my relationship creates. But single? I'm happy to talk to anyone - within reason - and it's opened up some great opportunities for interesting conversation, fun new adventures, contacts, different outlooks on the world and at one point a dance off with a Puerto-Rican midget in an underground club in San Francisco. Which, i'd like to add, I won. 

Basically i'm getting to find out a lot of stuff about myself I never knew - or had an inclining of but couldn't really verbalise. It's a cliche but i feel like i'm finding out who I really am and all that. I guess that's what your twenties are about. In conclusion, being single is fun and I intend to stay this way for a while, in order to have, in the infamous words of Bill and Ted, an 'Excellent Adventure'.