What’s the score with Ian now? Was it Ian? You haven’t mentioned him lately.

It’s not that I want the complete low-down on my mother’s love life exactly, but I try to show some care and concern. It feels like the right and daughterly thing to do.

Ian was the one that I dumped. the new one is George. To be honest though he’s hot, I don’t see that working out either

It irks me that my mother calls these men hot, though mostly because I find that a very objectifying and sexualising thing to say. When I was young we wouldn’t have gotten away with calling members of the opposite sex ‘fit’ or ‘hot’ in the same light that we wouldn’t have gotten away with calling an obese person ‘fat’. It reduces them to that, it reduces their worth (and society, more broadly) by that definition. Fit and not fit. Hot and not hot. Fat and not fat. People are much more than just the words that we ascribe to them.

I prefer “attractive”. People can be attractive in a number of ways, to a number of people and for a number of reasons, and not all of them mean we want to hop into bed with them. People can be attractive as employees, as business partners, as romantic partners, as friends, the list goes on.

Incidentally I once met an author who would have been very attractive to me were I the type to be attracted to men with fat wallets, but he let his books and swanky living arrangements determine his worth and short-term fuckability (I was a means to an end) and instead that made him unattractive in my eyes. If he’d just focused on being a decent human being instead of using his status and (apparently) less-desired women to get to the woman of his dreams, we might have gotten somewhere. His loss, he could have been where Matt is now.

As it turns out, George is sort of unavailable anyway.

I’m just going to keep looking around

As long as he understands that

If he’s not available then he has no choice

Well I know but some would prefer you tie yourself to them

There’s a joke to be had about my mother tying herself to men, and given that my mother is drawn to Dominant men now, but I let it slide. I love her dearly, but mother seems to think she can have the pick of the crop and and a man who doesn’t want or doesn’t pick her is simply undeserving and unworthy. To a point that’s true, but if a hot hunk turns up in her inbox and he wants to book into a hotel within the first few ‘dates’, there is probably a good reason for that. Mother, unfortunately, refuses to listen to those of us who are wisened to those types. Mother knows best, after all.

It didn’t get serious enough for that, she says. I assume she may have picked up on the potential innuendo anyway, though again I don’t push it. If not, then not. That’s more than enough for me.

Well that’s okay then, I reply. If she knows what she’s doing then she’s big enough and old enough and I can’t stop her. As long as she knows I care.

“Everything okay?” Matt asks, he hears me sigh as I flip my phone onto the sofa.

“Yeah, just talking to Mum about men and relationships” I smile. “One of those situations where you don’t ask the questions you don’t want the answer to.”

“Yes, definitely!” he laughs. Yes, definitely indeed.

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We didn’t play again last night – because of the possbility of fireworks and the dog barking – though in a weird way then it was sort of okay. We watched Spectre (the one with Daniel Craig, who I thought was a hugely underrated actor in the first Tomb Raidcr movie right up until I saw him play James Bond) and the playtime music played on the ‘surround sound’ (really all of our Google speakers linked up throughout the flat). I smiled as “Spem In Alium” played during the nerve-drilling scene with Blofeld.

“Is that on the TV, or is that on the speaker?” I ask Matt, thumbing towards the Google hub on my desk.

“Speaker” he says without batting an eyelid.

“Wow, it’s very atmospheric. Adds to the drama of a torture scene, for sure” I smile.

“A drill that makes you go temporarily blind? A bit much, don’t you think?” he laughs.

“Depends, do I get a safeword?” I shoot back.

“In these situations? I’m going to go with ‘probably not'” he replies.

“Then no, I don’t think so”. He ignores it for a second, then looks at me in a state of horror.

“Consensual non-consent” I shrug. “Right now you’re kink-shaming. Tsk tsk.” More horrified looks. Oh, the poor boy. For how much longer do I want to keep this up?

“Psyche” I say with a wink. He slaps my ass for my crimes.

Time rolls on, and at about 8 there’s a knock at the door.

“You decided to buy chicken for dinner in the end, then” I tease. Cooking dinner at a sensible hour is something that Matt does struggle with a little.

“Sort of,” he says, hiding the the takeaway bag behind his back, “my friend cooked it for me”. He’s opting for boyish charm because he knows he’s in trouble.

“Your friend?” I ask. “What was the driver’s name?”

“Fabio” he says, consulting his phone.

“I see, and what’s your friend’s name?”

“Ah.”

“So you know the driver’s name, but you don’t know your friend’s name? That’s interesting. I think I’d be very upset if my friends didn’t know my name.”

“Do you want curry, or not?” he grins.

“I don’t deny that” I smile, “but I wanted chicken rojan josh, cooked at home. The smells invading my nose says that curry is a probably a tikka masala, and it hasn’t been cooked at home, has it?”

“Not at my home, no” he says, he grins wider and I glare. Oh. You win that one, Mr S.

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I hit 465 views in a day on my other blog last night, which feels frankly absolutely phenomenal. I’m left shaking, shocked. I know that I’m good, but I don’t think I’m that good. I’m just me.

“Everything in the world is about sex, except sex; sex is about power”

– Oscar Wilde

It’s a favourite quote of mine, and it’s frankly true. Write well about sex, write informative, helpful stuff about sex, and you become powerful. Be able to lead and inspire people as well, and you become unstoppable.

It reminds me of another quote, a movie quote, a Fifty Shades of Grey movie quote, no less. It makes me want to laugh and roll my eyes:

“Business is all about people, Miss Steele, and I’m very good at judging people. I know how they tick, what makes them flourish, what doesn’t, what inspires them, and how to incentivize them.“

– Christian Grey, Fifty Shades Of Grey

I’ve studied people from a young age, which sounds like a rather discerning fact. I took up a passion and interest in people, in psychology and sociology. I learned to read people, work with them, to shift them to where I wanted them to be without being aggressive about it. I learned – largely though observation though also through some trial and error – how to get the things you want in life, how to keep close the people you want close and how to push away the ones you want rid of. Some might call it playing games, I prefer strategy.

The difference between game players and stategists is that stategists are honest about their skills and what they do. Stategists can admit that they know how to manipulate people to their advantage, game players don’t. Strategists know that there is sometimes a bigger fish, game players believe that they are the bigger fish.

I decided tonight is the night that I let go for good. Suppose I had been waiting, hoping, holding on to that one last chance. Holding on, just maybe, to the idea that we could in fact still be something? Could we put the past behind us and be friends? He never reached out again, he never took that risk. I don’t have people like that in my life in any way, I like people who are brave enough to take risks. That’s why I’m successful at what I do, polyamorous and married.

I decided to set the rope bracelet on fire in the end, in the same spot where I used to talk to him and under the stars. It stunk, which in itself felt fitting. The whole relationship stunk in the end, too.

“I don’t like those songs, it doesn’t feel very healthy” I say to Matt. Those songs, break-up songs. The songs that people quasi (or sometimes directly) dedicate to their ex-partners when a relationship meets its end. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment of them but it doesn’t feel very mature. It perpetuates the cycle of hurt and one-upmanship where walking away and healing is the healthier and more mature thing to do.

My ex sent Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” to me at one time, which makes me angry in some ways but also makes me smile and laugh in others. It annoys me in a way because it was undoubtedly among one of the most disrespectful things that anyone has ever done to me, but it also makes me laugh. In part because moments later he realised the error of his ways and emailed me to apologise but also because now it’s become like my survivor song. It’s become less “how dare you!” and more “back at you”. I am a survivor, and I survived him.

It’s not that I didn’t feel them, but Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” and Leah Kate’s “Ten Things I Hate About You” definitely became mine. I fall into a cycle of feeling justifiably angry and not caring if I hurt him back, and then feeling as though it’s not the right or mature thing to do. I come to one inevitable conclusion: Maybe I really am too nice sometimes?

I roll my eyes and fall back onto the bed – damn my being an INFP!

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Happy New Year, dear Reader!

May you have a bright, fun-filled and prosperous 2023!