I set out to find a date within twelve hours, using only my phone. Could I summon a man to come hang out with me on the same day I set up my profile, then get him to bang me sideways in the twin room of a Travelodge? If so, this would make for the most efficient dating experience of my entire life to date. How successful was I? Come find out!
So there’s this gig I’ve been really excited about, but the friend I’m meant to go with can no longer come. I already booked the tickets, plus a cheap room in a Travelodge which is non-refundable at such late notice. None of my other pals are available last minute either, so I basically have two options: go to the gig alone (meh) or not go at all (boo).
I’m feeling pretty shit about the whole situation, with a side-order of a long-lost emotion that doesn’t tend to hit me very often: I’m lonely. I’m post-break-up sad and missing my friend, and everyone else seems busy with their own adventures. However, as my favourite band sings in one of their best songs:
“Don’t just sit there feeling sorry for yourself. Through the walls, a city calls.”
I ponder this instruction for a while, and remember that the reason I don’t get lonely often is I’m searingly good at keeping myself entertained. So after a bit of solo drinking and restorative self-pity, I wake up one morning with the realisation that there’s actually a third option here: find a date for the gig. The problem is, my self-pity lasted too long and gig is now actually this evening. I have twelve hours to secure myself a date.
Bring me a man!
I sign up to a dating app. Luckily for me I’m a straight woman loaded with privilege, so I play dating apps on easy mode. Even more luckily, I’m professionally good at chatting to men on the internet. So I set up a profile, throw up a few pictures (including one that features my excellent arse in yoga pants – I know how to bait the hook), and open my bio with a really specific ask: are you free this evening, and do you like this band? If so, tell me your favourite song.
Within minutes I am (obviously) inundated with messages from men who haven’t read the brief.
Hey you’re hot!
How you doing?
Love your pics!
U look gr8 what you into?
I block them all, obviously (UP YOUR GAME!), cursing them for getting in my way. Thrillingly though, within an hour or two, I have a few viable candidates so I pick one who meets my (admittedly limited) criteria: he’s available tonight, loves the band, and seems like he’s reasonably normal. By which I mean he doesn’t say anything pushily sexual. He also lowers the stakes by telling me that he’s delighted to score a free ticket and has been on the lookout for gig buddies, so even if we don’t have chemistry we can still rock out, and if I find myself in the area in future, he’ll show me around some decent pubs.
YES.
Bonus: his profile specifically mentions a few things that interest me. Double bonus: he’s pretty.
Let’s go!
Efficient dating: the meet
Getting ready for the date, I am simmering with something that isn’t quite excitement but isn’t nerves either. I never get nervous for dates because (sorry) men I meet on dating apps are usually wildly disappointing. They also, 95% of the time, will fuck me if I want. I don’t say this to brag that I’m hot (I’m not), just to highlight my efficiency: any guy who’s into me based on my dating profile, which is laser targeted to filter out dudes who’ll care about my height, weight and general loud crassness, is usually pretty prepared for the loud, crass, brick shithouse who arrives at the pub.
So not nerves. Maybe excitement? I try and fail to put my finger on this feeling, as I throw on clothes and make-up then frantically tidy the hotel room I have somehow managed to turn into a trash pile within ten minutes of checking in. I head off to meet my date.
There’s definitely a part of me that suspects he won’t turn up. It’s last minute, after all, and our chat has been genuinely minimal. He messaged a couple of times to say he was listening to the band in preparation, and let me know that he’d be running late because his Mum called (aww), so I bring a book in case he’s a no-show and settle down in the corner of the pub. Within minutes, he walks in the door.
And he is… exactly like his pictures. I won’t physically describe him: picture whoever you’d be relatively pleased to see on a first date. Nice-looking; down to Earth; worth a ride if you’re both in the mood. We share an awkward hug, I grab him a pint and we swap music taste, finding hits (yay ska!) and misses (boo techno). But this man never needed to be perfect, he just needed to be free tonight and into this band. Everything else is a bonus.
Obviously I have hopes. Especially now I’ve met him. I’d love if he were up for snogging me at the back of the gig. Maybe touching my arse a bit or standing behind me during slow songs with arms round my waist. Perhaps, if we get on, he’ll come to my hotel room and help me further defile it. And maybe, if all that works out, I’ll find an excuse to be in his city again and we’ll grab a drink – he’ll become an occasional comet whose eager smile and satisfying dick brings much-needed joy in 2025. I’m getting ahead of myself but… hey! I found a man within 12 hours!… maybe my luck will continue.
It definitely continues on the way to the gig, as we walk side by side and he whispers into my ear that I look fantastic. Then as we get to the venue, where we swap stories about gigs we’ve loved and people we’ve fucked in the past. He’s keen to turn the chat to sex, which is fine because I’m up for it, although sadly like most men I’ve dated he fails to ask me much about myself. At one point in the middle of a long monologue about his kinks and experience, he asks if I know what ‘e-stim’ is. And fuck it, I’m feeling bold and high off the thrill of this hasty date, so I tell him that not only do I know it well, but I nudge him outright to please ask what I do for a living! Sometimes you have to lead the horse to water then literally push its face into the trough.
Shortly before the band take the stage, he leans in for a kiss. Two seconds after that, I decide I want to fuck him.
It’s not that it’s a fuck-making kiss per se, it’s more that the kiss cements how lucky I feel to have achieved exactly what I wanted. I ordered a man through my phone, like he was a pair of black ankle boots from Amazon, but unlike an Amazon package he arrived within 12 hours and… well, the package analogy breaks down here because I’d never fuck the boots, but I do want to fuck him. Life’s sucked lately and the universe owes me a treat.
While the band are playing, he puts his arm round my waist. Strokes my back gently through my top and touches my arse a little. At various points, I’m dancing and singing along and I suddenly remember that he’s beside me, get that thrilling realisation that I’m allowed to kiss him if I want! So I turn to him occasionally, put my own arm round him, and lean in for consistent, eager, grateful little snogs.
I vaguely remember that yesterday I felt lonely, and inside I get another kick of that emotion I can’t quite place. I don’t worry about identifying it now, though – I’ll save that for the blog draft. Right now there’s a man to kiss and dance with. A man who gets his round in and seems delighted to be here. Who thinks I look fantastic and keeps turning the chat to sex and… you know where this is going, right?
Back at the Travelodge
I stick some tunes on my phone, cursing the fact that I didn’t bring a speaker. Cursing, too, the horrible bright lighting that is doing its best to hammer our sexy mood into dust. We press on. He snogs me with fervour. Even as we’re kissing, I can’t help but think back to the night before, and how I couldn’t see the wood (potential new men) for the trees (my sadness and self-pity).
He goes harder, and I try to slow him down. I don’t want to rush this but relish it.
I enjoy the feeling of his lips on mine. Marvel at this efficient dating experience, reminding myself to never take my luck in these matters for granted.
He puts his hands all over me, grabbing and stroking and squeezing…
I know that some of you will find this aside unsexy. But I also know some will find it important, so here goes: by this point in the date I am reasonably confident this man is not a rapist, and I assure you that he won’t turn out to be one. Some readers (mostly, but not all, women) will get this far through my tale and think ‘hmm… you rustled up a date within 12 hours? Off an app? What safety checks have you performed to ensure he isn’t a danger?’. You’re right to worry, and I thank you for your care. My rapid-date guy was happy to prove that he was who he said he was. No prevaricating, no defensiveness, no ‘not all men’, as soon as I told him I was sending a safety text to my friends he offered to pose for a photo outside the hotel. Grinning, two thumbs up, adorable ‘I’m about to get laid’ energy. Feel free to enjoy the rest of this story safe in the knowledge that this man did me no harm.
Where was I? Oh yes! We’re snogging on the bed. I can tell he’s already hard. Not because I’ve touched his dick, but because there’s an urgency to his movements. He’s kissing with force and gusto and… I love gusto, it’s fun! At the core of my sexuality, there’s a deep and intense lust for eagerness.
And this guy sure is eager, wow!
He’s really going for it, within minutes of us getting down to business. He’s pulling at my clothes and sticking his hand up my top and… oh wait! My bad! This isn’t eagerness or gusto… this feels more like panic. His snogs during the gig were gentle and promising – hinting at more filth to come but relaxed about when that might happen. They’ve now turned into sucking, bitey attempts to press his face so hard against mine that the pillow envelops my ears. His touch, which earlier had given me tingles of anticipation and sparked a need for greater contact, has now become a fumbling flurry of grabs and pinches that take no note of the ways my body is responding (or not, as the case may be).
Eagerness versus urgency
There’s a state some dudes get into (in my experience, your mileage may vary) just before the very first fuck. They are so keen to seal the deal that instead of taking time to build horn, they speed things towards a conclusion. Like they’re worried that if they dally too long, this sexy train will leave the station, the bang bus will drive on past, and they’ll end up unfucked purely because they didn’t slip their dick inside me quick enough.
I find this annoying.
Cards on the table: in my 20s I’d have gone ahead and fucked this guy anyway. We’d have had some passable, frantic sex. We’d both have felt the achievement of getting laid, but probably wouldn’t have had an incredible time. I’m 40 now though, and I’ve no interest in ‘passable’ sex. I wanna fuck good, goddammit! And having good sex, to me, means taking the time to understand the person you’re fucking. Not just snog, rip off clothes, stick it in, like we’re following a script, but actually communicate and write a scene that’s built on honest desire. Not just in verbal conversations where we tell each other what we find sexy, but in physical dialogue that doesn’t have words, where we feel each other’s responses and adjust our own to match.
I tell him I want to take a break, and grab us some water. Buying time, of course, and also fulfilling my lifelong goal of getting sexy men to drink more water.
I don’t want to fuck this man badly. If we’re gonna do it, I want to do it well. So after a few sips I give him a flirty little smile and try to initiate a make-out that’s a bit more connected. Not formulaic snogging to unlock the next level of sex, but snogging at a pace that allows for this kind of physical conversation.
I straddle him and cup his face in my hands, gently brush my lips against his. I grind on him subtly, but without trying to yank his dick from his jeans and go straight to town. In response, he shoves his hands up my top and starts undoing my bra. I wriggle away. Kiss him again, and whisper ‘take your time, please – I’ve got this room all night!’ In response, he tells me he’s so horny though, and puts his hands on the fly of my jeans. I wriggle away again, and lie down beside him. I say ‘enjoy it, I’m not going anywhere’ then give a little laugh so he knows it’s all chill. In response, he rolls on top of me and shoves his hands up my top, snogging with so much intensity he doesn’t even realise that I am trying, once more, to wriggle away.
As I say, in my 20s I’d have fucked him anyway. Make of that what you will. But I’m 40 now, and life has given me confidence. I cup his jaw in one hand and physically push him away. He lets me – as I say, he’s not a rapist. I nudge his face away, gently but decisively, and look him dead in the eye. I adopt my hottest, honed-by-audio-porn voice and tell him:
“Listen to me carefully, I’m saying this with feeling cos it matters: please slow down.”
He blinks once, twice, and then swallows. I think with surprise and desire. If I’m not imagining it (and I’m not) I feel his cock pulse inside his jeans, where he’s previously been pressing it to my crotch.
And I finally put my finger on the hard-to-catch emotion I was feeling earlier on. It’s a kind of nostalgia. Like I’m remembering a person I used to know. Someone I like. A woman who is slutty and courageous – the ‘girl on the net’ I was in my mid-to-late twenties – but now with extra layers of experience. I don’t have a word for this feeling, but I bet the Germans do: it’s the sensation of remembering what it’s like to truly be me.
Staring into his dark eyes as if I want to devour him, I tell this man that I’m keen to fuck but only if he’ll slow the fuck down. And as I whisper that I remember… holy shit! I’m extremely good at this! I’m no longer some 20 year old gagging for the wham-bam of a validation fuck: I’m a woman well into adulthood who knows what sex she wants and is willing and able to ask for it.
“Slow down,” I tell this stranger. “I really want to fuck you. This opportunity won’t disappear just because you don’t pounce upon it quick enough. Let’s enjoy the journey, yeah?”
Fair play to him. He heard me.
Part 2 of my efficient dating experience coming… soon. But not too soon.