Ode to albatrosses

I met a guy. Six three-ish, blonde, gorgeous blue eyes. Casually devastating.

We put him on camera. He looked into the lens, gave it a smouldering look, and told it solemnly, “I love you.” To a camera. When you played the film back though it suddenly wasn’t an inanimate object he was speaking to, it was you. You felt like it was real, you felt like all he wanted to do was rip your clothes off and show you just how much he loved you.

That sums him up. He’s attractive in the classically perfect way. When you separate each feature off they’re good, but when combined it’s magnetic. Basically he’s just sexy as hell. But his appearance, while gorgeous, has absolutely nothing on his personality. He’s a man who’s turned charming women into a true art form. The guy does lines, looks, and even the whole knight in shining armour thing to the many women who fall at his feet and happily turn themselves into distressed damsels for his attention.

But it’s to the camera. Every woman is that lens- inanimate. He wants us, he thrives on our attention, and he needs us. He’s a guy who needs women. As in the plural sense rather than singular. He knows what it takes and he does it, but he never does it because he feels like it’s the right thing to do, it’s just there as a ploy to get us. He’ll tell you he loves you, and the only response can be, “Oh yeah? Like hell you do.” He loves every woman he wants to sleep with, but that won’t stop him leaving the next morning, or later on that night.

And I want him. I want him because I already know all that stuff, he doesn’t hide it, but I want him because I’m still thinking, “what if it’s different with me? What if this time it isn’t the lens he’s speaking to, it’s the person behind the camera?” I’m thinking that somehow I can reform him; somehow he might not break my heart.

It’s stupid. It means that I’ll be just another female in a very long line. And that, inevitably, means that of course I won’t reform him, others couldn’t, I’m not going to bring any new ideas to the project. So I played it safe. I flirted, I let him play the knight in shining armour and seducer all at once, and I thanked him when he showered me with compliments. I even managed not to laugh when he did the whole “I’m undressing you with my eyes,” look while drawing out “Good evening” for approximately thirty seconds longer than is really required.

I want him. I think it might even be worth it simply for the sex- god knows he’s had enough practice to make it one hell of a ride. But I’m not going to pursue it. I’ll meet up with the safe guy. The guy who won’t fuck with me. The guy I sat with and lost three hours with in a pub in which it’s hard to make three minutes pass quickly. The guy I went out of my way to make arrangements with after flirting with the wannabe-Casanova and then leaving him standing.

I guess I was cruel. He stuck around for me. He made a fairly spectacular effort. But while I’m sitting here thinking, “at least he liked me more than the other girls who were trying to win him,” I’m also thinking that in truth he probably didn’t. I’m just another girl, so yeah he definitely tried, but he’s tried for so many others, there isn’t anything that makes me special. He’s too practiced, too sure. So yes, I was a little cruel, but if I hadn’t been then I would have slept with him.

It’s nice to think that after that I’d have gone to work the next day and seen him leave without any regret. It’s nicer to think that he would have wanted more and that it would have been longer than one night. But nice isn’t real. He wouldn’t have left a number, and I would have been miserable, pathetic, and worse: used.

But still he’s the one with longevity, if only in my memory. I may not have left with him, but the one I did leave with didn’t come home with me. One was nice, but the other was electric. I’ll see nice on Friday, but it’s electric who’s been giving me such vivid dreams.

Labels: Coquetry, Pleasure

Think tall. Not so tall that I have to wear heels permanently, but tall enough that I can’t complain. Dark hair, three quarter length combats, and a sleeveless black top. For some reason he reminds me a little of Robert Redford. Except younger, and so much more attractive. Even though Robert Redford is pretty hot for his age.

He’s older than strictly I’m allowed. Thirty five-ish maybe, so approximately double my age. He’s with two kids, a girl and a boy, both beneath the age of ten. He’s a daddy. They’re feeding the deer and he needs some change for the food dispenser thingumy so his kids can feed them more. At first glance as it’s explained we’ve run out of change ourselves, I think he’s good for his age. But I’m not paying attention; I was there to watch the kids not the adults. But then I do watch him a little. He notices and I pull the sunglasses over my eyes and watch him some more. I’m too young for this, and suddenly remember how young I must seem to him. I’m “oooohing and aaahhing” over the furriness of the deer’s antlers (who knew antlers were furry?) and I’m standing there in pigtails after deciding to do my hair ironically that morning. Of course, I’m the only one who knows that it’s ironic, and all he’s gonna see is a big kid in hoop earrings and over sized sunglasses.

Nothing happened. He obviously has a wife somewhere, though he was on his own with his kids, and if I were to play Sherlock to the situation I would make a guess as to them being broken up and him having the kids for the weekend. But that’s still a very bad excuse for flirting with him far too obviously for the next half hour or so. And it was entirely unreciprocated; if it had been I wouldn’t have been flirting, merely watching with interest. But it was still wrong. I mean, the guy had kids.

So this is one of those situations that means nothing. I won't ever see him again, and even if I do there is a very slim chance that we would recognise each other. But it was nice. It was nice to feel that even with my hair ironically making me look twelve, and two bawling kids at both of our ankles, there was still a brief connection. He was probably the most attractive person I've ever met, and it was strange because his face wasn't conventionally attractive (though oh my god his body was) and he was so far off limits that I felt bad smiling back at him. But I couldn't help it.

I hate those moments. The ones as you're walking through a crowd and you meet someone's eyes, or a brief conversation when there is too much at stake for it to ever be something more. But I love them too because even though it was nothing, he was still the most perfect nothing I've ever encountered, and he made me remember that people as attractive as him do exist after all, they aren't just myths, and occasionally they'll give you a short period of time in which the world is perfect, and you feel attractive and wonderful. Even though, in the end, you know it will never happen.

Labels: Coquetry, Courting

I’ve turned frigid. At least, for the time being. I realised this last night, sitting in a random’s lap, and with his tongue half way down my throat. It was alright, it was actually nice, but only in the same way that cookies and sunny days are nice. There was no accompanying feeling of, well anything. Now, I’m not a slag, I promise, but usually I at least care that someone has their hands wandering all over me. To be honest, I might as well have been sitting having a cup of tea with him for how much I was turned on.

I’m really quite confused. I actually had a guy avoiding me because he though I’d mess him around. Again. Since when have I turned into an icy bitch with no libido? I spoke to Dave about it and he just didn’t understand it at all. I’m not easy, but I’ve really never been frigid.

I’m perplexed. I’ve spent the week promising people things slutty, slagish, and generally all things nasty, and then, as soon as I get into an atmosphere where I can be those things, I just really don’t care. I was reasonably provocative I guess, I don’t think I know how to dance like a “nice girl,” never mind keep my mouth shut when there is the possibility of an innuendo. But I just really could not be bothered with any of it. The only reason anything happened at all was because I was bored and had already tried to fall asleep on a sofa in the back bar. It didn’t work, so I had to find something else to occupy myself. In the end I gave up on the useless Casanova and went to talk to someone about the size of my ex’s cock (not my choice in conversation, but I felt like I should set him straight when Dinky was telling some random person about how small he’d been).

I’m tired. I’m tired, frustrated, and annoyed at myself. I don’t understand me, and I don’t understand this sudden turn towards sainthood. Not that I’ll ever be even close to a saint, but it looks like I’m turning celibate. I’m miserable anyway because I’m packing my life up into a suitcase. Packing is a giant contradiction in my opinion. On the one hand it represents unlimited possibilities and embracing the new, and on the other it means an end to one way of life, the death of something. I hate packing because I hate trying to work out which side I veer towards. Do I embrace the new, or mourn the death of the old? Can I do both while still retaining a reasonable number of brain cells?

I give up. I’ve got things to pack still, passports to check on, and shoes to deliberate over taking. I need to remember to take my toothbrush, and stop thinking everything through because when I do I just end up annoyed at myself. I don’t like the fact that last night I spent the whole time basically unfeeling and ice-queenish, but it’s past and hopefully tomorrow, or sometime soon, this complete disinterest will pass. Unless I’ve really been ruined for good this time.

Don’t wanna think about it anymore. Whenever I next post, possibly not for a while, I’ll be on the other side of the ocean, and a lot less hungover. Until then, auf wiedersehen.

Labels: Alcoholism, Coquetry, Mistakes, Pleasure

I remember the first time we met. Or at least, I remember not remembering the first time we met. I had to write your name on a piece of paper before I drunkenly collapsed. I knew how drunk I was, and also knew that if I had to ask Stacey what your name was again before I could write it down, the odds were I wasn’t going to be able to remember it in another four hours time when I got up.

You didn’t remember me either. You knew vaguely what I looked like because you know Jack, and you’d seen me waitressing before. But you used a bloody line on me. Told me you’d just got a new phone so couldn’t give me your number. I can’t believe I fell for it either. Yeah, so you actually did call me in the morning; I’m still pissed off that you didn’t intend to. Bastard.

I was horrible to you those first few weeks, I’m sorry for that. But I really wasn’t lying when I told you that I was confused. That night that I met you, I’d decided before I left the house that I wasn’t going to get involved with anyone for a while. I was pissed off with men in general, and then the first person I saw when we walked in was Mark. I ran away and hid behind this weird huge Greek urn thing. It was propped up in the corner and I sat behind that for half an hour until he went away. He may have been a bit pissed off about that. Though actually, he still probably thinks that I was in the toilets or that he just hadn’t looked properly.

So for a week or so I was blanking Mark, being annoyed, and trying to stay single. Which, of course, meant trying to work out a way to reject you. Quite obviously it didn’t work. In the end you just told me to call you when I was less confused. I figured that was it. But then we got talking again, and you took me out, and you treated me like crap the whole night. Admittedly in the morning you were much, much, nicer, but you still acted like a bit of a cock.

When that other guy was hitting on me, Christ, when you told me to go and get in there cos quite obviously he was interested, I was so ready to smack you. But I think we both got it out of our systems when I said okay, and went to dance with him. Dancing with him was fine; he was sweet and actually not unattractive. But really much younger than I generally go for (i.e. my age) and if I can walk over a guy in the first five minutes then what am I meant to do for the rest of our time together? There’s just no challenge.

Then the night afterwards, Hayley, Christine and I came into the pub. You actually went out of your way to see me, and you just seemed happy that I was there. People being genuinely happy just to see me is unusual at best. It was a crappy night, Stacey was pissed out of her brains, and Christine was grouchy. I had such a huge hangover that I had one sip of tequila sunrise and went onto lemonade for the rest of the night. But I still came home reasonably happy. Because of you.

I’m not sure how I managed fitting you in between my exams and everything else in the following weeks. I think that some of the answers to that question would explain my rather disappointing results. But somehow I managed it.

I suppose we had sex too early. You would have waited for a while; you didn’t push me into anything. But we were drunk, me more than you, and I wasn’t in the mood to go home. Well, to go to Stacey’s home as that was where I was meant to be staying that night. So I left with you. I’m still not sure about that. I feel like I should regret it, and after everything I think that it would have drawn the relationship out longer if I had waited, but maybe it was drawn out enough anyway. It was a reasonable length of time; we had a whole season.

Everyone hates you now. Though, to be fair, I’d say that a few of your friends aren’t too ecstatic with me either (*cough*Jack*cough*). There isn’t really any reason for them to hate you. Yes, on occasion you were arrogant, nasty, and altogether useless. But you never professed to be anything else, and you genuinely did care.

You’re texting me as I write this. I think you’ve worked out by now that my heart isn’t in it anymore. I’ve replied, but haven’t been too forthcoming with my own woes, achievements, etc. I’m acting aloof- something I’ve never before done with you. And I’m sorry, I have no reason to. It’s been nearly three months now; I should be past all of this.

But… Look, I was sure that I was over you. I thought that I’d managed to get past all of this crap. And, in a way, I did. But I loved you. And, I guess that I still do. I couldn’t tell you at the time because self preservation told me not to. I was scared of being rejected, of scaring you away, of you simply not feeling the same way. And you don’t. Yeah, you cared enough, but love? Nope. If I told you then I gave you power over me, power to hurt me, power to make me feel like crap.

This is no longer an open wound for either of us. We’re okay, and I can talk to you without it all being awful. But I can’t act like I used to around you, and I can’t talk to you too much no matter how much I want to. You were my best friend, the person who understood me, and still liked me. Scarily you are one of the few, and I’m including my oldest and closest friends in this.

So it isn’t that I want us to be awkward. And it isn’t that I don’t want to talk to you all the time. When something good happens you’re still the first person I want to talk to and say “yay me!” But that isn’t good. So I’ll talk to you, we’ll remain good friends. But I can’t let you in too close; I can’t let us be how we were before. I need the separation for my survival. Now it’s hard for me to just keep you as friend because I know what it’s like to have you as more than that, and it’s a hundred times better.

Labels: Coquetry, Courting, Falling, Friendship, Mistakes, Past tense

I used to sit waiting for my phone to ring. I haven't been doing that recently. I guess He weaned me off that. Lately I really haven't cared. I guess it's due to my own insecurity, but I needed it to vibrate, I needed to be reminded that there was someone out there in the ether who gave the tiniest amount of a fuck about me. But recently none of it has mattered.

And the irony is that now someone actually does care about me. I've always got someone who is talking to me, someone who cares that little bit. I don't have the Bastard who made everything go wrong, or Him anymore. The Bastard made me insecure, but it took Him to make me cry. With Him everything just sort of fell apart at the edges. Everyone seems to be under the impression that with us it was just sex. And I don't know, it seemed more than that at the time.

There was a LOT of chemistry. But he also made me be myself. With others I'd felt so fake, like I was trying to be this person, this outgoing, happy person, who everyone would like. With him I could be the pedantic whiney child every so often and he didn't mind. We both let each other act like kids or adults depending on our moods. And sometimes it was too good, it felt like I could lose it at any time. We were good in a sort of explosive way. We didn't fight, but we were both moody and sometimes fighting can break the ice rather than have us both boiling under the surface, but not actually saying anything to each other about it. Not that it helped when I really got annoyed and told him who he was. That pissed him off more than anything else. He suddenly became too "busy" to call me, he only paid me any attention when he wanted sex, and he couldn't be arsed to see me for periods of up to two weeks at a time.

I look back with wistfulness at the good stuff. The ways he could make me feel when he was being nice, the times that we really clicked mentally, and the times when we joked around. And I miss him, but I always said that I wasn't going to let him make me cry. When he did I knew it was over. He made a lot of apologies, and excuses, and he did all the stuff. But he didn't care anymore, it was as fake as it had been with everyone else. And I guess that's what hurt more than anything else- that someone could just stop like that. The sex was still good, better even, but falling asleep afterwards, and waking up in the morning detracted from it all. I guess that the sex was only better because I felt like I had something to lose, so I tried harder to keep him there. And the mornings were so shit because I knew that it wasn't working. It was better, it was really good, but in the end it wasn't enough.

Thinking that it could be was naive, being hurt when it wasn't was stupid. It was a losing battle, and then I'd lost. I knew I'd lost when he went to his friend's, but he didn't want to see me. It dragged for a week and a half after that, but I knew it was over. Admittedly I didn't make things that much better. I treated it like it was over, and I had a flirtation with someone else that I wouldn't have let get that far had I not decided it was over. But he didn't know about it, and as it ended four days later I don't really think it was that relevant.

I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I feel like I'm drifting through men simply so I don't have to sit back, look at myself, and realise that I'm alone. Every time I receive a text, or phone call, I'm just thinking "what's the point?" It isn't him, and he's the only person that really matters. I've got a date tomorrow and I used to be enthused. I used to have hopes, I used to care. Now I'm only thinking about it in an "it's going to cost me this much for this, and more for that" way. I haven't even thought about what I'm going to wear yet.

I can't say that I don't like him, and that I don't like the idea of spending a night with him. But he won't be the same, he won't be as good, and I'm sitting here wishing for someone else. Why am I doing this at all?

Labels: Coquetry, Falling, Mistakes

I have a large red folder marked “Poetry.” In this folder there are approximately two hundred different poems varying from crappy to relatively readable. I don’t write poetry that often as I find making up worlds and sticking them down on paper is preferable. It helps me to escape better. But poetry is better for summing things up. Over ninety per cent of them are to do with relationships, longing, lust, love. Most of them are miserable.

There’s a guy. He’s… sweet. I met him back in September, but at the time I wasn’t interested. As usual I was chasing after someone who was bad for me and generally turned into a disaster. I didn’t even start to get to know him until I was with Dave, another disaster. Now I’m changing my mind. But I’m also incredibly confused. I’ve never even considered him as potential boyfriend material simply because he’s nice, and nice isn’t exactly what I go for. It is in fact, the complete opposite. But I’ve got to the point where I’ve realised that I can’t complain about being treated like shit when I deliberately go out looking for men who are going to treat me badly. I’ve got to change the men I go after.

But he’s too nice. Waaaaaaay too nice. And I couldn’t just have a fling with him. I don’t think I’m ready for anything more than a fling. I hate looking through that big red folder and getting flash backs. I hate being tied to one man when what I really want to do is act completely scandalously. But I prefer to have certain things on tap, and I miss the companionship.

I’m being horrifically selfish. If I didn’t think that I could leave it for a few weeks and still come back to him then I wouldn’t be taking so much time deciding. I’d have already made a final decision: yes or no. I guess what puts me off is that I’d have to chase him. Generally I like to be chased to a certain extent. But again, look at the men that I’ve been with before. They chased me, but in the end…

I’m thinking things through too much when what I should really be doing is just seeing what happens. I’m breaking all of my own rules by agonising over this, and I’m not really acting anything like myself. But the poems have worried me. I’ve put everything into them; every stupid piece of imagery. Every bloody sentence shows how hurt I’ve been, how much in love, how fucking stupid. I don’t know if I can do that all over again. This time it isn’t the rejection I’m scared of. It’s the fact that if I let him in then I’m giving him permission to hurt me. Permission to cause me the same pain all over again. And I just don’t know if I want to give anyone permission to do that ever again.

Labels: Coquetry, Falling, Theatrics

He didn’t say goodbye, he just kissed me once at the base of my neck. That was the last time I saw him. He was useless at hello’s, but his goodbye’s had style. I know that now if anyone mentions his name, it will sortly be followed by them laughing. I’ll wince too, because I just can’t help wondering what the hell I was thinking. The boy was a walking disaster area. An annoying, drunken disaster area who played more games with me than I played with him.

I’m nostalgic. A dumb female who, surprisingly, knows when she’s got it good. Which, I suppose, makes it much worse that I’m not happy. And I’ve gotta be dumb to be nostalgic for him. He wasn’t even a fling, just someone who repeatedly hit on me. Though I suppose that those of more cynical natures could point out that he also repeatedly pulled me.

It’s nearly christmas. You’ve got to look back over the year’s mistakes and feel a certain amount of nostalgia. If you don’t then you simply aren’t human. I’m going to have to write a new set of new year’s resolutions that I probably won’t fulfil. Worse, I’ll have to go back and find last year’s resolutions. Then I’ll be both shocked and horrified at the progress I haven’t made. Sometimes it feels like I’m going backwards.

I’m tired. I’ve always been cynical and lonely, but now I’m tired too. Being single is a way of life, it’s so hard just to give up for someone, no matter how fucking fabulous their car is. Maybe I’m just being stupid. I know I’m being stupid about Bench- disaster areas are not attractive. But Mark is perfect in every possible way and I’m acting like a spoilt brat.

The gold digger in me is screaming that I should throw myself at his feet and beg him to shag me. But I’ve obviously not got the heart of a gold digger because I’m acting more hot and cold than a very confused water boiler. I do like him. But I don’t really have the time or energy for a relationship, or even the pursuit of one. With men I’m pretty low maintenance. I don’t need to be taken out all the time and I don’t get jealous if they flirt with other girls. But I’m tactile, I guess I just need to be thrown on my back and told what’s gonna happen next. Men are the hunters and believe me, sometimes I need to be hunted. But other times I need to be the hunter, and with him I sort of felt like I was. Then I got him. And the joy just seems to have disappeared. To make it interesting he has to go after me now.

That’s why I’m nostalgic. I get bored easily and need to be messed around a little, if you don’t play games with me I’m going to play games with you. And if you don’t prolong it then I’ll win, and when that happens my interest disappears.

Labels: Coquetry, Courting, Past tense