The Boyfriends
🤳 Call Me 😊 Blushing Boys 💏 Messy Dalliances
Hey All-Knowing Daters,
I told them I was the wildcard.
At 13, my friends predicted who’d marry when. The always-in-a-relationship girl went straight to the top (predictions were correct), the one who turned pretty over the summer ended up somewhere in the middle (correct, again), and I was placed right at the bottom (yup). I had no problem with it – I was a contributing editor. But I also told them I needed an asterix next to my name. I was the wild card.
I was never in a romantic rush (it was a rude awakening when my 13-year old pal lost her virginity in the local graveyard) but I also knew that when I knew, I would know and he would know too. You know?
My first boyfriend, at 20, had my heart at first snog. I simply had to patiently painfully wait eight months for him to catch up. He was my first love, but, alas, the never fully realised love. Four months later I went off to study abroad and we ended it. Lesson in love number 1: it’s better to break up because the distance is hard, not because you predict the distance will be hard.
Then came my second suitor, at 22. I had returned to England for my final year of uni, and through the neighbor’s conservatory roof could see that we had moved next to a “blush of boys” (what a glorious phrase!). Perfect. Lesson in love number 2: Date the boy next door. You get all the perks of living together without the dirty laundry downsides.
Finally, 10 years ago, came boyfriend number three. A friend of a friend on holiday. He was tall, British, and willing to enter a long distance relationship with me living in New York. He lasted the longest (in every sense of the word 😜) but, alas, it ended when things were not good enough. Lesson in love number 3: Just because they are kind, communicative, and crazy about you, doesn’t mean they’re right for you. It also doesn’t mean you need to question your sexuality (a tale for another day).
Then, at 31, single and optimistic, I shipped myself off for an MBA. It was a classroom full of ambitious, same-stage-of-life students. Success was guaranteed (across every part of my life.) Or, so I thought.
It hurt, bad.
Between capital markets, Keynesian economics, and an unrequited infatuation with a classmate, I barely stayed emotionally afloat. By the end of the first semester, I had to let go of my supposed romantic know-how to make room for the theoretical know-how. And, guess what happened… more romantic success.
Since then, I’ve had more dates and dalliances than I ever imagined. Many have been younger, some have been messy, several have been terrible kissers. And, while heartbreak has reintroduced itself multiple times, it’s certainly been fun.
So, yes, 13-year-old me knew what she was talking about. My love life is a wild card and I still know I could meet him tomorrow. If next week’s subject line reads ‘I found him’, you’ll know too.
With love & other rubbish,
Candice
Wanna talk?
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…and other rubbish
Ladies, here’s your happy ending
You gotta respect these hips
Ozempic vulva? Yikes.
An oldie but a goodie, poor Clitty.
The best dumper of all time.
She said, he said
“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.”
Henry David Thoreau