Shauna - Part 3

So with all of these I'll give you 'our song' (cheesy as that may be). With Shauna and me it started with a conversation about music we liked. I (luckily) had chosen to wear a Pearl Jam T-shirt that night and Shauna loved Pearl Jam. Though it was this song by The Gin Blossoms that became 'our song' (I already said I didn't care if you think I'm cheesy).

Julie - Part 3

It wasn't just me, Julie and her boyfriend. There was a whole gang of us who hung out. Everyone was a bit divided on what they thought about the relationship. One guy thought they were shagging away, another thought that she was stuck up and would have bats flying out of her fanny if you ever got her knickers off (his words).

Me I thought they weren't and that was the reason for their rowing a lot. He was a real dick to her one night and stormed off. She sat there crying and I went over to console her. She started saying to me "I wish he was you," over and over, but she was drunk and upset so I didn't read anything into it.

Looking at her sitting there crying I realised that I'd been pretty hard on her and it was a jealous thing. With her going out with him, I didn't get to hang out with him so much. Now I wasn't so sure after seeing what a dick he could be.

Shauna - Part 2

Shauna had some friends that I saw more than I saw her. Two of them kept telling me that I should ask her out. I took her number off one of them but I had exams so I told her friends that I would call her but I needed to pass my exams (GCSEs so I didn't want any distractions - we were told they were more important than they turned out to be, so I didn't know any better).

I would go for coffee everyday in town after revising and I'd always bump into them, because they were just leaving school then they had the impression that I just hung out there all day. Shauna heard about this and thought I was avoiding her.

After my exams and after a long phonecall which involved ironing out any creases in her thinking about the situation we agreed to meet up for a date.

Pam - Part 2

Pam and I started seeing each other but since her and her ex-boyfriend were doing the same course it became very hard for us to go out without him bitching and sniping. We tried to ignore it but since they were living in the same house it became almost impossible to have a normal date.

She'd often show up crying at mine and always insisted I didn't go round to talk/thump her ex-boyfriend.

Still that made things very difficult because he tried to use a nasty trick that a lot of boyfriends do when they know their girlfriend is leaving them for someone else:

"It'd be okay if it was anyone but him."

It nearly worked, I'll tell you how another time.

Sarah - Part 1

Sarah was one of those long and impossible friendships that grow into a long, sporadic and eventually messy relationships.

Here's how we met.

She was in the year below me at high school and I was a big music fan. I used to swap tapes with a guy in her class. She was super cute and when I was down seeing him I always ended up talking to her.

Eventually after a few months another friend told me that everyone in her class thought I was only down there because I fancied her. This in its own way wasn't untrue but it also wasn't fact.

Eventually me and her ended up hanging out throughout school but at that stage we were just friends.

Sophie - Part 3

Sophie and I were pretty competative. We were both pretty studious but at the same time sporty. For some reason we decided to wrestle one day. I thought this would be fun and playful but as it turned out Sophie was pretty technical and fast.

I found after a few minutes that I was getting slapped silly by her. I remember thinking that I needed to pin her just to show her who was better. I pounced on her, grabbing her by the shoulders and pushing hard. My shoulders touched the bed and Sophie loomed over me, giggling.

I struggled and struggled but just couldn't manage to get myself free. Sophie let go of my shoulders, and pinned me down with one knee on my shoulder.

She sat there with her hands on her hips, giggling and shaking her head and saying "just give up."

I didn't have a choice.

Lindsay - Part 1

Lindsay was my first college girlfriend. Or at least the first proper one. At the start of college it was almost like high-school again, going out with girls for maybe a few days to a week or two but nothing of any substance. That was until I met Lindsay.

She was on the same course as me, a big and sometimes bitchy course and it took me a while to make friends. One day a group of ones from the course who all lived together were going to the seaside. I was invited and because I didn't really know anyone from my course yet I said yes.

The day itself was a typical studenty one and it really helped me to feel settled at college. Lindsay and me clicked as we hung out. We liked the same music and laughed at the same things.

A few of us went to a club when we got back. This was the start of me and Lindsay.

Maria - Part 1

Maria was my first girlfriend. Not the first girl I kissed but the first girl I actually went out with. It didn't last long and almost didn't get beyond the first date but that her cousin was in my class at school and that's how I saw her again.

It was at a party when I was thirteen. My brother was in a band with a guy from his school and his brother had a flat in the town centre. We went there on a Friday night and like a lot of parties there were a few girls there too. I was blind drunk (my trick in those days was to down a quarter bottle of vodka have a great time for about an hour then throw up all over myself) and over I went with the not so great chat up line "Will you face me."

My brother had actually spotted Maria and wanted to ask her out but I was quicker getting to her. His chat up line might have been better but he never got the chance to use it as Maria said yes to mine.

Not much happened after that. We chatted for a bit and she had to go home. I stayed the night as I was too drunk and my parents being split up offered me a great excuse for where I was the night before:

"At dad's," (to mum).
"At mum's" (to dad).

The next day I was supposed to play rugby. I slept in.

Sophie - Part 2

I was after this girl called Sarah who was a new arrival in the halls of residence. She told me that she was going to a drum and bass night with her flatmates at a club in the city centre. I got together a group of my mates and we all went for the night.

I got more pissed than I should have and chewed Sarah's ear off badly (my prowess hadn't much improved since Shauna or Julie). I think I blew it with Sarah that night but we later became close friends.

We were all seated around the one table and I had some good chats with Sophie. Mostly about how we had very different senses of humour but that itself made us both laugh.

A few days later I met her on the lawn at halls and she said she was feeling sick and homesick. She was thinking of leaving. I didn't like this so I called by her flat a few times that week to cheer her up.

That was the start of us hanging out.

Julie - Part 2

Rather than give you all the ex-girlfriends at once, then the next parts all at once I've decided to stagger it for you. So here's the next part of what happened with Julie.

Julie and I have never shared any classes up to this point. Just before she starts dating my friend Peter we were put into the same maths class. We didn't speak much, mostly because we'd one of those teachers who pissed himself with rage everytime someone opened their mouths to talk about anything other than pythagoras' theorem.

So Julie and I didn't say much apart from the occasional "what page are we supposed to be on?" and I think I once lent her a rubber (no sexual reference intended).

It wasn't until she started going out with Peter that we actually began to interact outside of class and after the formality of "we're in the same maths class," we didn't have much to talk about.

Julie and I could get on fine but she did think I was a bad influence on him. I felt Peter was being very fake around her. If he'd changed that would have been alright but once she was out of site he went back to being the same old Peter (lots of swearing, shit jokes about people we didn't like etc).

I thought I should try to get on with her because I didn't like people feeling uneasy everytime we hung out. So we became friends.

Pam - Part 1

Pam was the year below me in university. I first met her on freshers week. I also met her boyfriend too, except I didn't know it was her boyfriend. They didn't act like a couple and he didn't seem bothered about us hanging out and flirting that first night. I just assumed they were housemates.

I only found out he was her boyfriend after we slept together. Alarm bells should have been ringing. They didn't and I just put it down to the idea that the relationship was ending. They got back together after we split up and they're still together but there's more to tell you about her. I'll do that another time.

Shauna - Part 1

I used to hang out with this group of grungers. There would always be new people coming and going every time we'd hook up.

Shauna was one of a group of four girls that came out with us one weekend. I liked her instantly, she'd a touch of Gwen Stefani and a touch of Dolores O'Riordan about her.

I tried to pull her in a clumsy, clueless teenage way that didn't work and much as I'd thought I'd blown it she told a mutual friend a few weeks later that she liked me.

This might have been that my clumsiness was sweet or that a king prick of our group was following her around most of that night asking her why she wouldn't go out with him. I suppose I looked good in comparison.

Sophie - Part 1

When I met Sophie I was at college. Sophie was dating another guy but it was long distance (one of those long distance relationships some people are in when they first go to college). Like most long distance relationships it was in the process of breaking up. Sophie and her boyfriend had been better than some and managed to keep it going beyond the first semester.

They way I met her was that I used to sit out in front of my block in halls of residence. The phones were all in my block so every once in a while I'd hear one ring and answer it. Then I'd have to go and get the person that was being called for.

On this particular occasion it was Sophie's boyfriend.

When I spoke to her on the intercom she came straight out and headed over with me to my block to get the call.

Afterwards she thanked me and went back to her own dorm. I sat reading my book for a while.

It would be two months before we met again.

Julie - Part 1

First off this blog is intended to get a few things off my chest. I'll speak frankly about some of my ex-girlfriends and why the relationships didn't work out. I might not be the kindest to my exes but I won't be the kindest to myself either.

With that in mind let's start with one of my exes slap bang in the middle - Julie.

Julie was a high school relationship that you'll soon hear didn't make the distance.

I'd known Julie around high-school for a while before we started dating. I say a while but it was more like a few years. Anyway when we started hanging out in the same social group she was not long off dating a friend of mine called Peter. Me and Julie didn't hit it off to begin with. At least not then, we were very indifferent to each other for a few years, it was only when we were in the same social group that we didn't get on with each other.

I'll tell you more about what happened next another time.