Tales and Traumas of a Twenty-first Century Teen

Never mind feeling like I can’t fill my future – filling a page may just prove to be too taxing for me considering I haven’t written anything remotely intellectual for a while. Ignoring, of course, the thousands of versions of my CV I have churned out, and one mustn’t underestimate the skill involved in making secretarial work sound as though you’ve been single-handedly solving the world’s problems, one telephone call at a time.
Not that any of this has mattered though, as the only job I managed to secure was at a local bar where it seemed my cup-size was the only relevant qualification I needed. Obviously this is just a stop-gap until I can find something better, but bar work is absolutely dire. There is nothing like mopping up a seemingly innocent looking spilt drink and later realising that it is actually the liquid evacuation of someone’s stomach, to bring home the realities of a recession. At no other time would a straight-A student be found sweeping cigarette butts up off the street so it’s nice to know that my Latin and Ancient Greek A-Levels were totally worth it.
Anyway, back to the point of this blog, the Friday before last I was working at this dive of a drinking-hole, thankfully I was on the door where the only thing I was collecting was peoples money and not glasses half full with warm beer. Disheartening though it was watching hoardes of drunks pile in and hand over the equivalent of my hourly wage in entry fees, my mood was lifted slightly when my boyfriend Justin turned up along with a large group of our friends. I thought at least I’d have a bit of a social when my shift finished in an hour.
However, when I was eventually relinquished from my responsibilities as door-lady, it became quite a task rounding everyone up so I could leave and crawl into bed, as being the only one whose body was not saturated with alcohol, taxi duty had fallen unto me. After about half an hour of faffing around, during which I had the enviable task of pretending to listen to my gay friend Anthony’s favoured sexual positions, tried and tested with his squeeze of the moment, whilst everyone else was pondering over the difficult decision of whether or not they should get a kebab and risk quite serious gastric trauma for next 48 hours, we eventually piled into my car and were homebound.
Justin seemed a little too engrossed in texting someone for my liking, the whole time we were driving home. He was also very evasive when I enquired as to who would require his undivided attention so late at night which roused my suspicions somewhat. I would love to say I trust my boyfriend implicitly, but some of his past behaviour has been serious enough to warrant the odd sneaky peek at his phone every once in a while. I also have very good instincts, and his subtle yet noticable protection of his phone that night was enough to flag up my concerns.
Nevertheless, the weekend passed, granted with a little more tension than usual. It wasn’t until Monday morning, at his house whilst he was having a shower that curiousity got the better of me and I checked his mobile for any incriminating evidence that might explain his less than ordinary behaviour on the Friday night.
A girl called Laura had texted him and he obviously hadn’t had a look at the message yet. It read something along the lines of ‘That was my friend texting you about the threesome, I feel really sorry for your girlfriend that you would do that behind her back’, which as expected, freaked me out just a little. I hastily deleted the message, scribbled down her number and acted as though nothing had happened. As soon as Justin was outside cutting the grass I rang her, and left her an answer phone message, not quite believing I had to explain I was the girlfriend she felt ‘sorry for’. I confronted Justin telling him I had found the text message and explained he needed to tell me everything as I would find out from her later regardless.
It turns out that all the while I had been working that night he had been chatting up this girl, danced with her and kissed her with me probably only a few feet away but nevertheless completely oblivious. He didn’t try to excuse his behaviour and was desperately sorry but nothing he could have said would have made up for his flagrante disrespect for me and our relationship, which I was under the impression was pretty solid, but apparently not. I later discovered from her that he asked her out for dinner when I would have been working the following night and was also up for 'NSA sex', presuming she had offered.
He had the nerve to say he “wanted to see what it would be like to be with someone who was ‘sorted’”, ie. Someone who had a job that was slightly more glamorous than skirting around drunken idiots all night with armfuls of glasses. Obviously the fact that I have been unable to find somewhere decent to work, despite the fact that I have very little experience in comparison to the millions of people who are currently looking for a job at the same time as me, means I am unworthy of unconditional love and deserve to be in a relationship devoid of respect or honesty.
I am not as utterly hopeless as his actions would have you believe and I have managed to secure some work experience on a magazine this summer. I have been finding things hard recently but it’s not like I didn’t work my damned hardest towards my exams to make sure I wasn’t in my current position where I can’t seem to get a place at university.
Obviously the fact that things have been less than ideal has had him running for the hills, or more accurately, into the arms of the first bleached-blonde, fake-tanned bimbo that came his way, whose over-plucked eyebrows were about as meagre as her morals. What a joke.
It was the reasons behind his actions, and the deception, not necessarily the drunken snog itself that had me calling time on our relationship. I gave it everything I had, tried so hard to make it work and sacrificed so much for him but I obviously hadn’t done enough to make him stay faithful to me.
In the ten days since, we have been talking, and he’s desperate to change and prove he’s worthy of being my boyfriend again. He’s clearly distraught and fully admits responsibility, but there is no way I can be in a relationship with someone who can’t fully support me or deal with the problems that come with a grown-up, committed relationship.
If by some god-given miracle he can turn everything around I might reconsider. I’m not sure whether I should be holding out any hope or continuing with the search…..

Fast forward another few weeks and it is becoming more apparent by the second that my previous desperate search for a boyfriend has been replaced by an even more desperate search for a job. Love, of course, is far more invaluable than money, but unfortunately it doesn’t stop my bank balance from slipping further and further into the red.
I am at a tricky stage where I know where I want to be but have no idea how to get there. It also seems to be the case that in the world of writing/editing/publishing, you can only get a job if you have had loads of (unpaid) work experience, but you can only get work experience if you have had a job. Quite the chicken or egg situation.
Another thing I’m wondering about is whether a degree in English would actually help me here , or is going to university just a way of putting the inevitable pain of the search for a first job off for another three years. Would a degree be worth more than experience in my case?
My guess is probably not. Considering the cost of university these days and the fact that everyone seems to have a degree, whether it’s in History, ‘social policy’, or a whole host of other vocational subjects that conveniently mask the fact that you have really just spent a whole three years with your mouth surgically attached to a beer bottle.
I just don’t think the £20,000 debt is a fair price to pay in exchange for a thirty six month hangover.
Obviously in some cases a degree is completely necessary, but a lot of people I know only went to university in the first place to buy them time because they have no idea what they want to do with their life.
Similarly, my brother who graduates this year, is fluent in two languages and still can’t find anyone who will employ him. Another slight problem is the fact that I can’t seem to get an interview anywhere and have already been flat out rejected by three of my five choices, so even if I wanted to go, it seems that universities just don’t want to have anything to do with me.
At the moment, my future is a vast expanse stretched out before me and I have no idea how I’m going to begin to fill it.

Sometimes, I honestly don’t know why I put myself through it. Clearly, I felt that one rejection from cambridge was nowhere near sufficient enough to make me feel like a failure, so I had to go and apply again so I could notch up a second. This time of course, I didn’t even get to interview stage – it seems that three As at A level in Latin, Ancient Greek and English don’t even guarantee me thirty minutes of an admissions tutor’s precious time. I wonder why I bother – weeks of reading and research and it seems I am not even worthy of a chance! I was even reading books about HOW to read books, such was the excitement of my life.
On the plus side, at least fate is serving me up another fat dose of rejection to keep my cynicism on top form.
That and the fact that I don’t have to attempt to read Anna Karenina, a book whose eight hundred pages have already defeated me once before. I am however slightly worried that I will be rejected from all the other universities I applied to, and my future might just involve my standing behind the counter at McDonalds asking the next acne-afflicted teenager who shows up whether they want to ‘go large’.
Brilliant.
In other, slightly more uplifting news, Justin and I have made it to our three month and one week anniversary, six times longer than my previous longest relationship, which was actually more a sympathy vote on my part than anything else. In fact, describing it as a relationship is probably a bit too generous – ‘hideous mistake’ would be far more fitting.
Everything is still going really well, we even survived living alone together for ten days whilst my parents were away without having some hideous row, although I did have to reprimand him a couple of times for leaving the toilet seat up, all the name of good training. The only fly in the ointment has been the fact that I have felt largely inadequate recently as all I have done for the past couple of months is sat working dutifully through a massive pile of books whereas he has been working every hour god sends actually earning some money whilst my bank account is merely hovering precariously above zero. Probably my own fault as I spent my first installment of the student loan I received before I chose to leave university ( or as everyone else so sensitively likes to put it, ‘dropped out’) rather frivolously. I’m not quite sure the red glitter from MAC counts as an essential, and the girls at Coast on Regent Street are beginning to think I work there, the amount of times I’ve popped in wearing the new Autumn collection from head to toe.
So anyway, I tend to base my self-esteem on my achievements, and I don’t think having my wardrobe resemble the shop floor really counts.
Today’s letter from Cambridge has not really helped, and feeling a bit lost with a whole year to fill as productively as possible has only made me feel even more insecure. My main worry is that Justin will go off me as I haven’t really been myself lately. That’s not to say I’ve been all doom and gloom but my (rather limited) self-belief has been challenged somewhat.
Fortunately I am getting quite practiced at trying to make the most out of a bad situation – this blog being a fine example, as I started writing it to try and create a little humour over things that seemed categorically unfunny at the time. And therefore, as I am no longer chained to my desk writing essays and poring over page after page of books and study guides, I can now go and get some form of job, however menial, or hopefully some useful work experience, without having to feel guilty about not reading the next chapter of Jane Eyre.
And to end on a note of brilliant poetic justice, the man who can credit himself as being the reason I started this blog in the first place, we’ll call him Mr. C, has returned from his little jaunt to the other end of the country. Justin and I strolled into the pub on Sunday for a relaxed game of pool, only to find him working behind the bar, doing his utmost to avoid my eye. Needless to say, I found it rather amusing that the man who gloatingly sent me nasty emails over the fact that I was still single after he messed me around, was now serving my boyfriend a pint.
Smug isn’t the word.

Apologies for my hideous delay in updating this blog – September has seemed to have disappeared at the bottom of a bottle in a recent flurry of social activity that has meant I have been forced to take up drinking black coffee again, a former habit of mine that I used to enjoy when I was fifteen as I thought it made me look terribly sophisticated. Now I have to do it just so that my eyes will stay focused, and that’s even when I’m sober!
So I have finally found time to sit at my computer, Nespresso’s finest on one side, and a selection of chocolate goodies on the other in case I may have burned off too many calories at the gym. I find minstrels aid the creative process somewhat.
I was actually pondering over the future of this blog, mainly because the whole point of it was to track my meetings with unsuitable, unattainable, or just downright undesirable men, and I’ve managed to sustain a relationship with a guy, Justin, who miraculously, hasn’t crawled out from beneath a rock, or emerged from some dank hole. Or any other dark orifice somewhere.
I’ve put off writing this for such a long time, mainly because he can’t be a usual target for my sarcastic, sardonic wit as I can honestly say I don’t have anything less than savoury about him to report.
The concept of a blog full of praise for anyone, particularly one of my conquests which are usually hideously misguided without fail, to say the least, is a foreign one.
I finally think the universe has thrown me a bone, I do indeed, think going out with the many toads I have sat across a table from, slowly and steadily going insane with quiet despair, has entitled me to such a pleasant and welcome pay-off. A dark-haired, six-foot four, rather handsome one.
I’ve become a part of one of ‘those’ couples. The couples I used to stare at with thinly disguised hatred whilst they canoodled on the tube. I have allowed myself a month of loved-up bliss during which I have morphed into the embodiment of everything I foolishly believed I was above. Perhaps I shall try to re-attach my feet to the ground over the next couple of days. We’ve done candlelit dinners, had baths together, he even drove me around a very deserted London at two in the morning a couple of weeks ago when we couldn’t sleep. We even found a tiny little beach next to the river Thames, where I was compelled to write ‘Helen *heart* Justin’ in the sand with a stick.
I know. I almost feel too ashamed to report it.
Despite hurtling forward as fast as a freight train, it’s been a perfect relationship thus far. Too perfect. I’m worried that if something doesn’t go wrong soon, or I discover some fatal flaw in him that will have me running for the hills and the resigned comfort of my single life, I will end up being too sickeningly happy and I will lose my infamous cynicism and acerbic wit that has made my writing such a wonderful delight to read.
I don’t do content too well. This can’t go on for much longer. I can’t afford to lose my pessimism as well as my common sense.
The only type of love I have ever experienced has only ever been well and truly unrequited.
In other news, I lasted about a week at University.
I had a horrible realisation something wasn’t quite right when I was at an event during Freshers week clutching a glass of white whilst looking around in horror at the bunch of younglings surrounding me downing pitchers of snakebite, a drink I assumed to be the penchant of the underage, and later side-stepping the odd consequential pile of pink frothy vomit gracing the floor of the overcrowded and over hyped student bar.
I don’t claim to be a great deal more mature than my peers, but evidently the excitement of Freshers week had decreased the mental age of nearly everyone there by a decade. I did my best to mingle, but to be honest, my heart just wasn’t in it. I was so unbothered by going to uni, mainly I think because my choice of course, Classics, had me contemplating reaching for the razor every time I thought of staring loathingly at another Greek or Latin verb table. I hadn’t even applied for my accommodation on time which meant I had an hour’s commute from home every day.
I think a lot of people could suss something was up – I am not someone for half-assed attempts at anything, and my blatant lack of interest called up a red flag.
I attended one day of lectures, where I sat in classrooms, looking around me with a permanent look of bewilderment, and an expression that can only be described as screaming, ‘Why the FUCK am I here?’.
And so I signed my withdrawal notification on Tuesday, and followed it up with a glass of champagne, so overcome was I with unadulterated relief and sheer joy. I had originally wanted to apply for English, but because I was applying to Cambridge, I thought I had a greater chance of getting in with Classics.
Not so.
It’s hard faking passion and enthusiasm for a subject that really has you reaching for the arsenic.
So, this time I will be re-applying to Cambridge to study English, I enjoy reading, I love writing, and I am very fond of doing both in my own language and not ones that haven’t been used for thousands of years.
In the meantime I’ve got contacts at some publishing houses in London, so I will do my very best to try and get a job there whilst simultaneously attempting to read every classical and prestigious book ever written. I have read widely, but it may not be described as ‘voraciously’ as the Cambridge prospectus puts it. I am currently a few hundred pages into Wuthering Heights, which I’m really enjoying. I never was inclined to curl up with a copy of the Iliad in the evenings.
Wish me luck!

Sunday 7th September

So, last Thursday night and my night out with Mr. B – I was supposed to meet up with him at the gym when he finished work at ten, which I felt was a bit late and had me slightly worried my conversation would be more wearisome than witty, but hopefully wouldn’t create a situation that a glass of wine wouldn’t rectify.
Before I got there he was already texting me impatiently asking where I was even though I wasn’t running at all late and had even allowed time for the fact that I was wearing five inch heels, which understandably meant I wouldn’t be bounding down to the gym in a matter of minutes. Apparently he didn’t like waiting on his own.
Bless.
I have to say I was overcome with guilt at the fact he had been standing alone for all of three minutes whilst I had obviously inconsiderately taken too long to walk by myself into town in the dark. Shame on me.
Anyway I let this slide with a mere raise of an eyebrow as giving up on a date so quickly would have been a record even for me. And I can understand why a grown man who spends his life working out would be afraid of such a ghastly prospect, naturally. God knows what might have happened. Someone could have come along, and, god forbid mugged him for… I don’t know… his fake diamond earring?
Perish the thought.
We went to a pub for drinks and alarm bells started ringing when nearly everything I said was practically ignored in his attempt to let his monologue about himself go on uninterrupted. When I did manage to squeeze a few sentences in, his only response was to mock me because my voice was apparently ‘well posh’, which I thought was a bit unfair – to be made fun of simply because I believe that ‘t’s are included in words for a reason.
But thankfully due to my extensive experience of bad dates I managed to find some way to relate to Mr. B mildly successfully even though the chip on his shoulder was becoming more apparent by the second.
As the conversation progressed, I discovered that Mr. B actually knew my Mr. A – much to my horror they’d even had a ‘heart to heart’ over their ex-girlfriends, and Mr. A had been going on about how he just couldn’t get over her, and he still thought about her a year on. Definitely sounded like him, typical behaviour of his to go on about her to anyone who has two functioning ears and a modicum of spare time.
I had mentioned prior to this date about how the last guy I had liked had turned me down because of his ex, and Mr. B, in a moment of inspired clarity that would have had me spilling my drink in shock had I not gulped it down rapidly to anaesthetize myself from this disastrous car crash of an evening, managed to figure out that this mystery guy was in fact Mr. A.
This evidently seemed good enough reason for him to continue to tease me.
‘oh I bet you spent ages crying into your pillow over him! I bet you’re one of those wacko girls who stalks guys’ he jeered, swigging his pear flavoured Bulmers.
I didn’t really know what to say, and my silence was quickly challenged.
‘oh I’ve touched a nerve there haven’t I!’
I didn’t want him to know that, yes, he had indeed pissed me right off. What did he know about the situation? Besides I hadn’t been that caught up over Mr. A for a while – not openly anyway. Most people had no idea at all, testament to my acting skills that could quite fairly be described as Oscar worthy, as I had obviously been able to convince anyone that I had been anything other than pathetically infatuated with the guy for months. Before I could think of anything to say to counter his assumptions, he continued in a similar tone. But this was far worse. Mr. B seemed to think it would be hilarious to mime me actually masturbating over Mr. A, complete with sound effects, shrieking Mr. A’s name in a most unfunny imitation of me.
Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but this isn’t the sort of behaviour I’d have expected on a first date, but my blatant disgust didn’t seem to worry him as he carried on for an excruciatingly embarrassing amount of time. I just had no idea how to react.
Unable to believe that I was wasting another evening on a complete loser, I made my excuses and said I had to leave.
At least Mr. B got the hint from my frosty reception in reaction to his little 'performance', unlike Mr. J who seemed unable to grasp the concept of ‘I never want to see you again’, and he didn’t try to contact me afterwards.
What a joke.

Monday 24th August

On a lighter note, backtrack to last Friday night and my second night of well-deserved celebrations (it seems I needn’t have felt guilty about watching Sex and The City DVDs when I should have been conjugating Latin verbs…) when I decided to give my friend Anthony a night off and instead head down to my friend Kristina’s house for a few glasses of vino with her and Audrey before a night on the town. Despite the previous nights antics that had left me feeling a little worse for wear – for some reason I thought being dared to down at least six or so different types of shots was far too much of a challenge to refuse – I had recovered quite admirably and even managed to fit in my daily gym visit, trying not to let the fact that I could only stick it out for thirty minutes fill me with guilt. Hell, even in my compromised state, managing to stay on the cross-trainer without suffering a bout of motion sickness was a result.
I quit my job recently to allow for such shameless hedonistic pursuits as working every Friday and Saturday night at the restaurant didn’t make for much of a social life. I was beginning to worry that soon my friends would be squinting at me in vague recognition every time I made a rare appearance and decided my meagre savings would have to make do for a month before I head off to university, and enjoy the time I have left at home in the best way I know how – a constant state of unmitigated inebriation.
I had also had enough of being barked at by my bitch of a boss for taking a moment to have a drink of water, lest a customer sat with their empty plate in front of them for approximately an extra 5 seconds. On a good day I may have actually been spoken to like a human being, but this occurrence was about as rare as my share of the tips magically materialising.
And so, having the freedom to go out two nights running, and Saturday too, was mildly disconcerting. It seems I had only just succeeded in scrubbing my old stubborn eye-liner and mascara off when I was faced with the challenge of disguising the fact I had drunk the equivalent of a small wine cellar the night before.
Fortunately, after a brief spell during my early teenage years when my skin was more spotty than spotless, I’ve become an expert with the make-up brush, and Kristina’s compliment on my ‘perfect’ complexion had me blushing smugly beneath my layer of Dior foundation.
What one can’t buy for 30 odd quid.
So looking deceptively fresh and alert I was looking forward to the night ahead, even though Audrey was rather distracted after a fight with her boyfriend, and distressed in a way that actually had me glad I was single. We went straight for the usual haunts, first off, a bar so desperately trying to be a club it had a house mix playing at about 100 decibels above what is considered comfortable to be listened to by the human ear. After about twenty minutes we came to an agreement that shouting over the brash noise masquerading as music, despite sitting within a foot of each other, wasn’t quite the evening we had in mind so we left and as usual, ended up at a place called the Ivory, generally considered to be fairly more upmarket due to the £3 entrance fee which somehow manages to dispel the majority of the chav population.
A few guys I know were there, including someone I was fixated on for a few months before discovering he was married (and admittedly, a few months afterwards too..). It seems I have a track record of going for completely unattainable men.
It wasn’t long before Audrey, surgically attached to her phone, talking to her boyfriend for most of the night, deserted us to meet up with him who was far less deserving of her company. I probably would have been more bothered about this had my attention not been captured by a rather good looking man who I had spotted working at the gym earlier that day. I see a pattern emerging! How unoriginal of me. We'll call him Mr. B.
I pointed him out to Kristina, as I had mentioned him in passing earlier, and she brazenly decided to go over and talk to him. Thinking I was now too mature for a ‘my friend thinks you’re hot’ moment, I followed to try and allay any hint of an embarrassing utterance on her part, worried she might confess my work out today had been a somewhat distracted one, as it usually is, but this time on account of him.
We didn’t talk much beyond the usual introductions (‘hey, did I see you at the gym earlier?’) but later on, when Kristina had hooked up with her fling of the moment, I got bored and found him again, this time a little bolder than before, testified by my assertion that I was in fact, rather attracted to him.
Wine can be a dangerous thing.
He also disclosed that he felt a similar way, but he said that he thought I had acted totally disinterested at the gym earlier, which of course I was oblivious to and protested shyness although this wasn’t the most believable of claims given my previous admission that I liked him. Then however, came the but.
I had an uncanny sense of deja-vu when he began to explain that he had only just split up with his girlfriend, and wasn’t sure if he was ready to get ‘involved’ with anyone else. I think I smirked, unable to believe I was about to be shunned in favour of an ex-girlfriend yet again. After about ten minutes of his spiel continuing in a similar tone, apparently he thought hearing all about how and why their relationship hit the rocks was exactly the way I had planned on spending my evening, I got fed up and was forced to kiss him, if for no other reason than to get him to shut-up.
Men are obviously fickle creatures, and this audacious act earnt me his full attention, and his ex was mentioned not once throughout the rest of the evening.
Perhaps I should have taken the same approach with Mr. A, effective as it seemed to have been.
We’re going out sometime this week, and although it probably won’t amount to much due to my imminent departure to uni, I see no reason why we can’t enjoy each other’s company for a while…

I decided to go to my old gym today for a change, the cancellation notice I failed to read means I am still paying for two months of my membership before I am free and so I thought I may as well go once in a while as they’re taking thirty pounds of my hard earnt cash a month.
There is also the small matter that Mr. A goes to this gym, and I thought twelve weeks of my disappearing act was quite enough time for me to have gotten over him, or, failing that, at least prevent my heart from pounding at about 200bpm every time he wandered into my line of view.
God knows why I can’t seem to get over him completely. I may have reached the pinnacle of lunacy.
I’m not entirely sure why I wanted to see him again. Pathetically, I still think about how much I would rather be kissing him when locked in an embrace with anyone else, people who without fail will always be deemed slightly inferior. Which is totally unfair of me.
I can’t seem to get him out from under my skin. The fact that he is totally unavailable may have something to do with it – and the frustration in knowing that we so NEARLY went out, that I know he really liked me but decided that staying at home with the memory of his ex-girlfriend was preferable to going out for a couple of drinks with me.
There was an occasion just before I decided enough was enough, I couldn’t take the continual efforts on my part to try and figure out what he was thinking and feeling in regards to me, as his behaviour was deeply confusing. This was months ago. We saw each other on a night out and got chatting, or at least he talked at me whilst I tried vaguely to keep focused on what he was saying, nodding intelligibly, but really remaining fixated on how lovely and defined his muscles looked in his T-shirt.
I know. How shamefully salacious of me.
We went back to his flat alone, and continued talking until about 4am – much like the first time we met when we completely lost track of time and he had to walk me home in the middle of the night. This time we decided I should stay over, nothing implied, and even if there had been I wouldn’t have been able to indulge as I had a leg wax booked for the next day, which meant I had been forced to leave them somewhat resembling a national forest. Not sexy.
He revealed a load of personal information to me about his relationship with his ex, which I won’t divulge but really had me wondering why on earth he was still hung up on her. It also had me considering whether I would be capable of GBH if I ever crossed her on the street – not just for what she did but for effectively destroying any desire in him to start up another relationship, no matter how casual. A year on.
He got all sad and vulnerable and was starting to fall asleep on my lap while I stroked his hair and was screaming inwardly at the whole hopelessness of the situation. Why her and not me? I didn’t know why I had agreed to stay with him and put myself through such torture. I must be some kind of masochist. I also remember thinking it was a bit odd he was telling all this to me, when he knew I was still harbouring feelings for him, even if he hadn’t a clue as to what extent, and who was I to him anyway? A friend?
I think his manner towards me far surpassed that of a friend when we got into bed and he wrapped himself around me, there was literally not a millimetre between us. I lost all sense of where I ended and he began, and I found the whole situation extremely surreal.
Of course, the next morning he acted as though nothing had happened – I don’t think anyone has ever been so successful in avoiding my eye. He drove me back whilst I tried to make small talk, knowing I should have said something but didn’t want to seem needy or overly keen when he quite obviously had no desire to acknowledge the previous night’s intimacy.
I really rather regret that now.
So seeing him today at the gym was a little weird, with all that time having passed, me having dyed my hair, partially in an oh-so-clichéd attempt to move on in some kind of tangible way. I now remember why I left in the first place, despite the fact I am a hundred times more aware of the vast amounts of sweat dripping off my face after my concerted effort to run a few measly miles on the treadmill, he has this way of making me feel awkward. He’s fairly dismissive as though I shouldn’t be trying to talk to him at all – which really angers me. Clinging onto someone for the length of an entire night evidently does not give them the right to have a normal conversation with you, it would seem.
Anyway, I left as I had done so many times before, frustrated and confused. Angry, but I think more so with myself than anything.
Why am I so intent on chasing after someone so out of my reach?

It seems I am unable to escape Mr. J, who has a rather annoying habit of popping up on a night out when I am trying to ignore the fact he ever existed, let alone that I ever deigned to go out with him. He appeared with some mutual friends at our local pub. Luckily for him I had already worked my way through half a bottle of wine I was sharing with Anthony in honour of my three As at A Level, and felt his presence could just about be tolerated, although I hadn't yet let him know I wouldn't be up for a repeat performance of our disastrous date. This was something I instantly regretted when he tried to greet me with a peck on the cheek, which meant I panicked and turned my head so rapidly he actually ended up kissing my eye.
Smooth.
I was surprised he still seemed pretty keen, considering neither of us had contacted each other since we went out, a sign I considered extremely promising and therefore hoped that he too had found our little rendezvous about as successful as Britains search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. No such luck, however, and so I thought for the time being, behaving slightly frosty towards him seemed preferable to blurting out that I found him superficial and immature in our present company, which although perfectly justified may have been a tad insensitive. Unfortunately this was no easy feat, as the alcohol rapidly working it's way through my system was in danger of making me behave as though the stranger slumped over an empty beer glass at the bar was really my lifelong best friend.
Anyway. I decided to forget about him and continue gallantly in my efforts to further destroy my brain cells now I no longer had any imminent need for them. I also thought there was no urgent need to inform Mr. J of my lack of interest as he hadn't tried to follow up our date in any real way.
We all ended up driving to a nearby nightclub when we decided that talking involved too much articulate thought and that dancing drunkenly would be a far better way to pass the time. This also provided me with the perfect opportunity to lose Mr. J in the crowd which I had previously been unable to do as abandoning our group of friends at the pub would have been rude (and would also have meant abandoning my bottle of wine, what can I say, I just don't have the heart).
This though, was easier said than done and he was really beginning to get on my nerves, especially as he had evidently decided our one evening together gave him rights over me above any other male in the establishment, and so any interest shown towards me, however mild, was met with Mr. Js primal efforts to stake his claim over me by forcefully grabbing my face and pressing his mouth to mine in an action that vaguely resembled a kiss. This irritated me as it diminished my chances of meeting a potential new date/blog fodder - he also seems unable to recognise a brush off when he's being given one, and I knew I should have said something earlier, but I hadn't really wanted to go through the whole "I'm not interested in you" spiel when I was trying to celebrate, I hadn't even banked on seeing him.
After a couple of hours aural assault on our ears - Thursday night is obviously a chance for the self-deluded to get up on stage and demonstrate all the many reasons they remain unsigned - we were invited back to Mr. Js for food, an offer enthusiastically taken up by my friends. I thought if nothing else I would be able to get him on his own, and explain properly why I wouldn't be seeing him again. A short ride later we arrived at his house.
I use the term house loosely. African tribal huts are probably cleaner. After wading our way through a weeks worth of old newspapers we fought our way to the kitchen where the general debris would have rivalled that of the streets of London, although having said that, at least they enjoy some form of general upkeep. I was genuinely surprised, as the place he owned in Chelsea was perfectly sanitary, but then that flat was for the purpose of renting out and I don't suppose any tenants would have reacted well to half-full packets of micro-chips littering the floor, as seemed to be the common theme here, as well as empty beer cans, ash trays, plates that looked as though they had never seen a bit of soap and water, or ever would, and empty pizza boxes with what was some kind of gooey substance left congealing in them.
Despite being twenty two, cleaning up after himself is evidently a concept that eludes him, and he is obviously oblivious to the fact that food, does indeed, rot. The sink alone was probably breeding several thousand different types of bacteria, and the bin and the area around it was an eco-system unto itself. I was beginning to think it was rather lucky I had had my typhoid shot recently.
Already in a bad mood, this general state of decay didn't go down well and I just wanted to leave. I sat down in what was probably once the living room and Mr. J joined me. We talked for a bit, or rather, he chatted away and I offered only monosyllabic responses.
Then he randomly asked -
"Do you actually LIKE those jeans?"
"er... yeah," I replied, perplexed, "Why?"
"because they flare out loads at the bottom, and they er, well, make you look kind of... fat."
Before anyone assumes I am the kind of size that would make Beth Ditto look like a size 2 as opposed to a 22, I am actually only an average 10-12, my obsession with the gym (or rather, meeting men at the gym) has ensured I've stayed in shape, or at least prevented the odd Haagan Dazs moment from doing too much serious damage, and this comment had me staring blankly at him in shock. I think a good few minutes may have passed when only the buzzing of a solitary fly could be heard, doing a few rounds of the greasy, sticky glasses on the coffee table. My mouth hung open in utter confusion - I was totally taken aback that anyone could lack such manners. And perhaps be so blind.
He tried to back-track of course when it dawned on him that his 'observations' hadn't gone down well, but I was having none of it. I told him he had no right to pass judgement on my clothing, and I didn't want to see him anymore - that 'it just wasn't going anywhere' and we 'didn't have much in common'. Totally true in this case and not just a get out clause, as I am not completely devoid of social decency.
I also don't treat my home as though it were a squat.
He appeared to be incapable of processing this information, however, as fast forward to Saturday night, my third celebratory outing, he followed me and Anthony to Subway on our way home, a long-standing, post drinking session tradition of ours. He asked to speak to me alone and questioned as to why I was being 'moody' and 'off' with him. Exasperated, I told him in no uncertain terms that I was not interested in him. Again. I'm usually a fairly calm person but his ongoing failure to recognise my blatant rejection tipped me over the edge. The phrase "I never want to see you again' was used more than once in an outburst of brutal honesty even though I'm normally quite diplomatic when it comes to such situations. I didn't hesitate to tell him about a guy I had met the previous night who actually LIKED the way I looked, be it in my jeans or otherwise, but that's a blog for another time.
Hopefully he has now got the message.
I went home feeling pretty good that I had stood up for myself and spoken my mind.
He got to go home to his ferrari....

The Date that actually was

I was given an impromptu night off work yesterday, and not one to turn down an opportunity to celebrate the fact I didn’t have to spend yet another Friday evening at the restaurant, avoiding my boss at all costs and wrestling with the coffee machine in the vain hope it might actually one day make a half decent cappuccino, I decided to give Mr. J a ring.
I do like to keep a policy where I try to go on at least one or two dates with somebody before I make any snap judgements (with the exception of the guy whom grammar forgot that I met last Friday, there has to be a line) and so I thought there would be no harm in giving this guy a chance, even though his taste in cars is that of a ten year old boy’s.
Things did not begin well when he was twenty minutes late picking me up, which would have been forgiveable, had he said sorry, but no such apology materialised. I have to say punctuality is pretty important to me – it’s a bit insulting when it seems you aren’t worth turning up on time for, and rather unfair considering all he had to do was throw on a shirt and jeans compared to my usual time-consuming hair/make-up/outfit-selecting ritual which can take the best part of two hours depending on how far I want to go to protect the general public from being exposed to my natural state.
On the other hand, this extra time gave me a chance to hunt for my sunglasses which I planned on wearing in the car to disguise myself in the event that someone who actually knew me might see me in it.
He drove us to London, naturally, accelerating to ridiculous speeds down any road that had even the slightest clear stretch ahead, the engine that sounds as if it wouldn’t be out of place on a formula one track attracting rather a lot of attention. He was loving it of course, even though the general chorus of ‘woah, look at that car’ was coming from an audience with an average age of twelve and anyone older generally tended to smirk with raised eyebrows at the stereotypical boy racer I was sitting next to with a pillar-box red face that would put the paintwork to shame.
I think the fact that I wasn’t completely in awe of him because he was living every teenage boys fantasy (despite being 22) perturbed him a little, but it takes a lot more to impress me than a flashy car. And I said as much, after being told for a good hour, about how the car had traction control, and how the car had launch control, so much so that I was in grave danger of LOSING control if he didn’t shut up. He even had the nerve to tell me I should have dyed my hair blonde again because it would have LOOKED better in the ferrari, at which point I decided that our first date had also just become the last and that I would need copious amounts of alcohol to see me through the next couple of hours.
Thankfully most car-related conversation subsided to a level that was just below the obsessional mark after we arrived at a bar/club called TigerTiger in Piccadilly circus, and we actually managed to have a half normal chat, even if it was punctuated by his frequent need to go and have a smoke (another nail in the coffin of any slight possibility of a relationship)
During these intervals when I was left on my own with my glass of pinot grigio, arguably the highlight of the evening, I frantically texted my friend Anthony and questioned my ill-judged decision to go out with this guy as opposed to staying in with a cup of peppermint tea and my Zadie Smith novel which would have been far more intellectually stimulating. I was also approached by several men asking me if I was on my own, kissing my hand and proclaiming that they wished they were the ones on a date with me, as opposed to the guy I was actually with who was too busy getting a nicotine fix to pay me much attention at all. One man tried to get me to go and dance with him, and I have to say I was rather tempted to ditch Mr. J and lose myself in the crowd of considerably more attentive men who it pained me to admit to that I had a date. Who was around. Somewhere.
I called it a night at about 2am after my failure to drink quickly enough disappointed him in his obvious and unashamed quest to get me as drunk as possible, which would have left me seething had my mind not been saturated with a rather large dose of white wine as it was. We went back to a flat of his in Chelsea, after the task of hailing a cab gave him plenty of opportunities to point out other ridiculously expensive cars and practically salivate over them in a manner so infuriating I had to point out that it was rather sad he was paying them more attention than me at this point. I outright refused any repeat performance of the previous Friday and feigned tiredness that meant I was unable to do anything other than kiss him half-heartedly whilst keeping an eye on the clock wondering when would be the earliest time he would be sober enough to drive me home.
Needless to say, I shan’t be seeing him again in any similar context, despite his requests to see me after work this evening, which was surprising as any interest in me appeared to be purely physical and merely someone to show off to.
The search continues.

Monday August 4th

Ironic, how the men I always have no genuine interest in are always the ones who are the most keen on me. I spent the weekend bombarded with phonecalls and texts from this guy I accidently (and coincidentally, rather drunkenly) gave my number to on Friday. I’m ashamed to say I do this quite often, I find it really difficult to say no when people ask for my number and as a result there has been many an occasion when I have reached for my phone, bleary-eyed on a Saturday or Sunday morning and squinted at the array of mysterious messages, one of which was actually an invitation to the caribbean a few weeks ago after a memorable night at Chinawhites in London amongst a throng of investment bankers. And I still don’t know who the hell Ben is, but he seems to have found his way into my contact list.
Anyway, this other guy, I really should have known better because he is definitely not my type. Futher confirmed by the oh-so-romantic text reading ‘u lked fyne 2nite babe’ I received later on. Be still my beating heart.
I thought a few days of the silent treatment would get rid of him, but God certainly has a sense of humour, as who should come running up behind me on the way home from the gym but Mr. Charming himself, not exactly who I was in the mood for dealing with after an hours cardio and fifty lengths of the pool, innocently deciding on what would be the best way to re-ingest all the calories I’d just burnt.
It would have been hilarious had the situation not been so hideously awkward, with him questioning as to why his many calls had gone unanswered and me wondering whether a freak phone malfunction would seem plausible. Unfortunately I failed to come up with an inspired excuse, ambushed as such in my post work-out state, i.e – a complete mental shutdown. Luckily he provided one for me after my automatic response of ‘er.. I was busy’, asking whether I had a boyfriend.
“yeah actually, just got together this weekend, bad timing I’m afraid….” I shrugged. Because blatantly had this not been the case I would have taken him up on his invitation for dinner in a flash – hell I could have been enjoying dinner at McDonalds RIGHT NOW.
Fortunately this guy doesn’t know that in my case, my phone is certainly more likely to have spontaneously combusted than this ever being true, but it worked because pretty soon he was plodding on his way and I was left shaking my head, unable to believe that I bump into the one person I am trying to avoid. I think my disinterest may well be an instantaneous cause for attraction in men. Especially since I have had at least fifty answer-phone messages from this guy I met on holiday recently saying ‘Helen, you forget me? You forget me?’, which is a bit of a task really considering one has to delete his messages every five minutes.
I have also had a message from the guy mentioned previously – we’ll call him Mr. J – asking if I want to meet up sometime this week, and I am still undecided as to whether I should write him off as a drunken mistake. There is the slight drawback that he owns a red Ferarri and therefore appears to be having a mid-life crisis 30 years too early but this could be over-looked....