A final taste of heaven...

After meeting up with the girl of my dreams one Friday night but screwing up my chances with her not once, but twice in a row in a very comical and socially awkward way (read previous posts to catch up with the story: Chatting up in the queue of the toilets, Chatting up from the distance and, How to ruin a second chance with a girl: a narrated guide), I had little expectations about getting a third chance with dreadlocks girl. I was ready to accept that “what starts off with the wrong foot will most likely end in a stumble” so I decided to move on and carry on with my life.

Nevertheless, despite the many online dates and the few other flirtations around, I was not able to find any girl that matched dreadlocks girl. She was not only the type of person that I would want as a partner, a humble and caring social worker, but she was physically perfect in my eyes. Just a note to my readers, she was perhaps not objectively incredibly attractive, a few of my friends commented that they did not think that she was pretty, but beauty is subjective and to me, she was a goddess. She had the kind of face that I could stare at for an eternity and a strange halo that appeared around her figure every time I looked at her. In my quest to find love around the city, I could not seem to find anyone that replicated that effect on me.

Perhaps we just want to have what we can’t, and my platonic obsession with dreadlocks girl was only a reflection of my self-sabotaging mind. When it comes to love, being unhappy was my comfort zone. All of my past attempts at romantic relationships took place in the suffering area where rejection, non-reciprocation and disappointment were my best friends. My brain probably kept feeding into the idea that dreadlocks girl was perfect just because I could not have her and I was very aware of that paradox.

In any case, during the next two years of my life, I saw her a few times in clubs and bars around the scene. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to approach her and beg for a third chance as she always seemed to be in the company of the same girl (and judging by the way that they interacted I figured that they were a “long term-thing”). Nevertheless, we never stopped greeting each other every time we crossed paths and we even hold short conversations in the bathroom and club queues (for a change) a few times.

Girls 4 Pride. Street Art found in Brighton. Picture taken in August 2016.

But one night, just after I decided to move back to my beloved Brighton I got a third chance to make amends with her.

It was about 3 a.m. and I was leaving the club on my own after a very emotional farewell when I heard someone calling me from the smoking area:

“Hey Cassanova… !!!” Dreadlocks girl said trying to grab my attention as I was walking by with my head down trying to leave the club unnoticed.

“Hey! Where are you going???” She insisted. I was not in the mood for a chat with her that night after having such an emotional and wonderful night with my friends, but I finally turned around.

“I’m going home!” I said sharply and continued walking avoiding any type of eye contact with her so she would not notice my watery eyes.

“Are you OK?” She asked putting down her cigarette and stepping outside the smoking area following my steps.

“Yeah…. I’m just… I’m moving away next week for work and I’m not sure now that I’ve made the right decision  and…” I started to reply but stopped as soon as I noticed that my voice got emotional and I felt a tear running down my cheek.

“Hey, do you want to talk about it?” She said while passing her arm around me in a very comforting way. I was unsure of why she would even care in the first place, but her warm gesture and trustworthy gaze made me stay and ventilate all of my emotions right there outside the club.

I told her about my dilemma between pursuing my dream career (doing a PhD and becoming an academic) or staying in the city and working in an unbearable marketing job but being surrounded by my amazing friends and family. She was very understanding. Perhaps due to her professional training as a social worker and her undergraduate degree in psychology, she was able to offer me some interesting perspectives about my life-changing decision. She told me that she had to make that same choice once and that she went for achieving her dreams (in her case it was to help the world by becoming an awesome, very caring and, ultimately a very cool social worker). She said that my friends and family would always be there for me, but that my chances of doing what I wanted were likely to come only once.

“If you miss your train now, you might never get a second ticket…” She said while holding her hand on my shoulder.

“That’s very true… I missed my chances with you and I never got to another one” I replied.

WHAT? Did those words just come out of my mouth? 

I guess that as I was leaving for good the week after, I had nothing to lose and my brain just decided to start shooting out the truth.

“Yeah… you messed up a bit back then…” She replied smiling. It was still incomprehensible to me why she was taking her time in the first place to console me after all of my screws up. Her kindness made her even more desirable to me.

“Can I kiss you?” I suddenly said.

WHAT???? I am going nuts???? Did I just ask her permission for a kiss??? Well... at least I’m not a kiss attacker like the conservative-right-wing chick that ruined my second chance with her I guess…

Street Art piece found in Brighton. Picture taken in August 2016.

 An intense and long silence followed my words.

I interpreted her non-responsiveness and intense gaze as a positive sign so, I prepared myself to kiss her.

“I….” She started to reply as I was launching myself towards her lips.

I kissed her and she kissed me back. It was a perfect kiss, not too long, not too shot, and just about the right amount of tongue and emotional investment. I got to a taste of heaven for about a minute or so.

I looked at her deeply again and smiled.

“I… I got a girlfriend” She dubiously said and looked away.

“That’s all right… I’m moving away for good next week anyway… I assumed a while ago that we were not going to happen but I just wanted to kiss you before leaving…” I said very confidently. I was amazed at my brave behaviour and calm response. I guess that the few gin & tonics that I consumed that night might have helped.

She stared at me for a minute in silence not really knowing what to say next. I could see in her eyes that she might have felt something special after that kiss and that perhaps, she was now wondering about what we could have been, just as I did every time that I bumped into her over the past two years. 

At that moment, I saw a cab approaching in the distance and jumped towards the road.

“I… I’m going to take that cab… If I miss the chance to get a ride now, I might not get another one…” I said winking my eye and rushing to make a sign for the driver to stop.

I knew that finding an available taxi in that neighbourhood at that particular time was rare. So, I decided to put in place dreadlocks girl’s own recommendation about taking the opportunities when they were in front of me. I needed to look forward to the future now so I jumped into the cab with my head high and waved goodbye.

Dreadlocks girl did not turn out to be “my one”, but at least I got a taste of heaven and I will keep that moment in my memory forever.

The End.

PS: Despite the surrealism of the story, this is a true story and it happened as it has been narrated!

Chatting up in the queue for the toilets...

It’s a regular Friday night in the city. A lesbian party is being hosted at a straight club and, of course, they have not booked a bouncer for the ladies. The queue for the toilets is exponentially increasing as the night goes on because someone couples are hooking up inside the cubicles.

“That’s a pretty long queue” A gorgeous dreadlocks girl behind me commented.

“Yeah, some people are still living with their parents apparently” I replied in an attempt to be funny.

"What?" She looked at me weirdly.

She probably has not understood that my comment was referring to the people having sex in the toilets. It seems obvious to me that if you need to “copulate” in a dirty public space is because you don’t have a place of your own… but maybe not everyone is as squeamish as I am.

“I mean that you need to be a bit desperate to make up in the bathroom of a club, right?” I responded as if my unintelligible and ludicrous comment from before was obvious to everyone.

I immediately turned around as if my failed attempt to be funny had never happened.

And I wonder why I am single brainy… an attractive girl just opened up a conversation with me and I just turned around ignoring her…???

I looked back again. Our gaze crossed. I panicked and pretended to be looking for someone else behind her.

What are you doing? Say something... keep up the conversation… Let her know that you are interested in continuing chatting… 

But my brain was not responding…

Gosh! She is soooo pretty and soooo out of my league!

“Have you been waiting long?” She asked me.

YES!!!! She wants to keep on talking… don’t panic now… keep calm… relax… smile… She is only a human being… a very attractive human being… Thinking back on my comment about having sex in public toilets... I could totally see myself getting physical with dreadlocks girl on the WC right now…

“Longer than my bladder could take!” I responded.

I am stupid? She just opened up the conversation again and I’ve to mention my bladder. What’s wrong with me? If she didn’t think that I was weird before, she totally thinks that I am a moron now… This is going great..., I'm definitely sleeping alone tonight…

“You are funny!” She replied smiling.

WHAT? She thinks that I’m funny???!!!??? My neurons are doing a celebrating dancing in my head right now.

At that point, two girls just left one of the cubicles and the queue considerably speeded up. We chit-chatted for a bit longer. She was a northern social worker and had a very cute accent.

I'm melting right now...

Picture taken at the Marlborough Pub (Brighton). June 2015

 “Eh… soooooo…. before I free my bladder… Can I have your number?" I asked.

WHAT? Did I just mention my bladder again??? And in the same sentence that I asked her for her number???

“Eh…” She is doubting. I’m sweating.

“Sure” She said in a very chilled way.

When I finished annotating her number, I immediately pressed call. I needed to make sure that she didn’t give me a fake number.

“I’m calling you so you have also my number” I said pretending to be secure of myself.

“Cool!” She said. 

COOL??!? She said cool….!!! I could hear party blowers in my head…. WEEEEIIIIII…. !!!

After I peed, I rushed back to my friends. They prevented me from sending her a message straight away…

“You should wait at least until Sunday to text her” One of my friends recommended.

SUNDAY??? That is a full day and a half… ???!!!???

On the night bus home, I took off my phone so I could pretend that I was busy ignoring the rest of the drunken passengers (and of course avoiding any type of eye contact).

I decided to overlook my “party-pooper” (but very rational) friend's advice and text dreadlocks girl a cute good night message. If I wait until Sunday I might have a heart attack...

After 10 long minutes of carefully planning my words, I pressed sent and kept on texting some other friends and acquaintances.

5 minutes later, my phone lit up. I had a message back from dreadlocks girl:

"Wrong message, wrong girl honey! How many other girl's phone numbers did you collect tonight Casanova?"

WHAT?

I went back to my sent messages folder only to find out that she was right! I managed to mix up her phone number with someone else.

Earlier that night one of my friends introduced me to another girl, whose name wasn't even similar to "dreadlocks girl", but who was from my hometown and worked in the same photography-marketing world that I was working at the time. We also exchanged phone numbers, but without any romantic intentions. She wanted to attend a photography exhibition my employer was sponsoring, so I had tons of free tickets to give away. "Photography girl" already had a girlfriend and, in any case, she was very young for me.

As a result, "dreadlocks girl" received the following message:

“Hey Sarah*! It was nice to meet you tonight. I don't know many people from my hometown in the community (Referring to the photography-marketing world). As I said, feel free to stop by my place tomorrow if you want. (We agreed that she was going to collect the tickets for the photography exhibition), I'm sure that you will enjoy it (Referring to the exhibition). I hope that you had a good night too! Talk soon!”
(*Her name has been changed to protect her identity.)

While "photography girl" got the following message:

"Hello, Gorgeous! It was a pleasure meeting you tonight. Would you like to go for a drink sometime? It might be the beer talking, but we connected tonight somehow. Looking forward to hearing back from you! Xx”

F***K! I sent a second message apologizing to dreadlocks girl and explaining the situation.

Few minutes after my phone lit up again. However, it was not “dreadlocks girl” who replied, but “photography girl”:

"I’ll be happy to grab a drink with you sometime. My girlfriend is out of town next week, are you free on Monday?”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Brighton losing its Wheel while I'm losing my mind. Brighton  May 2016.

PS: This is a true story, but it has a second part...

PS2: In case you were wondering, Carol (from my previous post: Two online lesbian dates on one night! - My Tinder double date story) and I never went on a second date...

Two online lesbian dates on one night! - My Tinder double date story

Internet dating can be very unpredictable... You might spend hours and days sending messages, or "planting seeds" as one of my friends calls it, but nothing happens.

In general, 100 online messages sent = 0 lesbian dates.

But one day suddenly 110 messages transform into 2 dates on the same day! This is the story of my double online date on a very warm spring Thursday evening in Brighton:

After my offline dating failures of 2015/16, I decided to embrace the unpredictable lottery of internet dating again. I started to chat with a few people, but nothing seemed to lead to any real dates. On Monday evening, a girl (let's call her Jane) asked me to go for a drink that Thursday. I replied to her message accepting the invitation. However, she never replied to me back confirming the time or place after that.

A few days passed with no news from Jane. On Thursday morning, as I was checking Tinder to see if she had replied to my message, already assuming that there was not going to be a date, I received a message from another girl (let's call her Carol).

Carol and I seemed to have few common 2nd connections on Facebook according to Tinder, so we started a blind guess game to see if we could find the common link between us. She told me that I looked familiar to her and that, perhaps, we might have seen or met before in Brighton. I confess that I was sharing the same feeling about her. Could have we met before?

As I was working at my desk, surrounded by my office mates, I sent her my phone number so we could continue chatting outside the Tinder App. I had already accumulated enough embarrassing dating stories around the office during the previous year, so the last thing I wanted was to be seen chatting on Tinder during working hours (Read previous posts "... but... she doesn't like me" or "and... she likes someone else").

A few minutes later, I received the following text message:

"I put your number in my phone and the crazy thing is I already had it under a different name!!! Alaska? Are you the same person? I can't quite remember the circumstances around acquiring the number, but it might have been at a club in London years ago... Hahahaha... my phone is pretty damn old after all..."

I jumped from my desk when I read the name Alaska. It was my alias on my Gaydargirls’ old account. I opened a profile there back in 2008 as my “finding love” year’s resolution (Read my post: My first online date) but I had barely used it for the last 5 or 6 years.

Would it be possible that Carol and I have gone on a date before?

Brighton Seafront Graffiti. March 2016.

I replied that it might be possible that we exchanged numbers years ago, but that I thought that we might have never ended up meeting. I added that we should try to grab a drink this time.

Finding a time for meeting up that weekend seemed difficult, so she proposed to meet up that evening for a quick drink. I agreed since my plans with Jane didn’t seem to be confirmed after all.

Nevertheless, one hour later, when the excitement about meeting intriguing Carol that night was still running high, I received a message from Jane apologizing for her late reply and confirming the date for tonight.

What do I do now?

Can I meet two girls on the same night?

I really wanted to meet up with Carol and solve the mystery of the previously exchanged phone number and the common connections that we seemed to have. But on the other hand, I already made plans with Jane days ago and cancelling last minute might not be very polite.

Should I meet Carol to satisfy my curiosity or should I meet Jane and keep up my word? Luckily for me, they were, in their own way, equally attractive, so I was free of the temptation of making a decision based on looks. Nevertheless, my indecision led me to schedule both dates for that night but 1.5 hours apart from each other.

I was meeting Jane at the White Rabbit at 8 pm. She was already there when I arrived. She was definitely prettier than in her online profile pictures, but unfortunately, our conversation didn’t flow much.

I tried not to talk too much, but whenever I tried to get more information from her, she replied in a very vague way and displayed minimum details about herself, her hobbies or her life.

I decided to move the conversation into the “Brighton and being gay” topic, since living in the same city and sharing the same sexual orientation was, at least, something that we had in common. We both agreed on the fact that the lesbian leisure agenda around the area is heavily dominated by team sports. Lonely exercisers that love running, cycling or swimming don’t get to meet other women as easily as rugby, hockey, football or Roller Derby players.

One hour after, both drinks were finished. Perhaps it was time to start putting in place my escape plan so I could get to my second date in time before a second drink could be suggested.

I told Jane that my housemate was coming back from holidays and had no keys to the house, so I needed to get back early as I was expecting a call from him any minute now. She didn’t seem very bothered by my poorly elaborated lie. If anything, she seemed relieved.

We should meet some other time” I said after hugging her goodbye. I felt curious about her mysteriousness and thought that overall, for a first date, it didn’t go that bad (Read another post of my blog to get an idea of bad dates examples: The music-Nazi girl or an uncomfortable date at the seafront).

“Sure” She replied raising her eyebrows.

However, a glint of irony on Jane’s face and her tune hinted to that she was not planning to meet me again anytime soon.

“Oh well… it’s her loss!” I thought to myself. I need to go now but her house seemed to be in the same walking direction that The Marlborough, the pub was my second date was happening and the only territory that has been claimed by lesbians and trans in the Brighton nightlife.

I left in the opposite direction only to lose sight of my date number one, walking with my self-esteem a bit down after her rejection and feeling completely stupid for walking in circles around the North Lanes.

 

Bansky's Kissing Coppers. Frederic Pl, Brighton North Lanes.

When I arrived at the second pub, Carol was waiting at the bar chatting with some people. Apparently, she didn’t know them but started to chat with them while ordering and so we spend the first 10 minutes of our date with two middle-aged gay men from Australia that bought me a drink out of the blue.

One free drink and very positive vibes: date number two could have not started better. I confess that my first impression of Carol was that she looked slightly less attractive than in her profile pictures. However, she was definitely much chattier and more open than Jane and the conversation flowed well.

Once again, I found myself with two empty drinks in front of me and one date staring into my eyes. Should I suggest a second drink now?

“Do you want another round?” Carol said anticipating my thoughts.

“I do, but I’m perhaps non-alcoholic,” I said in my attempt of being responsible on a school night.

I don’t usually drink, so the previous drink with Jane plus the free one with Carol was enough for me to start feeling a bit tipsy.

“I need to catch on the last train thought, I’m staying with my parents in Lewes,” She said looking at her very big manly watch.

“Right, so you don’t live in Brighton?” I asked.

“Actually… I live in Lincon, I’m just visiting my parents for the bank holiday weekend” She confessed.

Lincoln? That is further away from Sheffield, which is about 3 to 4 hours by train…. That is very inconvenient for planning a second date! I thought. Well…, she might just want to have some fun for the night… I’m fine with that I guess... She is pretty, interesting and cheerful, so, why not?

When we finished our second drink, she rushed her way out of the pub so she could catch the last train. Since I live in the same direction, I walked with her to the train station. When we got to my street, I stopped her.

“Do you want to come up?” I asked.

“I need to catch the train” She replied very firmly.

“Right, so, do you want to plan a second date then? I said in a slightly drunken manner.

“I’m not back in Brighton until next month or so, but yeah! I let you know when I’m around again” She said. She sounded genuine and honest.

“I need to run now to catch the train” She finally said.

“Well, if you miss it, you can always stay at mine and grab the first one in the morning” I added.

An awkward moment of silence followed my words. She looked at me for a minute before she started running to the train station.

By the time I got into my house and started to get into my pyjamas, I got a message from Carol:

“Thanks for a really interesting evening… It was great to meet you for the first time/maybe a second time ;) I was very tempted to take you up on that offer, but I don’t really want to do that on the first time meeting… XC”

To be continued…

Miss Plan B

As I announced in a previous entry, I decided to go back to online dating after my failures in the off-line dating realm... So I went on a couple of dates with a girl from OkCupid and I'm going to narrate the story here today.

This girl from OKCupid send me a message and I answered a few days later. She was very pretty and we both recently turned 30 so, I decided to meet up with her since we seemed to share the "change of decade" crisis and she seemed to be nice.

We arranged a meeting but she ended up cancelling last minute... I completely dismissed her apology... I'm too old for lame excuses and I don't give a second chance to a stranger. However, she insisted that she was very sorry and sent me multiple messages apologising. I replied at the end due to her insistence and we ended up grabbing a quick drink at the end.

The conversation flowed naturally. She told me that she was working as a business consultant but that she really wanted to be an event planner as she loved to plan and manage business meetings and other types of conference-like things. I, on the contrary, run away from that life as I did work as a marketing manager planning events and hated it. Nevertheless, we seemed to have other things in common (we both love cycling, we both have lived in Brighton for about 5 years and we both speak Spanish). Overall, we had a nice time.

She sends me a text right after the date expressing her gratitude for my time and asking me for a second date. Normally, it takes me a while to get to the point of liking someone, so I wasn't fully sure about her, but she definitely gave me a very good impression.

After several attempts to meet up with no success (this was a bit fishy again), we finally meet up to go out to Revenge with some of her friends (all gay and Spanish). The night was fun, but she seemed to be paying more attention to her friends than to me, so I decided to focus on having a good time and chatting with her friends, dancing and enjoying myself. At some point, one of her friends started to pay special attention to me, I was not particularly interested in her friend, but she was very nice and we chatted for a while. This event made "my date" change her attitude towards me. She suddenly came to me, grabbed me and kissed me as if I was a forgotten toy that she only noticed when someone else pulled it out of the box with the intention to play. I kissed her back, after all, she was very cute and fit and I wanted to enjoy the night, but I knew that something was up with her...

We had a very nice time and we agreed to meet up again over the weekend... However, some of her messages seemed to be very direct but some of them were very evasive... I came to the conclusion that she either had a split personality disorder or there was someone else and I was her plan B... At some point, I got tired of her games and asked her directly about what was going on...

She replied that she had seen someone for three months and that she was quite excited about that other girl... However, I was somehow her backup plan... What I still don't understand is why did she contact me on OKCupid in the first place if she was already seen someone that she really liked...


I guess these days everyone is playing safe by having a plan B prepared and ready in case plan A fails... However, I refuse to play these games... I don't want to be anyone's plan B and, I definitely don't want to have someone else on standby as a plan B either... I'm tired of playing games... but... if you don't play you can't win, or can you?

 

Lost girly sunglasses! Picture taken in Brighton, August 2015.