Two Years Single and +1

It occurred to me this week that I had been single for exactly two years. It’s easy to remember because I did the deed the day before the late bank holiday and so it sticks in my mind. The next day I went to work (ironic given my profession) and listened to music so loudly that my colleagues complained.

Two years on, what are my thought on the matter? Without a doubt it was the right choice. Our relationship had come to an end. In fact, when girls ask me on dates now when my last relationship was, I can see how my answer is receding from “over last relationship and looking for a new one” to “player” territory. Then they’ll ask why it ended, if they’re particularly K-selected or particularly nosey, and if the deflecting line doesn’t work then I’ll reply with, because I do love a good faux pa: “because I didn’t love her anymore.” That always get a look of shock. I suppose that a), they wouldn’t want the same thing happening to them, and b), they’re surprised that someone would just pack up their bags and leave like that. I suppose an answer with more tact would be “it’s not that I didn’t love her anymore, it’s that I wasn’t in love with her anymore”.

Then they might ask “why are you single?” or “why don’t you have a girlfriend?” which is an interesting frame test: is she sizing me up as a boyfriend or is she just making sure that I’m really a player? The cocky-funny “I have standards” (which I don’t use much) or the non-reactive “I just haven’t found someone who I’d want to be my girlfriend” responses are a surface level lie of omission although they do contain a lot of truth. I do have standards, because if I didn’t then I could easily girlfriend up a throwaway lay. The second response, about not finding someone, is a lie of omission because it requires disclaimers. In the two years I’ve been single I’ve found exactly one girl who I could consider to be a girlfriend, but then here’s the disclaimer: I don’t want to be monogamous. And so they stay on rotation with varying levels of investment but never “girlfriend” by name.

Sidenote: what makes a man single? Is it his physical monogamy? What about his emotional monogamy? Is it only if there is a girl out there who he labels as girlfriend/wife/partner/etc.?

And what a great segue: monogamy. The underlying trend which lead to the break-up, I assume, was my body crying out for sex with different people. We had been together for three years and so without the hormonal releases which surround having a kid I guess that my body just told me “move on”; in the moment and since, I’ve broken this down and found the ways in which I was pushed away from her. And what a rewarding push (now it’s time to toot my horn beyond having a website given completely to celebrating me): two years and 48 lays. Two years ago I was on three and now I’m on 51. Eagle eyed readers will notice that the last lay report was #50; I just didn’t want to write this one because there’s another girl related (only by the story, not birth) to #51 and if possible I want to write the reports together as a joint lay report.

But it’s not all bells and whistles. For one, there was a lot of work that went into those lays, especially the Daygame ones. V and I often wonder, as well, what all that sex does to your body, especially when there are no kids at the end of the day (that I know of…). I suppose it’s one of the reasons why a super high notch count frazzles a girl’s brain: because her body is confused given there aren’t any kids around. On the other hand it’s slightly more feasible that I guy could have a super high notch count and not be around the kids.

You can see more costs from a sheer logistical side: the biggest money save from being in a couple is on housing, especially in somewhere like London. You effectively get a 50% discount on your rent and so your savings start to pile up.

Then there’s the fact that when you’re single, you sometimes genuinely having nothing to do. As in absolutely zilch. Take last night: my date flaked, but I was tired so wanted to relax indoors so that as okay. I ate dinner and watched a movie but after that I was stone dead bored. The flipside to that is the excitement of the dates and the nights out with your friends where you know “something might happen”. When you’re in a relationship then those empty nights are much scarcer and so you pack in a load of things you’d been meaning to do. I’d effectively ran out of random things I wanted to do.

Anyway, that’s as much as I can think of on the matter, and I need to get ready because I want to be at Oxford Circus at midday.

Yours unfaithfully,

Thomas Crown