I am a dating disaster. During the past twelve months, there have been failed romances with Mr. Attempted player (who locked himself in his room and wouldn’t come out when I found out that he had slept with a close friend of mine), Mr. Keeps it in his pants (who accused me of being a prostitute when I tried to take things further with him) and Mr. Best friend (who is subsequently no longer my best friend). Understandably, I felt that it was time to go on a self-imposed man detox.
Said man detox lasted five months – five hassle free and frankly bloody boring months. With the exception of the boob fondling of my two gay best friends, I was beginning to think that I would never experience human affection ever again. All of my friends were either in relationships or at least having casual sex. I on the other hand was picturing myself at future family events: the crazy old cat lady, downing vodka shots at the bar. In hushed tones various relatives would be explaining, “Oh yes, that’s Dana. It’s such a shame, she’s never met anyone. She’s still on her own, well except for the cats that is”.
Thankfully, before I resorted to purchasing my first feline friend, summer arrived and along came Mr. This Might Actually Work. He was a friend of friends – an attractive friend of friends. He also happened to have a personality. For someone as picky and as hard to please as me, this was a rare find.
A couple of friendly outings later and we started getting together. Low and behold I remembered what it was like to actually kiss somebody. There had been no friend shagging, no offensive comment making and (apart from the time when I had woken up in his bed, looking like a tramp after a night out, to find out that his devoutly religious Nan was downstairs having a very civilised Sunday lunch) there had been no awkwardness. All in all it seemed like I was onto a winner, but this was of course too good to be true.
My return to Manchester was looming ever closer and he was due to begin his Master’s…in a completely different city a fair few hours away. One particularly drunken night, he suddenly blurted out that he “didn’t know what to do” about the distance because he “hadn’t planned” on starting to like me and things were going to get “complicated”. Naturally, I had to agree with him and that’s when I began to ask myself whether there was actually any chance of a long distance relationship working.
Could I ever bring myself to have Skype sex? I will admit that perhaps this wasn’t the most important issue up for contemplation at the time. Nevertheless, could I!? How else do long distance couples manage to maintain their chemistry? Would the whole thing lose its sense of fun once we had to start planning regular visits around our timetables and bank balances? Plus, wouldn’t one of us inevitably cheat on the other? Romantics, I apologise, but let’s be honest, it’s just realistic. Finally and most importantly, if I was no longer single, how on Earth would I fill this column every week? Onto the next one…
