Between the ages of 12 and 17 I was kissed precisely three times. First after my 12 birthday by my childhood crush (I screamed and kicked him in the legs) then aged 17 at a party where I got so drunk I passed out face down on the grass. The third time was by the person I would later lose my virginity to.

Most of my teenage years had been spent wondering why no-one wanted to kiss me. Ok so I was spotty and had bushy hair, but around age 15 I’d tamed my eyebrows and shrugged off the thick tortoiseshell glasses in favour of contact lenses, and yet offers were still thin on the ground. When I met my first boyfriend 3 weeks before my 18th birthday I realised he didn’t just want to kiss me while I was sloppy drunk. He wanted to hang out, talk rubbish, and watch telly with me. While we’d talked about lots of things on our 3 dates, but we’d not talked about whether I was virgin or not; it just hadn’t come up in conversation. For two whole weeks I thought about whether we would do it soon or not. If I told him that I’d never done it before I was worried he’d want to make it ‘special’ and there was nothing worse in my mind. Rose petals and candles might do it for some girls but even then I knew they’d just make me laugh. Though the majority of my friends weren’t doing it I wanted to. I knew it was going to be great: adults never stopped talking about sex. There was a big secret in the world and I wanted in on it.

Providence was on my side.

My parents inexplicably went to Brazil for two weeks just after I started dating the boy. I called all my friends and told them that I was home alone and having a party. On Saturday night teenagers turned up in droves, clutching corner shop bottles of vodka and Panda Pops, and we drank ourselves silly. Sometime around 2am half a dozen of us were left to sober up and clean the house. After a cursory tidy we decided to heat up a pizza from the freezer. Everybody, minus the boy and I, went to the kitchen to figure out how exactly this would happen. We looked at each other and got down to some hardcore making out. As he scrabbled at my top I suddenly thought to myself “Oh my god, we could do it right now. Here. In my front room. On the sofa.” I pushed the door shut with my foot. We had sex.

For the next few days I wandered round thinking even harder than before. So that was sex. It must get better. Maybe I would figure out what to do, or he would, or maybe something would change inside me and it’d be like all those late night movies: thrashing, hair gone wild, screaming, that sort of thing. I still didn’t tell the boy it was my first time, I didn’t really care if he knew or not. He was my boyfriend, he cared about me and we were still going out. I figured adult life was going to be pretty awesome. I think I was right.

(Picture from Radioactive Lingerie)

Recently I was googling how to get rid of lovebites (aka hickeys) and came across a mine of confusing, contradictory advice. Some people swore by ice-packs and tea bags. Others by  toothpaste, arnica cream, or hot compresses. Some people even recommended making them worse so you could pretend that you had a real injury (these people are obviously mad).

Scrolling through page after page of crackpot advice soon brought out the smarmy answers too: “Next time tell your sweetie not to bite so hard.”, “…don’t get one in the first place.” “Remember how unsightly they are.” and on and on. Some bloggers, writing for teenagers I imagine, advised talking to the hickey giver about it first. Not that I’m advocating forcing hickeys on teenage girls, but if someone starts to give you one and you don’t like it, whether you’re an adult or not, just tell them to stop. Sitting down, with a notepad and pen and saying to each other: “Do you like lovebites?” “Yup.” “Cool, what about blindfolds?” “Nope, sorry. How do you feel about oral sex?” etc etc would be one of the biggest passion killers I could ever imagine. However it is something I could imagine Topher and Bennett getting pretty into. That aside, what the heck is so wrong with a lovebite? Having one, getting one, or giving one, can all be fun, and it’s the douchey reactions from other people that make them less than worthwhile. Also, mate, telling them not to bite so hard? I think we’re all missing the point here…

I, for one, hope that with the sudden surge of interest in vampires (and to a lesser extent zombies) that lovebites, hickeys, blooms, strawberries, passion marks, tramp stamps, WHATEVERS will enter the mainstream and stop ignorant people making comments like this on urban dictionary:

After all if lovebites remain ‘a sign of sluttiness’ then whatever are we going to do when True Blood comes back later this year and everyone starts role-playing Eric and Sookeh at night?

Picture from a Google search on Pup’N'Taco… no I don’t know why I was doing that either.

Shameless self promotion time! I have a Tumblr and am sorely lacking people to tumbl with! Is that what you call it? Anyway, come join me! Don’t forget you can always find me on twitter and I mean always!

For the last week and a half I have been looking for a lipstick. Not any old lipstick, I found 100s of those, but the lipstick. One that will make me look like a lady, and that will not rub off all over cups, cigarettes, and boys’ faces.

Back in this post I mentioned a party so terrible that I forgot sleeping with someone at it. While I erased most of it from my mind I have never forgotten a lipstick related mishap that nearly stopped that entire sorry blog post unfolding (why didn’t it?? why??).

At the start of the evening I bumped into someone I thought was my ONE TRUE LOVE. We’ll call him Chet. My primary reason for thinking this was because I’d met Chet while blissed out on some Es. The moment I met him was amazing: I looked up from my scrabbling hands and in a split second the world slipped away. For a few hours I followed him around, hands in his pockets staring at him like there was no-one else in the room. It was probably pretty creepy. A few days later Chet invited me to this now apocryphal party and most of the sheen had worn off him I was still fairly smitten. When I arrived he’d necked half a bottle of Ritalin and was gabbling at me about everything under the sun. I was horrible disappointed but followed him into an empty room anyway to put my coat down. Inside Chet grabbed me by the arm: “Nadia just kissed me.” My heart sank as he was smiling broadly. “She kissed so badly; let me show you.” and before I could say anything he was lapping at my face like a St Bernard. I seized the opportunity as he broke away: “How would you prefer it was?” and so we kissed. We kissed for some time stood in the dingy light of Nadia’s bedroom surrounded by coats and shoes and someone sleeping under a curtain. In my head I was going “Yes! Yes! Yes!” because I am an idiot and do things like that.

Then someone stepped in to drop a bag off and we stood about awkardly talking about how this was a terrible idea and that we should just be friends. Well Chet said that and I said “Oh yes I suppose so.” Mortified that I could have misread a situation so badly I had been staring at the floor, and when I finally had the courage to look up I realised my lurid red lipstick was all over his face. He was telling me, all serious like, that this was just something that we’d done in the moment, and that it would be best if we didn’t think about it again, blah blah blah. I gave him a tissue, told him to clean himself and left the room. It wasn’t until days later that I realised I too must have looked like Robert Smith when I walked back into the party. Subtle.

And so to avoid this ever happening again I have been looking for a matte lipstick that doesn’t smell like crayons, isn’t neon red, won’t dry my lips, and yet won’t leave a trail of smears everywhere I go. Any ideas? It’s rather important you know.

Photo from Le Smoking.

Someone once told me they were glad to be called shallow because it meant they were attractive enough to have that luxury. While this was, on their behalf, an utter fallacy, it’s an interesting idea. Shallowness is one of those things that we all fall prey to, and when we do, we tell ourselves it’s a one off, an exception, and that normally we wouldn’t behave like this, whereas to beautiful people who are used to getting by on the virtue of their looks alone it is every day sort of thing.

That’s not to say that beautiful people are also shallow, more that they benefit from it frequently, and rarely make a fuss. After all if you weren’t terribly bright, but had wonderful opportunities falling in your lap all the time, you’d take advantage of them too! It seems so unfair to those of us who are neither stunning nor infectiously charismatic, watching those who are less intelligent or driven than us suceed, but I like to think, like Earl, that karma has a funny way of sorting things out.

Let’s take for example, the time I attempted to put my brain on hold and date someone who wasn’t very bright. I’m not saying he was as stupid as my old flatmate who had anal sex ‘by accident’, or the intern who I watched stand outside our building for half an hour staring at the bell without pressing it, or even the girl who I convinced that ‘Smoksumgras’ was a nearby shopping centre, but just plain old not that sharp. My motivations weren’t entirely wholesome though, obviously. He was pretty, and sort of funny, and we’d had a drunken fumble and it had been quite enjoyable, so I thought that in the absence of a better candidate I would just hang out with him for a bit. Men, intelligent, funny, successful men, did this all the time I told myself. In retrospect this sounds really cruel, but he wasn’t picking out the flower arrangements yet either so it all seemed fine.

We went for exactly one date. One. In fact if we’re specific about this we went for half a date. In which time he had checked his hair behind my head so often that I had shouted at him, he had refused to eat any chips and marvelled at my capacity to pack them away, and told me I was being all fancy with my reference to Chairman Mao. The minute I finished my first drink I looked at my watch and asked if he wanted to hop it back to mine and watch a DVD. Although I thought we were both under no pretensions we did end up having to actually watch the DVD before making out, which seeing as I’d seen Vixen at least fifty times was slightly tiresome.

After he left I told myself it could be ok, we’d just talk about Hollyoaks (yay!) and people we knew. We’d eat separately and I’d just tell him to be quiet and look pretty if he started asking questions. Or start making out. Either way it was all going to be grand. After a while we’d almost definately have enough of a shared history for it not to matter anymore. Or we’d have moved on.

The latter occurred soon than I thought it would when, the next morning, I logged on to send him a message on Facebook to find him in a relationship with someone 7 years my junior. And that’s when I realised that he was way smarter than me any day.

Photo of Rock Hudson by unknown. (Please note I do not think Rock Hudson was stupid, in fact I am sure he was really really smart, as well as being smoking hot. Sigh.)

Reading Platform’s piece on one guy’s distinctly unsavoury experiences with threesomes got me thinking about how shitty threesomes are. Logistically they’re a total nightmare: who has the time and resources to arrange one with three sane flexible people? And once you’re in the swing of it who’s going to be the facilitator making sure everyone’s having fun? Despite my total disinterest in these sordid situations being someone who is fairly obvious about wanting to have sex, and lots of it, I’ve come close way too often. I won’t go through them all because most attempts were just pathetic and boring, (touching my knee, then my boyfriend’s knee and then grinning like a maniac and saying you’re too drunk to take yourself home is NOT sexy thanks) but here are my worst moments:

• Candy and I had spent most of the night getting totally trashed at The Dolphin when an incredibly good looking bloke came over, flirted ineptly for a bit, then he invited her back to his. For some reason she invited me and soon we were watching the sun rise from his amazing flat. Smoking weed, drinking ice-cold pear schnapps: everything was brilliant. Then he started massaging my foot. Being a fucking idiot I thought I’d let it go as I was so mashed it felt pretty good. He lent over my lap and started talking to Candy then suddenly they were snogging. I watched them while his hand travelled slowly up my leg, totally paralysed with awkwardness. I blinked and saw him looming towards me lips puckered. The next few minutes are hazy,  I remember shrieking “No!” in his face, and Candy shouting at him before running off to vomit. She was adamant that she didn’t want to go back to “the Marquis De fucking Sade’s brothel” and so we snuck out while he looked for my jacket. Annoyingly we ended up trapped in his apartment complex for so long that we resorted to lying on the tarmac in the car park crying until someone came and unlocked the gates an hour later.

• It was my first year at uni and my roommate Brigid had a totally hot boyfriend Gerard. Brigid and I got drunk, made out a bit, and she asked me if I fancied Gerard, which I did. So we walked over to his and tried to get something going. I learned a few things that night: the threeway kiss from Laurel Canyon is totally rubbish, no matter what they say it is never ok to crush on a friend’s boyfriend, and that when your friend walks out saying “I’m not cool with this.” that’s your queue to follow. Thankfully/sadly it all finished rather early on while we were all mostly clothed, I mean I definitely still had my tights on. In fact I think this is my least sexy moment ever: sitting in my undies, ringing Brigid’s phone, and smoking a roll-up as she’d taken all my clothes, my coat, and my bag with her when she stormed out, while Gerard made a cup of tea.

It’s funny isn’t it how in your head the whole thing seems to move so seamlessly from ‘oh look me and my friends are by the pool and it’s far too warm’ to ‘hello!’ whereas in real life things seem, well, so horribly real and much less pretty. Everyone’s hairier and pastier, and boobs didn’t feel like I thought they would. Having said that to counter these two rubbish moments is that time when Sigrid crawled into bed with Evan and I that morning and… ahem. Yeah, maybe I’m not that disinterested in them after all.

Photo of the amazing Lara Stone from French Vogue.

During London Fashion Week there are only two things to do: work like a donkey and drink to celebrate no longer working like a donkey. Though my involvement in LFW has, until recently, been fairly minimal I can’t refuse a party with free booze and so it was at one of these strange sleep deprived designer and half starved model filled do’s that I saw him: Brody. Until that night he had been someone I had googled, who’s picture had lurked in a folder to peek secretly at when I was bored, and who I had stared at blissfully across party after party. It was time to make this real. High on sugar and rum I shambled over to say hello and told him I was a friend of his friend Audrina’s. We chatted until everyone sane had left then stumbled upstairs to his car. Foolishly we drove around all night until 5.30am when we found ourselves alone in Hampstead: too far for me to go home and too close to his house not to pop by…

When I woke up from my couple of hour’s sleep, and some sloppy drunken making out, I was dizzy with excitement. This guy, the same one who I’d been dreaming about for months, was here with me and mostly naked! I leapt on top of him and kissed him, grinning from ear to ear like a maniac. He just lay there. Last night’s sugary drinks had made me insane and I bounced up and down gleefully as if two hours sleep was no thing. In my head fireworks were exploding by the dozen: me! him! here! together! Everything was going to be amazing!! As I darted around gleefully putting my clothes back on Brody stared silently. Just as I was about to leave I asked for his phone number. He looked confused but gave it anyway. I chalked it up to tiredness and walked to the tube station high on alcohol and seratonin.

A week later I was sitting at lunch with Audrina discussing what would happen next with Brody. He had been in touch yet only seemed faintly interested in meeting again. Audrina shrugged, “I don’t know what his problem was. He really liked you when I showed him your picture.” My fork stopped in mid-air. “What? You know I did this! You told me to!” The fork was stuck there. “You said you liked him, so when I ended up back at his house I told him, do you remember when I called you all drunk?” I remembered. “And you told me to tell him you liked him.” Did not. “So he asked what you looked like, and I showed him a picture …” Oh god. “… and just to be sure he wouldn’t forget you I gave him your number.” It’s all a dream, a horrible dream. “You asked me to help set you up! I was helping!”

I sat there thinking while Audrina fiddled with her phone. A man, a quiet, shy man, is accosted by Audrina who is a ditzy, babbling, girl. She tells him her friend fancies him and shows him a grainy picture, then proceeds to save the random girl’s number onto his phone. Later, while standing soberly at a party, said girl comes up, blithely introduces herself, then goes home with him, and proceeds to deny him sex but be happy to roll around in her underwear. The next morning she leaps around like the Tigger of romance and giggles like a giddy teen. It’s mind boggling just to think about never mind live through.

Audrina shrugged off the silence easily and we wandered to the video shop when she darted down an alley saying she’d meet me in a minute. Two doors later I ran smack into Brody and his best friend. We exchanged awkward hugs and I asked what he was doing so far from home. “You should know,” he replied curtly, “Audrina asked me where I was having lunch then said you might both pop by.” Brody looked over my shoulder. “I think she was hoping we could all bump into each other by ‘accident’.” He looked back over his. “That would have been brilliant.” His voice was becoming steadily more monotone. “I’d have really enjoyed something as unexpected as that.” After scanning the street comprehensively he looked back at me. No matter what I said he would never believe I hadn’t followed him here, or asked Audrina to paint me as a desperate harpy, it was pointless. While I gawped, trying to find the right phrase, he squeezed my arm and said goodbye. Then he, and the friend, ran until they were out of sight, never looking back.

Photos by Terry Richardson, and Alex Prager.

Recently I gave up drinking. At first I stopped drinking at all, just to see if I could. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, so since then I have been allowing myself a maximum of one slightly drunk night a month, no more than 3 drinks at other times, and both of these things only on weekends. If this system sounds complicated you have to remember that a) I am obsessed with patterns and structures. I don’t believe in chance or random luck: everything follows a course and consequently I think rules are great. Oh and b) I’m English. This is practically a 12 step programme over here.

Two days into my new found sobriety I came down with H1N1 aka swine flu. However with a house guest from Amerikey over, and feeling totally fine, I broke my NHS imposed curfew after 5 solid days of sitting in my room alone eating Ritz crackers. That evening, after foolishly standing all afternoon in a rainy park watching hipster bands play 10 minute long sets, my friend (Joanna) and I went to the pub, met up with some friends, and hunkered down in a corner giddy on fresh air and diet cola. Next to me was a boy who was quite obviously a lot younger than me, but insanely beautiful. Like a deer with cheekbones that could cut butter. God that sounds horrible. Whatever, he was BEAUTIFUL. Beautiful I tell you! Ahem. Half way through the evening most of our friends had trickled away leaving myself, Joanna, and this boy, who we’ll call Justin Bobby, his friend, and a group of insanely loud Italians clad entirely in metallic spandex. Justin Bobby and friend were drunk, the Italians were drunk, Joanna and I were not.

The evening wore on and towards closing time Joanna and I decided it was time to walk home. As we got up to leave Justin Bobby mentioned he had missed the last train and wasn’t sure where he was staying. Being a shmuck I said he could sleep on my sofa if he wanted. Justin Bobby looked unsure, he said he needed five minutes to think about it. Joanna and I sat down with the crazy Italians. FYI I’m not being xenophobic they were mental. One, the most shiny spandex covered of them, kept doing yoga moves like putting her leg behind her head while sitting on a rickety chair and making gooey eyes. Justin Bobby’s friend was entranced. Ten minutes slid by and Justin Bobby was cracking onto another of the Italians. Joanna and I reasoned that we were no longer needed. We took him aside and said that though we were leaving the offer of a sofa still stood.

Justin Bobby thought long and hard. He ushered me outside to have a cigarette and thought about it. He then dragged me back inside, still thinking. “It’s really nice of you to say I can stay on your sofa.” He said eventually. “But the thing is, if I came to your house I don’t think I would be able to sleep on the sofa.” I reassured him it was really comfy. “No, that’s not the thing. If I came to your house I might not,” He paused and took my hands in his. “I might not want to sleep on the sofa.” In case the point was totally lost he looked into my eyes. “Do you understand?”

My face turned scarlet: I understood. He squeezed my hands and his eyes turned wide as saucers. It was like being seduced by a puppy. A really hot puppy. I took a deep breath and told him that he might not have to sleep on the sofa, but I couldn’t guarantee it, and that he was very nice and I did like him rather a lot. His unflinching honesty was making me flustered and I had no idea how I would normally answer this sort of thing.

I kept thinking that if he came back he would probably not end up on the sofa either way as it was where Joanna was sleeping. Then I thought about how drunk he was and felt horribly guilty. Then I thought about how pretty he was. Then about H1N1. And finally how if I was drunk I would probably not even be here thinking about this at all. Thankfully Justin Bobby was also thinking hard. “No, I don’t think I will come with you after all.” He walked us outside and lit my cigarette. Suddenly he seemed sad and I hugged him. “It’s not cos you’re not pretty, because you are, and you’re really cool.” He bleated into my hair. All I could say was “You’re really really pretty too!” in a high and tight voice.

When I woke up the next morning I looked at the ceiling, “I love not drinking. I love not drinking. I love not drinking.” I told myself. At one point I almost started to believe it.

Photos by Annabel Mehran and Erin Jane Nelson.

It was a party in Peckham, I think I was wearing a ruff, and I know was drunk. On the other side of the dance floor was an attractive young man. He smiled at me, and I ambled over. We chatted about whatever it is two people witter about at 5am in a freezing cold warehouse. He said his name was Patrick and touched my arm for emphasis every other word. As we said goodbye at the bus stop I was on cloud 9. His pretty, funny face filled my head for days.

Maybe a month later I bumped into him. This time he was with a friend, also called Patrick. We chatted again for ages, hidden in the corner of a noisy bar, whispering in each other’s ears, and I fell head over heels in like with him. When I got home I told my Best Friend Forever about this guy who I’d met who was super cute and had a friend with the same name as him. The BFF stared at me. “Are you joking? Do you really not remember that you slept with some called Patrick, who has a friend called Patrick, a couple of years ago? At that house party in Notting Hill?” In an instant the memory rushed back to me. Me and Patrick sitting under a blanket snogging, then, well I’m sure you can guess. I couldn’t believe what a moron I’d been. Surely he was laughing about this right now. He and all his friends probably thought I was mental. I wanted to cry.

For a blissful while Patrick dropped off my radar and I brushed aside those horrible blush inducing thoughts. It wasn’t until Christmas when I saw him again. This time, worse than a ruff, I was wearing what will go down in history as the worst outfit ever: black boots, black tights, a grey leotard, and an acrylic jumper with stars and moons knitted into it. What possessed me I will never know. Anyway I was wearing this horrific outfit and walked into Patrick.

“Oh hiiiiii!” I squawked, shame filling up every pore.
“Hey,” He smiled blithely. “How are you?”
“Um. Fine, yeah whatever. Look, I need to ask you something.”
“Sure, what?”
My best friend was stood behind Patrick shaking his head.
“Well, this is going to sound really odd, but um, I think we’ve met before.” I may have winked.
“Yes, I know, we’ve met lots of times before.”
“No, no, you’re not listening. We’ve met, like before then.” I definitely winked this time.
“What are you talking about?”
My BFF leapt up and down. ‘No! No!’ he mouthed.
“Well. There was this party… and I met you. It was like 2 years ago. And we sat under a blanket…”
His face turned ashen.
“And then, you, and I,” My hands started making strange gestures that could only mean one thing.
The BFF slumped into a chair.
Patrick grabbed the arm of a girl who had been standing by him. “This is my girlfriend.”
“Oh. That’s nice.” I turned around and walked away into the crowd hoping they would engulf me like grey goo. They didn’t.

Soon after I started working in a bar. Patrick would drop in occasionally only to avoid me at all costs. On a rare night off I decided to take advantage of my co-workers’ generosity and get some free drinks. Patrick was there. He came over, was extremely affable, and told me that he had split up with his girlfriend. Later that night, after watching Mondo Topless at my flat, we ended up sleeping together again. It was fun, but when he didn’t call I decided to let it go. Things quickly went back to being awkward. That was fine by me.

But no, it didn’t end there. While working in the bar on a quiet Sunday afternoon other Patrick and a girl came in and sat at the counter. They were whispering and nudging each other while I made a cocktail with a co-worker. We shuffled down the bar to listen in better.

Patrick was using a stage whisper so was pretty easy to hear. “… so he and she slept together, and then they both forgot about it. And then they slept together again.”
The girl giggled.
“I know, but that’s not the best bit! The other day,” Patrick paused for effect. “He told me he still wanks about her.”

My co-worker dropped a glass and it smashed. All four of us stood frozen in the moment. I heard Patrick and the girl leave. And then I laughed till I cried.

Photos by Holgabot, and Ryan McGinley. P.S All names have been changed, obviously!

A few years ago I was living at my parent’s house in Massachusetts and feeling a tad lonely.  So, like the productive, go-getting gal I am I joined OkCupid (for the first time). Within minutes of finishing my profile I was shopping for boys with gay abandon, and found a pretty hipster who liked all the same sad things as me.  He had a handful of arty black and white pictures, a beard, and a really cute puppy. I was in internet love in seconds.

I pinged him a message, he replied, and soon we were messaging each other twee missives like there was no tomorrow, and arranged to meet up that weekend. Having never gone on an internet (dun dun dunnnn!) date before I told my parents that I was going, and a couple of friends, and crossed my heart that he wasn’t going to kill and eat me. If only he had, as I really think it would have topped off an evening of complete and utter doom.

We met on Boston Common and bought ice-creams to eat under the shade of a tree. The romance was killing me and I began to sweat. The boy pretended not to notice and asked me some innocuous question.  I was so nervous that I started babbling and could not stop. For an hour I talked complete and utter nonsense about trees, and kittens, glitter getting stuck in your hair, and cotton wool tasting bad, while he ate his Klondike and stared at me. Suddenly it was dark so he suggested we go to another part of town and get a drink. I shut up for a second to nod and we dashed off.

On the T we had sat awkwardly in the neon light and I had tried really discretely to tell if I was smelly due to my nervous sweating. It was hard to know. As we exited at street level, and walked over a busy flyover I noticed a 4 car pile up on the road below. Being giddy on adrenaline, and also a total blood junkie, I bellowed “Oh my GOD! We have to look!” and battled my way through the crowd to get a good peering spot. The boy listlessly followed me and frowned, “It’s really gross, and callous, to look.” He turned away and lit a cigarette. I realised we would never bond over a Jack The Ripper book, and turned away from the carnage. My dreams of twee kissing to a backdrop of blood and flames melted. I realised I was totally screwed in the head and he probably thought I was a psychopath. I wondered if I was a psychopath. We walked to the bar in silence.

As we arrived he held out an arm, “Wait, you do have your ID, right?”. Of course I didn’t, as in England once you look over 12 you’re fair game. With a sigh the boy told me to wait outside on a nearby smoker’s bench and he’d sort it out. I gave him $20 to make it a bit better. After he snuck the second drink out in his jacket pocket the bartender came over to tell us that we were not allowed back in. Ever. I suggested the boy escort me back to my train station and he agreed.

However once we got to North Station I realised that I’d missed the last train home and there was no way my parents would drive 2 hours to pick me up. I called them and said I would stay with a friend, and then looked at the boy. He sighed so long and so hard that I swear my hair ruffled. Then he looked at the floor, I looked at it too and wondered what it would be like to sleep on for the next nine hours. “I guess you can stay at mine.” He mumbled and we got back on the T wordlessly.

That night, while I attempted to sleep in all my stinky, sweaty clothes, I wondered if maybe his puppy would pee on me, or whether his fan would explode and cut my head open. I mean it had to get worse somehow, right? As I drifted off and rolled onto my side I felt something solid but soft next to my face. I opened my eyes slowly and saw that he had been noiselessly creating a wall of duvets and comforters for the last hour or so. It was higher than my head and stretched the full length of the bed. I looked at it hard in the dark and promised myself I would never ever EVER date anyone with only arty pictures on their dating profile again. Ever.

Photo by Laura Appleyard