And To All A Good Night [h.s. one shots]

Have We Met? by ThousandYearsOfHope

The issue with men is that they only want one thing. Validation. They want a girl to laugh at their jokes, and blush at their compliments, and hold their hands, and accept that he'll pay the bill, and kiss his cheek, and let him into their flat, and lay back and think of England while he convinces himself he's a champion between the sheets but realistically would come last in the race because he overestimated himself. They want someone to make them feel like a Rockstar, without ever really trying to reciprocate it for their partner.

I went on a date with a man named Colin, which in itself should have been a red flag because who named their child Colin after the seventies? We went to a bar in central London, one he chose because his colleagues had told him they did good cocktails. It was a Friday night, I had to get ready in a work bathroom and face the stares of security when I walked out the building in a red dress and stilettos because I definitely didn't enter in them. And, obviously, the place was rammed. He hadn't booked a table. We had to queue for twenty minutes. The heavens opened up. By the time we got in I looked like a drowned rat. And when we finally sat down with drinks, he proceeded to talk about how great he was at his job and how everyone in his friends group loved him without even taking a moment to ask what I thought about him.

See, Colin wanted someone to fluff his ego. Some arm candy, maybe, a good fuck if he was lucky. He wanted a woman to smile at everything he said and only chime in if it backed up something he stated.

Of course, I didn't want to play that game.

Colin worked in a bank. Immediate turn off. I told him I worked for a not-for-profit. He sneered at this, said everyone should make a profit. I'm not sure he knew what I meant. I clarified, it's a charity, Colin, they're not supposed to make profits for themselves. He rolled his eyes because he hated being spoken down to. He laughed it off and proceeded to tell me how much he made that year. He asked what my salary was, and I refused to answer. He assumed it was because it was much smaller compared to his. I assured him it wasn't. We make the same amount, Colin. He didn't like that and thought I was lying because charities hardly pay that. I told him I worked for one of the biggest in the country leading on their communications team.

After an hour of back and forth, he had the audacity to ask if I wanted to come back to his for a nightcap. Now, I did say yes, and I did then proceed to let him fuck me, but I had a rough night and just wanted to let off some steam. It wasn't horrendous, but it wasn't getting a five-star review. He told me not to fall in love with him. You don't need to worry about that, Colin.

I unmatched him on the dating app and blocked his number.

I saw him in that same bar a few weeks later, relaying the same conversation with a woman much thinner than me and with hair more voluminous than mine, who seemed to enjoy nodding along to what he was saying. I suppose I felt happy that he found someone to give him what he wanted but sat opposite me was another man that had no intention to give me what I wanted.

I slept with that guy too. It was a bit better. But he had a very weird orgasm face that hindered me from reaching my own and I couldn't bear to stay in bed with him after that, so I immediately called a cab and stood outside in the freezing cold to avoid looking at him anymore.

For a long time, I'd convinced myself that the reason I hated dating so much, the reason I could never find that spark all the great novelists speak of, was because I wasn't ready for it. After my last relationship, I had allowed myself a decent amount of time to mourn it. The typical nights filled with an endless supply of Pinot Grigio and tubs of Ben & Jerry's, listening to my friends tell me that I'll see a light at the end of the tunnel and that this was just a learning curb.

Then, I decided to move on and fall in love again, but something didn't feel right.

And it took me a while to realise that it wasn't because my heart wasn't at the point it needed to be to completely give itself to someone else. It was because it still belonged to him, Max, my ex. It's tragic. Slightly embarrassing. Perhaps even pathetic. After seven months, I'm still caught up on him.