RSPCW

No word from the Moroccan. Obviously. Yes, I know, I should have seen that one coming. I really can't believe that he came on so strong but then just abruptly stopped calling. I would never do that. I phoned him over a week ago and since then... nothing. Well, I'm not chasing him. Next!

I spoke to J about it and we chatted about how stupid men are. I mean, why bother with all the chat about how much he liked me if he didn't mean it? Now, I've previously refrained from saying what I'm about to say so bluntly because I'm aware that there's nothing more boring than women whining about how rubbish men are. BUT THEY ARE, AREN'T THEY?

In the last couple of weeks, I've had a short fling with a guy who went from almost declaring love to me to just not calling, tried to console F as her boyfriend behaves like the biggest prick in the universe, and spent a good couple of hours counselling J about her break-up with a guy who, to be honest, led her a merry dance for over three months.

Whilst watching the recent rioting on TV, I started thinking about how angry I am. Yes I'm angry about social inequality. And by that I mean the way that my friends and I have been treated unjustly....by men. In fact, I'd like to form my own vigilante squad, an all female SWAT team of sorts. We could be called 'The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Women'. We'd wear pink masks and carry huge baseball bats and garden shears. And we'd drive around in a hot pink transit van dispensing justice to all those stupid men who aren't treating their wives and girlfriends properly. This treatment would involve a non-stop forty eight hour session of 'Sex and the City', an interrogation involving thumbscrews where they would be forced to confess to all their wrongdoing, and a series of interviews with every single one of their ex-girlfriends so they could see the error of their ways. Ha. Only once they'd made a full confession and signed a contract saying they promised to behave better in future, would we release them back into society. We'd dump them, confused and with the 'Sex and the City' theme tune ringing in their ears, branded across the arse with our logo and wearing a pick tutu on the doorstep of … their local! This public shaming would act as a deterrent to all their friends. Breaking the aforementioned behaviour contract once it was signed would result in instant death. Public hanging in fact. By the balls.

Seriously though, where are all the good ones?

There is that not-so-hilarious joke that goes:

Q:What do men and parking spaces have in common?

A: The good ones are all taken and the rest are disabled.

(Or gay)

(or confused/scared of commitment/ lacking in balls)

So many of my friends are afraid that they're going to wake up one day and realise that it's too late for them to have children. That their time has been wasted by a procession of stupid men. I'm pleased to say that so far I've not felt that panic. I'm sure that day will come though when I start thinking that I need to freeze my eggs or find any random man on the street to impregnate me or something. But for now, I'm just watching in disbelief at the stupid things that men get up to.

Is it my fault that I keep having such crappy experiences with men? And that just I'm choosing the wrong ones? Hmm....Come to think of it I have picked some idiots recently. Looking back over the men I've had dealings with this year there is:

The Turkish Jewellery Shop Owner,

Hot FB Guy,

Used to be Toxic Ex,

The Nineteen Year Old,

Hot FB Guy (again)

The Hot Islander,

Hot FB Guy (yet again)

The Moroccan Surfer.

It's not the best list in the world, is it? To be honest, it reads more like the 'Who's Who' of  'Unsuitable Men to Go Out With'. The overseas edition.

Well, as I'm moving to Bucharest next week and hoping to make a fresh start, maybe my New (Academic) Year's Resolution should be 'Hold out for Mr Right without getting distracted'. And buy a really big baseball bat.

The Forbidden Experience

I've only gone and done a Shirley Valentine. Except that the man in question does not have a large moustache and he doesn't say 'I want to make fuck with you'. Not quite, anyway.

To be honest, the beginning of our much anticipated Moroccan holiday could not have gone much worse. After spending a small fortune on new summer clothes and every lotion and potion in Boots to get us 'beach ready', F and I arrived at the resort. Unfortunately, on first impressions, it reminded me of places I dimly remember seeing in news reports about Eastern Europe in the early 80s – all grey concrete and pot holed roads. Could this really be the popular beach resort described by our travel agent, we asked ourselves. It was. 

As I wrote in my last post, we were imagining sophisticated cocktails by the pool, blue skies and long afternoons spent reading glossy magazines on the beach. What we actually got was grey skies, and a beach that looked a bit like Blackpool (but not as clean) that could only be reached by walking through a large car park full of overflowing rubbish skips. To make matters worse, we soon discovered that the hotel had an over-active entertainments programme which meant that the pumping music by the pool didn't stop for even a minute between ten in the morning and ten at night. No lie-ins for us then! But hey, who needs a lie-in when there's always some kind of fun activity being pushed on you by the hyperactive 'animation' team? We never did find out what the intrigingly named 'spoon game' entailed.

By the second day, we each had a serious and buttock-clenchingly awful case of diarrhoea (which we christened 'The Forbidden Experience') courtesy, we think, of the salad bar. Even Immodium couldn't fix it. Sitting on the toilet sweating and shaking whilst being forced to endure Blue's 'Breathe Easy' from the poolside PA system for the fiftieth time was not the experience I had in mind when I paid the travel agent five hundred hard earned notes for an idyllic holiday. To make it even worse, the hotel staff were generally unhelpful and unpleasant and the bank refused to change our money, saying it was 'too dirty'. It did not look good.

Things picked up on the second day when we met some boys who owned a surf camp near the resort. They took us clubbing a few times, bought us loads of drinks and let us hang out with them back at their place. One of them (who I'll just call S) seemed to quite like me and said that he would like to see me again. This will be somewhat difficult as he lives in the UK and I will be moving to Bucharest in a couple of weeks time. I am very cynical, as I can't believe that anyone as gorgeous as him would fancy little old me but also because Holiday Siani is very different to Normal Everyday Real Siani. I really don't believe that he would still like me if we did manage to meet again.

Holiday Siani is brown and relaxed and likes dancing to hard house music whilst swigging vodka. She likes to stay out until 5 am and has an array of brightly coloured dresses, and nicely matching jewellery. Holiday Siani is full of confidence and doesn't give a shit ('scuse the pun) about what people think of her. Holiday Siani is a carefree, fun person. In contrast, Real Siani has grey hair and is moody. She is in bed by nine and hates hard house music and clubbing. She's pasty white, has cellulite and lacks self-confidence.

On holiday, I was happy to party until five every morning and existed on very little sleep, vodka and spaghetti sandwiches (bread and pasta being the only safe things we could eat from the 'Buffet of Death' as F named it). But Real Siani is very different. Real Siani is more restricted, more stressed, more demanding. Real Siani has issues.

I had an emotional goodbye with S at the airport and we talked regularly on the phone in the first few days after I got back.  Initially he seemed very keen. But now I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach because it's been a good forty eight hours and there's been no contact. Even though I'm a cynical hard-bitten woman of almost thirty two who knows that it was just a fling and not going anywhere, I'd still like to hear his voice. I know it's crazy to feel such an attachment to someone I only knew for a week. I know that I should forget about him and move on. Where could it possibly go?

At home in North Wales, sitting in my tracksuit bottoms watching 'The Antiques Roadshow' with my Mum, I wonder, was that really me? Who sat chatting on the beach until five in the morning and who wasn't tired at all despite having only about four hours sleep every night? Was it really me who danced like a mad thing for three hours straight, stopping only when it was time to go home? Was it me who wore a floral play suit and heels out in public? (Btw it was, the evidence is on Facebook...)

And was it me who said good-bye to him so carelessly at the airport, confident that I would see him again? It seems like a different person. It seems like a different world.

 

Mind you, Real Siani's not all bad. For a start, she doesn't have chronic diarrhoea.