It’s official: I am single and 30ish

All women, like men have certain needs so you know you are in trouble when you start imagining sex with a friend or entertaining the idea of whether you should have taken up the drunken, cigarette-filled offer from a few weeks ago - ok so still didn’t quite go that far.

Desperate, single times, call for desperate measures. So tonight I find myself on a certain High Street lingerie-wear website that also happens to sell certain female toys. They come in all colours and various settings. I can’t believe I am doing this. But it is time to buy... a vibrator! 

I am a bit worried about the package not fitting through the letterbox, having to pick it up from Royal Mail. They say it is “discrete” packaging. Maybe I should go in and buy one in person. Hmm.. Nah online is good. Purchase! OMG!

Friends or lovers?

We've all experienced that moment when someone you had always thought of as just a good mate, crosses a line and becomes, well something else. So feeling very unhealthy, having drunk for the best part of a week, I decide to make the most of the glorious weather and walk to Battersea Park. It has been a year since my last visit and too long. Before I go I decide to text Sam who lives close by to see if he wants to catch up. Our last catch up ended in a very drunken and somewhat uncomfortable pashing session. Five months of no sex was taking its toll and I was ready to grab anyone. Well not quite, but you get the idea. Despite being very drunk, a moment of clarity made me realise how wrong the how thing was. He left the house feeling rejected. I woke the following morning and had the moment of waking up to a new day, all happy, before the memories flooded back. I sent a text full of expletives and “sorry”. So this weekend I decided I needed to face the embarrassment and get over that first catch up and hopefully retain some form of friendship.

After lounging in the sun in the tropical garden reading The Island by Victoria Hislop, I meet Sam at his house and we take a train to Waterloo for the Thames River Festival. The energy is amazing, people, music and smells everywhere. The energy between us is also a little extreme. I am shocked by how nervous I feel and the sexual tension. What the hell is this all about? We grab our food and drink and take a seat on one of the long tables across the closed-to-traffic Southwark Bridge. The sky is turning pink behind the Tate Modern as we overlook the river, drinking Pimms and lemonade.

I find myself noticing his cute brown eyes, his gorgeous smile, how well toned he is. Wait on a minute! He is clearly flirting and I am flirting back. What the hell is going on?! He invites me back to his house for some of his famous chocolate chip muffins that he has baked that day. They are amazing. I am tempted, but remembering my plan to make a new pumpkin soup recipe for this week’s dinner and the fact that I didn’t want a repeat of our last meeting, I decline and promise to take up the dinner and muffin offer next week. Friends win out.

Labels: Pom, Manolo Blahnik, gay, straight, bi? Which one fits you?

This morning began with an interesting conversation with my housemate Catherine. She had been delivering the cold shoulder since the Neanderthal night, leaving me perplexed about what I had done. "I have been seeing Calum in secret," she says. Slightly confused, I go "ok" (yes the same guy that pretty much asked me out). "It just sort of happened. It is not serious but I really like him, we don't want John to find out," she says. That would be her ex-boyfriend and his best friend. I didn't have much time to chat and had to run out the door to work. But an interesting development.

After work today I decide to beat the tube strike and head out to All Bar One at Holburn with my GBF (gay best friend). Harry and I met at university and worked a little while together as reporters in our home country. I have always thought Harry was gay and finally, about six months ago, he came out. I faked shock. He hasn’t told the rest of our friends who will of course not be surprised.

But then tonight he threw in a curve ball. “I’m not sure if I am gay”. “Ah... ok”, I say. It turns out that stubble and hairy chest just aren’t doing it for Harry anymore. He was a rather late bloomer. Now 31, he had a few female encounters before trying the men in his late 20s. There is no doubt that he is attracted to men. Definitely not straight. But just as it is taboo in some circles for a heterosexual man to be gay, in the gay circles being bi just doesn’t go down well. But I was very shocked when he said he imagines himself with a wife, home and kids, settling down in our home country. “Do you think it is just the kids you want?” He told me it was the complete package.

I do some counselling asking him about his parents’ divorce, stereotypes he has grown up with. We conclude that he probably is attracted to both men and women. Although, I am not really convinced. I think the casual sex that is all about the physical and not the emotional could be the real reason why he isn’t all that turned on by his random and fleeting sexual encounters. By the end of the night we decide that Saturday night we are on a mission: to the straight bars to pick Harry up a girl.

 

Brains, Balls and Neanderthals

When it comes to partying, my workplace doesn’t oooz staying power, or starting power for that matter. I arrived at my new job to discover people don’t usually socialise after work and there is no social committee despite having more than 100 people working in one building. So in the first two weeks in my role I instigated the Friday night drinks. So far we’ve received a good turnout. And for a moment I even thought maybe I had found someone special. With dark hair and blue eyes there was no lightning bolt but a few minutes into discussion and I was thinking “this could be nice”. He has climb Kilomanjaro (took the easy route) and several mountains in South America, is well travelled, intelligent and nice. But after enjoying a nice conversation he moved to the other end of the table. Clearly I didn’t quite impress with my conversation!
 

A quick change of outfit and I was dressed to kill in a low cut number. I joined my housemates and their newly acquired Aussie male network. We partied until the wee hours.  One of the guys, Sam, apparently tried to kiss me, missed and planted one on my breast. I planted an open palm on his face. Although very drunk myself, it was very clear my lips were never the aim of his,  not that I, in anyway, invited either. 


There was one rather nice conversation with Calum, a slightly pudgier South African with dark features and dark eyes. He seemed shy, unassuming and very friendly. He strikes up a conversation and clearly feeling very merry from several drinks, seems to have a bit more confidence. "You are looking very beautiful tonight," he says. "Why thank you", I respond, not taking too much notice. "When I get back from holiday I would really like catch up for a drink some time." I say, “that would be nice, we can get a group together to go out”. And hoped I had suitably deflected the conversation.



The following night we turned around and did it all again. The number of Aussie males grew, joined by English and South African counterparts. It started with a traditional game of backyard cricket in a local pub, followed by a very manly beer drinking competition, a bit of male love thrown in and finished with tops off and an arm wrestling competition (actually this bit I quite liked).  As I looked around the bar, thinking ‘have I stepped back in time 20,000 years?’ I noticed a doctor, physiotherapist, vet and accountant struggling to maintain their balance. Yes, even men with proven intelligence strive to regress to the testosterone filled Neanderthal state.


Clearly not turned on by pre-historic males, and quite stuffed from going to bed at 4.30am that day, I decided to retire to my bed. At 5.50am I receive a knock on the door. One of the cave men sticks his head in. “Do you mind if I sleep in your room?” already half way in carrying the mattress I had left out, I ask “Why can’t you sleep in the lounge room?”. Apparently my housemate is wooing some random guys (plural) that she met at the bar. Keen to get back to sleep and conscious the sun was already up, I let him in.

I was sleeping in my underwear so I grab my towel to go to the bathroom. Drunken exhibit A tries to pull me onto the bed. Fortunately the alcohol is lowering his strength factor. I manage to convince him to let go and head to the bathroom to cover up. On my return, wreaking of smoke my early morning visitor tries to get into bed with me. “What are you doing?" I ask in shock. He tries to tell me it is too uncomfortable on the spare mattress that he needs blankets. I tell him he stinks of cigarettes and is not getting near me and “anyway I plan to fart all morning”. That seemed to stop him. He retreats to the spare mattress. I lie there trying to work out if I am sending out “hi, I’m a slappa” signals to attract two poor attempts of seduction in two days, or whether the group motto is ‘try your luck’. I think it is the latter.

Pumpkin in the Big Apple

Every girl has had one. Mine came at age 31 – when I should be too old for a pumpkin moment. And in the classiest of cities, New York.

I looked the part, dressed in a sparkly black strapless dress, shiny high heels, I am ready to go to the ball and find my Prince Charming in the Big Apple accompanied by my two stunning stepsisters (friends Sarah and Catherine). The location is a Bleeker Street bar in central Manhattan where I meet an old colleague who has recently moved to New York. We enjoy great music, great conversation and I was even being chatted up by a gorgeous guy. Knowing there was no time for hangovers, I opt for vodka and orange drinks, confident the fruit will keep the hangover at bay. It has been a long time since I have gone the hardcore spirits over the more stylish wine, but I can handle my drink. 

In the early hours of the morning my friends call to leave and wait for me outside while I say good-bye to my cute friend. However, he has disappeared. His friend’s joke that he has left, but then say “no, he has responded to nature.” Suddenly from nowhere I feel it approaching, the stylish facade, the fairy godmother magic, is about to all disappear. Any moment I am to turn into a pumpkin or worst still a very, very ugly step-sister. Acutely aware that there is no time for good-byes – I dash out the door as Prince Charming’s friends grab me fearing that something they have said has scared me off. I say “I have to go, now, I’m sorry”. I want to sit down for a moment and try to make myself feel better – but I know it is too late for that - exiting with some sense of glamour is all I can hold out for. I hail a cab  - in a very Sex and the City style – and call for my friends to get inside. It is the last glimmer of style pretence I deliver.

Believe me – as your pumpkin moment approaches - you do not want to be in a New York cab. The taxi dodges and weaves through traffic with the driver determined to get us to a destination in record time – even though at three in the morning, we are in no rush. The lights go green and he floors it – aiming to cover 10 blocks before every light turns red. I just want to stop. But ensuring that we do not dodge our cab fare – the doors are locked. I am trapped.. The clock strikes midnight as the cab flies down Fifth Avenue.. I am certain that no story line in Sex and the City ever featured Carrie Bradshaw in such an ugly fairy monster moment.

I can only imagine what “Prince Charming” would be thinking at being dumped without so much as a good-bye. You may say – ah well at least I don’t have to worry about bumping into him again. Or do I? Somehow out of all the men in all the bars in New York, I end up chatting to guy from London who lives just two suburbs away. As an antipodean – it is highly like that there are only two degrees of separation between us.

In the cold, and very painful light of the following morning I drag myself through New York determined not to waste any time and secretly thinking the horrendous night’s end was a blessing in disguise. I am pretty certain Prince Charming wasn’t so spunky or charming without my ginormous vodka and orange beer goggles. But the night of the Pumpkin in the Big Apple would have to go down as my most crazy and cruel exit of all time.

Life has other ideas

In my early 20s I watched Sex in the City and enjoyed the antics of the girls, but never did I really want to be one of them: in my 30s sexy and single, no way! In love, settled and babies, that was where I would be. Well sometimes life has other ideas. So here is my blog about my life, love and hopefully sex in the city of London. But what better place to start than in the best city in the world, New York!