Flying Solo #2 - Rebound Man

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One of the things people asked me after I broke up with my ex was ‘when are you going to have your rebound fling?’
At first I had no interest, being too busy deluding myself that he would miss me so much that he’d beg me to come back. But it soon dawned on me that not only was that not going to happen, but perhaps I didn’t want to go back. I loved being in London whereas I’d never settled in Singapore. And when I wasn’t sniveling/moping/being angry I was actually having a lot of fun.

And I don’t believe in the rebound fling. Especially as the definition made it sound so utterly unattractive. The four main components are as follows:

You will be extremely intoxicated.
The sex will be awful, or embarrassing or both.
The awkwardness of the morning after will be excruciating.
You’ll spend at least the following day crying.
Who needed that?

And apparently, despite the above, it was a positive thing; you needed a rebound man to act as a half-way house between an old and new boyfriend and you quite possibly might even need more than one. It all sounded bloody tiring, I needed a glass of wine and a lie down just thinking about it.

I did find myself getting annoyed when some people (in the main non-single ones) assumed that I immediately wanted someone else. I got even angrier when I was constantly reminded that my age meant I needed to hurry up. Anyway, for now, I was concentrating on myself. I was enjoying being selfish, sleeping on both sides of the bed, hogging the remote control, eating pickled onions without worrying about kissing and not finding really rank smelling socks on the floor every day. Don’t get me wrong, I still loved him but I was actually beginning to love myself that little bit more.

Breaking up is hard, I won’t pretend otherwise. I missed my apartment, I missed the way we laughed together and I missed watching CSI and the OC on DVD with him and a nice bottle of red. However, I didn’t miss getting the silent treatment because he was too tired, I didn’t miss being alone in Singapore while he went away on business, and I didn’t miss the fact that he obviously didn’t love me anymore. And I certainly didn’t miss those socks.

What I’m trying to say is that being in a couple can become a habit if you let it and we certainly did. And that is why it had taken me time to see that perhaps I could be happy on my own. On my own being the operative words here. See, no need for a rebound man, no need at all.

I went out with friends for someone’s birthday. We were drinking Champagne in a smart hotel bar, and it was a fun evening. As the night progressed, I found myself talking to one guy in particular. He was being very complimentary; I was flattered. It took me a while to figure it out but we were flirting with each other.

Shamelessly. I couldn’t exactly tell you what we talked about, but conversation was easy, and there were no awful chat-up lines being bandied about. Well, I’m pretty sure he didn’t ask if I came here often.

So, after a certain amount of Champagne I decided that perhaps he was attractive, and then after a bit more he wasn’t just good-looking but funny and interesting and intelligent and sexy. Hell by midnight, he was the hotel bars’ answer to Brad Pitt.
At the end of the evening, he asked if I wanted to go on somewhere and I did. Here I was, a modern (albeit a bit wobbly) woman going to a club with a man who wasn’t the man I’d been with for ten years and I felt I had made a huge leap forward.

The next morning was a different story. I felt as if I’d snogged a stranger (in fairness I pretty much had). But so what? I was a grown woman and not a Victorian one. And it was just a bit of a snog and maybe a bit of a grope so what’s the big deal?
To me the big deal was that I felt I had been unfaithful to my ex. It was irrational, not to mention more than slightly insane. Because, I was sure that my ex wasn’t thinking like that; I’m sure he was rebounding all over Singapore. What I really couldn’t cope with still, was the thought of him with someone else. The glaring reality that it was likely to have already happened, hit me with cricket-bat like force. I clearly wasn’t as ready as I thought I was, which in fairness is something you can’t find out until you’ve tried it. Another factor of the rebound, perhaps?

So was Mr. hotel bar my rebound man? I was definitely intoxicated, but we didn’t get as far as awful sex, therefore I didn’t have the awkward morning after, although I did spend some of the next day crying, and feeling annoyed with myself. So, in conclusion, he ticked some of the boxes, but without fully qualifying, and the next terrifying thought to hit was that rebound man, if he really did exist, was still to come.



copyright 2006 Faith Bleasdale, all rights reserved.

Flying Solo #1 - Suddenly Single

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In December last year I found myself on my own after a nine year relationship. My thirty-fourth birthday was approaching and the break-up precipitated a move back to London from Singapore. When I landed in Heathrow, to the welcome of the British winter it hit me; I was suddenly single.

It wasn’t being single at my age that bothered me, it was the fact that the man I thought I would spend the rest of my life with didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with me. And although I knew I would get over him, and move on at some stage, could I ever employ my own judgement again? It didn’t have a glowing track record and there was a shortage of decent references.

I could barely remember the last time I was single, but I was in my twenties and I was a very different person then. I was always happy to trawl bars and the clubs with my girlfriends, meeting men and having flings which I sometimes hoped would lead to a relationship, (and others hoped would be permanently erased from my memory). Basically I kissed a lot of frogs. And then I met my prince.
NOTE: Frogs are sometimes very adept at disguise.

I wasn’t scared of being single. Don’t get me wrong I was scared. But being single isn’t a disease, and it can and does happen to the best of us. We’re born single, after all, it’s not like we pop out of the womb desperate to be coupled off. And we spend a lot of our lives single, so really, we should be good at it.

Of course, while it’s OK to be single when you’re twelve, it changes when you get older. You’re expected (I am really not quite sure by whom exactly) to achieve a certain level of relationship success. And I had complied by this rule to a degree, so despite a broken engagement and a broken heart, it wasn’t being on my own that scared me. Quite the opposite infact. What frightened me was being with someone else. What actually had me terrified and quaking in my new Vivian Westwood boots was looking for someone else; the very idea of dating again.

There were a number of distressing obstacles in my way, not least my state of mind and the length of time it had been. I was also totally clueless. I didn’t know where you went to meet men. Had we moved on from waiting for them to call? I had no idea how long it was appropriate to wait before you slept with a man. And did men still pay for dinner? Most of all the burning question that kept flying through my mind was, would I ever be ready?

I received some friendly (and unasked for) advice when I found myself up for grabs once again, and from what I gathered, in nine years dating had changed. I was informed that there were no rules to abide by; I felt like a born again virgin dater.
All this made me want to either run back to the unwelcoming (and perhaps already full) arms of my ex, or join a convent. But once my initial panic died down, I thankfully did neither. Because although I knew nothing, maybe the whole knew education that stretched in front of me would be fun, or at the very least interesting. I might not know what I was doing, or who I’d be doing it with, but that wasn’t so bad. It might even be exciting. NOTE: I am terminally optimistic.

At some point I would dry those boring old tears. I would ensure that I always looked my best. I was already embracing the fact that I had a fantastic group of girlfriends around me, (many of who were also single), and I was already having a love affair with London since my return which kept me busy.

As much as stepping off the cliff of dating was scary, it might also be filled with wonderful opportunities. I just had to keep telling myself that as I stood on the precipice waiting until the time was right.

And I began to feel it would be soon. The hurt stays with you for a long time but it fades. The familiarity you miss and it lurks in the background. But I’m not one to wallow and I’m not the sort of girl to let life stand still. All it would take was a lot of courage, and a hell of a lot more wine.

I was about to embark on my own voyage of discovery; my debut into new fangled modern relationships. I knew that in order to start dating I could really do with a life-jacket and an instruction manual, (at the time I found the concept as confusing as trying to put flat-pack furniture together). But despite all that I would soon be ready to kiss some more frogs. I just wasn’t sure that I believed in princes anymore.

copyright 2006 Faith Bleasdale, all rights reserved.