Chronic illness from behind the door.

Close your eyes, take a deep breath. I’m taking you on a journey through chronic illness. With me? Good.

Imagine you’re in prison. You didn’t do anything wrong, at least not that you know of, and you don’t know why you’re there. All appeals have come to naught, and you have been told to accept that you will be in prison indefinitely, perhaps forever. Accept it or not, this is where you are.

Now imagine your cell. You are alone. The ceiling is not high enough for you to stand up, and the room is not wide enough for you to lie down. The top is covered in spikes, the walls are made of broken glass and grit, and the floor is jagged and lumpy. The door is cast iron, and has only a small iron grating at the top, which you cannot reach without scraping yourself against the sides. There are sounds, constant high-pitched white noise and crackles that invade your brain and stop you from forming or following your thoughts. You’re bombarded with smells so intense you want to vomit. The lights above your head are blinding bright, and they flicker and hum. Your prison issue clothes are impossible to remove; a tight band around your chest, throat, waist and temples, and nothing else. There is a tiny frosted window, also woefully out of your grasp, through which, if you were able to crane your neck to see, you would be able to spot your old life; the one you shared with friends and family, your hard-earned career, your savings, your sex life, everything. You can’t reach out of it, and nothing reaches in.

You try to sleep. At times, it’s all you can do to stay awake, you try to fight, but you are weighed down with stones and wet blankets. So you sleep, and when you wake, you feel worse. You curl up in a ball and you sleep again, but it doesn’t help. Sometimes it feels like the more you sleep, the more pain you are in, but at least it passes the time. And then you cannot sleep. No matter how hard you try. You beg for the sweet release of 20 minutes REM, and you are denied, over and over. You’re ready to break.

Sometimes a warden brings you food. Sometimes he throws a bucket of tepid water through the grating at you, and sometimes you get a fresh rag poked under the door to wipe yourself with. You never know when or how often these things will happen. Sometimes you go days, even weeks without any help.

Every now and then, you get lucky. The walls retreat a few inches, and you are able to stretch out. The ceiling rises, and you stand for a moment. The floor becomes smooth, even cushioned, or the warden throws you a pillow. The sensory bombardment softens. A good friend passes you a cup of warm tea through the grating and smiles at you. You feel almost at peace for a spell. And then, as unexpectedly as it came, it goes again. You’ve been here for months, years maybe, perhaps a decade or two. You start to forget who you are, where you are, what you are, how you’ve survived so long in this hell.

And then without warning or fanfare, shock of all shocks, someone opens the door. You weep with joy, you shout, you wave your hands in the air, and then you run for your life. You shoot out of your cell so fast that the door is left swinging on it’s hinges. You sprint, full pelt, for your old life. You hug your loved ones, you laugh, you sing, you try to make a little scratch, you start clawing back everything you lost while you were locked away. You rejoice.

But some time passes, maybe a month, maybe a week, maybe an hour, and you realise that you aren’t quite free. You look down, and you notice there’s a bungee cord wrapped around your leg, and you don’t know how much tension is left in it. The further you run away, the tighter the cord gets. You carry on for as long as you can, but eventually, it snaps with a great boom, and drags you, kicking and screaming back to your cell. And everything is as bad as it was before, maybe even worse. The thump of your body as you reel back against the sharp walls and hard floor hurts so much that you feel like you might just stop breathing.  You’re inside again. You think about what you’ll do the next time the door opens, whenever that might be. You wait, you tolerate the pain, you try to pass the time.

But you don’t know if the door will ever open again. You hope it does, but even if it does, in the back of your mind, you wonder if perhaps it wouldn’t just be safer to stay in the cell next time, or just wander a few feet from the door, so that the snap back doesn’t hurt so much. You can’t help but wish that one day the door will open, and the cord will be infinitely long. Do you dare to dream of putting this all behind you?

You’re trapped. You didn’t deserve this, it isn’t fair. And as if it couldn’t get any harder, the warden and his friends stand outside the door, day and night, telling you that you’re a liar; the door isn’t really locked, that you could leave anytime you want. People you know stand at the window and ask you why you stay, and then turn to their cronies and say “Surely it can’t be that bad in there?” You scream at them that they don’t understand, but they don’t hear you. You rattle at the door handle, and nothing happens. You know the truth.

(I was going to write a paragraph or two explaining this post, but I don’t think it needs it. And I don’t want to. I shouldn’t have to qualify or excuse my experiences. Read it, understand it or not, that’s your call. But stop standing at the fucking door trying to figure out why I’m stuck.)

Still not dead

I’m back! Did you miss me? I’m so sorry. Life’s really fucking hard at the moment, and blogging has been one of the last things on my mind. And I’ve been cheating on you with tumblr. But let’s not dwell on the past. We’ve both said some things we didn’t mean. Let’s just move on, shall we?

For the first time in my life, I find myself with two fully paid up MMO subscriptions, and I didn’t pay for either of them. SW:TOR handed out 30 days free play to everyone with a level 50 character to apologise for there being fuck all of any interest to play at level 50. I abandoned my Sith Warrior some time ago, on the grounds that there was nothing to do at 50, and also because I chose the wrong romantic storyline (SPOILER ALERT: The guy is a simpering, weaselly kiss-ass who tries to kill you in the end). So I rolled a Chiss Bounty Hunter instead, and I’m loving my blue-skinned buxom beauty. She has a sexy sultry voice and she takes no prisoners. The romance plot is a significant improvement, but I suspect there are better ones out there, so until Bioware sort out the endgame, I’ll be levelling as many race/class/gender/faction combinations as I can stand, to get a better idea of what I like. Disappointingly, I haven’t found a server well populated enough to satisfy me, which is partly where the other game sub comes in.

I quit WoW officially in January, but I’d pretty much given up back in August. But WoW is like an aging cuckold. It knows it can’t keep up with the new shiny things, but there’s something about it that keeps you from filing for divorce. A friend I used to raid with wanted to ressurect someone so they could get the special mount you get for tempting someone to pick up the digital crack pipe again. I figured I could just play for a month and then find something else to do. I couldn’t help it, I took the bait. And completely unexpectedly, said friend also supplied me with a 90 day game card. I logged back in, said hello to everyone, then dashed over to my druid, to find out just how ridiculous the new boomkin mechanics are (they still aren’t as bad as shadow priest, fwiw).

Bizarrely, the only game I’ve spend money on for a while is Draw Something, which is a thing of absolute joy. I avoided it for months, reasoning that it would be no fun for something who can’t even draw a straight line, but I’ll tell you, over the last week or two, I’ve drawn some pretty awesome looking stick men doing some pretty awesome looking things, and apparently well enough that other people have been able to figure out what they are! Who could have thought that playing a scaled down version of Pictionary on my phone would be so frequently and unintentionally hilarious?

It’s not all fun and game round here. Like I said, life is kicking my arse all over the shop at the moment. But I’m painting on a happy face and pretending I’m still part of the real world, for now.

Slice of life

The boy-child is 12 going on hipster, and I have no sense of subtlety, tact or decorum. The quality of our repartee is one of the few things that gets me up in the morning.

[While discussing the future]

Me: So, when you grow up, and you have a girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever…
BC: Mum, will you give it up? I’m not gay!
Me: Fine, if you’re not going to furnish me with a fabulous son-in-law then I demand an army of attractive grandchildren.

…

[After showing me the steampunk video his new music teacher made]

Me: This guy is awesome!
BC: I’ll introduce you at parent’s evening. Wear something nice, I think he’s single.

…

[Walking past Next]

Me: I need some new trousers and a wallet.
BC: There’s a sale on in Next.
Me: I don’t shop in Next.
BC: Why not?
Me: I don’t like the clothes.
BC: Yeah, ’cause heaven forbid you should shop where normal people shop.

…

[While shopping in TKMaxx]

Me: Oooh, I like this skirt. What do you think?
BC: I think I want to go to Starbucks.

[Later that same conversation]

Me: Black or grey, what do you reckon?
BC: I don’t care! How the hell would I know what skirts look good?
Me: Oh, or what about the blue one?
BC: Ergh, no. Looks like a bomb went off in a crap factory.

…

[While shopping in Boots]

Me: Just give me a sec with the nail varnish. There’s a 3 for 2 on.
BC: I knew it! You didn’t really come in here for painkillers and tampons at all!

[Later that same conversation]

Me: Check it out, they have magnetized nail polish!
BC: Does that mean I can stick you to the fridge?

…

[While browsing in New Look]

BC: There really are only two types of men who go in New Look.
Me: Is that so? Which type are you?
BC: The poor mug who gets dragged in here with his mum.
Me: What’s the other type?
BC: Duh. The poor mug who gets dragged in here with his girlfriend.

…

[After buying him a t-shirt that has (among other things) the word 'Geek' on it]

Me: I’m so proud of you for being comfortable enough to take pride in your fandom.
BC: It’s really just stating the obvious though, isn’t it?

…

[Outside Starbucks]

BC: When will you let me have caffeine?
Me: When your natural state doesn’t already involve bouncing off the walls as a matter of routine.

…

[Inside Starbucks]

Me: Right, what do you want then?
BC: Mmm… vanilla cream frap.
Me: Are you sure?
BC: Yes, I’m sure.
Me: Really? Because you usually have the strawberry cream, and I don’t want you to change your mind half-way through ordering.
BC: I promise I’m sure. Why don’t you trust me?
Me: How long have you got?

…

[Walking home from Starbucks]

BC: I think I did want the strawberry cream actually.
Me: *angry sigh*
BC: I’m just kidding!
Me: You’d better be, unless you want to wear it instead of drink it.
BC: You mean like all over me, or at a jaunty angle?

…

[At home, transferring my things from old wallet to new wallet]

Me: I’m sure I had two fivers in here. Now I only have one. Did you nick a fiver?
BC: Nope. I did have 50p out of your purse the other day to buy a pen for school though.
Me: You nicked money to buy stationary?
BC: I know. I’m a traitor to my generation.

…

[While watching Mock The Week]

BC: I’m not allowed to laugh at Frankie Boyle, am I?
Me: Not if you enjoy sleeping indoors, you’re not.

Gender politics and damn dirty lies

(Potentially inflammatory warning: This is a sensitive subject, and I’m not in it for a flame war. I just like talking.)

I don’t usually post about current affairs, but something about this story confused the bejeezus out of me.

As I understand it from the reporting: Person with female sex organs adopts male identity. Male identity meets girl(s). Male identity doesn’t tell girl(s) that they have female organs. Male identity has a bit of a kiss and a snuggle with girl(s). Male identity gets charged with fraud and assault.

Let’s start by removing the question of autism, ADHD and facebook from the discussion. Unless there’s something missing from the report (which admittedly is a very real possibility), the sexual component of the encounters were entirely consensual. Given the circumstances, was it possible or reasonable for the girls to consent if they weren’t in full possession of the facts? Let’s be honest, most of us will readily and easily get involved with people without knowing them completely; for some that’s even considered a bonus. And are you 100% certain you know the gender of everyone you’ve ever kissed? Who’s ever touched you in a sexual way? I know I’m not. There are plenty of people I’ve enjoyed the company of who never revealed to me what was below their waist, and it never occured to me to ask. Do I feel violated? Well no, but I am a bisexual person anyway, so it doesn’t much matter what you’ve got between your legs, I’m more interested in what’s between your ears. I’m certainly not suggesting that it’s not fair and understandable to be a bit freaked out if the person you’re playing tongue-hockey with isn’t entirely who you thought they were, but is it a crime?

Where should the line be drawn over what you can and can’t lie about? Everyone lies at some point in their life, and anyone who says they don’t is a liar. Is it criminal to lie about your age to get a date? About how much money you make, your political beliefs, your race? There is the question of personal violation, but consider people of certain religions who wouldn’t become involved with a person who wasn’t the same religion. Would they feel violated if someone lied about it to get them into bed? Most likely. But should that be illegal? I don’t know. I’ve been with more than one person who lied to me about being an asshole, and much as I’d love to see them spend time at Her Majesty’s pleasure, for me that’s just one step too far. More’s the pity; some of them could do with being away from humanity at large for a spell. In a world where people are constantly and consistently judged on their gender and their sexual preferences (and anything else you care to name), I suppose it shouldn’t baffle me that it’s fraud to tell your date you’re one thing when your dangly bits say something else. But is it now a legal obligation to ‘out’ every pre-ops transexual, just on the offchance that not everyone thinking about kissing them hasn’t personally taken the time to be completely sure they know what they’re getting?

I say I’m a woman, and you probably believe me, because that’s your choice, right up until I take my pants down. If I say I’m a Catholic or a vampire or a conservative voter, that’s also your choice to believe or not, until you take the time to find out otherwise. If you don’t trust what I say, and you don’t feel like finding out for sure, then don’t date me. And if you don’t mind, then it doesn’t matter.

Unrelated to the above, but surprisingly prescient, is something sparked by watching a dance couple on TV earlier tonight, both with gender-neutral names. The boy-child asked me why I gave him a unisex name, and I told him it was because I never wanted him to be judged based on his gender. Of course, that will never entirely be the case – as soon as you meet him in person, you’ll know with a fair degree of certainty that he is binary male. That’s his choice though. He’s chosen to present as a male, and I’m happy for him. But let’s assume, 15-20 years from now that he’s an accomplished professional in his chosen field, and he’s about to get his first article published. When it’s readers see his name at the top of the piece, will they consider that it has more or less merit because of his gender? Will he be considered outspoken or stereotypical? The truth is, it won’t work the way that I always wanted it to. The lack of a definitive answer won’t remove the question, it will just mean that the opinions will be split. Some will assume or impress a gender upon him, others won’t even look at the name. However, the question still needs to be asked, and by giving him a name that doesn’t automatically give it away, I hope to make more people ask themselves: Does gender matter? And why?

Late to the party

I’ve been decidedly absent for the last few weeks, as I’m sure none of you have noticed. I’m stuck in a horrible place between poverty, bureaucracy, ill-health and depression at the moment, and I’m fighting to keep my head above water. It’s OK though; I’m still here, and I’m not planning to throw myself in front of a rush hour train just yet.

As usual, I’m watching a lot of television, reading a lot of twitter, and killing space monsters on Tatooine when I’m able to sit up for long enough. I’ve not long started watching the final series of The West Wing, and season 4 of Mad Men is waiting for me after that, which I’ll hopefully get to before the new season starts at the end of March. After that, I’ve got Lost, Pysch, Battlestar Galactica and Angel to enjoy, though I’m desperately battling the urge to watch the whole of Heroes again. There’s some great new stuff on the actual telly too; Grimm is shaping up to be cute and entertaining (hardly surprising, as it’s from the same writing/producing team as Charmed), and Luck, while very stark and serious, looks to be very interesting. Suits continues to be brilliant, and I’m practically salivating in anticipation of the new series’ of Castle and Cougar Town starting very soon.

I’m still enjoying SW:TOR despite not being well enough to play as much as I’d like. It’s still rich and beautiful, but for an alt happy gamer like me, I’m finding it a bit of a drag doing the same sets of quests over and over on different characters. The class storylines are amazing, but they don’t take up half as much time as I’d like. The romantic subplot for female Sith Warriors is a total bust, and made me regret ever rolling one, which is sad. I’m hoping it’s a one-off. Bounty Hunter is a great class to play, much better solo than anything else I’ve tried, and I’m looking forward to trying playing without a healer companion for a change. I still haven’t done a single flashpoint or non-open world Ops group though. I’m pretending I’m not feeling the urge to go back to WoW. I suspect part of my issues with The Old Republic is because I’ve not settled with a guild yet. I’ll stick it out for another month or two, and then make a firm decision after the Easter holidays. Aion is going free-to-play very soon too, which may give me a good excuse to reboot my account and see what’s going on over there.

Other pursuits have fallen by the wayside. I’ve done nothing social since New Year, and no one seems to have missed me. I’ve not spent a lot of time in the kitchen either, except while visiting my mother over half term, when we had a crack at Rachel Allen’s Peanut Butter Blondies, which were so fantastic and simple that we nommed the first batch within 36 hours and then made a double batch right after.

I’m not going to pretend that my dry spell won’t carry on for a while before things settle. I feel like I’m in the eye of the storm at the moment, and I’m terrified of the inevitable spin-and-drop, but I have to force myself to remain part of the real world; or part of the internet, at least. Somewhere I exist. That must count for something.

Some eating, a little nerding, not so much of the other.

I made a decision a while ago to not deliberately write about been a spoonie anymore (by which I mean, being a chronicly ill person). It wasn’t an easy choice. Once upon a time, I had an entire blog dedicated to the subject, but I found that not only did it become a case of me saying the same things over and over, but I realised it was actually making things worse. Putting too much thought into my condition makes me angry, and being angry makes me more ill. So, that put paid to my brilliant plan of writing a brilliant blog about a debilitating illness that would eventually get turned into a brilliant book or a syndicated column and bring much needed focus to the plight of CFS sufferers everywhere.

Don’t ever let it be said that I don’t dream big, OK?

So, when I started this blog, I decided I would allow my disease to be a part of me, but not the whole of me, and I made a vow to try to be as zen about it all as possible, and only post when I absolutely needed to purge. Well, the time has come, and I’ve got some shit going on in my head, and it has to go somewhere. So here are some of my thoughts about my spoon deficiency.

The difference between sleeping and resting and why I’m crap at both

Today is day three of no-sleep-aggeddon. What bothers me most is not that I’ve not slept in 78 hours, not that I’m so tired that I tried to milk a cup of tea with vinegar, not that my legs are so weak that I’ve fallen both times I’ve tried to get up in the last 6 hours, not that food tastes like carboard and grass, not that the skin on my face is literally coming away in chunks, not the millions other things I’m going through at the moment. No, what bothers me is that this is not the first time I’ve gone through this, and it will certainly not be the last. Y’know, unless I get hit by a bus tomorrow, which is looking more desirable as the hours tick away.

I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in 10 years, and I haven’t had an average one in more than 4 years. Sometimes, when I’m lying awake, unable to do anything but stare at the ceiling and wince as my nerves bite me from the inside, I wonder if I’ll ever have a good night’s sleep again, or if even one day, I might just be able to remember what one was like.

On the never ending cycle of painkillers and food

Did you know that a lot of painkillers are less effective and often detrimental to one’s health if taken on an empty stomach? You probably read it on the back of a pill packet once and thought little of it. So did I. Then I got ill. And so it goes: I hurt, I want painkillers, I eat, I take painkillers, my stomach cramps up, I can’t eat, I hurt, I want painkillers. The only way to take painkillers is to cause myself further pain. Which I guess would be fine, if the painkillers worked in the first place.

TV is my best and most reliable friend

It’s the only friend that comes to see me every single time I want it to, and never when I don’t. It’s the only friend that not only never expects me to put on my shoes and leave the house, it actively encourages me to take it easy. It doesn’t judge me, instead it lets me relish in judging other people. It warns me in advance if it’s going to say something really interesting, so I’ve got time to memorialise the occasion. It’s not a very good listener, it’s true, but so often I just want to listen myself. It never expects me to direct the flow of conversation, and it’s so witty and clever and ridiculous in equal amounts and at regular intervals. It never lets me down and it’s impossible for me to let it down.

All it needs to do now is rub my feet and make me tea and run the hoover round for me once in a while. Then I’m all set.

…

My fingers are cramping and my brain is bouncing off the inside of my skull and my heart is heavy. I’m done for the night. I wish I could say I was going to bed.

Recipe: Classic Cookies with White Chocolate and Macadamia

I usually wouldn’t bother posting a recipe you could find in 6 million other places on the internet, but this recipe is almost foolproof, and you can substitute the chocolate and nuts for just about any other nut or yummy thing you wanna chuck in. I’ve adapted it for UK cooks, and it’s easily doubled for a bumper sized batch. Enjoy!

White Chocolate and Macadamia Cookies
(makes 15-24)

150g SR Flour
1/2 Tsp Baking Powder
1 large egg
Pinch of Salt
85g Butter
85g Golden caster sugar
45g Light brown soft sugar
1/2 Tsp Vanilla essense
100g White chocolate chips
100g Macadamia nuts (roughly chopped)

Preheat your oven to 180C (350F).

In one bowl, sift your flour, baking powder and salt together. In a second bowl, cream your butter, both sugars and vanilla essense together thoroughly until smooth. Then beat in your egg, again until the batter is smooth. Next, gradually add your dry flour mix, beating well as you go.

You can use chocolate chips, or just grab a regular bar of chocolate and chop it up. Also, a cheat’s way of chopping nuts is to pop them in a sandwich bag and wallop them with a rolling pin. It’s easy, low mess, and give you lovely rough chunks of nut in your cookies. However you prepare your additional yummies, add them to the batter now and give it a good stir with a big spoon.

Now, spoon out your dough onto a sheet of clingfilm, wrap it up tight, and pop it in the fridge for a good 15 minutes. Wander off, have a cuppa. Then line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper, and between your hands, roll chunks of dough into balls and space them a good 2″ apart (these babies really spread!). I like to make them about ping-pong ball sized, but there’s a wide margin of error either way – it just depends how big you like your cookies!

Bake on the top shelf of the oven for 8-10 minutes, until the outside of the cookies are just starting to brown (the middle should still be soft). If you like your cookies crunchy all the way through, pop them onto a wire tray to cool for a good 30 minutes before storing them, but if you like them soft and chewy, cool them for 2-3 minutes only, and then put them into an airtight container lined with a piece of paper towel.

NB: I have done a few variations on this recipe; dark chocolate and hazelnut works very well (especially if you replace about 25g of the flour with cocoa powder), as does rolled oats and walnut, though I would advise using only 40-50g of rolled oats, as too much will dry out the cookie dough.

Pure

As I’m sure the rest of the internet has mentioned, it’s snowing in London at the moment. We don’t always get the best or the most frequent snow, so a lot of us are rather like small children on Christmas morn if it even so much as settles a milimetre or two. When the boy-child and I went out to play in it earlier this evening, we spotted the two middle-aged Indian gents who run the nearby corner shop running about in the road taking pictures of each other and laughing with girlish glee; turned out, it was the first time they’d seen real live falling snow. I couldn’t help but tell them that the novelty would probably never wear off.

The boy-child is beside himself with joy. It was 11pm before I could even think about sending him to bed. Happy Winter, folks. I hope that where ever you are right now, you’re warm and happy.

I can't help but love him most like this; silent, and running in the opposite direction.

Sometimes, enthusiasm is not enough.

OK, casting directors of the world, LISTEN THE FUCK UP.

There are millions of actors in the world, literally millions, and a large proportion of them are both a) very talented and b) out of work. So, when you’re casting for a new movie or TV show, you can almost guarantee a good couple of hundred or so who’ll be able to turn up to the audition, and I reckon at least 90% of them would be both not drunk and not certifiably insane.

Now, let’s imagine just for a moment that you are based in the US and you’re casting a role that requires an American accent. With me? OK. You’re going to get a handful of people who don’t have American accents, but who can either successfully pull one off, or just didn’t read the casting call properly and don’t mind being told to go home.

So, why, oh dear God why, would you eventually cast someone who was almost completely incapable of maintaining an American accent? You’re. In. AMERICA. The one country that is FULL of people with American accents. I could understand if you were casting for someone with a Kiwi accent, as I imagine they’re relatively thin on the ground outside of New Zealand. I’ll even just about forgive you if you’re casting an English person and we end up with the sheer horror that was Drusilla on Buffy. But you’re not. You’re casting a native. So instead of hiring someone who sounds like she’s having some kind of brain seizure when she speaks, HIRE A FUCKING AMERICAN.

Wait, her name is Poppy and she has red hair? What a coinkydink!

I’m talking, in this instance, about a new series showing on Living TV, called Unforgettable. The show stars an Australian actress called Poppy Montgomery, and although I’ve never heard of her, apparently she was in Without A Trace. It doesn’t matter. She sounds… wrong. She does not have an American accent. She’s trying though, which actually makes it worse. I get it, she’s a reasonably talented actress and she’s pretty. But if you had to hire her that badly, then why the hell not rewrite the character to make her Australian? Then, and only then, would it have made sense to hire someone who can’t consistently do an American accent. Having had media aspirations myself, once upon a time, I feel deeply sorry for all the equally skilled and attractive American actresses who could have played that role like a pimpin’ biatch, but were pipped by the Aussie girl. How much it must pain them, and how much it pains the discerning viewing audience. It’s off-putting. And it’s a waste.

Unforgettable has a great concept and a stellar supporting cast, but it’s all I can do to stop myself from throwing a shoe at the screen everytime Ms Montgomery speaks. The show is effectively ruined for me by the poor choices of a casting director. It’s a damn shame. It’s almost as though she was hired because she was vaguely recognisable, thus raising the show’s profile, but not so recognisable as to be expensive, or, y’know, any good.

Nah. Hollywood would never be so shallow, would it?

Right?

The complete idiot’s guide to online dating

Let’s be objective for a moment. It’s not easy, but let’s give it a crack.

Like me, you are probably not as awful as you think you are. You probably wouldn’t stand out in a line-up as having fallen out of the ugly tree and thumped into every branch on the way down. You probably aren’t big enough to break the scales, and you probably aren’t prohibitively boring, irritating or stupid. Yes, you too can date. Y’know, if you want to.

With that in mind, let’s assume you’re one of the myriad SINGLE people in the world (married people, if you don’t want to know the score, look away from your screen now!). If you’ve been single for more than 6 months or so, you most likely sometimes feel as though you have that word stamped in luminous ink on your forehead. You might even feel like every word that falls out of your mouth in mixed company should be vetted by a team of psycho-analysts first, just in case any other singletons in earshot haven’t already decided you should be run over by a truck. When invited to a party, you hear yourself say things like “So, will there be any nice guys there?” and then immediately it’s been said, you want to run yourself over with a truck for looking so desperate. You aren’t desperate, not really. You just wanna cuddle sometimes. Being long term single is a constant struggle between wanting a cuddle and wanting to sing Phil Collins songs in the shower without judgement. At least it is for me.

I’m digressing. I do that. Some people find it endearing. But I did have a point.

I’ve had a profile on a small handful of dating sites for the better part of the last ten years. I keep them reasonably well updated, there are photos on them taken recently enough that nobody could be reasonably fooled that it was someone else in them (so long as you look beyond the ever-changing, muppet-coloured hair). I’m not exactly searching for a relationship, but I am keeping an ear to the ground, in case there’s one knocking about. I like getting messages from people on dating sites; despite knowing that I am not a hideous swamp-monster, my heart still does a little dance when someone else agrees that I am not one. And then, inevitably, I am let down. And I’m going to tell you why.

Ninety-nine percent of all contact I have ever recieved on dating sites falls into two categories.

Category 1, The “Ten-words-or-less-lothario”: You’re a fucking moron, and you didn’t read my profile. You’re literally wasting my time. You’re wasting your own time. You’ve done nothing of any value and may have, in fact, done a great deal of damage to the entire concept of dating on the internet. You’ve probably looked at only one photograph, and judged me, which is stupid and wrong, and I feel sorry for you, because of how much time you’ve wasted sending messages to people without knowing what for. You are the digital equivalent of walking into a crowded bar and shouting “FANCY A SHAG?” and hoping there’s someone with similarly low standards in range. But I don’t hate you. I’m just mildly annoyed by you. You’re a blip on the radar, and that where you’ll stay.

Category 2, The “First-one’s-free”: Oh, you. You know, I don’t even have words for you. No wait, actually I do. You’re mean. You message me; you’re engaged, you’re charming, you ask interesting questions, you say funny and smart things and you make it look so much like you see me for something remarkable and worth persuing. You want to play and you’ve chucked the ball to me. And I’m cautious and I’m nervous because I’ve been burned, but you make a fine effort, and I start to let my guard down a little, and I think for a minute about whether I could meet you, and you seem like you might be right there with me, and then…

Nothing. You just disappear. And I don’t want to seem desperate, so I don’t follow up (I never send a second email before the respondant has replied to the last one, unless I’ve made a mistake or missed something out of the first one). But you’re gone, you’re in the wind. Poof! goes the vanishing date.

Was it something I said? Did you go back to my profile and take a closer look and change your mind about me? Where did you go? You make me feel like if I can bore/annoy/repulse you after just a handful of emails, then maybe I am just a hideous swamp monster who should go back to her swamp and get a bunch of cats and die alone. Thanks. I was doing just fine, bimbling along in my own little world, until you dangled your carrot in front of my face. You reminded me that I’m human and sometimes it’s OK to want a cuddle, and then you took it away. I don’t get you, I never will. If you’re not going to follow through, just leave me alone. Or at least meet me a couple of times before you get bored and wander off.

The third category, the one percent, you can chill there, if you want. The “friend-zone” and the “not-my-type-but-cool-with-rejection” and the “good-chemistry-bad-timing” and the “three-word-reply-that-makes-me-laugh-and-that’s-all-I-wanted”… I don’t mind who hangs out there. Sometimes brevity is good for the soul. But if you want, and if you fancy tempting me out of the swamp for a while, maybe you can make your own category. I’m totally ready for some new classifications.

All this ranting might make it seem like I’m on some kind of do-or-die mission to find a soulmate. I’m really not. I’ve been in love before, and I’ve no real reason to think that I won’t be again one day. I’m generally enjoying being single at the moment, it’s like a freedom I’ve never known before. My house, my bed, my time, my secrets, my life… it’s all mine. And I don’t have to share it if I don’t want to. I’m not sure I’m entirely ready to give that up yet anyway.

But I still wouldn’t mind a cuddle from time to time. I am only human after all.