Love Might Be Vision Impaired

I never understood the phrase love is blind. First of all love is a concept, or a feeling, and doesn't actually encompass a physical body, let alone have eyes to not be able to see with. And second of all I always thought the point of love was that you loved in spite of people's shortcomings (you can't spite things you can't see, I've tried, it just doesn't work).

However as I am falling out of love I'm beginning to understand. I'm pretty sure that's what I was in, love. It was yet to fully bloom when cut short by the "I can't do this right now" conversation and about 1600 km between us, but the bud was there, that warm happy safe feeling, somewhere between elation and contentment. I would never admit this to mr 'lets just keep things casual', mind you.

As this feeling is slowly dying, and by that I mean all of those warm fuzzies have turned into fuck you's and facebook stalking and drinking too much and hating every other girl he casually sees and getting way too concerned whether or not he actually could "do this right now" but just not with me, I'm starting to see how blind I was.

There is a chance that if he liked me as much as I liked him, then the issues that I swept under the rug, the not messaging me back when he knew I was hanging around near his hostel waiting for dinner plans, the leaving me waiting in my car for 40 minutes because he got caught up with a mate, the not following through with calling me "in a bit" so i'm left waiting around like an idiot, there's a chance that they wouldn't have existed, because in his brain or his heart if you want to get sentimental (I know I do!) he would have naturally thought to put me first, and would have naturally been more considerate of my feelings, or even my existence.

But he was not and I'm starting to see how much of a liar he is. I cannot be blamed entirely for my ignorance because this particular gentleman is so genuinely kind hearted. I know, the absolute fucking worst! Where he fails is in his thoughtlessness in what he says and promises. There is no connect between saying we'll catch up that night, and actual intent to catch up that night. He is a compulsive promiser and also bends the truth to avoid confrontation. I think in his simple way he just wants to make everyone happy and not disappoint anyone so says whatever it takes to diffuse a potentially negative situation. Like once over the phone he said he had to go and I responded "aww but I like talking to you". He rushed to promise to call me the next day, thinking he'd upset me by leaving. Credit to him, he actually did that one, but it was a completely unnecessary promise and followed by many others he did break.

It was so frustrating for him to promise one thing, and then completely forget I existed (or completely forget to reply to messages) I felt like such a fool every time I believed him and he let me down, and I did believe him every single time.
Why would I not assume that he was telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

All of this was not an issue for me at all at the time. I was hurt when he didn't think of me, but I'd forgive him so readily and so easily, he'd just have to smile at me and my heart was completely his once again, free from any bitterness or resentment that 'm starting to think he deserved.

So is love really blind, or do the feelings of rejection and jealousy just have amazing vision much too refined and no where near as forgiving as its more amiable counterparts?

and then I met Him

I was starting to get used to casual dating and to going out and partying and seeing where the night would lead me, I started to fall in love with being single and not having any particular guy to centre my thoughts around. And then I met HIM. My carefree attitude suddenly started to care, my anxiety was creeping back in, and I was beginning to follow my old patterns of behavior that I thought I'd shaken. You know the patterns, checking your phone all the time, staring and staring at the same 5 photos, obsessing over 9 words of text and finding significance in whether something was hyphenated or not.

I'm not normally like this. I am a normal, fully functioning, human woman. But as soon as a guy gets in my head, then everything changes, and I forget how long my keys were supposed to be in the iron left on.

I had never been as attracted to 5 photos before in my life. It was his smile, and his hair and his tattoos and his skiny body with lean muscle mass that I just wanted to run my fingers down.. yeah but it was mainly his smile. He just looked so happy and friendly, and his bio seemed super lovely and he was a nerd!! My favourite kind of person (when it is teamed with appropriate social skills that is). This was by far the best thing tinder had ever given me.

We chatted for a bit, and I was trying insanely hard to seem normal and cavalier about all things whilst also being devilishly witty and ever so slightly flirtatious. It was exhausting but I managed to pull it off as he wanted to meet me!! This never happens to me. Because every single guy thus far in my life, I have settled for, deciding to not be shallow or trying to be a good person and learning to love them despite the several personality traits or physical characteristics I'm not fond of (even my first love was "learnt" in this way). Either that or I have genuinely liked someone and they have not reciprocated in the slightest.

This was the very first time that someone whom I had a crush on, RECIPROCATED! The church bells rang loud, and the birds were singing, and there was sunshine and rainbows on every old timey street corner shop with children playing outside and fucking candy and gumdrops and smiles everywhere. It was a good day, but this excitement of mine was slightly stunted by his.. lack of communication skills, shall we call them?

We talked of doing something Saturday night, what? saturday? OK!! shave's legs, hair treatment, choose outfit, put sally hanson on, file and paint nails, all whist singing songs from the 1950's (the happiest era for music). Not even the minor hiccup of him not replying to my 'hey still keen for tonight message' would bring my mood down, except for at 8pm when it brought me down massively. I hid my deep disappointment by going out dancing with my sister, but my nutbush just didn't have the same heart in it. He apologised later and I discovered he had the seemingly legitimate reason of no internet access but what about tomorrow instead?
What? Sunday? OK!! I'm meeting friends at the beach, but you can come too if you'd like! Reshave legs, nails still look amazing, pick most flattering bathers, make sure to not eat anything that will bloat me, actually don't eat anything at all, do hair so that it will stay nice even when it gets wet, drink lots of water so my skin looks nice, pluck eyebrows, bring moisturiser to the beach in case I dry out. "Hey, you coming today?".... hours later.... nothing... "hey, my phones about to go flat, so if you do end up coming, we'll be just near the jetty for a few more hours".... Phone dies. ... and nothing.

Power up. "oh heyy! sorry, I was getting some drinks with friends after work, here's my number, maybe I'll talk to you later."

We chatted for a bit in the much more intimate medium of text messaging, and decided on Monday night plans. It was all set, except a few hours before he mentioned that he wanted to meet a friend coming back from melbourne so asked to move it back by about an hour. I was already in the city for a class, a class that I'd told him about, that one that we'd planned our meeting around, but sure that's fine, I'll just sit in the city waiting around for you. I have a book, so why would that bother me at all. It honestly didn't bother me at all at the time, none of it did, in spite of my bitter tone now, I was just so excited to meet him, and I was rather preoccupied trying to mask the fact that I had a cold, which I did successfully. I was full of joy, and excitement to finally meet the guy I had seen 5 photos of, and he was even more attractive and even more friendly in person. I was reading my book in Rundle Mall, and all of a sudden he was in front of me saying "Lauren?" in his Canadian accent. I looked up and awkwardly found my bookmark and put my things in my bag whilst at the same time hugging him hello, heart pounding so very fast and anxiety ripping at my ecstatic core from every angle I was ready to go on my first date with a man that had no faults of which I could overcome.

All The Young Dudes

Well it has been a whirlwind of sexual exploits over the last few weeks (this was written in September last year) I barely know where to start. My road trip with the beautiful French man sparked a love of adventure in me and arriving back to my stagnant life in Adelaide was disappointing to say the least. So I started to look for new adventures at least for my heart to take. Yes, you guessed it, I went back on tinder.

Tinder is a peculiar place where boys put pictures of their 6 packs online in the hope of attracting a mate. My general understanding is that guys do it to find a different mate every night, and girls do it to find the one. I swipe no for anyone vain enough to photograph themselves topless so haven't yet found my one true love.

The first guy I had any type of real conversation with I figured I screwed everything up, because I got all feminist on him when he made a joke about his penis. I wasn't too nagging though, I simply asked him if I made jokes about my “friend”, vagina, whether he'd appreciate it or be grossed out. Unfortunately he said that it would definitely entice him and so I started the conversation over with “haaave you met my friend clitoris?” and he said that I was the whitest girl he'd ever met.

I'm a massive racist, so I took this as a compliment, and I guess he is too, coz he asked if I wanted to meet up. My fairy tale dreams really had come true, but would cinderella be able to get to the ball on time? And when I say on time, I mean before he starts hooking up with some random Asian chick at the club.. I mean ball. The answer is no. I was downstairs messaging him that I'd arrived, and somehow in the ten minutes it took to get upstairs he was hitting on another girl. Since this was my first tinder experience I didn't really care, coz I had literally zero expectations, so I pretended I couldn't see him and then met up, and hooked up with him later. We actually went on another two dates. One for coffee, and one where we watched a movie at his. The second one ended with my clothes on the floor and me awkwardly deciding that I wasn't really interested in having sex with someone I only just met. I'm glad I tried it, coz I wouldn't have known that without experiencing it, but still, its an awkward conversation to have once your already naked. He was nice about it and helped me find my underwear, seriously it just happened so fast, I'm still not sure to this day how all my clothes got off that quickly.

On the night that I met this delightful human being, I actually met someone else as well. Yep, I'm basically a slut now that I've slept with more than one person. There's no in between.

This guy was with a girl and they invited me to do a shot with them. I just thought they were the coolest couple ever but it turns out she had a boyfriend, which turned the situation from possible threesome into getting hit on by the best wing woman ever. We bonded over SNL and Kristen Wigg for awhile, and as we went our separate ways he gave me a “kiss” goodnight, aka we made out for ages. We chatted on good ol' FB after this, but each time I'd try to see him again he said he was keen but wouldn't lock down an actual time. The strangest thing is that he'd talk about sex all the time, like for example in joking about being a vampire, he'd say he could turn me into one, but we'd have to have sex for it to work. I'd respond with something cute and witty, something flirty but coy at the same time, like 'NO'.

I did indicate my desire to hang out with him, and if he was so obsessed with sex then I don't understand why he didn't try to meet up more, maybe he doesn't understand that actually being in the same room increases the chances of any sex happening by a great deal. So that one kind of just fizzled out.

The next tinder guy was a lot sweeter and a lot less sure of himself than the first one. He was interesting and after I figured out SNL man wasn't serious about any of his suggestive suggestions I asked him to meet up. We had drinks at the pub. I felt really nervous, but he kept saying and doing things that were a bit awkward. This made it so much less awkward for me, because the pressure was off, I could just be my weird, peculiar self. He had been messaging me throughout the day, which I was annoyed at because he was using up all the conversation topics that I normally go to when I'm nervous. There were two or three messages, spread out over the day where his response to 'what are you up to?' included cider somehow. I was so scared he'd be wasted when I got there, but he didn't seem too bad and he bought me dessert, so he was definitely winning. We messaged for awhile and I decided I wasn't interested romantically and so let him know. He said he felt the same and we're actually really good friends now.

Thinking back on it my heart has been so back and forth, in the last few weeks there was another friend that has been a good friend for a long time and we hung out for 4 days over a 6 day period and all of a sudden I'm in love with him as well. I'm not sure what's going on with my body, but there is something strange happening. Maybe because I was so scared to love for four years, my heart is making up for lost time by loving everything that gives me more than one second of eye contact. With this friend of mine, I decided I didn't want to be in one of those stupid unrequited love friendships ever again, so I told him straight out and he wasn't interested and in my mature way, we said our goodbyes, as in I dramatically left his house crying, saying I never wanted to see him again and could he please not text me ever.

The last one is (oh yes there is one more) a story of triumph. So there has been this guy that is so lovely and interesting and talented and kind, that I've had a super secret thing for in the back of my head for awhile. Its not a proper crush or anything, its just my knees go a little weak when he smiles at me, that's all.

I got rather drunk at my brother's house warming party and then my friend took drunk Lauren into town. And who did I bump into but that lovely, interesting, talented, kind man. He smiled at me from the line, and I only just managed to remain standing. We embraced and established how happy we both were to be alive (also known as drunk as fuck).

We all danced together, his friend, me, my friend and him. And then myself and him dove deeper into centre of the dance floor and I grinded on him and he had his hands on me and then all of a sudden his tongue was down my throat. It was really fast, it moved around my mouth quicker than my brain took to register it being there. The energizer bunny comes to mind for some reason.

And then the moment ended, and we went back to our friends and danced crazy again for a long while, we all hung out fort the remainder of the night, there was pancakes involved, and my friend even took them home whilst the sun was rising. I hugged him good bye and can still feel how solid his body is pressed up against mine. I'm fairly certain he doesn't remember that we made out, but I still count it as a win in my books, I made out with one of the most attractive people I know (and I mean attractive in more than just physical ways) *fist pumps*