Thank you and goodbye (for now...)

Dear readers,

Writing this blog has been an incredible learning experience and I am very grateful for all the support messages that I have received from my readers from all over the world during this journey. However, as you probably know, time is limited and I am unable to find any time right now to continue writing my stories in this blog.

But don't worry, I have not stop writing! In fact, I am in the process of writing my first queer theme novel. I will keep you all updated with the progress so you can be the first one to read it once is ready.

Thank you for being there and please, get in touch if you ever need to talk to someone in the community or you just want to leave some feedback on my blog or my writing.

Yours sincerely,

@JustALesGirl

My #HER Story part II

A few weeks ago I went to a party organized by #HER, a new dating app for women. This post narrates the second part of the night (catch up on the first part of the story on my previous post: My #HER Story).

So, just when I thought that she, my date from two days ago, was not interested in me at all, she suddenly approach me with a drink in her hands.

We chatted, we danced and then she kissed me, very decidedly, just like two days before!

I immediately liked her determination and self-confidence… and we kept on kissing for a bit longer.

However, it was almost the end of the night and I was starting to feel very tired.

“The place is starting to get empty…” I politely noticed hoping that she would get my hint for "time to go home hun!".

“Yeah…” She said and kept on dancing with her hands on my hips.

Mysterious Woman Street Art found in Brighton. Picture taken in March 2017.

My legs definitely needed some time out and my eyes really wanted to close for the day but, I didn’t want to break the moment.

“Mmmm...... I’m starting to feel a bit tired...” I finally said to her with puppy eyes after about an hour of dragging dancing.

“Are you thinking about going home?” She asked me while sliding her hands through my hips and lower back. 

“Ehhhhhh…. Are you… do you... what are you up to?” I said hoping that she would offer to walk me home (I lived just 2 streets away from the venue) or at least just walk me to the door of the club… you know, what a hopeless romantic expects from an attractive stranger that met just 48h earlier.

“I think I’m going to stay” She said pointing out at her friends. 

One of her friends was very drunk. My date and I had to walked her to the toilets earlier in the night as it was clear that she need some third party assistance for moving around. I thought that it was noble in a way that she wanted to take care of a friend in need, so I gently smiled.

“Of course, you should stay and make sure that she gets home all right” I replied. After all, we only met two days ago and this was not even an official date so, it made sense that she wanted to stay with her friends.

“Should I call you next week… to hang out or something...?” I asked.

“Yes, absolutely!” She firmly replied smiling.

I started to make my way out of the club when I saw that few of the remaining party goers were putting on a Sumo wrestling costume. So, I stopped for a few minutes to observe how the fight would develop.

At that point, I was feeling a bit dreamy and had a silly smile after kissing a pretty girl at the party. I was in my little bubble, feeling as happy as a little girl with a pink new pony when…

 

… right at the end of the hall, I saw my tall date leaning on her drunken friend and kissing her, not once, but twice… And those were not short drunken friendly kisses, both lip to lip exchanges were full tongue, full in 5 minutes long smooches one after another…

WHAT? I am seen properly? Are they really kissing? Am I drunk and imagining things? I froze for a moment. I didn’t know what to do.

Should I go home now? Should I stay and observe her quietly from the distance to see how that ends? Should I go and say something?

I turned around and started to make my way through the door, but something wasn’t right. I was upset… she just made a crack in my hopeless romantic heart. I was disappointed and she needed to know that, whatever little story that we could have had, it was over.

In an attempt to be assertive and express my needs, I turned around again, crossed the dance floor and tap her on the shoulder.

What I am doing?

“You are back?!?!” She said surprised.

“I didn’t leave. I saw the Sumo costumes and I wanted to see what was happening, so I stayed. By the way, I saw you kissing your friend so… I’m not going to call you next week. Have a good rest of the evening” I said without looking at her directly.

I was not able to face her gaze. I was scared that after that few drinks my emotions might burst at any moment and a tear could drop if I look her in the eyes. After that, I quickly turned around without leaving her any time to respond and left the with a firm pace.

What did just happen? I kept thinking on my way home.

I received a few drunken messages from her apologising for her behavior. She said that she was sorry, that her friend was just a friend, and that their kiss didn’t mean anything…

WAIT! Does that mean that our kiss didn’t mean anything either?

A part of me wanted to be apologetic and understandable, give her the benefit of the doubt and a second chance.... But a more persnickety side inside kept insisting that “I deserve better…”, that “I should be with someone that makes me feel special…”, and that “ She kissing someone else right after I left is not a good sign… nothing good can come out of that!”.

I guess that my hopeless romantic soul keep dreaming about finding someone that would only have eyes (and lips) for me… someone that would not turn around and kiss the first person she can find when I leave the room… Is that too much to ask?

Wonder Woman Street Art found in Brighton. Picture taken in March 2017.

 The End.

My #HER Story

Few weeks ago, I went on a date with a girl that I met on #HER, a new dating app for women. I wasn’t very keen on trying one more time online dating after my past failures (just read any of my previous post such as Two online dates in one night or my post about the dark side of online dating). But, this 2017 I was feeling overly optimistic, just as a Canadian on a summer day. I guess that after reading the book “Raising Strong” from Brené Brown I was mentally ready for a new challenge

The quote from the book that made go back to online dating again and make the effort of meeting up with a stranger instead of binge watching another Netflix series comfortably from my sofa was:

  

“Vulnerability is not winning or losing, its having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control of the outcome”

I can do this! I thought to myself when I read it. I can have the courage to show up and be seen!

Since I love a good “self-motivational” quote from any TEDTalk guru, a few days later, there I was, at the White Rabbit (the pub where I take most of my dates), grabbing a drink with a complete stranger, hoping that the universe would aligned and love would magically emerge...

And it sort of did… I confess that I haven’t had a date as good as that one in a very long time… She was funny, cultivated, pretty and, she seemed to be very caring with her friends and family judging from the stories that she narrated me during our date. What else can I ask for in a woman?

At the end of the date, just when we were about to say goodbye, she kissed me briefly on the lips.

WOW! I wasn’t expecting that!  

That kiss just move our date up to the top of my mental “first dates chart”.

Before we walk away in separate paths I asked her if she wanted to meet up with me again. However, we didn’t have to make any formal arrangements for a second encounter as, it turned out that we both had tickets to the same event: the #HER party that was happening in two days! As a result, we agreed to “informally” meet up there.

Two days later, I was on my way to the party. I confess that it took me a lot of mental effort to get ready and make my way there as I was going on my own because none of my queer friends were available that night. However, I decided to embrace my newly courageous mind-set and “show up and be seen” even when I had “no control of the outcome”.  

I didn’t know for sure if she, my date, was going to come or not, or if she maybe had plans already with a different date... But I was hoping that, after living (and dating) in Brighton for almost 7 years, at least I would bump into a few acquaintances so I could maybe share a drink with some fellow queer women.

Picture taken at the HER party in Brighton. 4th of February 2017.

When I arrived, the party was half full and getting crowded by the minute. Everyone seem to be in a group, dancing, chatting, drinking… but I was on my own, feeling very small and vulnerable.

I made my way to the bar, ordered a beer and looked around. I saw happy faces, chatting, dancing, drinking… everyone had company but I was alone, paralyzed and unable to start up a conversation.

At that moment, I decided that I had two options, whether to keep feeling powerless and scared throughout the rest of the night or take the evening as an opportunity to meet up new people, enjoy myself and relax. I confess that the beer helped me to choose the later option.

As I was going around the room in circles, pretending that I was looking for my imaginary friends and ignoring my inner fears, I bumped into an acquaintance. My “almost-friend” was a team member of the Brighton Rockers and so, she introduced me to the derby team and I mingled with them. They turned out to be very fun and so, I spend most of my evening chatting, drinking and dancing with them. Nevertheless, there were no signs of my date from two days ago...

A couple of hours later, I saw her entering in the club. It would have been impossible to miss her as she was very tall, 6ft of a woman to be precise. For a “petite” girl like me that needs to jump up frantically to be able to reach the top kitchen cupboard, she was a bit of a giant… but a very nice and attractive one.

I approached her soon after I saw her. We chatted for a bit, but she seemed to be very keen on going back to her friends so, I let her go...

Maybe she is not that into me... I thought. However, she kept on checking me out from the distance every now and then…

LOVE GANGSTERS - Street Art found on the North Lanes in Brighton. Picture taken in February 2017.

I was a bit confused…. Does she like me or does she not? Why did she kiss me two days ago but is ignoring me now? Why does she keep on looking at me if she totally blew me off when I approached her? I don’t understand...

I decided to shut my inner monologue up and just have a good time with my new roller derby friends. I ignored the fact that my date, the one that positively surprised me with a kiss two days ago, was evading me… but the night wasn’t over yet and there were a lot of surprises and a plot twists yet to come…

To be continued...

The Business of Love: Can Marketing and Business rules help us achieving success in dating?

A few days ago, I was talking to one of my housemates about love and dating when he explained to me his latest epiphany about love. According to him, this simple idea has revolutionized his dating life and I would like to share his wisdom with my readers. You can decide for yourself whether it is good or bad advice and perhaps, you could even try it for a while and see if it works for you or not. More than a story, this is a conversation that went as follows:

“I had it all wrong… I used to have a type and like certain guys but they never liked me back… I used to fall for men that were not interested and I have suffered a lot over the years” He said while taking the last slide of pizza from the kitchen table. 

This was true, I remember him chasing big gym rats at nightclubs that never looked at him twice or finding him sobbing in the living room over some guy that didn’t even know of his existence.

“… but one day I had an epiphany and everything started to change…” He continued looking throw the window to the endless sky as if he was about to reveal the biggest mystery of mankind. 

That was totally his style. He is a skinny tall drama queen with a mystic halo wrapped in low crotch yoga pants. But his confidence and the noises coming from his room over the past week (that confirmed that in fact, he had been receiving some night action) got me interested.

 “I realized that I needed to discover my market value and find my target audience,” He said in between pizza bites as if everything coming out of his mouth made perfect sense.

“Eh….??? What have you been smoking honey?” My very down-to-earth and slightly sceptical housemate replied.

“I’m telling you that if you want to be successful in dating, you need to find what you have that other people might value highly, what it is unique about you… That my friend is your market value!” He said placing his half-eaten pizza slide on the side and moving his hands around as if he was giving a business seminar in front of a large crowd.

“Then you need to find who it is interested in what you have to offer, who will value your uniqueness…  That is your target audience!” He continued very seriously without even blinking once.

His passion for communicating his ideas was contagious and I felt a strange impulse to clap when he paused. However, I repressed my clapping urge when I realized that, overall, I wasn’t sure that I understood what he meant. Then an unconformable silence invaded the kitchen and, for a minute or two, I kept on looking back and forth at both of my housemates with an eyebrow raised and in need of a further explanation.

Shop window in Bond Street,  Brighton. Picture taken January 2017.

“Just think about it for a minute… instead of looking for a partner that you like, find a pool of people that like you and then pick among them the closest match to what you like… Just reverse the problem” He added before taking a big sip of the cucumber water that he always carries around.

More silence followed his explanation. I guess that my housemate and I needed some time to process his latest words.

“I’m not sure that applying marketing and business rules to dating can work for finding true love” I finally said breaking my silence. 

I confess that in the back of my mind, I knew that his approach did make a lot of sense, but my inner hopeless romantic resisted the idea of applying an “optimizing outcomes” approach when it comes to emotions. However, his revelation has sowed doubt in my mind.

Could marketing and business rules help us to achieve success in love and dating? Is there such a thing as “emotional strategy”? Can we choose who we love or are love and emotions completely out of our control?

Maybe the key to finding love is to pay more attention to those who pay attention to us but we have not really considered them as “possible mating partners”. Perhaps we have been so blind trying to reach our own targets that we forgot to look around.

I look forward to hearing what my readers think, so please leave a comment below :)!