They expire in 2008! The clock is running!

February 7, 2007 · Filed under Girlfriends, Internet Dating, Relationships, Sex

One of the most interesting and addictive things about starting a blog is looking at the blog statistics page. Seeing what it is that brings people here and which articles they read. Needless to say, Friends with extras was the most read post – probably because I tagged it with the magic word “sex”. I hate to think how many people I disappointed when they realised that the actual sex content by volume was… slim, and that’s me with my generous hat on. In order, sex, love and girlfriends are the tags that have tempted people to come and visit my box of mystery (although my ‘torture’ tag on the media torture entry yesterday also gained a click-in, I wonder what that person was expecting?). This entry will clock all three, and probably a couple of other ones, so there is a vague possibility it’ll be my most visited post yet. I wonder how many people got here, realised it’s all relationship-stuff and left straight away? Now that would be an interesting statistic.

Whilst tidying up the remainder of my ex’s things all that time ago, I found we’d had a surprising number of condoms hanging around. You know the drill – a pill forgotten is a rubber attachment requirement for a while. And each time this happened, we’d forget we had the previous ones and thus the collection grew. More than a few were well past their “shag-by-date” (if you’ll forgive the phrase) but at the very least, I have a pile of the things that are workable out as far as 2008! So at least I have some time in hand, eh?

Having such a large stock reminds me how nice sex is. And I don’t mean one-night-stands, they have virtually no appeal to me and are not something I’ve done since my early 20s. I had the privilege of having a brief few-day relationship-ette when I was in Italy the other week, which was nice because we both knew it was never going to go any further than that time so at least I know that all my equipment still functions correctly (in non-manual mode ;-)).

Oh, say the men, you’re on the Internet. You’re surrounded with an encyclopedic smorgasbord of pornography – just get cracking! To me, that’s the equivalent of sleeping with 500 random women without protection and expecting not to have to visit the doctor. Maybe it’s because I’m old fashioned, maybe it’s because I work in IT, who knows — but if there are three nibbles of knowledge that an IT background has given me it is a) a stack of firewalls 50 feet high can’t save you from some of the traps out there, b) the stuff isn’t that good anyway and c) you never know what horrors you might accidentally find. So apart from the odd nice bottom picture that turns up on generally suitable-for-work sites (although none in my e-mail yet :-)), porn on the net is… well, to use a nice quaint english phrase “not my cup of tea”.

This means I’m stuck with a handful of videos from the loft. They’ve been up there for a decade, and yes, I said videos. I’ve not purchased any naughty material for some years now so I’m not quite up to the DVD level of library yet. Furthermore, I live no-where remotely near to a sex shop (and in England, you really do feel you need to be wearing a disguise to go in). So what this really means, is that stocking up is going to involve a long trip up to London and a visit to Soho. Frankly, I think I’d prefer the real thing. It seems like an awfully long way to go just to pour a chunk of hard earned money down the drain.

I nearly killed myself this morning whilst driving to work – I was clocking a very cute bottom (she was riding a bike, you ladies always look sooooo sexy riding a bike) and narrowly missed ploughing into the back of a parked car due to looking in the completely wrong direction for optimal driving performance. Which tells me I’m ready for the real thing — I didn’t blank her out, I didn’t think of my ex whilst looking at her, in fact, it was a moment of pure lust (and my word, it could so nearly have been my last…) My only concern is that how much of my perceived or actual readiness is down to confused hormones or just a general amorous feeling. I’m still anxious to avoid falling into a rebound relationship and subjecting someone to the hurt I’ve gone through, though, but at some point I’m going to spend less time worrying and more time doing. Sounds like a perfect “fuck buddy” scenario if I ever heard one.

So that brings me to dating. What are my options?

1. Nightclubs. Well, they’re a non-starter for me, the kind of person I’d meet there would a) be too young and b) like nightclubs, so we can cross that one off the list.
2. Friends of friends. When you get to your 30s, most your friends are already paired off, married and some have children. It’s all great for social lives, but not a great love-life starter.
3. Internet dating. Internet Dating… now that’s a tough one. I just don’t quite know if it is for me. I’ve blogged about it a bit before, but somehow, I never quite get around to signing up to any of the sites. I don’t know why. It was because I was too much of a coward to sign up for one of those that I started a blog – for some odd reason, bearing my soul to the entire internet seemed less alarming than signing up for a dating site. Hmmmm…

Oh, there are plenty of other opportunities, after all, the past few girlfriends I’ve had have all just appeared out of nowhere in situations that I could not possibly have planned armed with a map and an expert guide to help me, so maybe I ought to quit worrying and just let life sort itself out — and life is nothing if not surprising and unpredictable.

Anyway, all being well, I’ll get to use those condoms before they expire in 2008.