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The Englishman Part 2: The Smart Home

About three years ago, I read the book Available by Matteson Perry, which explained the male mind to me when it comes to dating. There was one anecdote, nay, one phrase that stuck out to me and has stayed with me these many years that I repeat often to friends and acquaintances. I’m paraphrasing here, but it was something along the lines of “I invited her over for dinner, not because I'm a particularly good cook, but because my kitchen is near my bedroom.” Men plan ahead like that, ladies, for very specific circumstances. With this bit of information thoroughly bookmarked in the back of my mind, it was no surprise that when George suggested we go back to his for wine, it was maybe a five to ten minute walk away from where we were. George lives on the top floor of a house; through conversation I learned that he owns the entire house, but that the bottom floor needs renovation. As I ascend the stairs, I pass by a number of photos of men in uniform – photos from his t
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The Englishman

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“I just ran 20 miles and I have no plans for the rest of the day, what should I do?” I was lying on my bed in my Bed and Breakfast in London, ten days into my holiday, resting after a 3.5 hour run and very large meal at Five Guys right after. I was swiping through Bumble and trying my luck. I was supposed to meet up with a man who used to be the resident manager for my student building when I lived in London in 2013-2014. We had been talking regularly for weeks about it, and then as of a couple nights before, he stopped responding to me, unfollowed me on Instagram and completely disappeared. But I was on Holiday – and damn it, I was not going to spend the night on my own. George’s profile stands out to me, he’s in a UK military coat, but appears to be dancing around enjoying life in his main profile photo. (I deleted Bumble and George has kindly shared screenshots of his conversation with me for me to use so these messages are from his perspective). George and I set a
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But I have my moments...

Lately, I’ve seen a number of bloggers post about ‘rules’ and ‘advice’ – I’ve spoken myself about advice I would give my younger self. What I don’t seen, and what I’ve wanted to highlight are those moments that really define our dating lives. We have our nice guys, we have our dates that go nowhere, the people we date longer than we should because it’s easy. But we also have moments when we surprise ourselves. I want to talk about both sides – how the same action can cause two very opposite reactions. I’ve had a number of moments I’m very proud of, but I’ve also had my own fair share cock-ups. All that I’ve really learned is that you never can be entirely sure what’s going on with the person standing opposite of you. To quote Tove Lo, “I’m not the prettiest you’ve ever seen, but I have my moments.” ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Kissing Strangers: September 2011, I was 20 years old, study
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The Rugby Team

Last week, on a Monday – my women’s social organization met up with a group of MBA Rugby players. They were from a London school, but many of them were from a number of countries, including Ireland, Italy, England, and the US. I’m still not entirely sure how we became connected to them, but it was noon on a Monday and I was really not excited to go out for a pub-crawl. One of my colleagues, someone who was part of a drinking society in college, encouraged me to look up some of the names on the roster we had been sent. I looked up a random smattering of names, and I was just dreading it even more. The men I had randomly looked up appeared to be very young – say early 20s – and not very attractive. Blurry photos, old silly photos – not the types of photos a man would use if he knew a group of women in their 20s would be looking at them. After a back-and-forth with another girl in The Madison, we decided we would go, but we would be leaving by 10 pm. Not excited, I called
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