Girl, Alone

Fast forward two weeks and I'm half way through the teaching course and starting to get that panic in the pit of my stomach because I still don't quite have a plan for when I'm qualified. Sitting in the pub down the road after a long day of lessons one of the full time teachers starts hitting on me - having never been hit on before I have no idea this is what is happening - in full view of the 14 other trainee teachers who are all giggling like school children. Apparently he had set up the 'drinks' as a ploy to be able to talk to me. I wish someone had told me this was his plan. It would have spared us both the horror of what happened next. Having just left NYC broken hearted (the kind where you actually feel like you've been smashed into a thousand pieces and are wandering around aimlessly trying to find each individual shard and carefully placing it somewhere safe until you have enough brain power to slowly slot them all back together - yes I know I'm such a fucking drama queen) I was blissfully unaware of his advances until he made the hideously inappropriate decision to attempt to stick his tongue down my throat. With no warning. In front of everyone. Needless to say I didn't react well and in my sudden shock at being facially violated, I managed to upturn the table and scatter full pint glasses everywhere and burst into tears. Instantly secured my reputation as the unhinged girl. He actually was a very sweet guy...just not for me. I still shudder slightly when I think about it, it's one of those horrifying moments in life that your brain just will NOT let you forget. I then had to endure a further two weeks of the course with the others giving me a wide berth and me avoiding all eye contact with the full time teachers. I was bloody glad when the final few days came and I could take my exams and get out of there (simply to start again in a summer school with 800 foreign pupils from every corner of the globe... One of whom set fire to my dress. That I was wearing. But that's another story...). I somehow aced my exams and they offered me a job that I declined, even though I really needed it, as I just couldn't face having to work with him. The summer school would just have to do until I found something permanent...

I suppose I should take you back to where this all started. Six years ago, on a whim - the kind of decision you make when you're a little bit emotionally unstable - I decided to move down to London from the safety of the parental nest in the countryside. Having recently returned from a short stint in NYC, where I was trying and failing to convince the boy I loved to love me back, I realised that I needed to go and start a new chapter. After two weeks of wallowing in self pity face down in my bed at my dad's house I did what all irrationally and emotionally distressed women do. I made a list. I love lists. They make me calm and allow me to prioritise and logically structure my brain into making everything on said list achievable. Even if it's not. (It always is though, if you want it badly enough.) The List 1. Stop feeling guilty for quitting the MA that you were only doing because you were too scared to finish education. 2. Stop skipping meals, and then raiding the biscuit tin at 3am. 3. Get an awesome job. That you love. 4. Move to London. 5. Stop emailing him. Just stop. 6. Brush your hair every day. 7. Find hairbrush. So it wasn't the most radical list in the history of list making, but it was a start. And it allowed my brain a brief respite from the dark recesses of misery it had become so acquainted with and that, in turn, riled up the steely determination that I needed to just pull my socks up and get on with my fucking life. So I did. I ate some lunch, bought a new hairbrush and enrolled on a teaching course that afternoon. Now, I had no intention of teaching, I don't even like children that much. But, it gave me a month to think of a plan. The course started in two weeks time which meant I had approximately ten days to get my shit together and move to a city I knew fuck all about - other than rent would definitely be at least two thirds of my salary. The course was in East London so I figured that was a good place to look for a flat. I'd chatted to M, a close friend who was at uni there and we'd agreed to move in together (a decision I still regret as if I hadn't lived with him I think we'd still be friends now). Note: never live with your best friends unless you are certain you won't hate each other after a few months. My dad helped me pack a load of my stuff into a very large van and the adventure began. First day in East London got off to a bloody great start... Parked in the loading bay outside my new flat - a hideous 1960's block in Bethnal Green that someone on crack clearly thought was a good idea - and during the many, many trips up and down the stairs, due to the urine filled lift being conveniently broken, one of my charming new neighbours decided it would be a nice welcome to call the parking wardens and get our van towed. With half my stuff still in it, along with my dads allergy medication. Fucking charming. After an hour long walk to the impound, an argument with a huge cockney chap who was not too dissimilar to Chunk from the Goonies and a £300 fine to get the van back, I was standing on my new balcony drinking tea and looking at a beautiful view of the Gherkin. There was also a pissed man urinating up the front door of the flat over the road... But that was their problem. London life begins.

Liars.

Six years is a fucking long time. It's 2,190 days to be precise. And I have spent approximately 1,937 of those days very single. Now, I'm not one to sit here and moan about how life has dealt me a shit hand when it comes to men, because it hasn't. Not entirely anyway. I've chosen to remain single for the majority of that time (there are, of course, exceptions to that...) because I believe in waiting for something that feels right rather than settling for the sake of not being alone. I'd actually rather spend another 2,190 days alone than be with someone who didn't give me that feeling in my stomach (The nice warm, fuzzy one - not the dreaded nausea fuelled one). However, I'm now at that age where my so called 'friends' are sloping off one by one to do grown up things like buy houses and get married and, God help me, have babies and I can't help but think that it would be nice to get an invite that has 'Plus one' written on it. You know, just so I know they haven't written me off entirely. They've all but given up hope I think... If anything though, the last 6 years have been a long voyage across the seas of self discovery (I suffer from terrible seasickness, so that should give you an indication of how well it's gone). I've learnt a lot, got into more trouble than is necessary, cried a bit, had a lot of fun and some near misses - and I wouldn't change a day of it. Scratch that. Perhaps just the odd evening here or there... And that brings me to this. The reason I'm writing now. The one thing my friends do consistently still ask is 'had any funny dates recently?' Not 'fun'. 'Funny'. As if they're living vicariously through my dating misdemeanours from the safety of their £1000 DFS couch, an entwined mess of arms and legs, whilst drinking tea from matching mugs that they bought together on one of those shopping trips that single people only dream about. Fuckers. Well dear friends, I hate to disappoint, so here it is in all its hideous and sometimes graphic glory (sorry dad). I will share the ups and downs of a Girl, Alone.