The problem with suddenly becoming single is that it throws up a bunch of dating problems that I very much hoped I would never have to deal with. I appreciate that absolutely none of these are serious – they are all things I’ll happily overcome, about which my whining is intended to be no more than a brief and amusing distraction as you trip down whichever path your Wednesday happens to be taking. My current mantra, as life gets harder, is ‘I like doing difficult things.’ Doing difficult things is incredibly empowering, and having the freedom to do those things excites me. Nevertheless, as I start to explore the ways I will throw myself into the exciting hard stuff, I can’t help but bump up against dating problems that I genuinely do not want to tackle. Here is a brief (and likely non-exhaustive list) of things I can’t be arsed with.

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This one’s fiction, which will hopefully become obvious when we start talking about wormholes. I’ve had it in drafts for absolutely ages, and I am still not entirely sure it’s right, but I’m running a bit short on stuff at the moment, so please enjoy this dimension-jumping, universe-splitting love(?) story. 

She’s been staring at him for weeks over sticky pub tables and board games and jokes. Each time she catches his eye there’s this absurd teenage chest-blush feeling – the warmth of nurturing a crush and holding it close to your heart. The debate – if you can even call it a ‘debate’ – that she’s having with herself  about asking him out, is all part and parcel of the fun of it. Will they? Won’t they?

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I’m having a lot of nightmares at the moment. Don’t feel sorry for me, if I were to write posts purely to gain sympathy I’d find far more interesting things to pin them on. I think the nightmares – like clockwork, at 4am, unless I take a sleeping tablet – are a way of processing a lot of break-up sadness so that during the day I can get on with being my proactive, practical self. They are horrible, but they’re also good in a way because when I wake up I realise that the world holds far more promise and possibility than my dreaming brain would have me believe. I also reckon I’m not the only one who has struggled with some of this after a break up so I thought I’d get some decent content out of ranking them from best to worst. Here are my top 4 break-up nightmares.

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What I’m looking for in a vibrator depends very much on my current state of mind. Sometimes I’m after a vigorously efficient orgasm that rockets into my life and makes me feel like I’ve been run over by a sexy freight train – during those times I’d reach for my Doxy. If what I’m looking for instead is a precision wank, where all the pleasure is directed to exactly the right spot on my clit, concentrated and magnified like a shaft of sunlight that eventually bursts into flame: Zumio. If I need something guaranteed to make me come nice and hard around a dick I’m fucking, the vibe I’ll slip into my lover’s hand then press tightly against my clit is the Hot Octopuss Amo. Unfortunately for the great people at We-Vibe, when they sent me the brand new Nova 2, what I was looking for in a vibrator was something that could help me forget that I just broke up with the man I love, in the middle of a pandemic, financially fucking myself over and effectively ripping out my own heart. It had – to put it mildly – one hell of a job to do.

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In the last few weeks before I broke up with the love of my life, he expressed a vague desire to make a trifle. And oh God I was so excited. He told me that he wanted to make a trifle.

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