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  Online dating   If online dating were a poem It would be a disappointment   Woman seeking man who sees her worth But mostly finding men who say ‘nice tits’ As though my value lies in the sexualisation of random body parts   Empty interactions Lost in the sea of mind numbing small talk And oh christ is that another dick pic Sir, I did not ask to see junk   Red flags galore And then an occasional spark But no I got ghosted Or let down Or forgotten   And stay unseen Completing myself And waiting for the one Who is is actually worth my time

  so I don't know if this counts as imposter syndrome or if I am alone in this sensation but I often feel as though other adults have their shit figured out and I am just desperately faking it. Hoping to look as though I know what I am doing and that no one discovers that Im 16 going on 39. By that I mean I am currently 38 but I do frequently like the teenage version of myself is still working behind the scenes in this much older bold. what nobody thinks to tell you when you're younger and imagining grown up life is that actually it can be quite tedious and maybe don't be in such a rush to get there. adult life is mostly a mix of bills and obligations. sure you could go out right now and buy a cake and just eat it for the sake of it and then you have to deal with consequences of eating an entire cake which in my case is pretty dire due to my gluten intolerance but I digress. For me the experience of being an adult is a constant balancing act of doing the things I have to do...

 So I wrote a spontaneous poem for the first time in forever. I was having a back and forth chat with a guy I'm friendly with and he makes a joke about something and it just triggers me . On one level I'm totally aware that is some kind of banter and I should laugh it off and change the subject to that does not provoke such a strong emotional response but it's like this red.mist descends upon me and I lay into him. I don't know why my reaction is so strong but I know some part of me needed to say what I said and there are some subjects I don't find funny . This is the thing though with triggers. There are some things that trigger me and I'm like oh yeah that makes perfect sense because it relates very closely to my own trauma and there are other things that do not have a bearing on my own life experiences and yet my response is so visceral anyway this post is not for me to deep dive into my psyche but merely to share what I have written . Maybe a poem or maybe j...

Recently, feeling a bit fed up with all the dating app palaver, I upped and deleted my profiles. I mean at the moment you can't do a whole lot with dating. With covid 19 still very much lingering like a bad smell, it's risky if not borderline illegal to be going on dates and I'm not really one for living dangerously. I had a few bad experiences with guys I'd chatted to who had seemed nice until they got their first whiff of rejection and then showed their true colours. One guy left me a series of voicemails after I blocked him. I didn't listen to anyone of them but I was nervous for a whole week after the event thinking every voicemail notification was him not taking the hint. With all of that in mind and this pesky virus not looking as though it's going anywhere soon, I've decided this will be the summer of me . Or at least whats left of the summer. I'll be making the most of days of with road trips and adventures and I already have two weeks of...

We are living in strange times. Something I never could have imagined when the new year began. It is now several weeks since Covid-19 hit our shores and live as we know it has been upended. I try not to read too much news because all it does is increase the mounting feeling of anxiety about what is going on. I stay home only going to buy food as needed, walking the roads by my house, watching a lot of bad TV and ultimately waiting for my next shift at work. I appreciate I'm lucky in having job security but I'm also aware of how at risk I am working on the front lines so I'm mostly keeping my head down and doing what I can to get through this. Someday, hopefully in the not too distant future, restrictions will start to be lifted and life will return to some semblance of normality only we actually appreciate all the little things we took for granted, at least for a short while. For now though I am grateful for my introverted nature. I still actively savour the time to m...

I'm trying to find words to express whats going through my head and I must admit I'm struggling. Tomorrow for the first time in almost 4 years I am going to be starting a new job. Which is sort of a record for me. I generally get fed up a bit sooner and start job shopping. I don't feel the need to stay in a job that doesn't make me happy or isn't meeting my needs. Ironically I'm still kind of learning how to do that in relationships but as always I am but a work in progress. I'd love to say that I stayed so long in my workplace because I was terrifically happy in what I was doing. In a way I can say social care has fulfilled me in a way no other job has and I am certain I will carry with me the many relationships I built with the people I was supporting down through the years. During my time in the job I worked in a few different houses so I never had time to reach my boredom threshold before a new challenge was presented. However I felt like I'd g...

If you're happily coupled up then perhaps you've had the luxury of forgetting this but dating as an adult is bloody hard to do. When I was a teenager and I was awkward as fuck, I spent far too much time worrying if the guy I liked, liked me back and I remember thinking how much easier it would be when I sailed into adulthood but oh boy was I wrong. It's still messy and emotional and I still feel like a teenager in disguise ( in a much older body ) hoping to not get found out. Like some crap version of 13 going on 30 ( 37 in my case ) except there's no ridey love interest for my past for me to end up with. My last break up was hard but necessary and in the two years following it I did a lot of work getting to know myself outside a relationship. I discovered how much I enjoy my own company and developed a spontaneous, adventurous side I didn't know I had.  I travelled, got into hiking and just really relaxed in my own company. It was pretty great. During this ti...