I haven’t done a ‘what is not wrong with you‘ post for a while, but this particular gripe has been brewing for a couple of weeks, so I thought it high time that I spat it out.

Men: I don’t give a shit about your hair. There, I said it.

There’s a creeping trend for men to start caring about their hair, and I don’t like it. Yes, it’s nice to look nice and if having a special haircut gives you a boner when you look in the mirror then by all means drop fifty quid at a posh salon. But if you’re just doing it to impress the ladies, my general advice would be not to bother.

Not because all women don’t care (some do) but because I figure that the time, effort and worry invested in something as inconsequential as the collection of keratin strands you collect on top of your head could be much better spent in other ways.

You could learn to play the piano, take up a sport, read books and newspapers – anything. And even girls who like a guy with neatly-trimmed locks will probably admit that they’d rather he were talented, funny, or interesting.

And don’t get me started on the amount of money men are now expected to fork out on hair products – gels and mousses and special shampoo – that could far better be spent on a tube fare to my house to come and fuck me like it’s Friday.

Is it OK to be bald?

I have only ever met two types of women: those who find bald guys incredibly sexy, and those who don’t give a flying fuck.

I happen to fall into the former category – bald guys are sexy as hell. There’s obviously the tactile thing, for a start – touching someone’s head is deeply sensual. Although running your fingers through someone’s curling locks can be nice, nothing quite rivals the feeling of stroking your fingers nice and hard over someone’s scalp, letting them trail down to the back of their neck as they close their eyes to revel in the comfort and lust.

Where was I?

Oh yes. Hair.

Is it OK to be ginger?

I have tried to contain my rage on this point for a long time, but the truth must out: not only is there ‘nothing wrong’ with being ginger, there is something despicably fucked-up about jokingly pretending that people with ginger hair are somehow freakish monsters.

I’ve been told there’s a historical reason for this – something to do with the English hating the Scots (oh, xenophobia, with what comedy genius will you tickle our ribs next?). But I don’t care – I don’t give a shit what pathetic reasons there might be for this half-hearted jocular bullying.

Recent conversation that I actually had with a real, human person:

Me: I would pay serious money to suck that man off.

Him: Really? But he’s so ginger.

It’s a joke – I know it’s a joke. But it’s a fucking awful one.

I knew a girl at college with the most stunning red hair – bright red, curly, down to her waist. She had pale, pale skin with soft hands, a tiny waist and nice small perky tits that you could imagine cupping in your hands while you fucked her. I digress.

The point is that she was ginger, and as so was subject to the most ridiculous jokes – boys would pretend they couldn’t ask her out because, despite her heart-melting beauty, she was ginger. In fact that reason they couldn’t ask her out was that she was searingly intelligent as well as being beautiful. But ginger is a nice default nonsensical insult for imbeciles to use when they have no genuine criticism.

In conclusion

Fuck your fucking hair. Fuck whatever sits atop your head. It’s nice to stroke or play with sometimes but if I’m assessing whether I might like you to stick your cock into me, whatever you happen to be sporting – a crop of strawberry blond curls, an Elvis quiff, a floppy One-Direction-style chop, a shining bald pate or a hat that makes you look like an arsehole – none of these things will make a significant difference.

It’s not what’s on your head that counts, but what’s in it.

This might sound callous, but I don’t care if you break up with me by text message. Same goes for email. Sod it – text the ‘letters’ section of the Metro for all I care. If you’re going to dump me, just dump me.

Yes, I’ll be sad. But I’ll be no more sad than if you – quite literally – made a meal of it. Took me out for dinner, had a long discussion prompted by occasional irritating sighs, ending with The Chat: ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t fancy you any more/we have nothing in common/I’ve met someone infinitely more likeable.’

It hasn’t been emotional

People say that the reason they wouldn’t break up via text is because it’s cold-hearted. But the problem is that few of the relationships I get into are emotional enough to require a drawn-out conclusion. Most of the ‘break-ups’ I have been involved in recently have happened either because

• he’s found a girlfriend who’d rather he didn’t fuck anyone else
• he lives outside Zone 3 and so I am far too lazy to see him regularly

And so in this context, a break-up text will do just as well as a long conversation. If he’s a boy I’m shagging he’s a boy worth shagging, so naturally I’ll be sad that I can’t fuck him any more. But I’m not going to cry my face off over a tub of Häagen Dazs – we were probably never that close.

More importantly, it takes me just five minutes to read an email, less than one minute to read a text, but it takes an entire evening to have the break up chat. A whole evening. Think of all the things I could do in an evening! While I’m listening to you tortuously apologise for ending something that was inevitably going to end anyway I could instead be dying my hair, writing another blog, livetweeting The Apprentice or – crucially – finding someone else to fuck.

There is nothing more valuable to me than time. And giving me more of it, even if it means swallowing your natural desire to project emotion onto sex, is a wonderful thing to do.

Just tell me

But the main reason I think text break-ups are fine is because very occasionally, because of the way I meet and interact with guys, I end up in a weird limbo where I’m not entirely sure if someone is still with me. In the last year I have had three guys who have broken up with me by just ceasing all communication.

Two guys stopped fucking me after a few lovely evenings which I’m reasonably sure they enjoyed. One guy stopped fucking me shortly before we were due to go away together for a weekend.

This isn’t a rant about getting dumped. I’ve been in many ‘things’ that have ended, so I don’t get particularly upset about the endings themselves.

But what I am emotional about is not knowing. Because I like to plan. I like to know. Just as I like to know how you like your blow jobs and whether you’re into spanking, I also like to know exactly where you stand on the issue of whether you are or aren’t willing to put your dick into me.

It’s not you, it’s me

And it honestly is. I think I’m alone in this, because I’ve told other people about my preference for rapid-fire, heartless relationship comms and had them weeping over my cracked and battered soul. But a text or email at least has an immediacy and honesty that I wholeheartedly respect.

You might wait for weeks for the right moment to have ‘that’ conversation and (in the case of some of my past boys) end up never having it at all. So if your mind’s truly made up, and you really really mean it, what better way to tell me than to bleep it to my phone?

Not only will you have furnished me with useful information, you’ve also saved me time. I’ll be able to read it, digest it, mourn and move on in less time than we’d have spent on pre-dinner drinks.

New Year is, apparently, a time for announcing to the world exactly what’s wrong with you.

You make resolutions so you can tell people “This year I’ll lose two stone/give up smoking/stop crywanking every Saturday night while watching films starring Jennifer Aniston.”

I wouldn’t mind that much, but there doesn’t seem to be anything to balance this out. We all know that there are some things that are wrong with us. Most of us are a bit fat, most of us have habits that are either bad for our health or irritating to our loved ones.

But we also all have certain qualities that are admirable, beautiful, or just plain cool.

Self-hatred ain’t sexy

During the first week of January, resolutions sweep through people I know like a wildfire of self-doubt. Friends who I have a very high opinion of will leap out of the woodwork and declare ‘hey, here’s my flaw – you might not have spotted it yet but it’s there.’

For the purposes of fuelling my rant, I’m going to use losing weight as an example.

Disclaimer: if you’re resolving to lose weight because your current weight causes you mobility/health problems, then not only do I 100% support you, but if you drop me an email I will give you some exciting tips on how to do it. OK, not necessarily exciting, they basically all consist of me saying ‘eat salad, then fuck vigorously’.

Most people are a bit fat, and I’ve spoken before about how guys who are a bit fat are pretty sexy. But above and beyond the aesthetic value of some hot jiggling, there’s something that comes even higher in the list of ‘things that are hot’ – not giving a shit about your weight.

Nothing is less sexy than someone moaning about their love handles. No one wants to listen to a partner telling them exactly how much weight they’ve put on, which bits of their body are the fattest, or exactly how many calories they’re limiting themselves to each day.

Feel free to make self-deprecating jokes about it, but as soon as you ‘resolve’ to ‘fix’ it, it becomes an issue. Something that your partners and friends feel they must notice, tiptoe-around, and pander to. Worst of all, it could even make them feel the need to ‘support’ you in your efforts by cooking you healthy food, or joining you in a run around the block.

A better new year’s resolution

Everyone’s got flaws – you might be a bit fat, need to ditch smoking, be an irritating cunt when drunk or, in my case, all of the above. But there are inevitably some things about you that are bloody great. You might be hilarious, generous in getting rounds in, in possession of a spectacular arse, or able to deep-throat people with aplomb.

So make new year’s resolutions if you like, but as a gesture towards the well-rounded and at-least-partially-brilliant person you inevitably are, why not pick one or two things that you definitely don’t want to change? Choose two things that are ace about you, and resolve, with all the willpower that your awesome mind can muster, to keep them exactly as they are.

Number 16 was a rare find – a genuinely good mate with whom I spent many a brilliant hour getting utterly pissed and chatting about anything and everything.

The first time we had sex was a complete accident – I don’t think either of us had entertained the notion until one night, after downing enough tequila to fell an elephant, we ended up snogging mid-karaoke in a dirty pub at 2 am.

Oh. We’re doing this, are we? OK.

That initial shag eventually led to a comfortable routine – beer, more beer, yet more beer and then a pissed stumble back to his flat where we’d swap stories of past sexual conquests, smoke an obscene number of fags, then undress each other and fuck like we were playing tennis.

I don’t want to describe a specific incident, but I would like to make an observation – number 16 made noises.

The sex itself was vanilla – frantic, hot, pissed and desperate. We’d both decide we’d had enough of drinking and went into his room to strip off. And while we were stripping he’d talk, and while he was cupping my tits in his hands he’d talk, and when we were fucking he’d talk. And it was so. Fucking. Good.

He spoke to me, he moaned, he said ‘oh yes’ when I did something nice. He sucked in big gulps of breath while I had his cock in my mouth. He sighed. He moaned a bit more. He went ‘ugh’ when he came.

Number 16 said things and talked dirty. He told me he was hard, that he loved how it felt when he was inside me. He told me how wet I was. He asked me if I liked it. He groaned and sighed and climaxed with vocal, lusty relief.

Good lord the world could do with more vocal boys. Vocal boys make me feel so good. I love the challenge of doing things to make them go ‘aaah’ and if I get that feedback I’m going to keep doing it again and again. If I could request anything from the gentlemen of this world it’d be to turn up the fucking volume.

You don’t have to shout it from the rooftops, you don’t have to scream and cry and wail like a mourning widow. But don’t lie there in silence, humping me stoically with a face of concentration like you’re solving a particularly difficult crossword puzzle. Come on boys – make some noise.

___

We’re still mates. He has a girlfriend now and is almost like a proper grown-up. They go on holiday and have dates and are serious with each other, and when we get together for beers he tells me about her and I’m pleased that he’s got the secure happiness which, let’s be frank, I can’t give to guys.

But I still look at him and want to tear him apart.

I see his sexy, filthy hands gripped round a pint glass and remember how he’d take his rings off before plunging his fingers into my cunt.

How he’d hold my hair back so he could watch me taking the length of his cock into my mouth.

How he’d squeeze my tits nice and hard, and tell me that I liked it.

I mostly remember the noisy sex – what he sounded like.  What he’d say to me, how he’d moan and sigh. Best of all that wonderful, audible moment when he’d shudder and – with a muffled cry – come deep inside me so hard I could feel it.