Night of The Living EX

One of the worst things about working in a bar is that people can come in and chat shit to me while they take advantage of the fact that I cant leave and I have to serve them. This annoyance is further amplified by the fact that I met most of the people I have recently slept with in this bar, and that they still frequent it often. I need a new man-pool and I first realised this when I was working one night, at said bar, and one person in a friendship group asked if I was, at one time, with boy A or boy B from the group, and I had to honestly answer with, “Both.” And not to forget the classic, “Hey I don’t know you but apparently we shared a sex partner, let’s be friends?!” Err no. Time to move!

BYE BOYS!

To me, the fact that these men keep coming to this bar, when they know full well that I work there, is rude. I myself have already crossed off a fair few destinations on the map of the city I live in so I can avoid any awkward encounters, for instance the other day someone came into the bar, (awkward, wish I wasn’t here) ordered a drink (try not to throw it on him accidentally on purpose) and then, had the audacity to look at me and patronisingly ask, “How’ve you been?” I mean, what the fuck is that. Do you really think you had that much of an effect on me that I am now devastated after our temporary tryst and can no longer function or leave the house, let alone GO TO WORK AND SERVE PEOPLE LIKE I AM NOW. Soon I will be forced to make like Mrs. Flax, get drunk in a bubble bath and blindly choose where to live next over a giant map of England.

It’s partly my own naive fault, I thought it was just dating etiquette, you just can’t go to certain places anymore – you cross them off the map. But sadly my home isn’t as big as the entire USA and some situations cannot be avoided, I do understand that. However, if I have to sacrifice several bars, certain floors of my own university and central coffee shops then maybe you can miss out on that signature pint of ours.

All my dates seem to be more and more interlinked and messy the longer I live here; a day after things ended with a guy I’d been seeing for 4 months, I went on a date with a guy called Steve, we went to get a coffee and was served by a man, let’s call him Pete. Me and Steve didn’t last, but then Pete and I started dating for a while, (we met later on, I’m not that shameless to pick up another guy while I’m on a date!) I originally moved away from my small hometown because I was sick of everyone knowing your business and the busy, anonymous metropolis appealed to me, but now that I’ve lived here for a while I seem to know more and more friends of friends, and if I know them, that must mean they know all about me. I don’t really have anything in particular to hide, I just live in constant fear that one day a man will stop texting me back and when I ask why it will be, “I found out you were carnally involved with my friend at one point.” Because what am I meant to say to that other than, “Ah, which one was he?”

Ex’s are a tricky subject; you once shared all your intimate moments with them, you probably thought you were perfect for each other and you wanted them to like you so much and then all of a sudden the feelings just go or they break it off and you have to move on. In this digital age there are a lot of platforms that you can use to connect with someone, but disconnecting is hard, especially if you have mutual friends and you know they will feel a pang when they realise you’ve deleted them. But you do delete them off Facebook, you lose their number and don’t Snapchat them anymore in the hopes that will erase them, out of sight, out of mind. Until you bump into them, or you hear about them, and you are torn between wanting to hear about them to be nosy or because you still care and wanting to forget them forever. And then there’s THE COMPETITION. Like Britain’s Got Talent, but even more tragic, which person has won after the break up: who has lost weight, who got a new partner, who moved back in with their Mum. All these petty things can determine who is the strongest and who is the weakest, who is the person that can prove they cared less, because if that’s you, grab yourself a gold star, you are the winner. But why? It is a scary thing that pick up artists and all emotionally stunted “LADS” are now treating heartbreak as a disease that must be cured. See: oneitis.

On the one hand admitting you care is seen as weak, and falling in love makes you frail, but then as women all we are sold is romance, what are we meant to believe, no wonder we have been reduced to Facebook stalking and taking the long way home to avoid walking past anywhere your ex might be lurking. It’s always going to be uncomfortable staring into the same pair of eyes you’ve seen staring up at you from your crotch (also please never ever do the staring thing) but you’re going to have to fucking suck it up, just like they did at one point, because unless you keep moving house you’re going to see those peepers now and then.

So many break-ups but no relationships

Why is my generation so fickle when it comes to relationships? Nothing is clear any more in DATEWORLD and there are a thousand phrases and meanings you have to decipher for all the scenarios in which two people can be romantically involved. This dating code is interpreted differently depending on who you’re talking to. For instance, “seeing” someone can vary from going on actual dates with a person with the prospect of a relationship, to casually sleeping with someone on a regular basis, either a friend or a relative stranger, (but you mustn’t mention the b/g words because that’s not what this is) Urban dictionary defines “seeing each other” as, “all the fun of having a boyfriend/girlfriend but no change to Facebook relationship status.” No-one actually talks about feelings or the future any more, but why? Are we really that unsure about our futures as individuals or are we so scared of rejection that we can’t even bear to put ourselves out there enough to be rejected any more? Pressures of a relationship are too much when we’re not even sure what we want to do with our own lives, let alone someone else’s, no matter how special or important they seem. I read somewhere that people need to be more like boners when dating; in that, a boner is out there, you can’t miss it, it’s confident, it’s vulnerable and it’s poking you in the leg.

I have dated/seen/courted/had sex with/been mutually interested in, (whatever you want to call it) a lot of men in the past, and have, inevitably, “broken up” with them all. How is this even possible? (Not questioning the ‘why has this happened to me because I am oh so fucking hilarious and alright looking on a good day’) but how is it possible to break up with/dump/screw over/leave high and dry or finish with someone you weren’t even together with in the first place?! You have to go through all the sad “oh that person’s not here anymore” without the happy “oh that person’s here” to start with. There is so much social anxiety surrounding these non-relationships, especially because in many cases, there are more than just two people involved. You can’t discount the multitude of friends and relatives that weigh in on your current situation, and while their opinions may be valued, they all muddy your thoughts and ideals of what the relationship is/where it’s going. Although it is much easier to share doubts and scrutinise texts with friends we all know that, in fact, you should be talking directly to the other person. Not for nothing, social media also has a large hand in anxiety surrounding your ‘thing’, with Facebook asking you to choose a relationship status nearly every time you open the damn page, and new dating apps popping up all the time. Yes, Tinder, I’m looking at you. I’m sure we’re all aware of this trendy app now, hell, even VICE writes about it, basically it’s the shallowest thing in the world and I love it. Although that may be part of the problem; being able to look at hundreds of people and decide if they’re ‘hot or not’ within a split second and a swipe opens up so many more possibilities for new romances; assuming that you “match” with them, thereby negating the use for a steady relationship because why have one stale relationship when you can have many, fresh new ones?

Dating is really hard. Trying not to unleash all the crazy too soon, finding someone who finds you funny, and meeting someone you think is mildly attractive who thinks you’re mildly attractive too is near enough impossible, let alone all the power play and games that are thrown into the mix. The optimist in me likes to think that even though dating is superficial it doesn’t mean it’s not meaningful. We just need to stop trying to fit our ideals of romance into this box that Disney and Sex and The City have carved for us and realise that relationships can still be surprising and that analysing everything is futile. People need to cut the bullshit and just be honest. If you don’t know what the fuck you want, great, let me know. If you do, also great, let me know that. But we need to stop fucking each other around behind the curtain that we’re “unsure” because we’re not unsure, we’re just lazy and afraid of rejection. As I have learned, even if it doesn’t work out it might make a great story that you can laugh about later.