bisous tout partout

i think i've forgotten how to kiss

ok, that's not entirely true, i'm getting along just fine, but i'm definitely not up to my usual standard.

now i'm not one to toot my own trumpet, but i'm a good kisser, both toxic ex and the stupid boy both at some point said something to the tune of my being the best kisser they'd ever known. of course this may or may not be true, but i must be at least half way decent to prompt such a comment.

however, the other day i made the fatal mistake of thinking about kissing. have you ever thought of something so much that it becomes weird? if not try it now, think about something simple, talking or walking. think hard about every detail of it, and then think of the details of the details. keep thinking about it until your ears bleed. then try walking or talking. it'll be weird.

so i thought about kissing and really, isn't it a bizarre concept? 2 people smooch there lips together and wiggle about a bit. sometimes mouth open, sometimes mouth closed. tongue action optional.

the consequence of this is it now feels weird kissing mr eligible. i'm sure i'm doing fine and it's all very nice, but as i said, this is supposed to be my forte and i feel i am failing! and that leads me to wonder whether we're kissing compatible. maybe some people just aren't and that would be disastrous, we're so compatible in all other areas.

it has occurred to me before that thinking is a dangerous occupation and should be avoided at all costs.

sorry einstein

light travels at 299792458 m / s

Einstein stated that nothing can travel faster than this. Well i'm sorry Mr E but i think i'm about to prove you wrong.

mr eligible and i have been together for exactly a month (and remember 2 weeks of this he spent in another country) and i was just beginning to relax when he dropped a bomb. in between discussing dinner options and movie choices he casually mentioned the fact that his parents are going to be in town this weekend and they've offered to take us out for lunch.

WHAT?? hang on there just a minute, it's meet the parents time already?

it was all so casual...
"i'm not really in the mood for pizza tonight, my parents are coming to town and i'd love you to meet them, odeon or vue?"

i've never done the meet-the-parents-thing before. i don't think the stupid boy had parents, he was spawned by a monster from the pit of evil, and on one memorable occasion toxic ex hid me in his garage to avoid my meeting his parental units.

what do i wear? what do i say? what if they don't like me? And most importantly, what does it mean that we're at this stage in the relationship already?

i said yes though. i'm still not exactly sure how i feel about him, but he's so wonderful and thinks so much of me, i can't help but like the reflection of myself in him.

if nothing else, it's a free lunch...

good on paper

"a 'good on paper guy' is a guy with great credentials, who you always end up leaving for some hot guy who rides a motorcycle and doesn't have a checking account."
Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City, Series 2, episode 17: twenty something girls vs thirty something women.

mr eligible is good on paper. he undoubtedly has the best credentials of any guy i've ever been involved with. he's kind, thoughtful, generous, funny, honest, he listens to everything i say, and i honestly believe there isn't a mean thought in his pretty little head.

yesterday a stunningly gorgeous man came and stood by me on the tube. he was like the sun in that i couldn't look directly at him for fear of being blinded by his beauty. he positively reeked of testosterone and was painfully aware of his own sexual magnetism. he kept reaching up to grab the hand rail above his head and this stretch caused his t-shirt to rise up and expose his perfectly defined, tanned stomach.

i tried very hard to concentrate on my metro, but i couldn't help but wonder: if this modern day Adonis suddenly declared his undying love for me, would i tell him to take a running jump, i already have a wonderful man, or would i fall for it even though i know the pleasure would only be fleeting?

the answer is probably the latter. this drives me crackers. why must my instincts take over when it comes to men? why do i always go for instant physical attraction, rather than those attributes that my head tells me are infinitely more important?

fortunately (?) the chances of this temptation coming my way are slim, so i shan't spend too much time stressing over it.

dirty girl

i had a bit too much to drink last night. i was out with work peeps and wine kept materialising miraculously out of thin air, and no matter how much i drank i never made it to the bottom of my glass.

this morning i woke up to discover dirt under my fingernails and my feet are black with stark white flip flop lines. this always happens and i've no idea why. so far as i'm aware i don't engage in drunken nocturnal gardening when i get home. does the aroma of alcohol attract all the dirt in london to my hands and feet? it's so very random.

stupidity and seating arrangements

i thought i saw the stupid boy yesterday. it wasn't him, but that moment of uncertainty left me feeling sick for the rest of the afternoon.

i don't think about him much, and talk about him even less. at the time i just saw him as another in a depressingly long line of boy disasters, if only...

he was good looking in a natural i-just-roll-out-of-bed-looking-this-bloody-fantastic kind of way (for the record he couldn't just roll out of bed and i think the only reason he got involved with me in the first place was for my GHDs but i digress). he had some kind of raw, animalistic, sexual magnetism that turned me to putty in his hands. i was a different person when i was with him, i did things i would never have dreamed of doing before, and will never do again.

he had this power over me which meant that he could say things, and i would listen, but not hear what he was telling me. he managed to persuade me that it was no big deal that he kept getting back together with his girlfriend
whilst we were seeing each other. he made me feel guilty that he was cheating on her, and my life was barely worth living the day i left an earring in his bedroom.

i have no idea how much of what he told me was true, but apparently prior to yours truely he only dated stick insects with no souls (more commonly known as models). i am quite clearly not a model. as a result he regularly told me that i was fatter and uglier than girls he normally got involved with. i have always had very low self esteem when it comes to my appearance, and flirted dangerously with an eating disorder as a teenager, so this wasn't exactly the loving, nurturing relationship i needed. and the weirdest thing was i never realised, it never once occurred to me how bad he was for me, but when i think back now, the thought of it makes me feel physically sick.

so on the whole i think it was a good thing it wasn't him i saw yesterday. i wonder what i would say to him. being British i would probably be terribly polite, talk about the weather, his job, the girlfriend he went back to. say "we must catch up properly sometime" and then run home and cry.


on a lighter note...

something happened the other day that i forgot to report. a man sat on me on the tube. i don't mean he stumbled into me in the overcrowded commuter crush, he walked down the carriage, turned and sat down squarely on my knee. i guess he just misjudged the distance or something because he immediately jumped up, apologising profusely and sat down in the empty seat next to me. made me giggle all the way home though.

what constitutes cheating?

last night i spent the night with toxic ex.

he's up north and i'm in the big smoke and it was all via msn/text but i still feel bad. nothing remotely untoward happened, but the fact remains that i was up until the small hours talking to someone i'm not talking to.

i have a very overactive conscience as i don't think i should be feeling bad: i don't know whether me and mr eligible are officially an item yet*, and the only potentially flirty messages came entirely from toxic ex.

i didn't really know what to do, as mentioned before toxic ex rarely talks to me so i was caught all unawares. it began completely innocently, all about work, holiday's, houses etc etc ad naseum. as the night drew on and (i think) he got a little drunk he started referring more and more to our past (which if we are to be friends i need to pretend never happened) and dropping in the odd "a guy can reminisce/dream can't he" type comment. i couldn't work out how to respond, i didn't want to tell him to stop it for fear he'd see me a prude and go to bed, but at the same time i didn't want to encourage him as i think i am with someone. in the end i fell back on the time-honoured technique of 'sticking my head in the sand'. i ignored all such insinuations and carried on as if he were talking about the weather.

eventually i said i was tired and was turning my computer off. that should have been the end of it, but 20 minutes later i got a text saying "don't go to sleep, i'm bored, entertain me". this is the point i should have stopped, i should have switched my phone off and gone to sleep. and i don't really know why i didn't.

like i said, nothing happened at all, it was all just chat. but i know what was behind the chat. i think it all comes down to treating others as you would like to them to treat you. i didn't do anything that would constitute cheating, but i also wouldn't be happy if mr eligible behaved as i have so i think i need to watch myself.


* he has however sent me a bunch of flowers the size of a small car, i was so surprised i nearly fell over. sad as i may be i have never been sent flowers before. toxic ex bought me one, once, and that was only because i told him to.

a jolly holiday

apologies for the long absence, i've been swanning about the country for the past week visiting friends and family and generally enjoying not being at work.

i spent 2 days in Scotland with my mum which was lovely (although 2 days is just about enough quality mum time for one year...) and at the risk of turning into a boring old fart who talks incessantly of the weather, i have to mention the fact that unlike the rest of the uk where it was raining cats and dogs (where does that phrase come from?) we were basking in glorious sunshine the entire time!

one thing that living in london constantly erases from my memory, is that people in other parts of the country talk to each other. in london it is considered rude to catch someone's eye even when you are standing mere millimetres away from them on an overpacked smelly train. in the wonderful land of kilts and haggis though people started up conversations everywhere, in cafes, in pubs, in fields!

the highlight of the whole trip however, happened on the way up. we had stopped at a tourist information centre to pick up leaflets and drinks, and my mum was stood patiently at the till waiting for someone to come and take money off her for 2 bottles of juice. a woman was sat behind drinking a cup of tea. seeing my mum queuing she said "if you ring that bell someone will come and serve you". So my mum rang the bell. At which point the woman drained her brew, stood up, walked behind the counter and said "that'll be £1.60 please". Classic.

you can't make this stuff up!

boys can be such girls

S is having girlfriend troubles. he's been with his mrs for 3 relatively trouble-free years but apparently things are a little rocky at the mo.

S and i have been friends about the same length of time and despite the fact that (last time i checked) he's a boy and i'm a girl we work really well together: i prefer beer to bitching and he isn't averse to being dragged around the shops once in a while.

however, recent issues with the mrs have brought out a side of him i never knew existed. he has started analysing the tone of her voice for every word she says. he's texting me in the small hours coz he can't sleep for worrying. he's panicking when she emails him from work and signs off without putting any kisses. these are the kind of neurotic things that are constantly going around my head, but:
a) i'm a girl
b) i never actually tell anyone about them. i know they're nuts.

this has got me thinking, has the rise of the 21st century metrosexual male done away with traditional masculinity? and if so is this necessarily a bad thing? i just don't know. i want a guy that will listen and actually care if i have something to say, but i don't want him to be all mushy and want to talk about his feelings every 2 minutes. i don't want a chest-beating, hairy neanderthal, but i also don't want a girl. and occasionally there are times when i just want a man to be a man, to take control, and to be able to protect me. i'm sorry, but it's true.

is there a perfect balance? or is the quest for the perfect man like the quest for the holy grail?