I woke up the other morning hugging my pillow tightly to my chest. I’d dreamt I was still in Berlin, in bed with the boy I’d met not so long ago. I quickly realised I wasn’t and the gloom swept over me like fog rolling in over San Francisco bay..
After the ordeal with the neighbour I decided to take a chill pill and focus on my writing instead of wanting for romantic encounters. I reckoned that if something is meant to be it will happen regardless of you going out and looking for it. But it was a lot easier said than done. It’s like there is this pounding urge inside me that constantly keeps looking for a fix. Like a drug addict chasing the next high, whatever it may be..
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am far from starved for affection or desperate for love but there is this, almost sick need for affirmation. I can’t really put my finger on it nor can I understand it myself – I guess all those years on the shrinks couch were wasted on me.
It dawned on me that during my 30 year old life I have probably slept with more men than are named and numbered in the Bible. But only a microscopic number of them stuck round long enough for it to be classified as more than just a fling. Looking back at some of these encounters I shudder. Some were just drunken mistakes, some were ‘honest’ mistakes and some were just; ‘Oh my God – what the hell was I thinking’ kind of mistakes! Then there were a few good ones that I simply scared off by my own insecurities.
Now, a very close friend of mine told me that whenever something starts getting a bit serious with someone I pull away and run. It baffled me at first as I didn’t really have that view of myself and my relationships. In my own opinion I only ever pull away when something doesn’t feel right. There are certain criteria that I’m looking for in a prospective partner (Isn’t everyone?) and if some of that criteria isn’t met then I weigh the pros and cons – does the good outweigh the bad or vice versa and how much am I willing to compromise. For example: ‘Am I prepared to overlook his £600 a month drug addiction for the good sex we’re having?’ or ‘He’s still hooked up on his ex but maybe one day I’ll mean just as much to him?’ I am aware that we all have a certain amount of baggage and that nobody is perfect – but there are times when everything does FEEL perfect – and that is what I’m looking for.
When things went sour with the downstairs neighbour I felt like shit. For the first time in a long time I liked someone who seemed to like me and then suddenly I was dumped without as much as an explanation. I felt a bit deflated and my confidence was knocked down a few notches. I felt like I had to do something drastic just to pick myself up. So I posted an advert on the singles page on Gumtree. (I know, I know, reading about that dead Philippino woman in the suitcase that went on a Gumtree date was long after I posted my ad). I wrote extensively about what I was looking for and what kind of men I wasn’t interested in. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect and left it for a few days. When I logged on to check my emails there were 103 responses in just 4 days. Within another 3 days the total number had risen to 183. Reading through all of them certainly took my mind off things and as much as I hate to admit it, it made me feel better. But as I read through I noticed that none of these guys were anywhere close to the kind of man I was hoping to meet. Majority of them hadn’t even read my advert. They just saw my pic and sent off a dirty proposition and a phone number. A total turn off and the complete opposite to what I was looking for.
I’m not going to knock down every fish in the polluted sea. There were a selected few that made it through the screening process and we started corresponding regularly before agreeing to meet up. In theory some seemed perfect but in practice not so much. Sometimes it’s easy to lose yourself in the written word. As you read on you start to build up a fantasy of the person writing it and if this goes on for a while, more times than not, you’re setting yourself up for a fall. That was the case with me. I had built up some sort of expectations and once I’d met the guys I felt somewhat let down. They turned out to be really nice guys but I had expected a lot more than I got. Needless to say, none of the dates led to a second one..
Then one day, some friends came over from Berlin and stayed at mine for a few days. They had brought another friend that I’d hadn’t met and before I knew it little innuendos kept shooting at me from every direction about how cute this guy was, or how funny he was or how sweet we’d be together and so on and so on.. I admit, even without the innuendos, the chemistry between us was incredible. It was electric and sexy and it was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. Suddenly here it was. Completely unexpected.. The bank holiday weekend passed and the boy went back to Berlin. We both had an amazing time but neither of us questioned the future. It was what it was. Until we met online and slowly started fantasizing about ‘What if..’
A few weeks later I went to San Francisco on holiday. I had a great time but the Berliner was still playing on my mind. So much so I decided to make a detour on my way home and stop over to see him. We spent a great week together and suddenly it was time to go home. Once again I was confused. Why was I feeling so strongly for this guy? Any prospects of a future together were squashed by the 1000 kilometer distance as well as the language barrier, amongst other things. (Did I mention he only speaks Spanish and German and no English?)
Then the question came; why would I so foolishly want to pursue someone that unobtainable?
Is it because the hopeless romantic in me thrives on such dramatic encounters? Perhaps my desire to leave London took over and this looked like a perfect excuse? Or is it simply because I know that this romance was doomed from the start and it’s easier to deal with it dissolving than dealing with an actual relationship?
The words of my dear friend keep ringing in my ears. Maybe I AM running away from potential relationships as a precautionary measure? Maybe it’s a built in defence mechanism programmed to auto pilot when things get too serious?
Or maybe, just maybe, could it be possible that I simply haven’t met the right man for me?
Dan
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