In which you look in the mirror and you scare yourself

Tales of the rejected...

 

So the last thing you remember is taking a shot of tequila and washing it down with a glass of punch handed to you by a wide-eyed shifty onlooker who has clearly spiked it with rohypnol. The sad thing is… you don’t even care.

 

In your drink-fuelled state you finally (and temporarily) regain consciousness, finding yourself willingly with your mouth locked onto another’s, scratching his back with your fingernails and biting his lip a little over-harshly (“All men are twats. I love all men. Don’t kiss me. Kiss me harder. Look at me. Don’t look at me. Fuck me, use me… love me…gently…??!?”) It is then, and only then, that you realise you have become a woman. Woman, meaning the epitome of indecisiveness. Should you or shouldn’t you? Hate them, or want them? Fuck them… or. Or…? Or fuck them!?

 

Enough with the choices! Let’s just get erratic, irrational and highly (erotic?!) Hit the ground running, plough straight in there with a naked lap of the garden before being denied a taxi home! You are way too screwed to make a good impression.

 

Did the naked lap of the garden ever really happen? And if it did, what does it even matter?!

 

If you don’t remember it… surely it never happened?!

 

“So…  are we going to fuck or are we going to talk? Because if we’re only going to talk, I’m out of here.”

 

That’s what he said…

 

And that’s when you realise (as much as you can realise in the state that you are in) that this is a ball game you really need to learn the rules of. Feeling out of your depth, you bail. And then immediately proceed to regret it.

 

Fuck! What were you thinking?! Go back in, go back in!

 

Uh-oh. It doesn’t look good. People are staring. Abandon the delirium, initiate the parachute!

 

The parachute isn’t opening. You cannot. Find. The emergency. Cord.

 

You are so fucked.

 

You are chatting shit. You are making it worse. Stop talking and walk away. Walk away. You frigid twat. It’s all too late.                  You.             Are clearly.      A pyscho.

 

And when the fuck did you become high maintenance!? You don’t even wear make-up to work! Come on guys!

 

The following day your head is imploding so much so that the drums of your ears are banging in time to your broken heart and your shattered ego. Your pride wants to hide under the covers for the rest of its life, but you are shameless and your new found independence doesn’t give a fuck. You are finding the whole thing, to your surprise, quite hilarious. A mental breakdown was long overdue. And boy, now that it has happened, doesn’t it feel good?!

 

A bit of a bipolar attack never hurt anyone - it’s like waking up the morning after you pass your driving test – giddy and weak and full of a vague shock in which you are like a plant looking for the sunshine with a smile on your face – from here on in, it can only get better. Sigh with contentment. And hug yourself. “To the future.”

 

Two seconds later you are reminded of the time you wrote your car off, crashing it into a bollard that was hidden in your blind spot. Cheeky little bastard popped up out of nowhere.

 

There are many things you shouldn’t have to explain to your mother. Crashing your car is so very similar to trying and failing to embark on a one night stand. No helpful advice can really be offered when the damage has been done. The question is – how are you going to redeem yourself!?

 

Anyway. It’s not about them. It’s about you. And your vibrator has run out of batteries. For fucks sake.

 

Your friend’s mother can’t help but hint that your biological clock is ticking. (Your friend’s mother is currently on her third glass of wine, has applied her red lipstick, and appears eager to join you out on your ‘clubbing date’. Your friend’s mother is currently experiencing a mid-life crisis.) Stay strong, avoid eye contact, don’t let her lure you in. She is only jealous because you can still wear hot pants.

 

On your third night out on the ‘dating scene’ you decide to resort to staying sober in an attempt to clean up the (numerous) mess(es?) you’ve made on previous occasions. You wear trainers with tights (yes, it really has been that long since you’ve integrated in a public place of ritualistic heavy petting.)  Despite the poor choice of footwear you still complain that you don’t get hit on.

 

“Hello?! Who wants to make out with a limping flailing mess that can’t even straighten her knees because she has stilts coming out of her heels?!” Oh. Apparently everyone.

 

You look to your feet, see the trainers, and are surprised to find that you made such a poor judgement. Then you feel relieved – at least you didn’t come out in slippers.

 

Feeling your age, you are tempted to tell these girls ‘to go and put some bloody clothes on,’ because a)it’s starting to snow outside and b) their skirts are so short you can almost see their tampon strings. That’s if they wear tampons. They don’t quite look old enough for periods yet.

Gasp shock horror you are acting older than your mother and you are only twenty two. Twenty two. Maybe your friend’s mother is right after all. Maybe your biological clock is ticking.

 

The morning after your 21^st birthday you woke up with the first hangover you’d ever had. It was as though, upon hitting twenty-one, your liver had decided that overnight it was taking leave. Shortly after that experience your wisdom teeth came through. This paragraph has absolutely no relevance to anything except – now that you are embracing yourself as a newly independent woman - you feel eighteen again. Except your liver doesn’t. Which is a massive shame.

 

So anyway, the more they reject you the more you persist and it doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that in some instances this equation equals a recipe for:

THE STALKER.

 

You know your current stance has escalated to this level when your date (aka pitiful vulnerable victim) hides in a bush and attempts to ring you a taxi home in the hope of escaping a dramatic female battering.

 

RULE ONE to stalking: SAY AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE.

 

RULE TWO: stalking is only acceptable if you know you are never going to see the person again. Otherwise a previously ‘friendly’ stalk can then turn into a harmful stalk which can then potentially snowball into an ‘even more persistent’ stalk which can result in a serious loss of street cred. And the possibility of a criminal record.

 

So you’ve been a bit crazy lately. You’re only saying.

 

Attempt three leaves you in bed with someone vaguely describable as a friend, but he isn’t into sex because he thinks he should date you first.

Hmm. Nice.

Is it a compliment? Or an insult? 

You actually feel slightly relieved. Yet also horny. Once again another conundrum ensues.

What he wasn’t expecting – and neither were you for that matter – was to wake up in the middle of the night next to a female sweating more water than the amount of alcohol she’d consumed during the whole week. Which undoubtedly was a lot.

Yes. Food poisoning. And what better place to suddenly decide to become horrendously ill than in the bed of a sort-of-familiar-face that you were hoping to eventually have sex with and now all you are thinking about is how long you can hold your vomit (and your diarrhoea) in for.

Fuck. My. Life.

I knew that chicken was a bad idea. I’ll remember that for next time.