I don’t want to hop onto the traditional relationship escalator – the societal script that dictates broadly how committed relationships are supposed to play out, gradually escalating from ‘dating’ through ‘exclusivity’ and onward towards cohabitation, marriage, babies and beyond. Although I’m definitely still open to stuff like living together and owning a joint home, I’ve been burned so thoroughly on both of these things that I’m not keen to leap back in unless there’s a really compelling reason/guy. But that’s not to say that escalation in and of itself is bad. Here’s an alternative relationship escalator.

(more…)

If I’m shagging you and I’m going on top, there are broadly four things you can do with your dick if you’d like to – for want of a better word – ‘join in.’ Obviously the peripheral things are infinite and always up for grabs: touching my tits, making sexy moaning noises, calling me a good girl, kissing me, yelling my name at the ceiling like you’re trying to put cracks in the plaster, etc. But when it comes to the actual fuck, there are four things you can do. Three of them are brilliant, one of them sucks, and I don’t know how to tell men I’m fucking not to try and do it.

(more…)

I can’t tease you any longer, my friends. It was cruel of me to do so in the first place. The fun little trilogy that started with a dating challenge and moved on to me and a hot guy swapping sex stories is just that: a trilogy. It’s not the first chapter in a brand new erotic romance. Fuck it, though, he and I had a lot of fun, and personally I find it fitting (and deeply satisfying for my overall philosophy) that the guy who restored my faith in dating didn’t do so by being the perfect match, but by embarking on our dates with genuine emotional honesty. When I set out on the initial challenge (‘ask out the hot man who works in my shop’) it wasn’t about whether he said ‘yes’, only about whether I was brave enough to ask him in the first place. Likewise, the success of our dates didn’t come down to whether we kicked off a serious relationship, but whether we met as equals with a genuine desire to find out if we matched. The fact that we don’t match is no more than a footnote. The headline is that we found that answer swiftly, respectfully, and while having a fair bit of fun. Shop Man Part 3. Let’s do this.

(more…)

This man has spent the last twelve months greeting me with eager smiles each time I see him. When I walk into the shop, he looks up and sees me then beams a fully radiant grin. I return it with gusto, and he smiles even more brightly. Something about this guy’s warmth makes me want to get to know him better. But something in every fibre of my being recoils at the idea of being bold enough to actually ask him out.

(more…)

The other day, I fell for a stranger. I choose my words here carefully. ‘Fell for’, not ‘fancied’ or ‘desired’. ‘Fell’, like you would if you slipped on a banana skin. Fall as in pratfall. But also fall as in ‘fail’. Perhaps this fall wasn’t a trip or a stumble (cue laughter track) but something more dismal, like a ‘fall’ off the edge of a cliff in a climactic episode of Eastenders. When I told this story to friends over WhatsApp, with a winky face and what I thought was a killer punchline, half of them reacted with sympathy. One asked if it was meant to be funny or sad. It was meant to be funny, but I guess if that isn’t obvious I should ponder why my friends are responding to the comedy of my life like it’s a tragedy. Maybe I should look a little closer. Let me tell you a story about falling for a man I’ve never met.

(more…)