The stages of being single.

I go through stages when I'm single, and I'm sure I can't be the only one? So I thought I'd share my stages with you all in the hope that someone relates to me, confirming that I'm not completely mental and heading for a life as a spinster... although this may be a real possibility anyway (hurray for cats!)

My stages of singledom.

1) The initial break-up - This includes the initial upset, anger, guilt, denial, attempts to rebuild the relationship or any combination of these.

2) The "men/women are wankers"stage - You convince yourself that actually, being a spinster with a lot of cats isn't actually that bad. (I'm at this stage right now and I'm still convinced my life will be better if I'm on my own and independent).

3) The "men/women are still wankers but I still have needs" stage - Yes, I mean sex. This is when the desperate attempts to pull on nights on tends to occur, along with the dreaded one-nighters which always seem like a good idea at the time.

4) The "total independence" stage - You realise that actually, you are doing fine on your own. The desperation has gone and you've realised that when the time is right, someone will come along.

5) The "what do I have to lose?" stage - You begin dating again. Nothing comes of it, but you go out with one or two guys and are not really bothered about the outcome. Your love life settles for a few months with a few short-term relationships or the odd fling, between which you are happy to be single.

6) The "oh shit, I'm actually going to be single forever" stage - If you don't end up in a relationship out of the previous stage, panic sets in. Online dating profiles are made and standards are lowered.

7) The "I've given up" stage - This will then, ultimately,  result in a repeat of stages 2-6.

Please tell me I'm not alone in this?

What women really want.

I'm a member of a few different online discussion forums, and one thing that keeps coming up is to do with dating and the associated hopes and expectations. I guess this is a fairly common conversation? I suppose it's not something I've ever really noticed before, I've never been single for longer than 5 months and even now I'm off the market, I still thought this combined list would be worth sharing with you all.

So what have I observed from these discussions? And guys, you may want to listen up. (I'd like to point out that these aren't in order, nor are they necessarily my opinions.)

1. We don't like guys who smoke, unless we smoke ourselves. So open up your possibilities and quit. It's nearly the first complaint on everyone's "don't" list, so it's a biggie.
2. We like guys who are self-motivated and driven. Apathy and lethargy are very unattractive traits. It doesn't need to be career, you don't need to be a high-flyer and raking in the cash, we just want to know that you want more from life and that you have a passion for something!
3. We don't want to compete with a guys affection - if you love yourself more than us we are out the door. That doesn't mean a well kept man isn't desirable, of course it is, but if you take longer to get ready for a night out than I do then you'll quickly find yourself uninvited.
4. Oh, and to elaborate - "well-kept" means no BO, no bad breath, no messy hair, tidy facial hair if you keep any, and an ironed shirt. Also, clean, appropriate and neat shoes. So many girls judge a guy by their shoes!
5. Never ever ever use a chat-up line. Or that stupid book in the UK that apparently tells men how to chat up women. We don't want to talk about your stupid made up jobs or whatever else it tells you to do. You know you are not a 'dolphin shaver', so do I, and we think it's offensive that you consider us unworthy of any real conversation.
6. And in a similar point, don't play games. Don't do the three-day-waiting rule, we're worth a text at least!
7. If you've made it past the first few hurdles and you are in with the family too, great. But do not, under any circumstances, slag off your partner's family (this isn't just for guys either). I may hate my mother, she may be a bitch and she may be pretty stupid sometimes, but only I can say that because they are MY family and I love them regardless. And God forbid you diss my little brother... (ok, that bit is me speaking). Oh, and the same goes for friends.
8. Everyone has the right to be picky: us girls do (this blog being a prime example!) and you should too. So, if I feel for a minute that I meet your standards simply because I'm the right gender, then you're gone. I don't want to be who you 'settle' for because no-one else came along. Have some more self-respect and confidence in yourself than that, and more respect for us too.
9. Tardiness. Don't be late. For anything. Ever. (Ok, it may just be me who is that bothered by this, but a lot of people I spoke to hate to be left waiting, and persistent lateness really is a no-no for everyone.)
10. Manners - this means different things to different people, but we all want to be treated with respect and we want to see that you treat everyone with that respect too. So saying please and thank you, tipping in restaurants, holding doors open (not in a chivalrous way, I can open my own door thanks, but if you walk through it first don't let it slam in my face)... everyone pointed out something along this line which was a pet-peeve for them.  So remember what your Nan told you, it still stands true today.
11. When you text/email/IM/BBM us, remember that you have to talk to us in the same way via any medium. So be nice, polite and think: "would I say this to her face at all/in that way/in that tone?" If the answer is "no", don't say it.

I started writing this on 12/4/11 and have had it saved as a draft for a while, adding more as I ask more people and try to establish some sort of consensus. I've tried to keep this from being a bitch-fest about certain men, and at the end of the day, there's not much about ourselves that we can change - if someone doesn't love you for you then let them walk away. If, on the other hand, you're guilty of any of the above, sort it out or at least tone it down and you, by my reckoning, stand a much better chance.

Hope I helped/hope you agree!

Why it's OK to be single.

Recently, every form of social media that I come into contact with contains either various public displays of affection (and I've already had a rant about that), discussions about weddings or, seemingly the other half of the population, moaning about being single. This, coupled with my disdain at advertising which often asks, literally, "are you 22, single and lonely?" (this is an actual advert on facebook) leads me to think that I must be mental. I love being single, and yet, society makes me feel ridiculous and like some sort of social deviant for feeling this way: Why am I not chasing after my Prince Charming? Why do I not cuddle my pillow and cry myself to sleep at night because I'm lonely? Why do I not go out intent to pull guys and feel absolutely gutted if I don't? Why do I not sit and cry my way through love songs?

Mainly because, and I'm sorry to say this guys, but being single is a hell of a lot more fun. And I mean a LOT more fun. You can say what you want, tell me it's because I haven't met the right guy or whatever, but I don't believe you. Being single rocks - I can do what I want to do with my evenings rather than have to consider a partner's obligations all the time, I can see my friends more often, I can make big decisions about my future without having to think about someone else, I can buy the furniture I want for my flat and, most importantly, I can starfish when I sleep at night and the duvet is aaaaaall mine. It has made my life a damn sight easier than it has ever been before, and I truly believe these last four months have been the absolute making of me and will continue to be. Nothing I have done in the last few months I could have done with a guy in tow so for me, right now, being able to be completely self-indulgent (and not in a bad way, you know what I mean) has made my life what it is.

Who knows how long this will last before the novelty starts to wear off but, now, I look at all of my friends who are coupled up, moving in together or engaged to be married and think how great it is for them but how that would have been the worst decision for me. I had all that handed to me on a plate in February but I walked away and I'm glad. Being single works for me and I think it has the potential to work for everyone. Even if is isn't what you want, the doors that open to you as a consequence are so immense that you have the opportunity to move on to bigger and better things.

To quote Marilyn Monroe, "sometimes good things have to fall apart so better things can fall together".

I just wish society saw this point of view and people stopped asking me how my love life is going and then feel sorry for me when I say I have no-one around. Because, seriously, what is there to be sorry for when being single means:

• Having all the duvet and sleeping like a starfish every night;
• Not having to put up with snoring!
• Being able to watch what you want on TV regardless of how girly or trashy the programme is;
• Choosing girly furniture and having cushions around without moaning;
• Being able to go shopping on Saturdays, not stuck at football (I like football, but not all the time);
• Seeing your friends a lot more, or at least spending an hour on the phone without being whinged at;
• Not having your mood or confidence dictated by someone else;
• Feeling no pressure in life, from when to get up to when to move in together etc;
• Making meals for two and eating it all (I really should be fat...);
• Not feeling guilty for spending a week's rent on shoes;
• Not feeling obliged to share every single thought you have;
• Being able to go 3 days without shaving your legs (I don't do this often but sometimes...);
• Having a lazy day in on your own. We all need time to ourselves on occasions;
• Not being given the third degree when you're seen in a facebook picture with another man, God forbid;
• Not feeling obliged to have sex;

Ok, I could go on for ages and I need to go out now...

But moral of the story: relationships can be great, but so can being single. So enjoy it whilst it lasts. I know I will.

I have somewhere to live!

I finally have a flat in London! My moving date is the 27th of June and that will be the day I have been waiting for - every single decision I've made in the last 4 years has been building up to this and now I'm 20 days away from having everything I've ever wanted, and this flat really is the icing on the cake. Don't get me wrong, it's not massive, but the kitchen is lovely, the bathroom is nice, the bedroom is spacious and the living space is nice if not slightly compact. I couldn't take any photos of the inside because the current tenant had boxes packed up to the ceiling, but, check out the view:

Plus, being right on the river bank, it is so quiet you wouldn't know you were only 20 minutes from central London... other than being under the flightpath for London City Airport, but everywhere in the area is (obviously) so I can't hold that against it. And anyway, even when I sat and ate my lunch on the benches opposite I only counted 4 planes in 45 minutes, which you wouldn't even notice after a while. On top of all this, it's a ten minute walk to my school, probably only 15 minutes walk to the train station or a 5 minute bus ride, and even better, there is a sports club down the road which runs the kick boxing school I used to be a member of before it closed locally, which means I can start going again! I'm so excited I just want to scream and dance around!

I have literally never been this excited in all my life, I just want to run out and buy all my furniture, accessories and kitchen stuff now! I know it will be a pain to move it all but I can't see myself holding out this long. Plus, there isn't a Tesco/Ikea very nearby so it might be worthwhile doing, especially seeing as I now have the opportunity to do three trips in the car when moving rather than just two.

Ok, I'm going to get up and sort my life out so I can justify getting excited!

Plus, I have another date on Wednesday, if you can call it that. This all followed a very messy night out with the girls to celebrate graduating, but I think that story is best left forgotten and this whole thing kept pretty quiet. Which would usually not be worth the hassle, but I'm now moving in less than 3 weeks and, if I thought London was a long way, he's moving to Cairo to teach in August, so this is as short-term as is humanly possible and, to be honest, is basically about sex and right now that suits me fine.

So heres to an exciting last three weeks in Plymouth before I finally escape this hell-hole and get everything I've ever wanted. Finally :)

Double standards.

I found myself in a conversation with my sort-of-step-mum (they aren't married but they've been together for sixteen years so I consider her my step-mum) about the double standards that exist in society, and how the negative side of them always seems to fall on women.

We talked about how, if a married man has an extra-marital exploit with a single girl, it is usually the woman who takes the blame and is labelled the slag and the home-wrecker. Now, this was quite awkward because whilst my step-mum wasn't single either when my Dad left my Mum for her, she did end up with that label. Although it's always worth bearing in mind I've grown up with one side of the story, but she did admit that she was that 'slag' and I know she had to move her job as a consequence of the stigma. Yet, men never seem to suffer quite to the same extent in terms of the blame.

Take the whole ridiculous Ryan Giggs and Imogen Thomas thing: she has suffered much more at the hands of the public opinion than he has, yet she was single and he's the married one! I feel really sorry for her, I truly do. Whether she knew he was married or not (and to be honest, I didn't even up until Friday) isn't the point, if YOU are in a relationship, YOU are responsible for your actions and being honest and so he should be the one who is receiving death threats, not her.

Ok, that's extreme, no-one should be suffering that kind of abuse, but if one or the other, then he is more in the wrong than she is, surely?

Anyway, it isn't just in this sort of instance that we suffer at the hands of a society built on double standards. It was in fact this that started our discussion, as my step-mum told me to, and I quote, "enjoy being single and irresponsible in London, there are lots of nice new men to have some fun with", to which my Grandma told me not to be a slag. Now, I'm not saying that I will be in any way taking up my step-mum's advice, but if I did, why would I be a slag? If I were a bloke I'd be a hero, yet if I were to start working my way through the male population of London as a woman, I'd be labelled a slut. And to be honest, I would feel like a slut and as a consequence wouldn't behave like that in the first place, but surely I should be free to should I so choose to go out and enjoy myself? And anyway, at what point do you progress from just having fun to being a slut? Does one one-night-stand make you a slut, does it require sleeping with a different man every weekend, are you a slut if you go out with a different man every night but don't sleep with them... I just don't understand the label and what it applies to and, most importantly, why it's even relevant in this day and age.

So maybe I'll be a slut, maybe I won't. Maybe you might think I am, whilst other people wouldn't. But just in case... Sorry Grandma!

A hormonal outburst.

For the last year, maybe eighteen months, I've been suffering with mood swings. Or at least, until I started blogging, I thought I had.

After Christmas 2009, I realised that my moods varied greatly from week to week and I managed to track them back to realise the connection to my cycle and the days I went on/off the pill. I was already having relationship problems with my then-boyfriend, and when I spent one week of every month crying and another shouting at anyone and everything like a crazed mad woman, I realised this wasn't going to help. So I trotted off to my doctors, presented the evidence and she swapped me to another type of pill.

Type in 'hormonal woman' to google image search et voila... depicted.

By this point it was March, and my relationship with my then-boyfriend was hanging by a thread so I hoped the change would help. It did not, and actually, my new pill made me even more insane and I became impossible to live with. I look back now at some of my demands and some of the fights we had and I can't believe I was ever like that, and whilst nothing justifies the way he finished things, I'm surprised we made it to April before he kicked me out, leaving me homeless and broke in every sense of the word.

When I realised that my emotions were being partly-fuelled by the pill again, I took myself off it and had a very nice, placated 5 months before my need for a longer term contraceptive took me back to the doctor. I now have an IUD coil fitted, which works on many of the same hormones but at a much reduced rate and rather than breaking every month, it provides a consistent flow. And yet I still seemed to suffer the same mood swings from Christmas onwards, going from illogical to teary-eyed to angry beast within days, and I suffered all the other effects of a hormone 'wobble' as my (obviously male) doctor described them, such as headaches and spots.

But now, after having split with my boyfriend three months ago and having only had one 'wobble' since, I've realised the factor was not my hormones. It was my relationship, or rather, relationships. The mood swings being caused by them, the headaches and spots from the stress of being unhappy in my situation... it all adds up, and it was only when I had my first mood swing in months on Thursday that I realised what actually caused my flare-ups. And needless to say, it has nothing to do with my hormone levels, but rather the boyfriend-induced stress levels. The calmest I've been in months have been the times I've felt truly free of BS (boyfriend stress, which to be honest could readily be exchanged with 'bullshit' and the effect would be the same) and as quickly as my BS came on Thursday, I ditched the cause from my life and magically I'm fine again.

I suppose there could be a cause-and-effect debate here, but regardless, it seems that the calmer I keep my life and the more I focus on myself rather than running my life for someone else, the clearer life seems. And it's a nice realisation, that actually I am in control of this. And hopefully now I know, it will lead to a better screening process in the future and the early warning signs of BS will be much more, often explosively, apparent.

As if I needed another reason to abstain from men in the next year or so - I have much better things to be doing, much greater things to achieve, and a much greater level of stability to reach than I ever could, evidently, with a man in tow.

So sorry guys, I'm officially off the market, even if this tale of a truly crazy woman didn't put you off...

So it's been a strange few days...

I don't know if anyone caught my blog updating you all on the date I went on the other day (it was caught up in the blogger downtime/posts deleted etc) but I ditched it anyway. I read back over it and I felt that I gave the whole thing much more gravitas than it needed. Don't get me wrong, it was ok, but all in all it was nothing amazing and all I wanted to do was go home and curl up into a ball.

Besides, after all that, I spoke to a girl from my uni course who knows the guy. The conversation went as follows:

Me: I met someone who knows you, [name]. He lives on your street.
Her: Oh yeah! I know his girlfriend!

Anyway, it turned out that he didn't have a girlfriend (although if he did, would have have told me?), not that it mattered, Thursday was a roller-coaster of emotions for other reasons so to be quite honest, I couldn't care less right now.

So Thursday was our last ever day at university as a whole cohort (we have small seminar groups left but otherwise, it's over) and also it was our first one in a while, meaning it was the first time I had seen my ex since we split up in February and lets just say, I'm not as over him as I thought. I really thought I was doing well, but it turns out that seeing him was all it took to reduce me to a sobbing wreck. The whole day was awful, he wouldn't even look at me never mind talk to me, and I just could not handle it. As soon as we left our last seminar I burst into tears, I tried to message him on BBM to see if he'd talk to me but I've obviously been blocked and so instead, I cranked up the self-pity music in the car on the way home and did what I haven't done for years and cried so much it hurt as I drove home. I thought it would make me feel better, crying usually does, but it didn't seem to help and I can't seem to pick myself up again. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I am literally suffering the most ridiculously delayed heartbreak possible.

And I'm sorry, I know this is the most ridiculous load of self-pitying rubbish and is everything I hate about blogging but I needed to vent because tomorrow I have to get up, get over it, get on with my life and try to function as a professional for a few days. And I will, I'm London-bound and that always cheers me up...

FREEDOM!

My dissertation is done, bound, handed in and out of my life, there is light at the end of the tunnel and my degree is almost done! Whilst that is in some ways a scary thought and I will miss studying and student life, it's also really exciting that the next part of my life is about to begin.

I keep thinking back to where I was three years ago when I started and all the great things I've done, the person I've become and the people I've met since then and it really has been the best experience of my life. Things didn't always go my way, I've had ups and downs (as well as a couple of spectacularly horrendous crashes), but I'm leaving with a lot of great friends, a bucket of confidence and a career I love... what more could I possibly ask for? The most exciting bit, however, is still to come. As far as I've come in the last three years, nothing can compare to what is ahead of me, the vast unknown and the amazing experiences and career that lay before me. This month is the closing of a few doors but opening of many new ones and it really is very exciting!

I'm also very excited about next week, as I've been invited to a training day at my new school and hopefully get to finally meet everyone, as well as getting to know my way around and start networking with colleagues from other schools. It sounds like a really useful course too, so even though it's a long way for two hours, it'll be beneficial in the long run and I'm really looking forward to it - just one more step on the transition to be excited about!

This is of course after my first first date on Wednesday, which is another box to tick! We've decided we're going to meet for lunch, so now the date is planned, the outfit can be sussed out. Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post by the way, your words of support were lovely and I'm less worried about it all now, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who is going out into the dating world for the first time at this age! Despite my nerves, I am excited too (I know, an over-used word in this post, sorry!). After all, dating guys who were my friends first obviously hasn't worked out very well for me in the past, so it's time to adapt a grown up style of dating and have a nice time meeting some lovely men and getting to know them as we go along. I'm almost looking forward to it, I'm much less inclined to curl up into the foetal position at the thought of it today which can surely only be a good thing.

So fingers crossed it goes well, I'll let you all know how it goes on and I may also call on your words of wisdom regarding the outfit tomorrow!

Come on then life, lets get on with you...