A seismic shift has occurred. After almost embarking on a relationship recently, and nipping it right in its tight little buds at the first sign of foot – stomping, I realized something. Something pretty phenomenal, truth be told. It occurred to me that, although the chap seemed nice enough, was attentive, called regularly, was clear about us being ‘a thing’, blah, blah, blah – I had no qualms about sacking it off when he threw a little (biggish) tantrum. I realized that I will, quite literally, not put up with any old bullshit. It was a nice moment – as he rambled and ranted for twenty minutes in response to my ‘have a little respect for my friends who welcomed you to their party so soon’ and ‘why on earth do you want to wind people up?’ – I felt the switch flip. I don’t need this, I said to myself about his response; not, of course, the third glass of wine I had ordered for myself while he was flailing his arms around. Natch. .

Also, I’ve lost ‘the fear’….. I don’t feel nervous about meeting people now. Although watching the Netflix series, Dirty John sowed some seeds of serious doubt. But I’m a lowly English teacher, so not an attractive prospect for grifters. Just egomaniacs and weirdos – apparently. During the dating phase at the beginning of last year, around the time I met the nice guy from Denmark, I was getting ready for a date and had a complete wardrobe meltdown and was freaking out about how I looked. It suddenly occurred to me that the man I was meeting probably wasn’t feeling or doing the same, and I was absolutely spot on. He arrived 20 minutes late because he’d been for a beer with a mate on the way to meeting me. So much for first impressions an’ all that. It has distinctly felt like it’s only us women (and I speak from the experiences of my girlfriends and I), who feel like they should make some sort of effort to impress on the first few dates. At the very least – the actual first. After the guy rocked up smelling boozy and wearing a holey jumper, I just thought, ‘fuck it!’ no more jumping through hoops; and I haven’t stressed since. ^hears ‘I Am What I Am‘ playing in the distance……. ^. I do my makeup and hair in the morning before leaving for work and arrive to a date ten hours later with whatever remnants of that are still apparent. I like a masculine cut trouser and interesting shoes and tops. As long as I’m clean, we’re good to go. Katharine Hepburn is my style icon. I speak my mind and if you are fucking rude about my friends after spending a mere hour with them, then I’ll call you out. If you don’t like that – tough.

I had a date after work yesterday, the nail polish was a little (lotta) chipped on my left hand and I had panda eyes. I was pretty tired. Whatevs……. That’s life.

^hears the band strike up again. High-kicks way to next date^……

Footnote: there is a Sephora en route and I did pop in there to drown myself in the most expensive fragrance available. But that was just for me…… ^does that winky thing here’.