There I sat, teacup to hand whilst I proceeded to fold my knickers and file away accordingly. In the end, I found myself with four piles of knickers. Well five if you include the ones bound for the bin.

The first pile contained knickers that I would willingly remove clothing for in order to be seen, i.e. when things are going well on a date. These are the fancy, sometimes frilly, sometimes not, knickers which usually belong to a matching bra somewhere.

The second lot consisted of stuff I wouldn’t mind being caught wearing if say, I was knocked over by a granny on her zimmer car and was rushed to hospital with a fractured pelvis. Thus the (hopefully!) cute doctor was then forced to remove my clothing to assess the damage.

You can see I’ve given this a lot of thought.

The third pile was home to knickers only suitable for that time of the month. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t purposely buy knickers just for that occasion, it’s just when my underwear become a little threadbare, or god-forbid –whispers- stained, they get relegated to pile three. It’s sort of like a hierarchy of pants.

One becomes two and two eventually becomes three. It’s just the order of things.

So what, must you be wondering, is in pile four?

Underwear that is too good to be used for that time of the month, but not good enough to show on a date or even to an unsuspecting doctor!

Do you see how complicated my life is? And this is only my underwear drawer.

Pile four contains, amongst other things, a Christmas themed pair of Miss Piggy and Kermit the frog knickers. The material is thick. They cover more skin than I’d like to admit to. Sometimes I wear them to bed under my equally hideous pyjamas.

I don’t like to wonder why I am single.

The reality is much less glamorous than I’m making it out to be.

Sure it’s good to go out and date new people; good like chocolate starts out to be but after your third family size bar, all you end up feeling is sick.

And yet, once the sick feeling goes away, there I am reaching out for another slab of the good stuff.

It’s a vicious circle.

Dating is the act of putting yourself out there, showing off the best side of yourself in the hopes that the other person may like you enough to do something.

This may include but is certainly not limited to:

# Him laughing at your jokes.
# Him genuinely laughing at your jokes.
# Getting a kiss at the end of the night.
# Being asked out on a second date.
# Going back to his for a coffee.
# Rejecting the coffee and asking for a tea instead.
# Forgetting about the tea altogether and instead, having sex.
# Having sex followed by that a cup of tea afterwards.

Nobody does it like the British after all.

And yet even when you get to the final stage, then what? What’s the protocol? My past relationships have always gone from first dates to falling so deeply in love, I’ve very nearly drowned.

It’s a horrible thing to admit to; losing control all for the sake of a guy, but it’s what I’m used to.

So this year I promised myself I wouldn’t let it happen again. I wouldn’t get tied down and left for dead in yet another long term relationship. I’ve been on several dates with different guys so far this year already, some of which have wanted to see me again, others which haven’t. Or at least that’s what I’m led to believe due to the big-fat-zero amount of texts I’ve had from them in the aftermath of the date.

I don’t consider myself a bad date, I’m a lot better at them than I am in job interviews for instance, which perhaps isn’t saying a lot but it’s as good I’m going to get at being myself in such hostile conditions.

And by hostile I mean where I’m constantly at war with myself: shall I wear this, shall I say this, shall I do this, shall I text them, how long shall I wait until I text them… the list is endless.

With each date I go on, the fear of rejection becomes less; not because I’m getting rejected less, but because I simply end up becoming desensitised to the whole thing.

That’s what happens when you keep putting yourself in the same situation.

It works out great for casual dating, I’m just scared that when I do eventually find someone I like, I’d have forgotten how to care.

Dating is one big game, I just get the feeling I’m the one being played.

But they would have been right.

Everything about the situation was wrong, from the loitering outside in the cold, to the frequent talking-to-yourself moments of: WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING?

Yet something made me stay.

I believe that something was called fear.

I’m scared of everything. I’m scared of what I saw, I’m scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all I’m scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I’m with you…

Oh wait, sorry, I keep forgetting that Dirty Dancing isn’t my life story.

In order to understand why I was effectively hanging around outside someone’s house like a creepy stalker, we have to go back to the beginning.

If this were a film the screen would fade to black and wishy washy music would begin to sound.

But it’s not so you’ll just have to imagine.

The previous night…

I was found in the one place I’d been reminiscing about for ages… in a nice warm bed with an equally nice warm, naked, pliable body next to mine. Everything was going great. I hadn’t burped in his mouth, I wasn’t wearing my old grey bra and there wasn’t a single red ant in sight.

As far as dating goes, I was on a personal best.

However, the time was getting late, I had work the next day and although I was very much enjoying my current predicament, I wasn’t yet sated. If we were taking turns, I had definitely missed mine.

But I wasn’t worried, I had all night, and all morning if necessary to get my – how to put this delicately – just desserts.

Didn’t I?

They were tired – it’s sort of inevitable really considering the circumstances, and I was hardly full of beans myself. So I resigned myself (with little effort) to the fact I’d be sharing the night wrapped around another human being for a change rather than a pillow. They had other ideas, however.

Perhaps I only have myself to blame. After all, I did deem it necessary to open my mouth:

“Is this my cue to leave, then?” after hearing their third yawn of the night.

I said it in a moment of jest, fully intending to burrow myself just that little bit deeper in bed and sleep soundly until morning.

Then I heard his response.

“Yeah, I’m not sure how much use I’ll be now.”

Wait, what? Use? You are serving your purpose very well right now thank you very much. Plus, I didn’t want to move. I’d just gotten comfortable.

“Oh, I’ll just get dressed and go then.”

I snatched up my clothes and got dressed in a time much quicker than it took to remove them.

“Bye then.” I couldn’t really say much else, too humiliated from not only being shown the door, but from willingly walking towards it.

“Don’t I get a kiss?” he said.

I gave him a kiss, short and very to the point (something I’ve been described a lot as recently) and then left.

Not two minutes ago I was lying in someone else’s bed, warm and very much content. Now I was walking through a dodgy part of town at eleven o’clock at night and being physically harassed by a random stranger pulling at my arm as I was hurrying to the tube station, trying to ask my name.

By the time I reached home, I was tired, unsatisfied and wondering what the hell had happened.

I fell asleep that night plotting my revenge.

When the sunlight filtered softly through my curtains the next morning, I was still very much seeing red (if not for the fact my curtains happen to be that particular shade…)

I didn’t sleep very well; in my unsettled state I kept waking every few hours which resulted in me being up several hours earlier than planned. I had time to kill before my late shift at work, so I decided to make right on the wrong I had experienced the previous night.

Most people endure a walk of shame coming FROM the guy’s place; I however had that pleasure as I was heading TOWARDS the guy’s place. Every step was punctuated with a little interjection from my conscience going: WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? GO HOME TO BED.

Unfortunately, working in London’s busiest airport for a couple of years has made it easy to tune out annoying noises… which is how I found myself standing outside his flat in the cold on a very early Saturday morning, with a look of such dire consternation on my face, it caused an elderly gentlemen to stop walking, turn in my direction and say knowingly:

“He’ll be out soon dear, don’t worry.”

I could only manage a nervous laugh in response while thinking it’s not me that should be worried, it should be him.

Twenty minutes of torturous deliberations later, and I finally found my mettle. I approached the buzzer with undisguised dread and pressed.

Please don’t hear it. Please.

“Hello?” came the sleepy response.

Ah fuck, he’d not only heard it, I’d awoken him too.

Quickly… act cool.

“It’s eight o’clock and you have a delivery.”

Oh god that was smooth – like crunchy peanut butter spread on a slice of granary.

It seemed to have done the trick though because the next thing I knew, I heard the door click open and I was in.

I felt like Ali Baba at the entrance to the cave.

By the time I reached his door, I was in two minds to actually grabbing something out of my bag and pretending I really did have a delivery for him.

I soldered on. With my face looking more serious than an undiagnosed bout of Chlamydia, I proclaimed the following to a slightly confused and bleary eyed guy:

“There are two things you never do to me: First, you never give me green tea – iced.”

I paused for effect. In reality, I was merely pausing to gather enough courage to say what it was I had come to say in the first place.

“The second is you never leave me high and dry.”

High and dry? It was like Baby’s “I carried a watermelon” moment from Dirty Dancing.

“Can I come in now?” I added.

The door opened a little wider.

And I came.

Three times.

I’ve had a few close encounters in my time there, some of which had made it on here, others which haven’t. It’s not just me though. My friend who shall not be named (Peter) once told me about the time he was getting rather amorous on Richmond Hill, only then to be rudely interrupted by a guy holding a camera. I’m pretty sure there is a photograph that exists of my friend and his companion running for the hills, all the while trying to re-dress themselves as they ran off into the night.

Anyhow, one particularly nice day in summer last year, I found myself in Richmond with a friend. Everything was going swimmingly; we enjoyed a nice cup of tea, we sat and talked whilst overlooking the beautiful views of Richmond, before finally deciding to end our day together by going for a walk along the river. The river walk is a very pretty trail of shrubbery and fields but after half an hour or so it soon becomes apparent that it’s all the same, and that it’s all you will see for the next ten miles.

For a change of scenery my friend decided to pull me into the tall grass, and our friendship went up a few notches as we began making out like a pair of hormonal teenagers.

“Don’t move,” he said.

I looked up into his eyes with bated breath, waiting for those three little words.

“You have ants.”

Alright, maybe not those three particular words, but I wasn’t going to complain.

I felt a stirring down below. One thing led to another and before I knew it my trousers had come off. And my top. And pretty much everything else excluding my hair (although if it was possible I would have removed that too.)

Somehow in the midst of our passionate tryst I ended up sitting on, or rather lying atop an ants nest; a red ant’s nest. I’m aware in some circles of society having insects crawling over you in the heat of the moment can be a massive turn on. They call this Formicophilia; I call it a nuisance.

I’m not going to lie, I did start to throb… down there – but that was only because the little buggers had crawled their way into my knickers.

I had ants in my pants.

My sex really was on fire.

After all, as a wise ten year old boy once said to me, what’s the point in having a blog if you don’t blog?!

Exactly one week ago I was standing in a semi awkward manner at a bar in Spain. Give me a pub any day. A pub I can deal with. It’s all too easy to find a dark, quiet corner to hide in but with a bar you’re forced to stand up or perch in a way that suggests you’re up for something.

And the only thing I was up for was the free Tapas that accompanied the beer I was enjoyably necking.

Still, I was introduced to a native Spaniard whose name is unimportant at this stage (unimportant because even now, I cannot remember it) and made small talk.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with small talk, it’s basically where you have nothing else to talk about and so you reel off a series of questions until either one of you (or both) grows bored and dies, or worse, does something unexpected like asking you to accompany him outside in the unlikely event he actually enjoyed talking to you.

Not being a stranger to going off with random men in foreign countries, I followed my new Spaniard friend out into the night until we found ourselves in a romantically lit park.

I know what you’re thinking – she’s in a park, alone, in a strange country with an even stranger man (he was telling me Barbie jokes for god’s sake) you’re probably thinking the worst, but you shouldn’t. You see he took me to a park which had a gigantic statue of Jesus Christ in. He looked very cross – Jesus, not my friend, which is a complete passion killer if you ask me. They should stick those up in London; it would cut drunken-park-fumbling pregnancies by half.

And just as I was making an inane comment on why exactly the son of God was looming over us, he kissed me on the cheek.

So this is what the Passion of Christ was all about. I did wonder.

And how did I respond?

“Thank you.”

It’s all I could say. You know, those two words you normally speak when someone points out that you’re skirt has tucked itself into your big grey period knickers.

And he kissed me again.

“Thank you.”

And again.

“Thank you.”

“Why do you keep saying thank you?” he asked me.

“I don’t know. I mean it sincerely though.”

And I did.

“Why don’t you kiss me back instead of saying thank you?”

Well, why didn’t I?

“I’ve-been-single-for-over-a-year-now-I’m-not-looking-for-anything-to-complicate-my-life-It’s-been-six-months-since-I-last-kissed-someone-and-it-completely-messed-with-my-head-I-don’t-even-know-you.”

The excuses wouldn’t stop. One after the other they came pouring out. They were all true of course but after I’d said them all, I felt like an uptight bitch.

“You’re very English you know.”

“Thank you.”

I may have been an uptight bitch, but I was a polite uptight bitch.

He took the initiative to ask me questions about myself and with every answer I gave him, he’d kiss me on the cheek.

By this point my brain was a little bit fluttery from all kisses, not to mention all the questions being fired at me.

“Now your turn,” he said.

“My turn?”

I gulped; the audible kind, which did a great job of emphasising the void which had decided to take up residence both inside and outside of my head at that exact moment.

Just think of a question, nice and simple.

“What’s your name?”

Oh how original. You can ask this man anything and you choose that as your question? If aliens ever do invade Earth, NASA better find someone else to ask the questions.

“And now you kiss me.”

Fuck, I’d completely missed his answer. What was his name? I really didn’t have the heart to ask again.

So I kissed him on the lips. Better to get it over with now than risk being made to ask more questions.

Plus, if our mouths were locked together, I couldn’t say anything stupid.

We pulled apart for a moment for some air.

“Thank you.”

He laughed.

“You’re in Spain now,” he pointed out, “relax.”

And so I did. As the great saying goes: When in Spain, do as the Spaniards do.

Drink beer, kiss random men on park benches and do so under the watchful eye of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Truth be told, I wasn’t much looking forward to this particular date (and believe me, I’d been on a fair few these past couple of weeks). For a start I was ill. My nose was blocked. My eyes leaked more than a Thames Water pipe and my voice had more rasps than a berry.

I felt about as attractive as an old bra. Oh wait no, that’s just what I had on underneath.

My expectations were obviously low.

But I didn’t want to cancel, I couldn’t. Because then they’d think I wasn’t interested. Which I wasn’t really, but then they’d know. THEY’D KNOW.

So off I went, strutting and sniffling my way to Richmond. I was late. Of course I was late. It wasn’t an intentional – I’m so bloody cool, sort of late. It was an, I can’t be arsed sort of late mixed with a complete lack of general awareness – of propriety.

I arrived just as my date was going out for a cigarette. I looked at him, he looked at me and all I could say was: You. Yeah. You. You. You. You. It’s you.

That my friend, is why I’m a writer and not a public speaker; I can delete crappy introductions on paper. It’s not so easy in real life.

Still, off we went to the bar. I chose a complete girl drink: a gin and tonic, even though the potential to burp threatened to mock me from its carbonated bubbles, it didn’t seem to bother me like it did last time with the Corona. With drinks in hand, we departed the rambunctious bar area for quieter pastures. The beer garden.

You know. That place where people smoke.

My throat was already out of sorts thanks to the myriad of maladies I pick up from work, so I could smell trouble was ahead. Or maybe that was just the smoke? We sat with an uncomfortable silence for about two seconds, before I look a slug of drink and then went for it.

I talked. And talked, and when I thought I couldn’t talk anymore, I did it again. I spoke about work, about travelling, even about bags for Christ’s sake. Not even designer bags (as if that’s any better) but the bags we sell at work for a penny. We talked about food, about friends and the joys of house sharing. Of which there are lots.

And then I talked too much. My throat hurt, and I started to choke. My eyes were watering. I kept coughing in that maniacal, hacking sort of way. And my date, bless him, look scared.

No, no, I’m fine, I kept repeating. All the while my mascara was running rivulets down my cheeks. Well, better the mascara than the date.

Because at some point between talking non-stop and coughing furiously, I realised I was having a good time. Perhaps it was the fact I wasn’t expecting to enjoy myself that did it. Perhaps it was the gin.

By the end of the evening, when my date very graciously offered to drive me home rather than allowing me to get on a bus, I accepted. Of course I did. There was no way I was walking home in this state. And by this state I mean delirious on Beechams Pro Plus, not alcohol.

There was a millisecond moment of hesitation as I said goodbye in the car and thanked him for the lift, before we sort of launched ourselves at each other with a carefree abandonment that I hadn’t know since I was twelve. And we kissed – snoggged – that typically horrible English word, right in his car.

And then like most adolescents copping off under the cover of darkness, he felt my breast, or rather my bra.

My extremely greyed, well worn, pathetic excuse of a bra.

Well, it could have been worse.

I could have burped in his mouth.