When dating without expectations you open yourself to a world of unlimited opportunities and with a bi of luck, you might end up pleasantly surprised. Working in a male-dominated environment makes it impossible not to socialise predominantly with the opposite sex. But once in a blue moon there are the times that socialising turns into a little bit more than a quick drink after work on a Thursday night. Aidan and I struck up conversation on such occasion, followed by exchanging numbers, which quickly turned into mild flirting. By that point I thought this would possibly turn into a fling or possibly even casual sex… but definitely nothing prepared me for what was coming.

 After a few weeks of innocent flirting which I expected to turn into a drinks date and possibly casual sex, Aidan dropped a bomb… he wasn’t after casual sex or after a date… he was into power play and was looking for a submissive. After the initial shock, I was intrigued… I wanted to find out more, if for no other reason, just to satisfy my curiosity. Looking back at it, half a year later, I still don’t know what it was that drove me to say yes. Was I so jaded that I would try anything that came my way in search of a spark of excitement or did I actually trust Aidan enough to give up all control and dignity (in the bedroom)? I always liked a guy who knew how to take control but I always thought that I would be too nervous to give it all up and be completely vulnerable… until Aidan came my way.

 By the time Aidan came to my place for the first time, I knew that despite how nervous I felt, I wanted to let him do anything he wanted with my body. I haven’t made a habit of giving away too many explicit details in my posts, but it’s impossible to convey the experience without being a little bit graphic. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when he came over, as he had kept his cards close to his chest up until that night. But as I saw him undoing his tie and telling me to turn and put my hands behind my back, my heart was racing. After the first time, I was covered in sweat and body fluids, my mascara was running down my eyes and his tie left its mark on my wrists for days. I knew I was addicted to it – every time I looked down at the redness around my wrists or saw the bruises he left on my body it reminded me of how he made my blood flow faster through my veins and my heart race so fast I thought it would stop. I remembered how he pushed my boundaries to the limit and every time it all became too much to handle he would smoothly ran his fingers down my back and my body's reaction was immediate: my breathing returned to its regular pace and I no longer felt like my heart would stop.

 And that was when I realised it… not only did I trust this man to take advantage of my body any way he pleased, he also had the power to calm me down and make everything go away just by touching me. In retrospect, what startled me the most was not the experiences that Aidan introduced me, but how intense this sexual encounter was and ultimately all the trust that was building up between the two of us – and how close we started growing. I knew our arrangement was purely sexual, but after a while, I couldn’t help but wonder: If I was willing to let Aidan push my boundaries more than anyone had before, and let myself experience fantasies I never thought I would, could I trust him completely but manage to not fall in love with him? And could I possibly answer that question for myself before it's too late or would only time tell?

 I might not have been able to answer that question, but I knew that opportunities like this don’t come very often and people that you can completely trust in these scenarios are rare – so I wanted to make the best of it and experience as much as I possibly could when I had the chance to. So with that in mind, I stopped overthinking and over-analysing every possible scenario – instead I opened my mind to new experiences and decided to enjoy every minute of it…

Sometimes, when things get hard, and you see one dating failure succeeding another one, it’s hard not to lose hope and not to give up on your search for love all together. When it comes to dating, after seeing my catastrophes repeating themselves with different guys, I couldn’t help but wonder – In a city like London, where possibilities are limitless, why does it seem that when it comes to guys I only had one?  Why does it seem like every relationship/dating attempt I make will end in nothing, but a disaster and a complete waste of time? When I realised that I couldn’t answer that question, no matter how hard I tried, I decided to change my perspective on dating – or maybe I just gave up…

As a girl, every time I meet someone new, I don’t just try to establish whether the guy will be good to date for a couple of weeks or just sleep with for the night and then wave goodbye. I usually like to find out more about them and their lives – evaluating whether I could see myself with them in the foreseeable future. And if I go out with them a few times and I see that they might be a good match, I find no need in dating other guys, until I see where my current dating endeavour will lead. So, naturally, when I met Cristiano I applied the well-known, familiar dating routine I was so accustomed to. Little did I know that he would end up being worse than most of the rest ones. Not only did Cristiano represent the exact pattern of guys I always go for – arrogant, selfish and self-absorbed – but he proved to be a lot worse. Cristiano enjoyed making a spectacle out of his many conquests, by categorising them, undermining them and exposing the admiration they had for him. He liked to boast about the number of women he had slept with and how none of them meant anything to him, despite their best efforts. He liked to believe that simply because he had been cheated on and had his heart broken in the past, he had the right to treat women like objects. His sexual fetishes only verified his resentment towards all females. And when the short dating escapade between Cristiano and me ended – because as you can see, it is evident that it would never had lasted – I couldn’t help but notice a pattern between all guys. No guy is looking for the one when dating; no guy dates just one girl and sees it out until they see how the future looks with her. On the contrary, I came to realise that guys work very differently.

The dating pattern that guys tend to follow is neither meticulous nor calculative. Men live in constant fear of losing their freedom – so naturally they date girls randomly, just to have fun and long-term potential is nowhere near their train of thought when they go on the first few dates. Dating seems to be like a race when it comes to ‘the one’ for them – the girl that lasts the longer and puts up with their overactive dating life, will make the cut. But other than that, they have sex with multiple girls at the same period of time, they enjoy dating them and cuddling them – they like them all, but not enough to be with one. When it comes to men and women, as a general rule, it seems that the former like the idea of dating more than they like the people involved in the process, while the latter view dating as an unnecessary evil in search of a relationship. And once I realised that there’s a different mind-set to it, it made my life a lot easier…

I suddenly decided I had enough; I had lived through the same disappointment in the face of different guys and Cristiano was the icing on the cake – I wasn’t prepared to go through that anytime soon again.  If men can date differently, I can do the same! And just like that, I stopped dating one guy at a time, I stopped expecting a date to be more than what it was and I stopped trying to envision any future with any of them. I stopped caring if the guy I saw last night would text me or not, because I had 5 more texting me and I stopped caring when I would see him again because I had 3 more dates planned in the next week. On the contrary, I almost wished he wouldn’t want to see me again any time in the next two weeks simply because I had no time and he was so replaceable. I enjoyed seeing all the guys, but suddenly none of them were important. They were a number, they were a way to pass my time pleasantly, to have a drink, dinner, a movie or sex and then get on with my life. And just like that, I finally started to feel liberated and actually enjoyed each date for what it was. Dating ceased being a painful necessity to find ‘the one’ – it was a fun way to spend my time and there was no pressure on myself or any of the guys I was seeing.

 I’m not quite sure whether I gave up on looking for the right guy or if I just discovered the key to dating effortlessly and enjoying – but I know that I am not willing to trade it  with yet another disappointment. So dating like a man can be fun, but I don’t expect anything to come out of it anymore. So for the time being, dating without expectations is fun and effortless, and if at the end of the day something come out of it, then let it be – but I definitely don’t expect it to. 

There’s always one guy that you always knew was completely wrong for you in every possible sense, but you still went for it – if for no other reason, maybe because there is always something incredibly hot about sleeping with someone that you know you definitely shouldn’t. For me, that guy was Craig. Arrogant, sleazy, immoral and definitely unavailable in every possible way. I’ve known Craig for more than a year now but never gave into any of his advances… that was until I broke up with Serge.

 The details of how I know Craig are unnecessary – but I never liked him. His unjustified and needless arrogance is always borderline insultive to anyone around him and his luck of any trace of moral framework makes him one of the least likeable people I have ever met in my life. As much as I always hated everything about him… I couldn't help but find it just as intoxicating. His advances towards me began almost a year ago and there was nothing subtle, romantic or sweet about them. There is always something flattering about a guy wanting you and expressing it – even in the despicable way that Craig did it. But as much as I turned him down, time after time, the tension between us was growing - so much that a friend once said you could cut it with a knife. And time after time, I found myself thinking about sleeping with him – afterall, some of the best sex I ever had was with guys I was never meant to be with. The last time I turned him down was right after Serge broke up with me. I was vulnerable and emotional, but couldn’t even think about sleeping with anyone else at the time…

But as it is very well-known by now, I never had self-discipline going for me as a virtue, and after a night of drinking I found myself in Craig’s bed. After all the tension that was building up over the last few months, there I was having some of the best sex I ever did with a man I practically hated. After I woke up from my drunken night with Craig, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had pushed me to give in to him this time round – was it the alcohol, the tension that had been building up between us for months now… or was it more than that? Was Craig a validation to my shuttered ego after my break-up with Serge? Was I too vulnerable (and drunk) – and did Craig happen to be there at the right place and time? Whatever it was, I kept going back for more over the next couple of months… over and over again I found myself having some of the hottest sex and then hating myself for it – how can something that felt so good at the time, feel so wrong afterwards?

 Then along came Gerald (see What We Are Not) and I made a point of ending and erasing the whole mistake with Craig – cold turkey. And I was relieved to do it, completely forgot about him and was able to fully enjoy my fling with Gerald… until it was over. And then, like clockwork, I found myself in Craig’s bed once again. I won’t be tempted to say in Craig’s arms… that was never the case, we never had that type of relationship – it was just sex and then one of us was in a cab back home. I couldn’t understand what it was that was drawing me back to him time after time, wanting more. But what I did know was that I needed someone to slap me back into reality – so I reached out to Sandra. 

  Admittedly I was embarrassed to tell her that I had fallen back into the same trap with Craig for the second time – her disapproval of my affair the first time still made me blush with shame, but I had no choice. To my great embarrassment she didn’t sound surprised at all – “I knew you would do this” she said to me somewhere between my overwhelming shame and her reasoning, “you do the same thing every time. You find the worst possible guy for you, when you are at your most vulnerable, and you go back to him over and over again. Why do you do this to yourself?” And just like that I lost the earth beneath my feet – it was one thing to have a brief affair that was wrong; it was quite another to realise that I do this every time.

 After I left Sarah that afternoon, I couldn’t shake the thought. She was right – I went back to Craig after both Serge and Gerald. I did the same with Matt – I knew how wrong he was for me and I kept going back for more (see Will he ever leave hisgirlfriend for you?). And in light of a trusted friend’s opinion, I couldn’t help but wonder: Was Craig not just a validation to my shuttered ego, was he the sequence to my overly repeated, self-destructing, devastatingly painful pattern? And if so, did Craig fit a sick, distorted relationship pattern that I had developed, or did he fit my in-between relationship pattern? Was he a safety net that I kept going back to when all else failed?

 Either way, I couldn’t afford to explore the answer to those questions. I had to break that pattern – it was sick and painful. And at the end of the day, the more I came in contact with Craig, the more danger I ran of getting emotionally attached to him – and that’s definitely something I didn’t want. So I decided to break my pattern right then and there – I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist texting and reaching out to him when I felt like it, so I took drastic measures. I deleted every evidence of Craig’s existence – every text message, phone call and trace of contact detail on my phone. I’m sure his huge ego didn’t take the blow very well and it’s not easy for me either (of course I would never admit that out loud – I have my own ego to look after). But at the end it was worth it, because just like that, I finally managed to break my pattern – whatever that was.

Do you have a pattern in the men you pick or relationships you tend to get into? If so, what is it? Is it healthy, or self-destructive, like mine? 

 You know the jitters you get when you go on a first date? The nerve-wrecking anxiousness of what to wear, what to say, how to behave? Every girl is familiar with it. My experience with Gerald was nothing like that… It was one of those rare occasions where you feel that for some inexplicable reason, the person that you met an hour ago and who’s now halfway through their second drink, is someone you’ve known for years. I met Gerald online and was talking to him for quite a while before arranging our first date – and it was clear we’d hit it off really well even before we met. So when we finally met, it came as no surprise that I got ahead of myself and even after the first couple of times of seeing him I managed to picture myself in a proper relationship with him. Afterall, we never ran out of things to say, he was smart, charming, he made me laugh and the sex was out of this world – what could go wrong right?

 With everything going great a month into dating Gerald, I was in no hurry to call it a relationship. I was going with the flow and enjoying it. I didn’t feel the need to rush into anything, if it was meant to be it would eventually be. But that was until I found out I was running out of time – a few weeks later Gerald dropped a bomb. I woke up one morning to an unsettling text saying that he was moving to America in 3 weeks’ time, for a few months, and he had no interest in having a long distance relationship, so it would be better to keep it casual until he leaves.  And I was suddenly confronted with one of the biggest controversies that’s all too familiar to the female species – I couldn’t have Gerald the way I wanted to… so I suddenly wanted him more.  I tried to reason with him – I said we weren’t yet in a relationship and it wasn’t really long distance, it was just 2-3 months. I said we can forget about calling it exclusive for now but stay in touch when he’s away and see how it goes. But he wouldn’t listen – he said that he knew himself too well and it wouldn’t work. He didn’t give me any options so with the danger of getting attached, and eventually hurt, I agreed to keep seeing him for the next few weeks until he leaves. I knew I ultimately wanted more from him but just like my fellow hopeless romantics before me I dove into something that had absolutely no hope to turn into anything real.

 The three weeks came and passed and soon it was the night before the big day. I was feeling awkward – expiration dating was something I’d done in the past, but I didn’t know how to end it. So when he called me that night, somewhere over a long conversation and a bittersweet taste in my mouth, I said “so I guess this is goodbye then?” And then something amazing happened – he changed his mind. He said to me, “Let’s just keep in touch and see how it goes”. That was all I wanted – now I had a chance to give it a shot and I was determined to make it work. But despite my best intentions and hopes, this was the last time we ever spoke as anything more than mere acquaintances.

 From the next day onwards, the ocean in between us drove us apart faster than his flight to Washington. I did my best to stay in touch with him but he just wasn’t bothered. He would hardly reply to my texts and would never text first. I barely knew what was going on in his life and he had no interest in what was going on in mine. Ignoring all better judgement and reason, I was still holding on. I didn’t know what we were anymore, but I knew what we weren’t – we definitely weren’t anywhere close to making it work. I liked him enough to hold on for about 5-6 weeks. I kept saying to myself that if I do happen to meet someone else then I would give that a shot, but in the meantime I wasn’t ready to let go of a guy I really liked. I tried to keep Gerald in the background and move on with my dating life, but I realised I liked him way too much to move on – and he couldn’t care less.

 After losing it one night and making myself seem like a needy, clingy teenage girl, driving him even further away, I decided it was time let it go. I didn’t do it to clear up things between us – it was crystal clear on his side of the planet. I did it so that I could move on. I decided to write a long text and tell him the truth – I didn’t mind waiting another month for him to come back, but we weren’t on the same page, and he was holding me back. He completely agreed of course. I eventually realised I did the right thing – a little bit too late. I knew I held onto too many things in my life for way longer than I should have – things that meant a lot to me and things that hurt me. There was no point in holding onto someone I barely knew, just to get hurt in the end. Admittedly, it did upset me a bit more than I thought it would have – but that’s what happens when a crush doesn’t work out.

 A couple of weeks after it all ended, I can’t help but wonder: did I really like Gerald that much or did I find comfort in the fact that it was so easy with him when he was here? Was I too scared to enter the dating world again after taking a break that I held onto the first guy I dated after Serge, so much, that I was willing to fight for him even when I knew there was no hope? I may never be able to answer that, but one thing is certain – whether I like it or not, it’s about time I get out of my comfort zone and start dating again!

  It took me quite a while to sit down and put this topic into words. Maybe it’s because I didn’t know how I felt about it, maybe it’s because I didn’t even want to admit it, but for whatever reason, this took place more than half a year ago, whilst I was still with Serge. Cheating has been one of the main themes of my blog the last few years. Every time I went over this topic, I was usually the ‘other woman’ – I was seeing a guy that already gad a girlfriend. So I wasn’t exactly on the receiving end of it. But as luck has it, there came a time when I was actually cheated on. And I decided that even though it’s a topic that really hurt me, it was about time to share with you and explain how being on the other side of the coin felt.

 Serge started cheating on me about mid-November and it went on until the beginning of this year. If I were honest, I probably could sense something was wrong straight away, but I only knew for sure he was cheating on me by mid-December. By the time I went away for a weekend trip to Italy with Serge, as my Christmas present to him, I was positive that he was seeing another woman at the same time. I always knew that I wasn’t what Serge was looking for, not in the long term at least, but I always believed that he would end things before moving on, instead of cheating on me. During those months, we were going through a rough patch and we also spent quite a while apart because of travelling. By the time Serge came back from a two-week holiday in November, I could sense that something had changed. In a way I felt us growing apart, but then again there were behaviours that threw me off and at the time, didn’t know how to interpret – he would hold me more, he’d spend more time cuddling and would pay a lot more attention to me. At first I was naïve and actually thought that he missed me – I thought to myself “what do you know, distance does make the heart grow fonder!” Now, months after everything ended, I couldn’t’ help but wonder – was I actually that naïve or did I secretly know that he overcompensated for something that he did wrong and was just trying to postpone my own heartache from finding out by turning a blind eye to the situation? Maybe I’ll never know the answer to that, but ignore it I did, until one evening when I couldn’t any longer. 

 After coming home from work, I saw a text from Serge saying “I’ll meet you outside Edgware Station at 8”. Before I had time to reply to the text, he called me and came up with a long story of meeting a friend that he hasn’t seen for months and then accidentally sending me the message. Two minutes into the call I knew he was lying right through his teeth – so I couldn’t ignore it any longer. Shamefully, I started keeping a closer eye and I’m embarrassed to admit, but I even looked through his phone. So I found out about Laura – as far as I could tell they were dating since mid- November and had met up quite a few times. I was quite sure he hadn’t brought her to his flat – my belongings were everywhere and I knew he never moved anything. Every time I came back everything was exactly where I left it. So for that I was positive. I never found out whether he went to her place or just met with her somewhere else – and by now I don’t even want to know. I know I’m at risk of sounding cheesy and completely predictable here, but if you want to know the truth about how it felt – it felt as if someone had pushed a dagger in my heart and knocked all of the oxygen out of my lungs. It was so overwhelming, that even now, if I close my eyes for a split second and remember everything, my breath is still cut short and I can still feel the pain.

 By this point you are probably wondering why I stayed with him for six more months, until he eventually broke up with me. There were actually a number of sad reasons to that. For one, I thought that he wanted to be with me. If he went through the trouble of hiding it from me, it meant that he didn’t want me to find out and leave him. And I tried to sneak it into the conversation many times and one way or the other asked him quite a few times whether he was cheating on me. I hate myself a little for writing this, but the reason I asked him every time wasn’t because I wanted to know the truth – I already knew it. I asked because I wanted him to lie about it. Every time he denied it, it was a confirmation that he didn’t want me to leave him – if he cared enough to lie about it, he cared enough to be with me so it gave me a reason not to leave him. That’s not the only reason – I was secretly hoping that it was a stupid fling and it would end, so I waited it out. And in a more twisted and masochistic way, I was actually punishing myself. I was seeing a guy that was cheating on his girlfriend with me for years – realistically, what did I expect to happen? It was karma – I was being punished for being the ‘other woman’ (see “Being theOther Woman” and “Will he ever leave his girlfriend for you?”), and it felt horrible and heart breaking, but I felt like I deserved it. So I stayed and I let Serge cheat on me, because Matt cheated on his girlfriend with me and I deserved to know how that felt. Writing about this feels dumb and stupid, but I just thought that it was karma taking its course on me and I had it coming. But above all this, I stayed mostly because I was a fool in love who didn’t know better – and that’s the painful truth.

 After it all ended with it, he finally admitted to it. And what’s more than that, he told me that he cheated on me because he was looking for something more and “if it had worked out with her, I would have broken up with you”. So maybe I deserved it, because of what I did in the past, or maybe I didn’t, because if anything, I treated Serge right throughout our relationship. So whether it was karma or just sheer foolishness on my end for not confronting him and leaving him, I now know how it feels to be cheated on – and it’s soul-wrenching, heart-breaking and deeply traumatising.  By now I know that I will never tolerate cheating on me again – I’ve done it once, I punished myself for it and I won’t allow it again. But to this day, I still can’t help but wonder – “is the habit of being with someone stronger than the love you feel for them – so much that you can’t imagine being without them even when they humiliate you and make you feel insufficient by their side?” I guess the answer for me was yes back then, but not anymore. And that’s what it’s all about – making mistakes and learning from them.

Did you ever have a similar experience? Did you stay with a cheating boyfriend and why? Comment and let me know.