First date in 20 years

We'll start at the very beginning. It's a very good place to start

First Tinder date ever. Alone in a new flat in London after a couple of decades spent falling in and then out of love, with breeding in between. Ex and I are polite and practical. Kids are fab and undamaged by the split, spend lots of time with me, and neither have any further place in this blog, other than possible future inadvertent cock-blocking. Time will tell.

Alice. She's my first ever Tinder match. The massive whoosh of validation. She's a nurse. Voice like car wheels on a gravel road in the phone chats we have over the days leading to the date. Kooky and intense. Petite, bobbed, greets me with a warm hug; chats, drinks and eats with me in the gilded delights of West Hampstead; comes back to my starkly empty flat, spends the night in a variety of warm and friendly gymnastic poses, kisses me goodbye, ghosts me within a week.

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide...

The reality from which there was no escape involved buying non-latex condoms - who knew that contraception after-effects could make your tadger itch like you'd been dipping it in a jar of condiments for the indolent? It had been a while...

Was it always going to be as exciting but fundamentally empty as this? Is this how the new world worked? And was there something horribly wrong downstairs? These were truly unprecedented times. Perhaps I should talk to my chums...?

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This wasn't what I intended to write, but it came out unexpectedly

I was driving down from my villa this morning in search of breakfast at the nearest beach village when I realised I'd have to turn back for another poo. This, in itself, won't come as momentous news to anybody who experiences morning bowel movements. Which, all being well, is most people, but I'd already had three between getting up, showering and leaving the property. For the record, I have diverticular disease. This delightful piece of oversharing i s brought to you by the formation of small bulges in the wall of the colon, which has nothing to do with punctuation and everything to do with the passage of food and its by-products through the body. It's also hereditary, which explains why both my brother and my mother have it too; although not the fact that I was diagnosed years before either of them, despite being the youngest of us. Here comes the science bit: Who knew I'd be younger than my mother? What it means, in real life, is that I have to be ...

Words...Don't come easy to me. But numbers do. Or do I mean number two?

Sunday evening. Blog posts written: None . Inspiration stuck fast, like Augustus Gloop in the chocolate pipe,* with barely 400 words written about what happened after that first night in London. Can't even tell if it's a good story or not. * This is not a euphemism Cigarettes smoked: 1 . And I gave up last year. I hate myself just a little bit more, which I've been working hard at not doing. Beers drunk: 2 . Not even enjoyed those. They're colder than the still memorable message from The One; telling me she'd met somebody else; and every bit as welcome. Steps taken today: 19,004 . Good, but ruined by the beer. And the cigarette. Pairs of trainer socks discarded after retreating to the arch of my foot within 50 paces: 2 Pairs of trainer socks discarded in similar circumstances over the last couple of weeks: 5 Pairs of trainer socks remaining in sock drawer: 0 Pairs of normal socks rolled down to ...

Multiple orgasms. Unexpected hairs.

One of the very last times I slept with someone, back when sex between consenting single people was still allowed, I woke the following morning with a couple of urges that needed to be fulfilled. Grasping between and behind my legs I eventually encountered something long, thin, and disconcertingly unfamiliar. Groping around delicately, I pinched the end of a what turned out to be a hair between my fingertips and pulled inch after tickling inch of it from my puckered balloon knot. Similar to a string of anal beads, except without the knobbly bits, perhaps fortunately. It wasn't entirely an unpleasant sensation, but I'm not convinced I'd subscribe to the YouTube channel. There was more to come. Well, there wasn't, because those urges had been wonderfully mutual upon waking, but there were, unbeknownst to me, further treats in my lunchbox. It's quite difficult to describe the sensation of pulling what feels like a two foot long hair out from inside one...

My Love Life, Part 3. Contains Disappointment.

My Love Life. Part 3 Part 1 and Part 2 are right here. You really should read them first. They're better than this one. It was almost another two years until I had sex again. But I fell for nearly everyone in the meantime. After a clutch of 'O' levels (which were like GCSEs but much harder, fact fans), I changed schools once again for Sixth Form. For the very first time in the seventeen years of my life, it was my own choice, unlike my first nine schools. It meant a move from the small town to the big city, from a white middle-class comprehensive to a mixed demographic community school surrounded by burnt out stolen cars and populated by burned out, sullen, teachers. 'Fame' hadn't long finished on TV and I was genuinely hoping someone would teach me to breakdance, or at least spin on my head. Nobody did. I didn't know a soul there. But on induction day I met a couple of girls who took me under their collective wing....

Is it too early to talk about cunnilingus?

It probably is, because look, we barely know each other. I've only been blogging for a few days. But, if we do somehow end up naked together, there's a chance it could happen, sooner rather than later. Because, er, I like you. And you like me. That's how we got here. And I'm turned on by you, and I want you to be turned on by me. And the state of awkwardness peculiar only to those who have removed their undergarments in the horn-infested presence of another for the first time is mutual, so why don't I* take a lead here? * Unless you've really got a frisk on and have already set the pace, so to speak. I'm easy like that. If we're already en le frottage , then let's be comfortable with each other. I'll roll with it. What goes around comes around, etc. Michael Douglas probably wouldn't approve. But then I worry if I wear a cotton v-neck, in case people think I'm copying his style. Which of course I may be, sublimina...

After love

Saw a past love walk towards me Down my street today Same coat Same gait Same hips But at closer range It wasn't her And the snappy opener I had in my head Faded to nothing more than I liked you I'm sorry we couldn't manage To be friends.

Honesty, kindness, and unexpected boobies

I really, really want to be kind. And honest. I've not always been great at it, and in my twenties ended more than one relationship horribly, in a classic remake of "If I Behave Badly Enough They'll Chuck Me" - a movie that nobody's yet bothered to make first time around. Except me, in live non-filmed documentary form. Because I was a bit shit at saying, "Sorry, but I don't like you as much as I used to." Actually, worse than a bit shit. I'm genuinely sorry about that. Especially to the lovely girl that ended up marrying one of my other good friends. I went to their wedding. It's OK. Honestly. We're all mates. Still. Even after my flailing arms launched a full glass of red wine over her white dress last summer. Phew. Honesty and kindness hadn't entirely worked with Angie, who'd been my first serious newly-single rebound relationship. I adored her. She'd been the champion grenade-thrower at her Senior School....

My Love Life. Part One. A Tragedy in Many Parts. A Part in Many Tragedies.

I've been a bit blocked recently in terms of updating my own dating blog. Mainly because: I'm not currently dating I've written all the tales that follow my typical story arc* I can't write about having my heart shattered, because it isn't funny** * If you haven't read my midlife dating blog before, it's fundamentally full of the various histories of dates I've been on that turned out to be massive disasters, one way or another. But I try to make them mildly amusing, once I'm over the trauma **Which is basically point one. But the rule of three applies. Plus, I've spent ages writing & deleting all my heartache, bitterness & angst. Time has passed, I'm doing my best to let things go. Anyway, there's no angst room here. This was meant to be a guest post. Then Alice kindly asked if I'd like to write a guest post on her blog. And I accepted, because, unbeknownst to her, she'd inadvertently caught me at the sw...

Headshots. Dating under false pretences.

The only thing worse than a profile with no picture, apart from possibly anal herpes or doing up a zip fly a tad too quickly and enthusiastically before being fully tucked away, is a dating site profile with just headshots. Beautiful, well lit, artfully posed headshots, showing off lustrous hair, luscious lips, and eyes like limpid pools of liquid diamonds. Rather like an iceberg, a headshot only profile tends to have a little more going on below the surface. Or in this case, a lot more below the neck. I’ve learned this the hard way, and broken my own rule on a number of occasions, none of which has led to anything but disappointment. I love a rounded, curvy figure. There’s something very alluring about the softness of warm flesh, the wobble of a bingo wing. I’m no Adonis myself, and it’s completely natural that women (and men) in their mid years might have an extra few pounds here and there, a sprinkling of cellulite, a slight downgrade in the degree of perky pertnes...

Get a Grip. Taking Things in Hand While Working From Home

Over the last few years I've noticed that it typically takes me longer to find something I fancy having a wank to than it does to actually complete the task itself. Not that I rely on visual stimuli, of course, but the profusion and availability of internet porn does offer a tempting jubilee of genitalia, a festival of flange, a carnival of cock, if you will, to the eager onanist; ready for those moments when the time is right, the hands are warm, and the mood is highly charged. Such times have been more readily available to me over the last 6 years of singledom, and would be even more so during the current lockdown were I not quarantining with my eldest child. As anyone who shares accommodation and fancies a little self-pleasure knows, the most sensitive organ of the body when masturbating is your ears. And headphones really aren't recommended. So while circumstance or broadband outage might require a withdrawal from the dusty vaults of the wank bank, in order to make ...

Bumbling Dad. Midlife dating tales from London.

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