Drama, drama, drama!

My friend Mary says my life is like a rom-com. She doesn’t mean that I’m hilarious and on my way to a happy ending. What she’s really saying is that I live with my head in the clouds, invite drama at every juncture, and am slightly ridiculous. She may have a point.

Take last weekend. The plan was for a boozy afternoon in Hampstead’s finest beer garden but come mid-morning, the sky had turned a menacing shade of grey and the wind was getting wilder by the minute. Pottering around, getting ready, I suddenly heard an almighty crash coupled with a hysterical scream. What’s Debi broken now? I wondered to myself, leaving my bedroom door firmly closed (she breaks things a lot so it’s sometimes easier to pretend I haven’t noticed). “Shit! CARRIE!,” she yelled crashing in the door. “YOUR SWING!!!!”

Okay, this was more serious than I thought. I’d bought said swing – actually more of a swinging bench, a porch swing if you will – for my 30th birthday, spent two days single-handedly constructing the thing and was anticipating many warm evenings out there with a glass of wine being rocked gently to-and-fro (yes, I said 30 not 60). One day it would be moved to sit proudly on an actual porch of an actual house where a beautiful man would sit and read me poetry (okay, I may have watched the Notebook too many times).

“What’s happened?” I demanded, pushing past her and running out the patio doors to the terrace. And there, where the swing once sat, was…nothing. “What the….?” I stuttered as Debi leaned over the side and ominously pointed down: “It was the wind,” she said. “It just picked it up and…well look.” And there it was, my beloved swing teetering on the edge of the warehouse roof next door. “Oh. My. God.” I managed. “How the fuck are we going to get it back up?”

Fortunately Liv appeared and went into teacher mode (she’s surprisingly good in an emergency): “Calm down and call the council,” she instructed, “And do it fast, if the wind catches it again, it could fall all the way down.”

“Down? As in to the ground?,” I stuttered. “Well the council will be no good. I’m calling the fire brigade.”

Hearing the approaching sirens, Liv and I dashed downstairs, only to find the worst had happened - the remnants of my swing lay in bits scattered all over the road, broken, splintered, and beyond repair.

“Is this yours, girls?” asked one of the firemen. “You’re bloody lucky. It could have fallen on someone.”

I digested this. “Do you think that might have broken its fall?” I asked sincerely.

A triple vodka and red bull later, I’d finally regained the power of speech but I was still far from seeing the funny side. “Carrie, we’re over an hour late. Lets go to the pub. It’ll make you feel better,” Liv somehow managed to convince me and twenty minutes later, I found myself sitting opposite her on the tube.

Staring blankly at the feet of my fellow passengers, I noticed a charming pair of scruffy Converse among the usual medley of sandals and brogues, and instinctively looked up to see if they were attached to a similarly charming man – they often are. They were this time too. But not just any man…

Felix was a friend of my old flatmate. I’d decided he was adorable the first time I met him, when he was all scrunched up on our couch in a grey hoodie complaining of a hangover. Inevitably it wasn’t long before we ended up in a clinch in my bedroom. Deciding an uncomfortable hello was best avoided, I put my headphones on, looked the other way, and hoped he wouldn’t notice me, but the next thing I knew, he’d sat himself down in the seat beside me, and proceeded to pat his knee invitingly at the very pretty girl I’d only just noticed he was with.

Could have been me, I thought to myself wistfully, before remembering why it wasn’t. Felix and I had kissed yes, but it was only that once and for very good reason – it was terrible. He’d practically choked me with his tongue, making the classic error of equating volume of saliva with degree of passion. I smiled to myself, then something in me clicked (the next phase of shock maybe?) and I had an uncontrollable urge to burst out laughing.

“What you smiling at?” boomed Liv from the other side of the carriage. I made frantic shushing actions, hoping she’d get the hint then just about managed to keep it together until we got off and I really let it go, collapsing onto the platform in hysterics.

By the time, we reached the pub, I’d finally regained my composure. “Wow, you’ve had a rollercoaster of a morning,” said Jane when we regaled her with the tale. “At least you’re here now. The drama’s over.”

“Wanna bet?” said Liv. “I’ve just spotted drama number 3 and he’s standing right behind me.”

“What do you m…..” I managed before I saw him, and my heart started racing again.

John. Of all the bars in all the world.

This really can’t be good for my nervous system…

Going loopy

I am driving myself insane. In the last two weeks, I have transformed from a relatively together, completely grounded, straight-down-the-line person into a complete nut-job. And all because of one stupid boy.

I knew it was a mistake as soon as I gave him my number. In fact, I was suspicious as soon as he even began talking to me at the bar. He was handsome, he was funny, and he was chatting ME up. Something had to be wrong. But then, well he kissed me, and everything got all messed up, didn’t it? There was that sudden feeling of impending doom coupled with a delicious trembling in my legs that I knew spelled trouble…of the completely irresistible kind.

‘Maybe this one would be different;’ I told myself. Maybe he’d be nice to me. He certainly seemed nice when he took my number, and offered to take me out the following week. He seemed nice when he told my friends he’d definitely see them soon. And he seemed more than nice when he told me to stop playing it cool and insisted I take his number. So after spending the whole night on cloud nine, I spent the next three days freaking out because he hadn't texted or called.

By Tuesday night, I couldn’t take it anymore. The three-day rule period had come and gone, I was a bit pissed (shocker!) and totally fed up of his number taunting me from within my phone, so I texted him with some hilarious joke (well it seemed it at the time) about him obviously having been abducted by aliens. Miraculously, he texted back right away, suggesting we go out the following night. As it happened, I was already going to a bar launch that night with a few friends but rather than postpone, I just invited him along with his mates. I figured more people, less pressure.Of course, when I actually got there, I was so nervous, I took it out on the white wine and can only vaguely remember him showing up. I think it was all very fun, I know we had a bit of a laugh, I definitely remember a goodbye kiss and his suggestion that next time we go out it just be the two of us. But then it all goes rather blurry.

By the time I got home. I was completely smashed. I crashed through the door, attempted to give my flatmate Dom a hug, promptly fell over then scooped myself up and went off in search of the phone, having decided it would be a great idea to call the troublesome boy. Unfortunately, he answered and even in my drunken state, I knew after speaking crap for five minutes, that it hadn’t gone well (it may have been Dom sitting shaking his head at me that gave this away).

Since then I’ve been caught in a really confusing cycle. He texts, I get excited, text back, then nothing. I get fed up, delete his number, then the next day he texts.I used to be so content in my own company and so involved in whatever I happened to be doing at the time, that if my phone rang or beeped, there was a 90% chance I wouldn’t even bother picking it up. Now, I so much as feel a vibration in the air and I leap for my phone. It’s exhausting.

I don’t know whether it’s a good sign that he’s still texting, or a bad sign that he hasn’t actually booked in the next date. Part of me thinks I’d be better just writing the whole thing off so I can go back to being a sane person again.The most ridiculous thing is I’m sure I used to be quite good at all this. Before I moved to London, there was generally always at least one boy that I had an ongoing text-flirtation with and it was great fun. But somehow in the last two years, I seem to have changed into an insecure, untrusting, emotional wreck. And who knew?

There’s been no men on the scene for so long, that I’ve been living under the ruse that I am totally clued-up, chilled out and nonchalant about the whole thing. I’ll even admit to being condescending to Carly when she has her weekly emotional breakdown as a result of some boy failing to text her, or worse, blatantly myspacing other girls and not her.Thank god, this one doesn’t have a myspace page or I’d really be in trouble. Googling him was bad enough. (Yes, googling him – we all do it, didn’t you know?).

Now don’t laugh but I’m sure I just felt my handbag vibrate. Hang on……yes, that was him. Replying many hours too late since my text message last night, which I’d promised myself was his last chance. And still no mention of a second date. Argh.

Right, I’m switching my phone off. Or maybe I should fling it in the Thames on the way home. But then Kieran wouldn’t be able to get in touch when he gets here on Thursday. Did I mention that? Yes, my email buddy from NY is coming to visit. Note to self: kissing boys gets me in trouble. Possibly even boys who live on the other side of an ocean.