As you can imagine, I've come from my second year of uni and height of social living. I came into my placement year with high hopes. Making a few mates in work, and socialising in the evenings. Instead, what happened was that I did have an amazing working experience in the safari park, but zip on the social life.

This was fine for a few months but it really started to get lonely. I know I have video chats with friends and family all the time, but it's one thing talking and it's another thing actually physically being with someone. I missed the raw interaction of friendships, people who care about me. So, naturally, I browsed through tinder. I went in a few dates, and had some laughs but nothing substantial. I met a really nice guy, and we are still friends now but the one issue is that he lives an hour away and it's just him. I couldn't exactly pin my entire social life actions on the availability of one human being who lives an hour away.

At this point, I've finished my placement year officially and have started going in purely for research purposes. I have a goal, but it gets lonely in the evenings and weekends. I browsed tinder again.

I matched with someone nearby, actually ten minutes walk nearby. Perfect. We got on, and agreed to be friends with benefit. No strings attached, but still respectful. Then, one day he asked if I was down to bang. Bang? Down to bang? I got offended. I mean, I knew we were only physical but I am a human. I have human emotions. I'd like to be respected occasionally. Bang me by all means, but be a gentleman.

So when I mentioned why he pissed me off by that comment, he started hurling all sorts of abuse at me. He told me how I should get a hobby, smoke less weed, and take care of myself. Now, I have to mention that this is coming from someone who has had sex with me once and doesn't even know my last name. We didn't even friend each other in Facebook. He doesn't know that I have been, for about 3 years, working on my body positivity and general well-being. Mind and body. I'm slowly learning to love and respect myself, see life is worth living, and appreciating what I have in life. To have someone just hurl that kind of "helpful" advice at me just wasn't cool. It hit me, it hit me hard. Then, after a brutal argument, I noticed he deleted me off WhatsApp, Snapchat, and unmatched with me on tinder.

Not that he was anything special, but fuck it didn't feel nice to be spoken to like that. After all, it was by someone who doesn't know anything more than my first name and what my vagina looks like.

I decided to forget him and focus on myself, and my degree.

A month passed. I went in to the safari park for data collection, wrote my findings, and repeated for 20x days. Then, out of the blue, I received an email from that same guy. The one who deleted me off all social media. The one who tried to dictate my life without even trying to get to know me. He was apologising. Ok, this is a start. He asked if I wanted to meet up, let him explain why he was being such a dick and that no one should be spoken to the way he spoke to me.

Wow. Well, I wasn't expecting that. I wasn't expecting anything to be honest. I had forgotten him. I mean, I wasn't even that interested in him to begin with.

I agreed to meet up. He intended to explain himself to me, but instead he tried my new bong and passed out on the sofa. He told me to smoke less weed. Hypocrite. Once he arose from the dead, he wandered back to his own place and I didn't hear from him till the following day. He tried to rearrange another meet up but without smoking da herb. We tried, and each time either I was or he was busy.

I finished my first set of data collection. The next two weeks were to be dedicated to writing up my findings, and coming up with a method for my next set of data.

No data to be collected. I don't have a daily duty to either volunteer or data collect in the safari park, and this lack of routine is making me feel super lonely.

I messaged the dick head to see what he was up to. I knew I shouldn't have, but I did it and I reached out to someone. I was feeling super lonely and I needed human contact, even though it was with an utter fanny. I blame the vulnerability but we had sex. Twice.

Now, here we are. I don't regret a thing, but honestly that feeling which follows after. When he's gone and I don't get a message till two days after. Only to ask if I was down to "meet up and mess with each others bits", which ordinarily would be fine but right now it's just got this kind of negative feeling attached. Because I feel so fucking lonely, and the only intimacy I can get is from someone who couldn't give a fuck about anything more than if my vagina is wet.

Sorry about the elongated post. I don't have that many people to talk to, as you can imagine. I know I got myself in this situation, but here I am. I'm in it, and it isn't fun. I just needed to share it with someone that isn't immediately familiar.