The Real Thing?

I’ve heard before that the second you finally stop thinking about someone, they’ll pop back into your life, but when John appeared next to me in the pub the other week, I literally couldn’t have been expecting it less.

“Hey, what you doing here?’ I sing-songed - trying (and failing) to sound nonchalant.

“Well I live practically next door so you know…” Bollocks. There I was being all ‘what you doing on my turf?’ and actually I was on his.

“Oh of course! Well how are you? You good?”

“Yeah, pretty good. You?”

“Yeah, great. Well apart from my dramatic morning,” I began, launching into a nervously babbled version of the porch swing tragedy.

“Wow, heavy, well it’s nice to see you, I just have to go upstairs and catch my friend up but we’ll talk, yeah?”

“Yeah, cool. Okay.”

And that was that.

“Well that was awkward,” Liv quipped. “You okay?”

“Um, yeah, that was weird.”

“You upset?”

“No not at all,” I answered – and shockingly I meant it. Given that I’d not laid eyes on John since he kissed me goodbye on his doorstep after a particularly frantic quickie, you might think I’d be overcome with passion on coming face to face with him but as it happened, I felt absolutely nothing.

“Talk about an anti-climax,” I laughed, shrugging my shoulders, and following Liv outside to where the rest of our friends were waiting. “Time to find a new man to obsess over!”

Still, something was bothering me. I just couldn’t fathom how for the past few months, I’d somehow convinced myself that John was this massive missed opportunity. There was no spark there, no chemistry, barely even any conversation. And looking back, if I’m honest, I’d known from the beginning he wasn’t right for me – I’d just chosen to ignore the facts and go for the fairytale. The whole relationship had been dreamt up by my over-romantic imagination.

Realising this was liberating but also a little disturbing – mainly because I suddenly saw that this wasn’t the first time I’d done it. Truth be told, there had been many men I’d convinced myself I loved when in actual fact, there was nothing real between us at all.

First there had been Harry. I was 13, he was 17 and I thought he was magnificent. When he dumped me, I cried myself to sleep for months and, true to form, just as I finally started to feel normal again, he knocked on my door and begged me to take him back. It was the moment I’d been dreaming of but suddenly, I realised he wasn’t what I wanted at all. While I’d originally told everyone he was sensitive, deep, and intellectual – in reality, he was just dull. The real reason I’d gone out with him? To impress - a girl in 2nd year bagging a 5th year prefect was unheard of and, against all odds, I’d managed it. But did I actually want to be in a relationship with him? God, no!

After that, there was with Michael– for 2 years, I spent every moment I could with him, tortured my parents for forbidding me to see him during my exams, and shed many a tear at the thought of leaving him behind for university. In the end, I met someone else before I’d even started my degree and unceremoniously dumped him. Truth is Michael and I had nothing in common, spent most of the time we were together watching TV, and barely even fooled around but if I scrunched my eyes up, he looked a little like Noel Gallagher – and back then, that was reason enough for me.

After Michael, I had what I now recognise to be my only two real relationships. Both pretty serious, both long term, and both ending in broken hearts (in one case, his. In one, mine). You might think that after that, I’d have learned the difference between actual love and my imagination – but you’d be wrong.

Next, I spent two years imagining myself to be in a relationship with a boy who had a girlfriend that whole time. We’d sit up till 5am talking, drinking red wine and smoking before tumbling into bed together - then I wouldn’t hear from him for a week. I was convinced he’d wake up one day and realise I was his soulmate. In actual fact, I woke up one day and realised he was a narcissistic twat.

I moved on to Alex – possibly the most obvious mismatch of them all. An uber-trendy tattooed punk who rode a BMX, drank whisky, and played guitar in a metal band. We literally had nothing in common but the moment I slept with him, I decided I loved him. After a few more sleepovers, he disappeared into the ether – probably after noticing that my CD collection wasn’t quite as similar to his as I’d made out.

So what was it that had done it with John? He wasn’t older than me, he looked nothing like Noel Gallagher, and he definitely didn’t have the dark tortured artist thing going on. No, he was just nice to me. And it had been so long since someone had been that I’d decided that was enough.

Sad, huh? Well you’ll be pleased to hear now I’ve realised the error of my ways, I plan to settle for nothing less than the real thing. No more faking it…well not outside the bedroom anyway (come on, sometimes it’s just polite).