Don’t go out just to get with people
One of my favorite things in the world is that moment when you realize you’re going to hook up with someone. When you’ve both been staring at each other and you gradually work your way across the smoking area or dance floor or living room and say something dumb like, “Hey, you having a good night?” and you can’t even look at each other yet because you feel like you might explode if you do. I love it so much, but it can’t be the only reason you go out. You have to want to dance, to laugh so hard you throw your head back, to smoke in the glow of an outdoor heater, tequila running through your veins. Basically, you have to want to have fun in other ways because if you only want to hook up with someone, then it probably won’t happen, and when it doesn’t, you’ll feel so bad about yourself. You’ll drink too much to cope with the loneliness, and then you’ll end up saying something dumb and mildly offensive to someone. You’re better off staying in with a hot water bottle on your stomach and watching a very violent film that has nothing to do with romance.
You don’t miss them; you miss what you used to do together
My friend Moya sent me a TikTok that explained a lot of things to me. I’d been missing my ex, the way we used to watch difficult films together. Now I don’t watch many at all, just put on YouTube vlogs where girls way younger than me try to sell me HelloFresh subscriptions. I thought I was a smarter and more questioning person when we were together. According to this TikTok, when you feel like this, it’s because major needs in your life aren’t being fulfilled. “Our subconscious mind is always trying to help us meet our major needs because our major needs make us feel safe and secure, but when we’re unable to meet those major needs on our own in fulfilling ways, our subconscious mind then makes us think of the last person or source that met our major needs for us.” The key is to realize that you don’t need anyone else to do the things that you want to do. You can do them all on your own.
All relationships are casual until proven different
The other day I went on a date and it was fun and nice, but he was super jet-lagged so he asked if we could call it an early night. I said yes, and then he walked me to my Tube station, and as I turned to walk off, he pulled me back and we kissed, and the kiss was so good my stomach flipped. It was straight out of a rom-com, the concrete twinkling with ice and our noses pink from the cold. I walked down the steps with jelly legs, and as I got on the escalators, he texted me saying that actually he’d woken up a bit. I thought he meant he wanted to get another drink, but it turned out he meant he wanted to come back to mine. I wasn’t offended, I just thought it was interesting that even when you really get on with someone and have a decent amount in common, it’s just assumed now that it’s going to be something casual, that what you have will be more to do with sex than romance, if it’s anything at all.
It’s okay to be vanilla
I keep hearing friends joke about how they’re super vanilla in bed. Jack Harlow even made it the main hook on his new song “Lovin on Me.” There was so much pressure when I was younger to be into extreme stuff, largely because of how Fifty Shades of Grey brought BDSM into the mainstream. It felt like you were boring if you didn’t want a ball gag in your mouth. Now everyone’s going on about how underrated missionary is. It’s freeing to have that pressure off.
Dating apps just aren’t worth it
I redownloaded Hinge at the end of the summer, and since then I’ve been on one date with someone I met through the app. The date did turn out to be really nice, but I wouldn’t say it was worth all the scrolling, the depressing feeling when you’ve seen so many faces that you can’t tell them apart anymore, or the way it made me ruin a relaxing afternoon walk with a friend because I needed to get photos of myself doing something wholesome.
Developing feelings is not a weakness
It’s been quite freeing to accept that if I fancy someone and I sleep with them, I’ll end up liking them and wanting to be around them all the time. This doesn’t make me weak or pathetic; I don’t need to become more self-confident or learn to detach. Some people can compartmentalize. I cannot.
Next week, things will be completely different
I was getting a lot of attention. Someone asked for my number on the train. A guy I went on a date with years ago whom I was unbelievably into at the time messaged me saying he was back in London. So did this guy I made out with in Peckham Audio over the summer. I had a busy week lined up, was scheduled to see someone I’ve been sleeping with at a pub quiz, and another guy at a 30th birthday. I went on that good date I mentioned earlier on. Everything felt abundant, easy—until the following week, when I realized I wasn’t that into the man on the train, the first guy left the pub early because he had work the next day, and then I left the 30th to go to another party. Neither of the two men I’d dated replied to my texts, and so, after all that excitement, I was back to nothing. It was annoying, but at the same time it reminded me how quickly things change. You might feel like you have everything and really have nothing, and when you feel like you have nothing, something will be coming for you so quickly you won’t know what to do when it arrives.
Don’t schedule your life around dates
He said he was around over the weekend, so I didn’t make any plans because I wanted to see him. Then Saturday rolled around, and then Sunday, and he still hadn’t replied. I lay back on my sofa and stared up at the ceiling and all the fruit flies hovering there that won’t die even though it’s winter now, and I thought about how I could be seeing someone who really loved me in that moment—and by that I mean a friend. Instead, I was sitting inside waiting for a man I might not even like. In that moment, I promised myself I would never, ever put my life on pause for men. They only get a slot if we’ve named a date and a time; I’m not cancelling other plans to make room for them or holding space in case they get back to me. I told my friend my resolution and she said that her life has gotten considerably better since she made the same commitment. “On the very rare occasions when I’ve been tempted to break it, they’ve shown me why I shouldn’t. You wouldn’t have to move the plans around if they made them in the first place. It’s a certain type of guy that you end up waiting on. If they want to make the plans, they’ll make the plans.”
Ask yourself, “Is that even what I want?”
The next time someone you know ends up in a relationship and you have that Why’s it never me? feeling, ask yourself, “Do I even want what they have?” And you’ll find that you probably don’t like their partner, and wouldn’t be satisfied lying on the sofa scrolling on the phone together like they do, anyway.
It’s not you, it’s not them, it’s the time we live in
Some of my girlfriends were sharing their romantic equivalent of “Spotify Wrapped,” e.g.:
Messiest: The guy who bit my phone and cracked it.
The one you fumbled: The one who wanted to go on a day trip to Margate with me, and I freaked out because it seemed too sweet.
Summary: I only went on one second date and only slept with one guy more than once.
It was comforting reading them, because I realized my experiences were common among other women, women who are some of the hottest, smartest, funniest people I know.
He’s just not that into you
When people don’t want to be with you, it’s probably not because you got really drunk and kept quoting that scene from Bend It Like Beckham where Jonathan Rhys-Meyers says, “Jess, I’m Irish.” It’s not because you double texted or because your hairdresser accidentally left your bob longer at the back. They probably think of you the way you think of people that you didn’t want to pursue anything with, i.e. that you’re great and a gorgeous person but not right for them. My friend Hannah finds this comforting. I actually can’t bear it and have to lie to myself that they like me “too much” or something equally insane to justify getting rejected, but if you want the truth, this is probably it.
If you don’t meet someone at 24, you’ll meet them at 34
My mum said to me the other day that her friend Dee always says this to her daughter, Jess: “If you don’t meet someone at 24, you’ll meet someone at 34.” It doesn’t make much sense, but there’s something strangely comforting in the idea that, if you want to meet someone but it’s not happening, you’ll meet them at a later point in your life. I guess I like it because it makes you realize “later” isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We have so much time; there is no deadline. Things are coming that you don’t even know about yet, silently hurtling their way through the universe towards you, and when they arrive, you’ll wonder why you worried so much about them, and you’ll become one of those unbearable people at parties who says, “When you know, you just know.”