This doesn’t happen. It might happen to other people, but it never ever happens to me. Therefore it might as well be light-speed interstellar travel or a stint as Emperor of the Universe – it is an almost-impossible dream. Moreover it’s one which, frankly, I’m not sure I’d want to have anyway.

The typical night out clubbing involves meeting people in a pub or bar, getting just drunk enough that you feel at your most attractive, then heading to some odd-looking fashionable warehouse to flail madly while some preening dickhead presses play on a stereo and underpaid miserablists charge you £20 for a gin and tonic.

That does not make me feel very sexy. Let’s break it down:

Groups of friends

Few people go clubbing on their own – they go with friends. And in a group of friends it is much more difficult to make an initial approach. What if your friends see you and whisper behind their hands? What if they’re nudging you towards him/her like you’re nrvously asking for a snog at the school disco? What if all of his/her friends laugh as you approach, or loudly tell you that your chosen one is taken?

Loud music

I don’t want to sound like your moaning grandma, but I am about to do just that: why the living arsefuck (yes, in my head your gran talks just like this) do you want to go somewhere where you can’t hear what anyone’s saying? Why do the kids these days insist on placing themselves in rooms with noise so penetrating that you can’t think, let alone share a coherent and captivating sentence or two with your neighbour?

Heat

Nightclubs are hot. They are boiling, boiling hot. I would no more try to approach a stranger in a nightclub than I would insist on jogging to a first date.

Yes, my sweat is beautiful and arousing and gets your dick hard when we’re in bed together, but if the first time you meet me I’m humming like a tramps’ sauna, chances are you’ll be unlikely to want to dick me.

Dancing

No. Unless you’re stunningly good at it, nightclub dancing is a shockingly difficult way to get laid. It’s a very distant descendant of the partner dances our grandparents did together, but somehow all the beauty and sex has been stripped out of it until it’s just a repulsive husk of its former self – a rutting, gyrating dignity-killer that leaves us all looking like someone’s last choice.

Tea dancing, swing dancing, anything you do with a partner is fucking sexy. Beautiful. It’s closeness and warmth and the good, good scent of your partner and – if you’re lucky – the feeling of their growing erection pressing into your hips. It’s whispering into their ear that you want to squeeze it and making plans for later in the evening. Your grandparents did this – it’s why you are here.

What happened to that sort of dancing? What happened to chatting, and wooing, and subtle glances? Why do we now feel like we have to dance like we’re actually humping things in mid-air, or cavorting wildly with some invisible partner? I want men to sidle up to me, tap me on the shoulder, and take me by the hands. I want to get wetter and wetter as I feel their hands stray – ever so slowly – to my bottom. I don’t want to have to rub my crotch on them while they gurn over my shoulder and twist their hips around like they’ve got scorpions attacked to their bollocks.

It’s obscene.

I’m a massive fucking pervert – I love strip clubs and Beyoncé videos and all the rest of it – but even I have an issue with the idea that to pull someone you must first embarass yourself with undignified dancing until you’re dripping with a stinking sweat, eschew all forms of verbal communication then complete your advances by performing a borderline sexual assault on someone and hoping they don’t punch you in the face.

Sorry, that was a bit ranty, but it’s true. Even if you love clubbing, and live for the nights where you drop some pills and punch the sky in a delicious orgy of pleasure and music and people, I still don’t think you’d say the club is a sexy place to be.

Proof: If you pull someone at a pub, would you bother taking your fresh and eager loved one to a nightclub? No. You’d whisk them off to your house, slap on some Janis Joplin, and slow dance them until they’re utterly drenched in fuck.

Love is like being tied to a rock that you also sort of want to have sex with.

It’s like being repeatedly punched in the face, but by something quite nice, like a pillow or a bowl of trifle.

Despite all of my best efforts not to fall into this pitiful trap, I am in love with a boy.

Being in love changes people

Love seems to make my friends do odd things, like deliberately go on tedious, all-inclusive holidays. Like buying joint-owned kitchen equipment and cooking things with butternut squash in.

Likewise love makes me do weird things, like spout inexplicable platitudes about his possessions. Like cancel an evening’s drinking so I can stay in on a Saturday night with his big arms wrapped around me. Like writing a blog which – let’s be honest – you couldn’t crack one off to if you tried.

Love makes me think more about a boy than about things that matter – like my career.  

It makes me lazy. All I ever want to do is sit with him, on him, by him, until my bills go unpaid and my washing up starts to evolve new breeds of bacteria. Until the sun goes down and the world is destroyed and everything I’ve worked for crumbles to dust.

I love love

Don’t get me wrong – there are up sides. He is, as you’d expect, especially spectacular. Of all the boys who have stamped their footprints into my ice-cold heart, his are some of the very few that I want to put my own feet in and go “Ooh, look, big. GIGGLE.”

He’s beautiful when he lights cigarettes, when he’s biting my nipples or bringing me coffee. He’s funny and fun and good and gentle and filthy and kind and calm. He makes me relax and he makes me laugh and he fucks me like it’s the end of the world.

He’s the one whose friends I’ll meet. Whose house I’ll stay at. All the other boys get fucked and moved on, but he’s the only one who gets to spend the night. He’s the one who can stroke my face without making me hiss, and he gets to call me pretty without me vomiting copiously all over his living-room floor.

I hate love

But ultimately the great stuff is desperately overshadowed by the bad. Love is a fucking bastard. It makes me irrational and needy. It tempts me into shit decisions. Problems I’d previously have stamped on become reasons to run to him for a hug. Challenges stay unchallenged, because he makes them easy to forget.

I don’t want to love him – I love me – normal me. I love the me who can tell boys to fuck off when I’m busy, who has enough motivation to pull myself together when I’m miserable and do good things when I’m not. Love can make me blind to a lot of things, but I’m not yet blind to what I could achieve if I weren’t sitting so comfortably in his arms.

How do you solve a problem like a hormonal imbalance?

For a long time my solution was to break up with guys if I thought things were getting emotional. But things have gone too far this time. I cannot decide to not be in love because I am in love, and so I am irrational.

How can I not see him when I need to see him? How can I not love him when, at just the moment I think I’ve steeled myself to tell him I’m off, he says something that makes me laugh like I’ve had a lobotomy? When just the idea of his shoes lying jumbled by the kitchen door makes me grin with possessive, deranged pride?

I love his shoes.

His shoes.

I am ridiculous and I love his shoes.

If you’re expecting some sort of conclusion or words of wisdom after the above torrent of out-of-character arational loved-up bullshit then you’re probably a fucking idiot. But I’ll forgive you. If you’re powerfully idiotic then you may well be in love yourself. Unfortunately for all of us there’s no known cure, but to relieve the symptoms I can thoroughly recommend wanking and gin.

 

What do you mean you want to fuck someone you’ve only just met? What on earth would your mother say? Well, whether our mothers like it or not, sometimes we want to fuck strangers. And sometimes those strangers are people we’ve met on the internet who could turn out to be anyone – from secret millionaires to serial killers.

In my experience, people you meet on internet dates are far more likely to just be normal people with whom you have little in common, and who you’re reasonably unlikely to fuck. But if you do want to fuck them, here’s my magic list of rules for staying as safe as possible.

Note: as safe as possible, not 100% safe. There is no way that I know of to absolutely guarantee your personal safety, but then such is true of many of life’s funnest activities. Also, this is written as if it’s a girl-meets-boy thing, but I reckon you should use these rules no matter who you are or who you’re banging.

Meeting

Now, everyone knows that you should meet in public, right? OK. So that’s an easy one – pick a pub, or a coffee-shop, or a well-lit community centre, and arrange to meet at a time when people will be around.

So – central London Wetherspoons at 7 pm? Great.

Outside a small cafe in an area of town so heartbleedingly cool that it’s often empty? Not so great.

Fun GOTN dating fact: About a year ago, after a bit of chat with a fun-sounding guy on OKCupid, I asked him to meet me for a drink. His response was that it might be a bit more sexy if we meet somewhere secluded. In the dark. He suggested a particular spot in Hyde Park, at 8pm in midwinter.

I did not meet this man.

Telling people about yourself

The first date is great for getting to know someone, right? Well, yes – you need to find out about them and you need to tell them about yourself. But I’d strongly urge a teeny bit of caution. You might be proud of your job, but do they really need to know exactly where you work?

You might hang out in a particularly cool bar quite frequently, but would you like a rejected date rocking up there and haranguing you because you never called after the first shag? No.

Fun GOTN dating fact: I once went on a nice first date with a seemingly lovely guy. For reasons I won’t go into, I refused a second date.

He subsequently sent me five emails in quick succession, of increasing levels of nastiness. My particular favourite was one addressed to ‘you fucking bitch’ that thoughtfully reminded me that he knew where I worked.

Inviting someone back to yours

Dangerous – bear in mind that just as you wouldn’t post your address on the internet, neither should you really invite internet strangers to your house unless you know them well.

I have invited a couple of strange guys back to my place, and both of these times I have had stomach butterfies when it turned out they were more keen on me than I was on them. After you’ve let them down gently, it still takes a couple of weeks to get over the worry that they might turn up at your door bearing roses and erotica and asking for a second go.

However, if you want to take someone back to yours, but are worried that they might either:

a) do something you haven’t consented to or

b) nick your fucking telly

then it’s worth having backup.

There’s no ideal way of doing this, to be honest – anything you do will need to be pretty extreme, thus implying that you think they’re untrustworthy. And if you think they’re that untrustworthy then it’s best not to invite them back.

But I’ve done it a couple of times, and the only solution I could think of was to take something that they value and hide it somewhere in my flat. Obviously you have to ask them for it (ideally in a joking, coquettish way) and they have to know you’ve taken it, so they know you need to be on good terms with them to give it back afterwards. Watches, keys, wallets – anything that they wouldn’t fuck off without.

It is crucial that you remember to give it back – you don’t want to get stuck in a second-date situation just because you’ve still got their Tesco clubcard.

Fun GOTN dating fact: I once rescued a drunk guy whose friends had abandoned him outside a strip club I was in. I took him home and put him up for the night, but insisted first on getting his driver’s license. He was so aroused by my aura of cheeky dominance that he proceeded to lunge adorably at me before passing out face-down on the floor.

Going home with someone

He might not have brought his serial killer axe with him, but he could just have left it in the cupboard under the stairs, ready for when he’s lured you back to his house. So vigilance here is especially important. Here’s the drill:

• Text a friend with his address straight away, let him know that you’re doing this.
• Send your friend a link to his dating profile, his real name, and a picture of him if possible.
• Ask your friend to call you in a few hours. Give them a set time, and make sure your date knows you’ll be expecting a phone call.

Now here’s the key part, so listen very closely: you should not at any point believe that any of this stuff is excessive or overly paranoid. It is not – this is completely normal, sensible, and wise. Recommend to your date that they do the same thing.

These precautions are as necessary as using a condom for the first fuck. As important as wearing a fucking seatbelt or looking both ways when you cross the road.

If at any point your date makes you feel bad or odd about being careful, hop on the first bus to fuckoffsville and don’t ever see them again.

Fun GOTN fact: None of the guys I have ever been on dates with have questioned any of this. 

Hands up who’s been with family over Christmas? And hands up who’s had to have the obligatory conversation with relatives about why you’re still single? Well, If I weren’t typing I’d be waving my hands frantically in the air, then using them to smash things in frustration about people’s unnecessary interference in my life.

Why does anyone think it is OK to ask me when I’m going to get a boyfriend? If you confide in someone that you’re lonely and they offer you dating advice, they’re responding to a specific request. But it’s a hell of a leap to assume that you can quiz your single friends/family members on their relationship status, and then hint to them that they should be working harder to ensure that they’re soon safely ensconced in a loving couple which, by the way, should really get on and pop out some babies soon.

I’m single because I like it

I think I might get this printed on a t-shirt that I can wear to the next family gathering so that I don’t need to waste my breath saying it over and over again.

Being single is brilliant. I can see people I like, avoid people I don’t, fill my diary with dinners and dates and drinking. If I’m in the pub and having a bad time I can go home, safe in the knowledge that I haven’t “thrown a strop” and dragged a partner home with me. If I’m bored of an evening, I can flip through my black book and see who wants to come over.

I can love people, fuck people, get drunk and be sick in the gutter and moan with hungover shame in a pile on the sofa the next day – and none of this will be of significance to anyone other than me.

Don’t assume that ‘alone’ means ‘lonely’

The question ‘when are you going to get a boyfriend?’ rests on the gargantuan assumption that the life I lead is incomplete. I think some family members imagine that I sit at home every night crying into a romance novel, lamenting the gaping, boyfriend-shaped hole in my lonely, miserable heart. I say “I don’t want a boyfriend.” They hear “I can’t get a boyfriend.”

This implies that no one in the history of the world has ever or could ever make an active choice to be alone, because being alone is a Bad Thing.

But of course, those of us who are alone know that it’s not. Being alone is a joyful, wonderful thing. We get to go out when we like, stay in when we like, spend time doing crap DIY, writing blogs or committing ourselves to whimsical projects. We get to drink all the gin in the cupboard, eat whatever food we’ve scraped from the back of the fridge, and then have a victorious wank right in the middle of the lounge.

My biological clock is of no importance

At 27 years old I am now officially ‘pushing 30’, which apparently means that I should be clawing my way into the heart of any available gentleman in the desperate hope that he fertilises my rapidly-dwindling stash of eggs so I can spit out a child or two to give my parents something to coo over.

This isn’t going to happen. Perhaps, years into the future, I’ll change my mind. But for now, the thought of getting pregnant brings me out in a cold, terrified sweat and makes me want to hug close to me all the things I love – my independence, my freedom, my time alone, my beautiful flat with all the things in it that aren’t covered in sick and dribble, and – perhaps most of all – my goddamn money.

I don’t care if time’s running out. Time’s also running out for me to retrain as a barrister or shag John McCririck. I’m not going to rush to do either of these things – they are undesirable things to do, and they aren’t going to become any more desirable just because there’s a limited time in which to do them.

Love hurts

My final and perhaps most important reason for staying single: love hurts. A relationship is the all-or-nothing option. You give everything you have to someone who has the power to destroy the lot on a whim.

If you’re in a relationship, then I’m impressed. You’re willing to lay your heart out on the chopping-block of their affections and trust them not to pound it into a miserable, bloody slab of pain.

At least when I’m single I know that my misery is my own. If I’m wretched it’s because I’ve made myself so, and I’m probably in a reasonable position to fix whatever’s wrong. But in a relationship it’s possible for someone else to make a decision that brings your whole world crashing down around you.

When I wake up in the morning I feel safe knowing that the only person with the power to destroy me is me.

Even given a multiverse of infinite worlds I still struggle to comprehend a possible one in which I could give less of a shit about your kids.

Don’t get me wrong, I wish no harm upon your – or indeed anyone else’s – children. It’s just that given the choice I’d rather you didn’t tell me about them in unrelenting, tedious detail.

I know single parent dating is hard, but this rule applies most emphatically, to those guys that I fuck.

Why? Well, kids just aren’t sexy. Your ability to raise offspring, while no doubt held in great regard by some women, has no bearing whatsoever on my own affections towards you.

Talk about them if you like – I’m aware that in the cacophonous mêlée of your life you may well need to vent about certain things. Feel free to mention them, tell me how precocious and cute they are, or regale me with an amusing anecdote involving the time one of them said something so adorable it made everyone at that family wedding spew Cava through their nose in a spontaneous gesture of delighted amusement: just don’t bang on and on about them as if they’re the only interesting thing about you.

I highly doubt I’ll ever have kids, and if I do I’m sure the world will not be big enough to contain the gigantic flying fuck that I’m willing to give about them. My kids will be as special to me as yours, no doubt, are to you. But right now, please don’t expect me to care.

Further, please understand that too much child-based conversation could seriously hinder my ability to find you attractive. Yes, you are virile and strong and manly: your sperm has been biologically successful on at least one occasion. But that does not impress me. If you can shoot it over your shoulder I’ll be impressed. Hit a bullseye at 20 paces and I’ll fawn in gushing admiration. Dribble it into a woman? Not so much.

Your reminder that sex produces small, vomiting, expensive packets of noise actually has a similar effect on me to the effect that it might have on you if I were to mention castration: it kills the mood. It reminds me that there are horrible, awful, cunt-ripping things that can happen to me as a result of our sweaty, joyful union. And those are things that, believe it or not, make me dry up faster than you can say “episiotomy“.

Again, I will restate for the people who will have skimmed over my original disclaimer: I wish no harm upon your kids. I’m not anti-child. I appreciate that in order for our race to exist beyond the next generation we do need some of these creatures.

So I don’t hate kids. Parents I know assure me patronizingly that I’ll definitely want one some day, and at that moment I’ll understand the soaring joy of having them. I will one day realise that it’s all worthwhile – giving up my social life, burying myself in shit and vomit, spending all my cash on ridiculous buggies and toys that make animal noises when you drop-kick them across the kitchen, etc.

They’re right, of course, one day I may well want a small girlonthenet so I can train her to continue my glorious works. But in the meantime, as I have no kids, I have no opinions to contribute to this conversation about yours. Even if I did have opinions, you probably wouldn’t want me to contribute them.

Usually a conversation consists of one person talking about something and the other chipping in with an opinion or a story of their own. Sadly I have few appropriate child-based stories of my own and lack of experience means my opinions are worthless to you.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve offered a suggestion to a parent on how to deal with the toddler-based problem they have just told me about, only to be greeted with “you wouldn’t understand, you’re not a parent.”

Well no, demonstrably I’m not. And so you talking about your kids is a pretty one-sided conversation. A one-sided conversation that leaves me slightly bored, occasionally belittled and deeply unaroused.

Look – children can be very cute sometimes. They’re a bit like small versions of adults, but more stupid, which means they say funny things and have cute tiny hands and wear outrageous clothes and beg for ice-cream and all that jazz. They have toys that I pretend I don’t want to play with but secretly quite enjoy (train sets and Play-doh: fuck yeah) and they do tend to liven up otherwise tedious family gatherings.

So I don’t hate kids, and if you’re a boy I’m fucking I certainly don’t hate your kids – I just don’t want to be engaged in a long discussion about them. Just as you’re probably deeply disinterested in the minutiae of the strategy meeting that I had today at work, I am not interested in the minutiae of tiny lives you nurture when you’re somewhere far from me.

Your kids are fine – I don’t hate them. On the contrary I wish them health, wealth, happiness, success, and a long life followed by a noble exit. I just wish they’d do it fucking quietly.