Modern Romance

It will start with a kiss. There will have been alcohol involved and probably a few earlier occasions where you wanted to kiss me but couldn’t summon the courage. This time I initiated it.

A hand on your forearm, I’ll stand a little closer, stare at your mouth, smile at your awkwardness. And then I’ll pull you in and kiss you, encourage your hands to move across my hips, encourage you to pull me closer.

Then you’ll text me. You’ll want to have dinner. I’ll make you work for the initial acceptance. Meet you for a drink. Leave early, unsure about how you’ll fit in.

You’ll pursue it for the first month. Texting every day, maybe calling early in the week to make plans. We’ll sleep together, you’ll call me again. The sex won’t change anything because I’m smarter than you and you’re still trying to figure me out, you’re not bored with me yet.

I’ll look for the good in you. I’ll overcome your flaws by focusing on your attributes. I’ll see your charisma, your brilliance, your smile, the way you kiss me softly on street corners. I’ll believe you’re not a jerk, that you’re smarter than you seem, well intentioned and genuine.

I’ll get attached, lulled into a sense of security by your attention and how sweet you are to me in bed. I’ll take comfort in the way you talk so casually about future plans.

Then it’ll switch.

Once I’ve overcome my qualms about your looks, education and social awkwardness, as soon as I’ve accepted that you like me enough, that we're just going to see where this will take us, it will switch.

You’ll want to see less of me. Find yourself unable to make the time. Get irritated by my social engagements, withdraw from my texts, become more selfish in bed, more eager for me to leave in the morning. As a result of this I’ll pull back. I’ll be irritable and pissy and demand more from you.

These positions will intensify and entrench, all the while with me just wishing you would go back to treating me the way you did at the beginning. Until eventually I’ll be so sick of your bullshit, or you’ll do something that pushes me to a point, beyond a point and when you can’t explain it, I’ll end things

Then you might fight for it. You might apologise, acknowledge that you’ve been treating me badly and promise to try harder. I’ll relent. But it won’t last. And when it is over. I’ll wonder why I ever bothered when I wasn’t sure of you in the first place.

I’ll tell myself that in the future I’ll rely on my intuition, my instincts, my first impressions. I’ll guard my heart. But then I’ll reason that it’s better to hope, to look for the best in someone. To believe they’ll treat you well than to be hardened and cynical.

I’ll blame myself for being difficult. For letting myself feel too much for you, for trusting you with too much of my heart too soon and putting expectations on the situation far too early. I’ll wish I was different, more easy going, less intense.

Then I’ll rationalise – by being difficult I am guarding my heart, I’m making you prove your worth what I’m feeling, worth the time, worth the risk. And after all, isn’t it better to have felt something?

I’ll tell myself that no matter how it ended I wouldn’t give up those moments where you slid your hand down the front of my jeans, and looked up at me from in between my legs or lay your head on my bare chest and wrapped your arms around my back, falling asleep to the rhythm of my breathing.

I’ll remember how the first night you took me into the empty room at the front of your house, with the headlights of the passing cars casting odd, bright white shapes against the dark walls. How you pulled up my dress and pinned me against the wall and unzipped your pants. How your lips felt against mine, how you liked me to look you in the eyes while you fucked me, how you couldn’t leave in the morning without sliding two fingers deep inside me. I’ll remember all of it, and I’ll want it back.

But somehow, it will have been easier for you to forget. Easier for it to not have mattered and you’ll leave me on a street corner in the middle of the afternoon wanting answers, or let me walk away in the dark before we get to dinner.

And I’ll get over it, and move on, to leave another piece of me behind to someone else.