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Without the butterflies

2008-01-18 - 2.54 a.m.

Well I'm hoping that 2008 is going to be an 'on the up' year. I've booked myself 3 weeks in Australia to visit my sister at the end of March. This has been helped and hindered by the fact that I don't have a contract come April. I've decided to take advantage of not being tied down to the job and being able to just go for that length of time- i figure if I'm going to be in transit for over 24 hours then i want to spend a decent amount of time at the destination. The hindrance is the fact that I'll still be paying my mortgage and bills/council tax while I'm away- and my bank account won't be getting funding from any wages that month. Oh well- I'm hoping that will get itself on the up too and that a contract extension will spring up from somewhere so that I'll at least be getting paid for a few days of leave!

A girl that I briefly saw for a few weeks in the summer of last year has recently been in touch asking if I want to go for a drink. I met her in a week of change, when i was off work and just about to sart my new job. I was standing behind her in the queue at a bar and she turned round and said my name. I recognised her and thought I knew her name too- turned out we'd met years before, friend of a friend and all that. I could only really remember the last time I saw her, a couple of years ago and while I was still with Felix. I remember thinking how cute she was and it turned out that she'd thought the same about me for 4 years. Definite ego boost. My friends hadn't seen me talking to her at the bar and didn't know that I already half knew her. They hadn't seen us making eye contact across the dance floor for a half hour or so. For a girl they know as someone who has only ever been in long term relationships and never picks people up I think I shocked them when I walked across the dancefloor to talk to her. All they saw was me walking over, very few words being exchanged and then a whole lot of kissing. They actually thought that I'd managed to pull someone just by saying Hi- ego boost again. It did feel kind of cool, I have never just kissed someone in a club like that, oh and it also made me look like i had a failsafe pickup technique. Ha.

I shocked them again by going home with her. Again something I never do. I wasn't even that drunk but somehow we ended up kissing on the grass somewhere on the way back to hers. Not the safest thing to do, but again kinda cool.

It was one of those fun- not really going to go anywhere- things. Our 'dates' consisted of drinking far too much, me teaching her that people wouldn't lynch us for holding hands in public (she was far from innocent but from a small town), her teaching me how to smoke a little, drinking far too much, spending too much money and always ending up in bed. We had a fantastic night out where we ended up at the Casino until 6 in the morning. I didn't bet, just watched as she won a whole lot. It was a great night. The last time I saw her she came over and said that she'd still been sleeping with her ex. That wasn't entirely unexpected. She'd split up with her 1st love about 5 months previously and they were still in that akward ' I don't love you but I need you' stage. I knew it was going on before she told me and suprised myself by not caring. She was going on about not wanting to hurt me and alhtough i didn't kiss her again that night it felt good to be able to say 'it's ok - I don't care'.We ended up in bed together but just slept beside each other. In the morning we got up, got dressed, brushed our teeth, walked to the underground, kissed each other goodbye in a 'see you at home tonight' kind of way and got on our trains in opposite directions. And that was that. There were a couple of texts back and forth when the new series of the L word started, both of us just needed someone to complain to about it having gone downhill. She texted out of the blue around October to see if i wanted to meet up. I told her I was really busy at work and the flat, which I was: Shopping for flat things and doing DIY in the mornings, working on American time in the afternoons and late into the night. She didn't believe me and thought I was brushing her off. In a way I was. I liked the unfinished finality of it. The fact that I could have a great few weeks with someone and then walk away- no emotional ties, no heartache, no wondering what if. No butterflies either mind you, but then heartache follows butterflies so it's probably just as well.

And that's just the thing. When we kissed for that first time there were no butterflies, just kissing. And yes kissing is nice but I think what I really miss is the buildup, you know the 'will we won't we' stage. There was eye contact and flirting but still, it all seemed a bit...flat. Yes the whole thing was great fun and the sex..well the first time it was a bit odd actually, but after that it was really pretty great. But within a few weeks I found myself a bit bored to be honest,even of the good sex.

I know this appears to take me in a different direction entirel but stick with it. Last night I watched Torchwood. Never really watched it before and not a massive John Barrowman fan but I had to watch last night. Spike from Buffy was in it as Captain Jack's ex and I'd seen the kiss online already. It was great, really I'm totally converted to being a fan of the show. I went online and watched another episode and then endeup watching loads of clips of the big gay storyline in Hollyoaks this year.By the end of it all I felt on a total romantic high- I don't know why- it's not as if it was real or at all anything to do with me. I went to bed and thought about the first kiss butterflies, all the excitment of a new relationship, that feeling of being in love- even that miserable but ecstatic tortured kind of love and for a few minutes I remembered it. It has been years since i felt like that and maybe you never really feel it again..but i realised that that's probably what I'm really looking for and that's where the butterflies come from. Yes it's nice to feel wanted and desired and it's a temporary ego boost to hook up with someone hot, and who thinks you're hot but it's just not really the same. I swing between wanting to be a bit of a Shane and go out and just kiss people to thinking, hang on- that just isn't me. Don't get me wrong, I'm in no hurry for a relationship and am completley enjoying being single and self-sufficient and getting to know myself. And i don't really want to have a relationship for a while after I move into the flat, so that i can continue, well..being alone in a good way i guess. But when I lay in bed last night feeling happy and a bit lonely it wasn't from missing sex or even kissing- just someone gently running their fingers through my hair.

So do I go for a drink with her- just as a friend? Or is it all really just about the sex? Because I don't like putting myself in that position, it's almost as if I don't want to upset the other person. Or maybe this would be a good excercise in my new year's resolution of only doing things that I really want to do? Then again, she did run her hands through my hair...now see if i could just stop it at that...

The whole discussion in my head is crazy anyway because I feel like we stopped seeing each other at the right time, that we don't have that much in common and that she's actually a bit crazy and has an addictive personality. Maybe i think I should see her since I haven't seen anyone else in the last 6 months. Maybe i think i should see her to- don't laugh- gay myself up a bit. I've been veering towards the asexual, verging on 'other side', leanings of late- but that's another discussion in my head completely and one which takes up far too many thinking hours !

I did mention in the last entry that everything was more fluid but stable and that I wasn't going to overanalyse, but I also mentioned that I was still getting there,right?

Oh well, it's 10 to 3 in the morning and I'm still here- just like back in the good old days. Better get going- got a course at work tomorrow so i'll need to be awake pretty soon.

For some reason I'm still thinking I'll end up going for the drink- even without the butterflies.

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