What I want

He's been gradually edging closer to my side for the last hour and a half. And now one hand is resting on my leg, and six empty glasses have collected by our feet. We are on a bench sitting against a wall, and when he kisses me, my hair catches in the wood behind my head.

We'd met an hour into the New Year, after he'd approached me while I ordered drinks at the bar. We kept chatting, and eventually kissed the way you tend to kiss a complete stranger when you're drunk on New Years Eve. Later, he left me charmed and intrigued enough to give him my number at the end of the night.

'My New Year's resolution is to go on one date this year', I'd said when the topic inevitably came up, 'It's been quite a long time'.

And so here we are, a week and a half later, in the corner of a basement bar.

It's been a long time since I've done this, longer than a year. And as the night goes on, I find myself getting reacquainted with all the ways attraction makes opinions and thoughts bend and shift, selecting stories to be told, and anecdotes to be left out, the way you subtly test the things you think the other person might like.

Ah, this is fancying someone, I remember. He kisses me again.

'So what are you looking for?' he asks as we separate, and the directness of the question catches me off guard.

'I don't know really,' I say after a moment of thought, 'If I met someone I really liked, then obviously I'd want a relationship with them. But I don't want a boyfriend indiscriminately. I'd like to do things, and meet people, and date. What about you?'

'So, I don't think I want a relationship at the moment,' he responds, confirming something that I'd pieced together from the stories he'd told me, a feeling I already knew.

But what I don't expect is the immediate sense of a pressure lifting, a calming sense of relief. That what I want isn't the promise of a relationship, or commitment. And nor is it an escape route, or way out.

What I want is something more straight forward, but harder to find in a world where dating can sometimes feel like you're only being told what someone thinks you want to hear. For the first time I consider an option I hadn't thought about, something rarely offered: for someone to be honest, to take away the anxiety over what this is, to have things laid out upfront.

We leave the bar hand in hand, and walk towards Oxford Circus tube. I walk down the steps after he's kissed me goodbye, and five minutes later my phone buzzes with the words 'all booked x'.

Because there was one more thing I realised I want, and that's a second date.

Times have changed, it doesn't matter at all, not these days

'Met anyone nice recently?'

Ah, there we go; the brief tug backwards, like a few strands of hair caught in a hand on the tube.

It's deceptive, too: a casual, diluted version of a hot topic. Part question, part appetite for news.

Well, I think, there’s a load of really nice new colleagues at my new job. There's the tall, interesting man who joined my old work as I was leaving, who I bonded with over skiing and music and travel, but not over the boredom and futility of dating apps, because that's how he'd just met his new girlfriend.

There’s the 50 year old woman I ate dinner with every night for three days while I was away. And the 32 year old stranger I sat next to on a beach and paddled in the water with for eight hours straight; through flashes of heavy rain followed by stretches of sun, talking non-stop about life, equality, work, and the stories we had from the places we’d been. We’re still in touch now, actually, she was great.

There’s the man the two of us talked to over instant noodles after too many glasses of sake, the one with the beautiful eyes, surprisingly good English and politely attractive way, who we both agreed was hot as we crept back into our dorm beds on the eve of my last day. 

There’s the people I shook hands with in the main room of the nightclub three floors beneath London on Friday night, introducing ourselves over the blast of house, but I don’t remember why we got talking, or their names.

I also liked the woman I exchanged a few words of solidarity with at the tube doors, when a man walked past us and took the space that should have been ours.

All these people flash through my mind on a grid labelled Nice People I’ve Met Recently, but I know that's not where this conversation is headed, that isn't what is meant.

So what I say out loud is

No, no one, I haven’t met anyone, not since February really, nothing since then, no dates, nothing, all this year.

And I'm not sure what I'm more tired of having: the question or the answer, or the inevitable discussion about why that follows, over and over again.

No expectations

How did this happen, I think, not for the first time that morning. Because now, it is most certainly morning.

My eyes are closed and my feet are moving, my chest is rattling, my nose hairs are tickling from the rumbling bass. A few of us went for a quick drink and now here we are, 12 hours later, the group dispersed and my eyes settling on the man to my right.

We catch each other's eyes in mutual appreciation of the moment, the intro we recognise, the hour, the incoming drop. We grin at each other and he says "I can't believe they wanted to shut this place down" and I yell back "I know, it's nuts".

He places his finger over my ear when he leans down to talk to me - the nightclub equivalent of holding the door open - and although it's nearly 5am, some rituals are still in place: he offers to buy me a drink.

His friends are unreachable, the spot where mine were is empty now too. We move to the next room, a different sound, a different crowd. We dance next to each other and then, slowly, subtly, he moves behind me; puts his hands on my hips, and then he turns me around and we kiss.

***

Walking through the city in the dark. It's past 6am, freezing, and his jacket went home with his friends. We flag down a black cab and I give the driver - his first fare of the day - my address.

And all I feel is a lightness, a relief that this sort of thing can still happen; a night can still tumble into something you didn't expect. I lean into the stranger on the backseat, he kisses the top of my head. We're laughing-tired, too stupidly wired for the hour; comparing the ringing sounds in our ears.

It's 8am when we finally call it a night, or a day, and get into bed with our clothes on, not bothering to change. We stay that way until the afternoon. He leaves later, and when he says "thank you", I know him just well enough to know he means it. It's not numbers we swap but names; a long hug, a quick kiss. 

"You're welcome," I say, letting him out. The night is over, there's still no expectations. And I'm still smiling to myself after shutting the door.

How are you

When you're in your 20s, most friendship groups form because of some uniting cause. You're all single, you all like tequila and sequins (in that order), or you all memorised Roald Dahl poems as a kid.

Whatever it is, you're all in the same situation, you can relate to each other in some way. You rely on each other, talk about your tumultuous dating lives and relationships, your fears about the future, or absolutely nothing at all.

Out of that, a sort of day to day dialogue emerges. You have a casual, almost unremarkable routine of checking in with each other, and popping round, and it's a sort of barometer: you all seem to know how everyone is.

But at some indeterminate point in your 30s, slowly that begins to change.

And you know it's inevitable, natural even: but that doesn't stop it feeling strange when your good friends no longer come to you with their day-to-day stuff.

More often than not, they've got someone at home who can listen and take the load off their mind midweek, rather than nipping round to yours, or for a quick one in the pub.

For me, this year's heartbreak hasn't been a romantic relationship dwindling. It was realising that little by little, my friends no longer need me in the same way they did before. And in turn realising that I, being single, still need them in the same way I always have.

Which was the thought process running through my mind a couple of weeks ago, when winter was in the air, and my mood was dogged down one day mid week.

My next planned social event - because now, they are almost always planned - was still a couple of days away, an impossible work situation was feeling impossible, and family matters felt like they mattered a lot.

What I really fancied was a quick chat, something to perk me up: but my last failed attempts at rousing the gang on Whatsapp for a spontaneous drink were ebbing at the confidence to make the same suggestion again.

I knew, if I was to send a message, or an email, or make a call and say I could do with a chat, that responses would come and someone would be there.

But when your mind is telling you that everyone else has somewhere else they'd rather be, then the simple call or text that would fix things can be the hardest one to make.

So I didn't, and the day trundled on, along with my mood. Until just before the end of the day, when a text message arrived.

The name surprised me. It was a friend who had largely disappeared this year, leaving one of the biggest gaps of all. But there she was - as if she knew I needed her - with just two words:

Dinner soon?

And that was all it took. We chatted away, she asked how I was, and we arranged a Sunday afternoon out. Little by little as the inane back and forth continued, my brain lifted itself out of its slump.

It reminded me just how restorative a simple how are you can be. That friends are still there, but they need to know that you need them.

And single or not, I think that reminder works both ways.

It was a very good day

We are in his room, and outside it, the sun is setting on the weekend.

'I need to go home' I say, because it's Sunday, because we've got work tomorrow, because it's 9pm, because at some point all good days must come to an end.

'I need to go home' I say again, half an hour later, and this time I reach down and put on my shoes.

'We should do something proper. Go for dinner. Without hangovers.' he says, looking directly at me, smoothing down strands of my hair.

'Yes, we should. Let's do that.'

'Let me know when you get home,' he says, once, then twice, 'Check the number works' he adds with a smile.

And then we kiss for a long time at his front door, and then, finally, I leave.


***

At a friend's birthday the night before, it's late when he passes me his phone.

I read the words I'm going home soon. I was wondering if I can I have your number? he's written in the message field, and I nod, then we sneak off to the kitchen, and my stomach flips as we kiss.

Night rolls into morning, morning rolls into a walk to my house, my house turns into the park, Bloody Marys in a pub garden, and it's afternoon now: we sit on a park bench in the sun.

'Tell me things about yourself,' he says, 'Tell me things you like.'

The park bench in the sun turns into a slow, arms-round-eachother amble along a canal.

We stop for food; hands held across the corner of a square table for two. We walk, we walk, we walk back to his for a film, a nap. Full circle.

Back again, he said, like it wouldn't be the last time.

***

I wait for the bus, I let him know that I'm home.

A couple of messages from him is all it takes, and the light feeling in my chest is replaced by one that is more familiar to me.

The next day, confusion.

Perhaps I imagined it, I think.

A week passes of nothing, then two.

***
It's awkward, isn't it? It's not the ending you expect.

You want the love story, the follow up, the excitement, the dates, the things that are meant to happen after a good day.

As a love story, it's lacking. But as a good day, it's pretty much complete.

To look at good days in anything other than isolation is silly; I don't take them too personally any more.

Good days are like good dates; there'll be another.

He was another, after all.

Love hurts

Preamble: The other day I listened to this series of podcast episiodes called Love Hurts in full. And then I decided to write to the woman who made it. My email ended up saying a lot of what I've wanted to say for a while, about being single, looking for love, not finding it, and how other people react to singleness - so here is a (heavily edited) part blog post / part email version here. A little disjointed as a result, but there you go. 

I rarely feel compelled enough to write to people whose podcasts I've listened to, but I just stumbled upon the Love Hurts series Lea Thau did on the Strangers podcast, and it sucked me in. 

It was uncomfortable and comfortable listening all at once.

She interviews past dates to find out why it didn't work out, talks to relationship experts, and exes, and discusses the question of dating and sex, and delves into her own past to try and answer to the question of why she's been single for so long, and the big one: Is It Me? 

What struck me most was the relief of hearing someone say out loud how embarrassing being single is, when so much time is spent pretending not to be ashamed about it - to couples, and other singles, to yourself.

It's something I wouldn't ever have admitted, and have never heard voiced by someone else - and yet I found myself thinking "yes, embarrassment. That's exactly how it feels."

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you might know I've been single for four years. You might have read what happened, and the ups and downs that followed; sparse as the posting has become.

Perhaps you've been supportive, perhaps you've longed for me to find The One each time I mentioned a date. Perhaps you've left a helpful comment saying I should be over my last relationship by now, that it's time to move on.

Whichever group you fall into, you'll know that I haven't really spent the last four years looking for love, exactly; more getting over the last one, being alright by myself, and trying to find what fits now. 

And you might have gathered along the way that I'd rather be single than with someone for the sake of it. That I don't think there's much point in settling, or continuing to date someone who you know wants different things, or going on indiscriminate online dates, when there's a bigger world out there to explore.

But none of that changes the fact that I'd love to be in a relationship, and that often, admitting as much is a difficult thing to do.

Aside from anything else, we can all probably admit that the grass isn't greener over there in coupledom; but at 31, it's just a different, more socially acceptable field to be in.

Because yes, it can be brilliant being single, but it's also a mess of contradictions.

It's something your equally single friends want to maintain (at least, until they find someone themselves), and your coupled friends want to change.

It means talking about how you feel, whether you're happy or not, and, of course, replying to the ever persistent questions about the men in your life and whether you're dating.

It means handling the lull in conversation, the flash of a concerned look, the reassuring noises, and the empty feeling that follows if the answer is "there's no one, and I'm not".

Being single means subjecting your life to analysis, and noting in comparison that people in relationships are rarely also asked at the dinner table "so, how are things with you two? Are you really happy?", when they're the ones, we're often told, who are not. 

We are told that no relationship is perfect, yet they don't need to refer to the hard work involved and never have to admit what they would change, or what they perhaps miss - to be point where I assume it's just something that cannot, or should not be said.

The fact remains: in January I will have been single for five years, and I will continue to feel embarrassed when saying the number out loud.

No matter how comfortable you are with being single, it gets harder and harder to reconcile yourself with it when everyone around you is so focused on finding someone, or marrying, or committing in some way. 

And this is in London: a city full of people like me. I live with two of them; we travel, we busy ourselves, we date, we have lots of friends.

But it feels increasingly like we're all treading water, waiting for someone to come along and change this status which isn't quite acceptable - long term, anyway - without that well known aside being whispered behind you.

Every situation has its ups and downs, and I was in the middle of a down period when I listened to this podcast last week. But instead of making me feel low, and more embarrassed, I felt reassured and absolutely ok.

I don't know many other people who've been single for 4+ years, so it just helped to hear someone else who has speak with so much honesty, and frankness, and bravery on the subject, in a way that I have never heard anyone else be.

So with that, I'll say it: I am single. It's been nearly five years since someone last called me their girlfriend. And if I've got to be ok with that, then everyone else should be, too. 

Podcast links: 

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Follow up
One year later

Waking up

One day you just wake up and feel a bit better.

Not totally alright, but less like the world's already gone to pot before you've even opened your eyes.

Realising you don't feel as resolutely awful as you have been for the past few weeks - or even months - is like that morning when the sun rises before you do at the end of winter.

That little bit of light making lines on your bedroom wall means you've made it through the bleakest bit of the year.

Instead of shifting awake and having to lie there, trying to guess what time it is, and how long it'll be until your alarm goes off - is it 4am or 7am? - now you know it's daylight outside, and that means it's time to get up.

As the mornings get lighter (in every sense), so does your perspective on the situation.

It begins to feel less like a failure and more like another thing you'll look back on and see more and more holes in, either when the next one comes along, or before.

And more importantly, you know there probably will be a next one - that's something to look forward to now, too.

Either way, after months of your brain working overtime, you've made a decision to stop questioning yourself so much.

Just let stuff happen. Say yes, and see where it takes you.

Stop analysing, comparing, wondering what if this, or what if that - instead, just wake up each day, feel a bit better.

You'll work it out.

"I can't see a way this can work", he said

I cried the next morning when I woke up before my alarm, and then I cried in the shower.

I cried on the bus, looking out of the window.

I cried at my desk, really discreetly, and in the toilets at work.

I cried because I was frustrated, I cried because I felt sad.

I cried with a bit more volume and vigour when I got home that evening and no one was in, then I cried in the shower, put my make up on, did my hair, painted my nails and went out for dinner.

I almost cried in the restaurant, but we changed the subject just in time - and then I ordered another drink.

The next morning, I cried because of the radio silence; because I didn't have someone saying "hey, good morning, how are you?" and that was always quite nice to have until it wasn't there any more.

I cried when I looked in my kitchen cupboard and saw the honey I'd dared myself to buy, because I wanted to believe he'd be back, and he likes it.

I cried when someone was mean to me, and I cried because they didn't know. And I cried because I'd been mean first, and I hadn't meant to be, but when you're upset and tired things come out the wrong way.

Later that afternoon, someone approached my closed bedroom door with a tentative knock.

I cried, shaking my head, when she asked "Have you heard from him?", then I cried on her shoulder when she hopped up onto the bed with me and gave me a hug.

I cried when she said "no, it's not like starting again, because now you know what you want, for next time."

(I cried at the prospect of "next time")

I didn't cry when they made me leave the house and go for a walk, through east London Fields, down to Columbia Road and back, and the sun was shining and the dogs were out.

I realised I hadn't cried yesterday - and then I cried because I still felt exhausted, because I know it will get better and the tears will probably dry up soon.

But until then, I'm going to cry because this is how it goes, and this, in every sense of it, is normal.

Flight mode

I don't know what's going on. 

This is a hard thing for me to admit, and write down, and say out loud.

The last time I said it out loud was in a pub last week, and then I cried while my mate looked concerned and her boyfriend hugged me as their baby wiggled on his lap.

For some reason, it's embarrassing to admit when you think something has shifted, when you think something's amiss; not quite right.

It's embarrassing when you're surrounded by sure-footed single people, or friends in committed, straight forward relationships, it's embarrassing to admit you're in one that is uncertain.

It's embarrassing when you don't know, then you do, and actually forget what I said last time - it's all ok.

Or isn't.

Fuck it, you don't know.

Another thing that's hard for me to admit and write down, and say out loud, is that I sent a text the other day and watched my mood drift downwards as I imagined worse case scenarios until the only logical solution was to switch off my phone completely.

It's embarrassing because I used to pride myself on knowing what's going on, what I want - and now my sense of self-worth and the course of my day regularly hangs on someone else.

On this occasion, my mind whirled until precisely 4:35pm.

Take that, I thought, putting the phone into flight mode. You cannot get me here. 

And when I think about it flight mode is an apt term: for it is in these moments - when everything I've known for the last four years is up in the air - that I want to flee.

When everything's uncertain, and I want to say "sod it" and shut it down, and go back to it being just me.

When the phone is off and I'm running in the opposite direction and doing my own thing again, it's almost a relief.

Imagine if I just knew I was single, I'd know what to do.

Flight mode is the safe one; it stays until I've managed to put myself into a better mood on my own.

And then I switch the phone back on, and the message arrives immediately, and then although I still don't know much - at least I do know I'll be ok.

Middle of the bed

I've spent a lot of time over the last few years getting used to being ok by myself.

And by this, I don't mean tolerating singledom until the next bloke comes along - I mean actually, genuinely thinking "if it ended up being just me, that would be ok".

Some people get a bit weird hearing that; you can tell because nearly all of them see it as a cue to reassure me that this won't be the case, as if the single alternative to life would be a bad thing, or breakups never happen.

But if becoming ok on my own was difficult and took time, then blimey, learning to be with someone else again is another task entirely.

Over the last almost-four-years, I've honed the art of being self-sufficient, relying on myself and a brilliant group of friends for most things.

And now, little by little, I'm having to adjust to trusting someone else.

When will this end? I think to myself on a near weekly basis, when the text reply is a little late in coming and my mind jumps to the worst case scenario: he's lost interest, he's found someone else, he would rather not see me, he's going to cancel, he's going to let me down.

At times like that, there's no reassurance you can give me, because this is how it goes.

Or rather: it's how it's gone before. It's happened. And it's happened after one month, two, six, 18, it's happened after years with someone, it's happened after five dates or eight.

That's my experience, and as much as you always have to take people at face value, not let the past make you paranoid about what's coming up, and definitely not trot out that tired "I've been hurt before" line (everyone has by now, we're not 20 any more) - experience is what you tend to go on.

I expect to be let down by him in the same way that I expect phone calls or texts saying "Call me when you can" from my mother to bring bad, sometimes devestating news: because at one point, it seemed like they always did.

(The fact that she usually just wants someone to look after the dogs at the weekend is neither here nor there. I'm still like. "So, just the dogs? No one's died?" while relief settles across my chest.)

And I reassure myself with "whatever happens, you'll be alright anyway, you idiot", then he's at my door, or there at the station, or the reply comes and it's asking when he can see me again - and then all the panic goes away and I tell myself not to be a dick next time - and besides, I sort of knew all along that he would be there; there's a little hope I can't let myself assume to be fact quite yet, but I just need to see it for myself.

I'm having to get used to the fact that even something as simple as a bad night's sleep at my house doesn't mean he won't want to come back.

"I didn't sleep too well last time I was at yours" he said, "you like to get in the middle of the bed."

"That's because I'm not used to sharing it," I reply, "I'm sure I'll adapt..."

Like everything else, it'll probably just take a bit of time.

A small little shift

The covers move beside me.

My eyes are shut - I'm only half awake but I'm listening. Unused to sharing my sleeping space, I wake up at every slight turn (although I pretend not to).

I'm facing the other way, identifying the sounds as they happen: he gets up, t-shirt goes on, picks something up. The door clicks. He walks out.

He pads to the kitchen, there's the faint sound of water running, then he's back.

There's a couple of gulps, then a gentle tap; glass on wood. He settles back, and I go to sleep.

It's a couple of hours later when I wake up, thirsty, squinting at my bedside table.

Then I'm so surprised that I sit up, and stare at the glass for what seems like a minute, but is probably less. I look at the sleeping form next to me, the half full glass on his side, then back to the previously empty glass on mine.

Huh.

It's a few hours later when we're both awake, and I'm wondering if, perhaps, I'd imagined it.

"Did you fill up my glass of water?" I say.
"Yep." he replies.
"Oh." I marvel, like he's just written a book and dedicated it to me, "Thank you."

And he won't know it, but in doing this small, unremarkable thing, there's just been a tiny shift in my brain.

I look at him differently now; this person who woke up thirsty, got himself a drink, and thought I might want one, too.

Some people might remember the day they got given flowers, or a piece of jewellery, received some grand gesture, or a kiss - but as that small, tiny, considerate act sticks with me even weeks later, I think, I will remember this.

Learning to date

For a while, it seemed like everyone in the world was going on dates except me.

My mates always seemed to have a bloke on the go. When one dropped off the radar, another would take their place, and all the while I'd sit there listening, watching their phones light up with interest and wondering: how the hell do they do that?

The truth is, I've never been as comfortable with dating as I have with being single.

I tried to be a few times; for the stories, because I thought I should, because people kept asking if there was anyone on the scene, because more embarrassing than saying "no" were the cocked heads and reassurances that well, you'll find someone soon, and because sometimes nice boys asked me out and it felt more awkward to turn them down.

But in doing so, I realised that if you try and date when you're not entirely comfortable with the idea, you don't really enjoy it. You just spend an inordinate amount of time dreading the details, worrying about the consequences.

So I waited.

Then eventually, I met someone I liked - and after feeling nothing for anyone for so long, even when it fizzled out, it still brought back a little spark.

Things seemed to happen the old fashioned way after that; eye contact, flirting, a drunken kiss leading to a few lovely dates.

When things didn't go to plan (what plan?), there was the enjoyment of being single - and for nights when you just want to know that someone, anyone fancies you - there was Tinder.

The latter was used sporadically, more out of curiosity than anything else, and on one occasion resulted in a perfectly pleasant (read: boring) evening in a London cocktail bar.

Tinder dates, I concluded on the way home, merely meant three hours of wondering where on earth to begin with a complete stranger you didn't really fancy, and were best limited to an occasional confidence boost from the comfort of my sofa.

Which is why even when I walked down the steps of Waterloo Bridge early in October, taking a deep breath before scanning the crowds for a vaguely recognisable face - the one I'd been texting for the past two weeks - I wasn't quite sure how I'd ended up there.

My expectations were low even after we'd spent the evening together; when the time of his last train approached and we tried to find a way around it, but couldn't, and so I walked him to the station instead.

"Well, we'll have a less sensible night out next time then," I said of our early finish. And he replied, "Next time eh?" and I said "Only if you want to."
"Are you kidding? Definitely. That'd be amazing." and with that, an arm curled around my waist.

I walked away from the tube station that night grinning, because the kiss had lingered a little longer than it normally would between two strangers.

And I realised that this is how dating, like being single, was meant to be: comfortable, unpredictable, and always with a bit of excitement still to come.

All the little places

I was 16 when I fell in an approximation of love for the first time.

At that age, I had no idea that there would be others after him. It was just all completely new, that rush of lovely reciprocated feelings, and because I didn't yet realise that boys who said they loved you might one day just... not, there were only good things ahead.

You fell in love once, and he had huge brown eyes, and we were going to be together forever, and that was that.

He was two years older than me - a frightening age gap in my mother's opinion - and she was suspicious, she later told me, because those huge brown eyes never met hers. But she had the good sense to let me find out for myself.

And then three weeks later when he ended it, my mum perched on the bed where I'd been laying in the dark silently crying for the past couple of hours, and comforted me. Then she said, "You didn't sleep with him, did you?" and quietly "Thank god." when I shook my head no.

This wasn't just my first initiaition into heartbreak, but the first time I realised it wasn't just people you had to get over, but places too. My bedroom used to be my bedroom, but now it was where me and him first stood there hugging and then slowly, tentatively, kissed.

The bench in the park where we'd walked my dog - the one with my initials and his scratched into the wood - no longer belonged to a London Borough Council, it was ours. And then, because it hurt to look at it, it was to be avoided at all costs.

The park is still there, the bench is too. Reclaimed by the council, the love for that brown eyed boy long gone and replaced ten times over.

But if I'm passing, I'll sometimes sit there and run my fingers along the seat trying to find a trace of the letters I carved with my house keys 14 years ago, feeling nothing except glad that although it hurt, it happened, and I learnt from it, and occasionally I'll wonder what he's doing now.

And sometimes, all that seems to have changed is my age, the men, and the locations: the more people I meet and get attached to, the more invisible flags get planted and fade all over London - some quicker than others.

Some places have a sort of magnetism about them; your eyes are automatically drawn to a doorway or corner, or a flat, a bus stop, and the conversations you had there pop into your mind, word for word.

The other day I crossed over to the side of a road that took me past a front door.

Not because I hoped to see him come out of it (although I armed myself by inwardly rehearsing our conversation just in case) but more because I'd been unconsciously refusing to go near it.

I'd been avoiding an entire side of a busy road I used most days, and now, I decided, I wanted it back.

Doing so triggered a little memory, and made my chest hurt for a second or two. I glanced at the door and no one came out of it, and then I carried on walking home.

But everything fades, and nowadays I know that soon I'll walk past that door and feel nothing but a vague curiosity; wondering a little bit about what he's up to, and what little flags will get planted next.

Are we friends yet?

For the second time in as many weeks, my body reacted like it'd been given bad news.

My phone lit up on the desk at work, his name on the screen again, and my stomach dropped an inch or two. For gods sake, what now?

The rejection had dissipated slightly in the two weeks since his original message, the one that mowed down every cliché in the field: not looking for a relationship, would be amazing to still be friends, carry on hanging out more, etc, etc, etc. The next day, my reply had been calm and honest (fuelled only slightly by gin), explaining why friends couldn't happen: because I was hurt.

So now, knowing that my day was about to be disrupted by whatever he had to say, I carried on with what I was doing. Left it there unchecked for a while until I was ready: my day will not stop for you.

Eventually I looked at the message, and stared at it, all four words and a kiss.

Are we friends yet? X

It was just a thread, nothing more. And when you hang on to threads, you get dangled - and that wasn't about to happen again.

That didn't stop replies lining up in my mind for the best part of a week, covering every emotion from sarcastic, honest, angry, witty, to mildly humourous, none of which would ever be sent.

Then one week later at the tail end of a house party, the bit when you sit on the kitchen counter and chat about the world, a friend and I talked about me being single.

"I suspect it's the sort of bloke I'm attracted to", I said, "here's a good example."

Then I showed him the text messages, trying to explain this person I really liked and his sudden departure from my life, "...and then I got this."

My friend held my phone and looked at the final message, his eyebrows furrowed. "Who even does that?" he said, seemingly angry on my behalf.

Then, before I could do anything, he'd tapped twice on the keyboard and pressed send.

When I grabbed it back and looked down, there it was; the answer I'd never have sent.

The lines of communication officially closed and all threads cut with a simple word:

no

This is all I know at the moment

If there was ever a way to press pause on a moment and bottle it, now would be the perfect time.

This is what's going through my head as I lie there fully clothed, the thumping hangover slowly worsening or abating, I can't tell which.

Hip hop plays low in the background. An arm slips around me, the other hand finds mine, and I bury my head in his neck.

"Bloody hell, I'm dying" I say, because the night before ended at 6am when daylight crept into the party, and only then was it time to go home.

It was when I woke up later that morning that the text was there, asking if I wanted to come round that night.

"I can't do tonight, but do you fancy just being a hungover mess with me this afternoon?" I replied, because he'd had a big one too, and misery loves nothing more than company when it's only a short, slightly ropey, too-hot-for-this-hangover bus journey down the road.

I told no one where I was going; there was no one to tell anyway, but it felt nice to just disappear to his flat in the middle of the afternoon, pull down the blinds and forget about the outside world for a while.

In fact, I tell no one about any of it, save a few close people who know me well enough not to ask too much, and not to share the details they hear.

Because this is how dating seems to go; it's uncertain, it's fun, and it's mostly closing your eyes and storing this moment because you're not sure how it will turn out later. 

And all I know is what experience tells me: that this - whatever it is - isn't ready to be labelled yet, won't be for a while, and doesn't need to be prodded in the way my friends would if they knew. 

What would I say if the questions came? That it's not as terrifying as it was at the start, certainly; that he's 30% familiar, and 70% an unknown mystery, but we're working on that with every date.

Well, sort of.

"You're going to a desert island and can only have one soft drink and one alcoholic drink forever", he says, 'what you having?"

"Ribena. And a gin and tonic" I reply, "you?"

"Strawberry milkshake and a White Russian." he returns.

"Interesting. A milky choice there."

Then I turn around and he curls behind me, and all I know is that even with a hangover, this is a good place to be at the moment. 

So with the important questions covered, for now, we nap. 

Changing states of mind

"If you like someone, you don't mind getting two texts in a row from them."
"Either do it now, or do it tomorrow."
"I think just do it now. No games. You want to see him, so just ask."
"God, I haven't seen you like this before."

My mind was in a state of flux.

It had been that way since the minute I'd woken up and brushed the button to light up my phone, ostensibly to see the time, but also to see whether there had been any deliveries overnight. And there hadn't.

Panic had set in.

"So he wanted to see you last night..."
"Yes. But it was late and too far so I suggested this afternoon and now nothing. Nothing. All day."

The feeling of all rational thought taking leave was an alien one. It was unsettling to seemingly have so much time, so much energy to devote to just one thing, one person, one bloody phone screen.

The highs and lows were disrupting the nice, level minded constant I'd put time and effort into building up. It was disconcerting. I was going nuts.

Right. What would you advise someone else in this situation?

This was the question I'd asked myself earlier on the bus, as I'd stared out of the window and envisaged a future that contained both the perfect and worst case scenarios in quick, altering succession.

I'd say you can't assume to know the motives or thoughts of someone you've known for just a week. I'd say it's hormones. I'd say what do you really know about this person? I'd say not everyone treats their phone like the messiah.

But really, I needed rational advice. I needed the real talk, the science, not the irritating "how exciting! No, but this is exciting!" exclamations of those who have been in relationships too long to remember the fear, the terror, the crippling insecurity of having feelings for someone you've known for only a week.

I needed Google.

How to stop yourself feeling completely crazy when...

When what? When you've known someone a week? When you've had a spectacularly good first date?

...you're on Facebook
...you're on your period
...you're falling in love

Google's last autocomplete threw me, and I stared at the results warily before clicking onto what I considered to be the most reputable. And then I read.

"You are under the influence of your hormones that are making you feel, all at once, euphoric, endangered, and exhausted. You are adding a dating relationship to your normal, busy routine. This can make you more anxious than normal. This process can be threatening and make you feel unsafe."

Science out of the way, I needed the reassurance from my perennially single, tell it like it is friends. I needed two gay mates and a housemate.

"Yeah, it's horrible." they agreed, "Bloody awful, liking someone. The worst."
"I know, it's so much easier when you don't care."
"Urgh, I feel for you."

Finally, I thought. People who understand.

After a while and a beer I realised that while you can't know someone else, you can know yourself. You can know how to allay your own fears - even the most startling irrational ones - or at least set them on the road to recovery.

Knowing that I'd taken the adult route, the direct route, would mean that even in the event of a Non Reply, I would feel better for trying.

I typed.

"[Full name]. Are you still free on Monday?"

It sent. It delivered. It sat there, under my last message, making my screen into a field of green.

You've known him a week. You'll get over it. Plus if he loses interest this quickly there's clearly something else going on and you do not need a problem child. Nope.

And the weird thing was, I started to feel better.

An hour passed, then two, and the strange feeling in my chest was returning to normal.

"I don't think I'll hear from him again. I think that's it", I said, as my housemate and I walked home from the park, ready for a night in.

We were mid way through unpacking a bag of shopping when my phone, discarded and in disgrace on the kitchen counter, lit up with a message.

"For you? Yes. X"

And then I fell into a state of relief.

I don't know where to put you

I'd been wanting to see them live since first hearing the album back in 2010. 

They'd been the accompaniment to my final months of travelling; me, my now Ex, and our ever present soundtrack of the same songs, in the same order, wherever we went.

Now the gig had finished, and our sentences were glazed with that post-live music wonderment - you know, when the encore's done, the lights go up and you walk out, down the stairs, onto the street and all you can say is oh, I loved that, that was so good.

"How did you hear about them?" my friend asked, and I told her how he'd been all over this stuff, we constantly listened to music, stayed up til 6am dancing to it - this was what we did.

"Have you talked to him lately?" she said, because we live in the same area and, for a time, I seemed to bump into him every time I left the house.

"Not for ages," I replied, "Not since he was walking outside my old flat last year and I saw him, then completely forgot my housemate's name."

"But it's weird." I continued, as we walked among the throng of people heading to the nearest station, "usually I'll wonder how he is, and then he'll cycle past me at the bus stop or something."

"Alright, so you know he's still got legs. That's cool." and we laughed and I said, "Ha, yeah. I've been thinking about him a lot lately, just hoping he's ok. But I suppose you always do, don't you."

We got to the station and split up, her to go underground and me over. It was five minutes later when I was faced with a closed line, forced to retrace my steps back over the road and take a different route - such is the reliability of the London transport system.

As I placed my Oyster card on the reader and stepped through the barrier, at that precise moment and time at the overly busy station, some hair caught my eye, then trainers, then my brain pieced together all the different characteristics of this person in front of me.

And even though he hadn't turned around yet, I called his name because it was definitely him.

"Hello," I said, and I can't remember if we hugged.
"Hello" he replied, "how are you?"
"This is weird, that you're here", and of course he'd been to the same gig.

Then we walked down the escalator, onto the same tube, where we placed ourselves by the doors on one side of the carriage and his friends on the other, sometimes glancing our way.

There we stood as the tube rattled from one side of London to the other, catching up, carefully skirting topics, asking after people and family and jobs and travels; vaguely referencing a time we can't talk about here, like this; occasional silences where we looked at each other, smiled a bit and didn't know what to say next.

We reached the barriers at the other side and he hung back, waiting for his friends so they could get food.

We hugged. A goodbye, a good to see you, a quick, distant utterance of I'll text you or something and a Yeah, do thrown over my shoulder in case I'd misheard, or hadn't, and then I walked up towards the concourse at Liverpool Street Station.

--------------

Days later, the chance meeting sticks in my mind.

He's back there in my head, of course, because he always is anyway. It's fate, or chance, or I could bump into him at any time or place and it would seem as though I'd always just thought of him that moment.

With this one, there's no box to put him in. I don't know where he's meant to go. Everything fits, and nothing does at all.

He's just there, and, as long as we live in the same city, on the same road, and listen to the same music, I suppose he always will be.

On the defensive

It rankles every time.

"I can just see you being so happy with someone."

The same phrase, always delivered with a note of longing in the voice, as if true happiness could not be achieved any other way.

This time, the call for my coupled happiness comes from a person wearing a ring of intent on one hand and holding the keys to a new, jointly owned flat in the other.

I let them finish, taking a moment before replying.

I sip my beer.

Normally this call for my coupled happiness would be positively bashed away, because being single is brilliant for a lot of reasons, but mostly for all the reasons being in a relationship is not.

Allowing anyone to think otherwise quickly results in a pitying look and the words, "don't worry, you'll find someone soon. It always happens when you least expect it. Let's see, who do we know?"

(Not, "Well, maybe you'll feel better about it tomorrow.")

But this time the call for my coupled happiness comes during a week when I haven't been very happy at all; a week when its felt like life would, if nothing else, just be a bit bloody easier if it was shared with someone else.

"But I am happy," I finally respond, lying through my defensive teeth. "It's just a different sort of happy. I've been extremely happy in relationships, and I've been extremely happy single. I know what's possible either way."

And, I stop myself from adding, this isn't a choice. 

The next day, clicking through page after page of potential places to call home, the adverts, the bare and furnished rooms, I think back to the call for my coupled happiness, and run the situation through in reverse.

"I can just see you being so happy on your own" I'd say, delivering the words with my head tilted to one side, a note of concern in my voice.

Perhaps the words would be received the morning after a huge argument, when the air's still thick with shared, temporary resentment.

Perhaps they'd push away any possibility that I might be right, that happiness is just a breakup away.

Perhaps they'd get defensive too.

Sunday routines

The PIB lay on one sofa and I lay on another. Both of us settled, we embarked on our new Sunday routine.

"So, a debauched week then?" I said, taking in the slumped, slightly worn out figure huddled in blankets in front of me.

"Yeah. You could say that" she replied, before launching into a story involving men, road trips and alcohol which, all things considered, could only ever happen to her. "Also while cavorting around, I basically realised I'm still not over the ex. Bloody men. After months of telling him not to contact me, he finally stops and I'm like oh. Bah. And you?"

"Well, bit the same really. I've been blaming the weather, but weirdly I've felt a bit - like, I don't know - a little bit heartbroken lately. Like a thousand tiny little heartbreaks, over no one in particular. Just all of them. The Ex, the other one, ones I didn't pursue for one reason or another and now think I should have. Wondering if there's anything I could have done differently, pawing over it all basically."

She shook her head and straightened up a bit.

"Nah. They weren't right. If you hadn't ended it when you did, it would have only happened later. And as for potential dates, things always seem rosier when you look back on them."

Deep down, I knew she was right. Because being single brings freedom, but when you're faced with so many options and choices, there's always the worry you might be making the wrong ones - especially when they all bugger off.

We chatted back and forth for another hour, pausing only for food runs. The sky darkened behind PIB's head.

"Right. I need to leave the house." I announced with a yawn. "Or I'll just flop around here all day eating."
"Yup. And I need to go to sleep."
"Next week, same time?"
"Fo sure. Have a good day."
"Sleep well my dear."

With that, my best friend's face disappeared from the screen, and we went back to our lives on opposite sides of the world.

Outside my window, the rain fell through grey skies. The perfect day to stay in and mope.

I closed the laptop.

And after a little sigh, a little stretch, and with nowhere specific to go, I put my shoes on and started Sunday.

Things in common

Feet cross, uncross and cross again under the table. Fingers repeatedly trace the sides of a cold glass, and words spill from my mouth in an unfamiliar, slightly awkward way.

It transpires - as it has done on previous occasions - that we have a lot in common. Alcohol precludes the memory of what exactly those things are, and it seems rude to ask for the details again.

But where there's a will, there's a way.

"Oh, so what did you do when you worked on Oxford Street? Same thing?"

"Yep. Still engineering, just for a different company."

Aha, you think, engineer.

The similarities are ticked off as they emerge, and I'm pleasantly surprised: grew up in the same area, agree with the same principles, watch the same TV series, like the same films.

He drops in the name of a book he's just finished reading, and it's by the same author whose work lies half read on my own bedroom floor.

I wait for the stars to align, for the dopamine, the serotonin and the hormones to fire across my brain.

Instead, another thought crosses my mind: did he see the book there on Saturday? Was there time between the kiss and him leaving to glance at the detritus of my room and store the name?

It's the sort of thing I'd do, and after all, we do have a lot in common.

And ah, Saturday: when a cab home after a big group outing had seemed better than the bus. When alcohol, politeness, things in common, the flattery of attention and a recent decision to give good people a chance had concluded in him sitting next to me on the sofa with a glass of fizzy water.

I'm nothing if not a good host.

(In truth, I'd expected the cab to drive on with him in it - but no matter. He's here now.)

Then as the sun had threatened to rise after 5am, an unnecessary apology seemed necessary.

"I'm sorry" I'd said, after we'd kissed because he was in my room and probably expecting to stay there, and he liked me and I said I'd try these things more, and we had a lot in common. "But I think I want to sleep on my own tonight. Is that ok? Perhaps we could go for a drink or something though?"

And he'd said "Yes, absolutely, no problem, I'd really like that" and left with the promise of a date and my phone number.

So then here we are on a Thursday in a West End pub: me, him and our common ground illuminated in the full glare of the rising house lights.

He walks me to the bus stop and we wait for our respective numbers to arrive.

He's nice, I think, as the bus pulls away after a kiss - on the cheek this time. And we have a lot in common.

But when you think back and consider the sparks, mutual attraction and excitement, and the alternative - being happily single with the world to play for - things in common, no matter how hard you try, just never seems enough.