• Friend Zone

    They weren’t all bad.

    Looking back, there were some genuinely nice ones. Unfortunately, “nice” was never really the goal… even if I told myself it should be. The saying “nice guys finish last” didn’t come from nowhere. There was definitely evidence to support it, at least in my case.

    I used to notice a pattern with myself. The more I spoke to someone, the easier things felt, the less I fancied them. If someone became too available, too quickly, they somehow lost their appeal. What started as interest would quietly turn into indifference… and then, inevitably, the friend zone.

    That’s exactly what happened with James Bay*.

    I met him in high school, just after my boyfriend had moved to England. I was heartbroken and, in true dramatic fashion, decided the only solution was to “move on” immediately.

    James was Australian and, objectively, not exactly everyone’s type. But for some reason, I saw something in him. So I added him on MSN (a throwback in itself), and after a few weeks of chatting, we ended up at the same house party.

    That night, I told him I liked him. We kissed. And then, just like that, he asked me to be his girlfriend.

    Looking back now… what was I thinking?

    The answer is simple. I wasn’t.

    We spent less than a full evening together as an “official couple” before going our separate ways for the night, already making plans to meet the next day.

    And then reality hit.

    I woke up sober, to a stream of messages about how much he missed me and wished I was there. Less than 24 hours in. It was… a lot.

    I remember sitting there thinking, this has to end.

    He came over to a friend’s house the next day. We sat in the garden, his hand on my knee, and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it face-to-face. I completely shut down — something I now recognise as my go-to move when I didn’t like someone.

    So I did what I always did back then. I waited until he left… and ended it over text.

    His reply?

    “What about all our memories?”

    Memories. From less than a day.

    At the time, I had absolutely no sympathy. When I didn’t like someone, I really didn’t like them, and nothing they said could change that.

    Looking back now, I can see it more clearly. It wasn’t just about him being “too much”. It was about me not knowing how to handle someone actually being straightforward, available, and certain.

    It didn’t excite me. It overwhelmed me.

    And that’s probably where I was going wrong.

  • Too Posh To Play

    Too Posh To Play

    Being told I was too fussy

    “You’re going to have to stop being so fussy” was the advice I was given by a friend.

    Fussy.
    Is it fussy though?

    I had things I liked and things I didn’t. Doesn’t everyone?

    Yes, some of those things were stupid. I didn’t like boys who drank feminine drinks, and I still can’t fully explain why it made me cringe. I didn’t mind my guy mates ordering them. It didn’t make them any less manly. I just didn’t want potentials doing it.

    I know. I was ridiculous.

    I think it was because I drank beer. Imagine me ordering a pint of lager and him ordering a fruity cider. It would have been weird.

    Wanting fireworks, not comfort

    I didn’t think I was fussy. I just didn’t want to settle for anything less than fireworks. I couldn’t do casual dating and hope feelings would grow. It never worked like that for me.

    For a long time, I thought this was where I kept going wrong.

    Looking back now, I don’t think it was.

    With my ex, my perfect ex, I saw him and I knew. I can’t describe what happened. I just knew.

    He walked into the pub where I worked, I saw him, and something clicked instantly. There was no build-up, no convincing myself, no waiting for attraction to develop. It was immediate.

    He drank pink cider, which I hated, and I very quickly informed him of that. I haven’t seen him order one since, and at time of writing, I’d known him for over five years.

    Because I’d felt that kind of certainty once, I wasn’t willing to pretend I could manufacture it again. It wasn’t about chasing drama or intensity. It was about recognising the difference between comfort and connection.

    I wasn’t waiting for perfection. I was waiting for something that felt right.

    Why dating apps never stood a chance

    This was why Tinder and every other dating app or site, never felt like they would work for me.

    I wasn’t going to get that feeling from a slurring drunk guy, or from a picture of someone on a lads’ holiday with a tranquillised tiger in Thailand, or from the fact that we both liked the Facebook page of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

    No chance of it. However good-looking he might’ve been.

    That said, anyone who knows me knows I don’t learn the first time. Or the second. Or even the third around.

    God loves a trier, right?

    Trying Tinder anyway

    So yes, that’s right. I tried Tinder.

    I downloaded the app and gave it a go, because “ya never know.”
    You do know, but “ya never know”.

    For every 100 guys, I swiped right about 0.5 times. It wasn’t exactly an eventful evening, but it kept me busy.

    That’s when I stumbled upon Jack*.

    He was 26, had a good job, was good-looking, and I thought, fine, I’ll give this one a go.

    Messages went back and forth and he was lovely. His grammar was on point. He’d been to loads of interesting countries and had lived in different places. Overall, he was quite appealing, dare I say, maybe even, nice?

    He had a picture with an espresso martini, but like my friend said, I needed to be less fussy.

    When WHATball entered the chat

    A couple of days into our conversation, I mentioned football.

    As a keen football fan, it was important to me to meet someone with a similar interest. At a push, they could be more rugby enthusiastic. But if I were building the ideal guy in a factory, he would support a Premier League team. Not Man United or Everton, again with the fussiness. And I wouldn’t have to explain the offside rule.

    As there had been no mention of football in the first couple of days, I was already a bit concerned.

    Regardless, I brought it up.

    He had no interest. None whatsoever. Nada. Zilch. Zero.

    Not only that, he referred to it as, wait for it, SPORTSBALL.

    Knowing when something isn’t for you

    It’s one thing not liking something. It’s another thing entirely to mock it.

    I could possibly have seen past his lack of football interest if he’d been lovely enough to win me over in other ways. I wasn’t just a beer-drinking football hooligan. I liked art and travelling. I even watched Wimbledon, and that’s a strawberry-eating and Pimms-drinking sport. I worked in rugby pubs in Twickenham for many a year, so I was quite familiar and interested in that too.

    But no.

    To mock something that was such a big part of my life, something that took a lot of my money and occupied most of my weekends, that just wasn’t going to work for me.

    If that made me fussy, then so be it.

    I’d die alone watching the game with my cats (fast-forward to now, I actually have two cats and I still watch my precious team every chance I get).

    Exiting quietly

    I swiftly exited the conversation with no response or explanation.

    If he was going to be a smart arse, he could figure it out for himself where I’d gone.

    Down the pub, to watch the match.

    Tinder. Out.

    Until the next time I convinced myself that “ya never know”.

  • Notes from My Single Self

    Notes from My Single Self

    A quick bit of context

    I wrote my first ever blog post in 2015. I was 24, single, and fully convinced that everyone worth having had already been snapped up by someone better organised, less chaotic, or at the very least, less me.

    I’ve been with my husband for over seven years now. This blog isn’t about him, and it isn’t about our relationship. This is about everything that came before that. The almosts, the near misses, the lessons I didn’t realise I was learning at the time, and the behaviour I once considered completely normal.

    Back then, I called this my Singtroduction.

    Dating, circa 2015

    I was sat on a Saturday night with a large glass of Pinot Grigio, reminiscing on the happy, sad and, most obviously, cringeworthy dating experiences I’d managed to pack into what felt like a very long eight years.

    I was a serial Tinder user. Emphasis on was. We’ve since broken up, as I did with every other near-boyfriend experience.

    And as nice as some of them were, let’s call a spade a spade: the odds of meeting an undamaged, good-looking, interesting, emotionally stable, non-psycho stalker on a free dating app (linked to your Facebook), featuring your “Ibifa” photos, and evidence of you falling out of clubs with one shoe on and kebab sauce down a once-white t-shirt – were slim.

    The Tinder Sale Rack Theory

    That’s like saying the sale rack in Primark contains:

    • all the right sizes
    • anything remotely fashionable
    • items with no damage whatsoever
    • and a pattern someone actually wanted

    Tinder, for me, was the bottom of the barrel.

    The Bottom of the Barrel

    The unpopped corn at the end of the bowl.
    The last sip of a drink that’s more melted ice than alcohol.
    The heels of the bread nobody wants but everyone pretends they’re fine with.

    It was the drunk decision you wake up regretting.
    The doner kebab you swore you’d never eat again.
    The cigarette you smoked after quitting.
    The last drink that tipped you over the edge.

    Yes, people meet on Tinder. It happens. But in my experience, it was rare — and usually preceded by sifting through dick pics, poor grammar, and an alarming lack of personality or conversational ability.

    Preparing for the Date (A Sport in Itself)

    And when you did find someone worth meeting? That was an experience in itself.

    The three glasses of wine required to get you out the door to a public pub.
    The carbs to line your stomach so you don’t become white-girl-wasted after one drink.
    The hissy fit because nothing looks nice.
    And finally, the realisation that you’re probably not going to like him anyway, so why do you care what you’re wearing — or the wine’s kicked in and you’re more interested in ordering another drink than impressing anyone.

    Why This Blog Exists

    This blog started there.

    I was single. I was 24. And it felt like everyone worth having was already taken. So what was a girl to do other than write about it, laugh about it, cry about it, and continue handing her number out in bars and clubs until the right one eventually took the bait?

    Looking back now, I can see patterns I couldn’t see then. Red flags I mistook for quirks. Logic that only made sense if you were living inside it. I can also see that I had my whole life ahead of me to panic about meeting (or re-meeting) the right one…

    Looking Back, With Hindsight

    These are those stories.
    Rewritten with hindsight.
    But very much as they were at the time.