Girl on the Net

“There is absolutely no way he’ll text me back,” I tell my friends, the day after an extremely hot date. I can’t really explain why I’m so convinced of this, but I am. In fact, so certain am I that he’ll wake up tomorrow and realise he’s made a mistake that I ask him – while we’re on the date – if I can take a picture to show people how hot the man I shagged was. In case, you know, I never see him again. This is very impolite of me, but he’s game so we take pictures. When I show one of my friends a shot of him – kissing me on the cheek, while I grin inanely to camera – my mate laughs and tell me: “you look like you’ve won a contest.”

I’m not nervous before the date: I’m excited. We’ve had a phone chat already and conversation flowed. I do phone chats before in-person dates because it’s dangerous to date as GOTN. Not to mention time-consuming to travel halfway across the city and have drinks with someone who probably isn’t compatible. I have to actually speak to someone before I feel safe showing them my face, and know if we get on well enough that the risk of getting doxxed is worth it. I hope you don’t feel bad if you’re one of the phone dates that didn’t work out – I’ve done a fair few of these chats, and only two have ever turned into in-person drinks. One was my toyboy (of No Nut November fame), and the other is this guy.

He sounds really fun on the phone. Light. Playful. Funny. Interesting and interested in me in return. Not just in ‘GOTN’ but in me. We both enjoy partying and playfulness, and we’re both good enough at carrying a conversation that there are rarely awkward pauses. I know within five minutes that I want to meet him.

So I’m excited on the way to the pub. Thrown only slightly by his most recent message. After I’d texted him a description so he’d know what I looked like when I arrived, he responded to my pen sketch with “hot.” I quickly fired back what I tell everyone who knows me first as GOTN: “Please lower your expectations.”

When I find my date in the pub he’s sitting in front of a window, framed by the beginnings of a Friday evening sunset over the Thames. Wearing a crisp white shirt, looking bright and alert, hair shiny and flowing in the manner of a Disney prince, he beams a huge smile at me and I think: “oh shit. There is no way this man will fancy me.”

“It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t text me back,” I tell my friends. “We had such an awesome time, and I’ll remember it forever. I’ve basically been to Sex Disneyland and that’s enough.”

Over the very first pint, this man who is almost certainly far too clean-cut to fuck me tells me “you’re hot” and I lose my words. Babble a bit about his hotness in return, and try to make myself believe that he fancies me too. I’ve been trying to do this a lot lately: trust men when they tell me what they want. It’s far easier when they’re saying nice things about my suck jobs rather than my face, but I’m doing my absolute best. This man who looks like one of the Cool Kids from school tells me – a girl who was frequently used by the Cool Kids as a punchline – that I’m hot. So I try to swallow my doubts and just believe him. Roll with it.

We go outside to smoke – on the balcony, by the Thames, at sunset – and he brushes something from my hair before saying “I want to kiss you.”

We make out, like this is a movie.

“I honestly won’t be mad if you don’t text me,” I tell him, after we’ve fucked. “I’ve had such a lovely time tonight, I won’t hold you to another.”

In the pub, we drink a little more and every now and then he asks if we can make out across the table. It genuinely hadn’t occurred to me that we might, because every time he makes out with me I think this kiss will probably be the last. Even as I say “we should go somewhere to fuck” I’m still expecting the other shoe to drop. For him to say “god, sorry. I think I’ve been sleepwalking? Who the fuck are you? I’m going home.”

He doesn’t go home. Instead we make out some more. I spill an entire glass of wine, repeatedly put my foot in it during conversation, and generally look like someone who’s there because… yeah… because she won a contest.

Then we get a cab back to mine.

Cannot tell you how awesome my date was last night. I don’t think I’ll see him again, because he’s way cooler than me, but I’m delighted I got a go on him anyway.

At mine, we drink and put on music, and I say sorry for the state of my flat. So convinced was I that this would just be a few pints and maybe a promise for later that I’ve not even tidied up. I left dirty dishes all over the kitchen. Knickers strewn round the bedroom. Tools and scrap wood on the floor in the lounge. I have not done any of the things I’d usually do if I thought I was bringing a guy back, like change my bedsheets or clean the bathroom. Hide all the letters that identify me by name, or wipe the embarrassingly chirpy motivational quotes from the whiteboard in my hallway.

He shags me anyway.

“Three times! I KNOW RIGHT. And it was all so good and so hot and so FUN,” I tell my mate. “We had fun in between too – we chatted loads and had a good laugh and he’s playful and we made plans to hang out again. I don’t think we will though, there’s no way this man will text me back.”

I usually expect first time sex to be a bit crap – by which I basically mean ‘exploratory’, or ‘tentative’ or some word that’s less dismissive – good first time sex is usually that which shows promise for later. But there are exceptions to this rule, and with this guy our first fuck was awesome: he tells me what likes; gives direction and encouragement; is open and giving and playfully intimate. I’m rabbit-in-headlights startled by how easy it is to let go, but it’s easy because he guides it in that direction. He asks for what he wants, then praises me when I do it: compliments me all the way through. His most-used word is ‘hot.’ As in ‘that’s hot’, ‘this is hot’ and – please, somebody pinch me – ‘you’re hot.’ I try to match his chatter, hot-for-hot, but he’s the master of this and I’m just a student, taking mental notes on the ways he makes me feel good, so I can apply those lessons in future.

As I say, I’ve been trying to do this thing lately where I trust men to accurately report their needs and desires. It’s surprisingly difficult, but I’m getting better at it. And yet I can’t fully manage it with this guy when he tells me ‘let’s hang out again.’ Maybe it’s because I’ve known him for such a short time. Or because his confidence outstrips mine so spectacularly that I feel like we’re off-balance. Perhaps it’s because – despite my protestations that there’s no such thing as ‘leagues’ – somewhere in the back of my mind there’s a voice whispering that he’s clearly well out of mine. It’s too big a leap to believe that the fun we’ve had is anything other than an ego-stroke evening for me, at the end of which he’ll disappear into that beautiful Thames-side sunset.

Whatever the reason, it’s a fact. I do not believe I will see him ever again. Because I met a brand new man after barely any groundwork, and he turned out to be fun and funny and fuckable. Because he made out with me over and over, and shagged me confidently and sexily and brilliantly. Because we made future plans and laughed together. Because we were comfortable enough after just one date that we ended the evening on the sofa with one of his hands down my top. Because he told me we were friends now, and I am so eager for this kind of friend.

For all these reasons, and many more: I’m convinced that this man will never text me. That’s why I ask, as we sit together on the sofa after one of a few lovely shags, if I can take a photo to show my friend tomorrow. We take a few nice pics that I can show my pal, plus some video that I’ll never show to anyone, and when I review them after he’s left I reflect on how accurately they’ve captured my gleeful mood in that moment. I look how I feel: like someone who’s just won a contest.

The next day one of my friends asks “are you going to text him?” as if there’s any question about my answer. I know I will text him: I have to. You don’t have this kind of date without being willing to put yourself out there for a second. Why not risk a ‘no’ to let someone cool know you liked them? But I know when I text him that he will not text back, because something in my brain refuses to believe that he had as good a time as I did.

Shortly before he leaves – this man who glows with confidence – he tells me how nervewracking our initial phone chat was. “Who talks like that on the phone? For the first time? I was SO nervous!” He’d gone to sit in the corner of a quiet beer garden so he could chat to me with a pint in hand. Messaging on the way to the pub to let me know he’d be calling a little late, then eventually settling in with headphones and (apparently) a far more assertive tone than he felt.

“I was so nervous,” he explains, so I laugh and say sorry.

“I understand why you have to do it, of course,” he adds. “But still. I was nervous. It was scary!”

You can guess the end of this story, I hope – I’ve hinted enough, after all. A couple of days after our date, I text my brand new friend.

And he texts me back.