I have become obsessed by thoughts of my Nice Ex.

On the one hand, I know that splitting up halfway through 2004 was the right decision to make, on the other hand I worry I will never find this kind of love again.

Seeing a scary amount of lookalikes in movies recently has also not exactly helped to distract me from imagining where we'd be now, four years down the line, what we'd each be doing and whether we'd have a child by now.
What would devastate me, secretly, would be to find out that his South American girlfriend were expecting, or that he's getting married or something similar.
Of course, I'd be happy for him because I've always wished him well (apart from the times I wished him dead for irritating the fuck out of me).
I am happy and proud of the person he has grown into, and I am haunted by thoughts of what could be if we got back together. Do people ever do that, after this amount of time? My main problem was that I'd lost respect for him, is this something that can be re-gained or rebuilt?
Would I get hounded by jealous fits of the other girls he's had since I took his virginity?

Would I appreciate him for his increased confidence, improved performance in bed, new skills he has now picked up in other areas? Or would I miss the old him, his occasional awkward shyness, resent the fact that a change in his technique would have been picked up from other women?
Could I get over the fact that I cheated on him, and kicked his love for me to the kerb because he didn't move along at my speed?
Would I forgive myself for resenting him for his age, would I forgive him for rejecting me by telling me I'd not find any 23-year-old who'd want to marry me?

Would I still feel used, and like I wasted over three years of my life on a dead-end relationship, or would we rekindle what I thought lost, never-recounted memories recovered, that bond and closeness we shared, could we slip back into the very real, very comfortable love I felt radiating from him whilst we were a couple?

Would I manage to forget his awkward, half-hearted proposal on Hampstead Heath, or would I constantly be holding out for the real thing, a new ring?

Would I stop pining for black-cherry eyes on the big screen, large and luscious lips, and that eternal boy's body in bed next to me, too gentle and yet all I ever deserved?

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THings have been quiet on the sex front recently, because I am trying hard to stick to my new year's resolution, and succeeding so far.

Not that it's always easy, because as per usual, there is some interest that is hard to ignore:

Mr Married, who, as his name suggests, is a bad bet from the start.
Not that he's all that married, you understand- but a divorce would cost him "hundreds of thousands of pounds"- so he just happily plods on, taking his brood on family holidays and the lot.
Not that they're kids anymore, the eldest is seven years older than my youngest lover in 2006...

All that on the side however, and I am seriously tempted to take this friendship further than just dinner and a peck on the lips.
When I first saw him in the twilight of my favourite nightspot, my heart skipped a beat and I tried to tell myself in all earnesty that he was a confirmed bachelor in his forties.
Tall, handsome, with a sailor's physique, sparkling blue eyes and a thick cashmere jumper, I felt drawn to him immediately.

My friend and I dragged him and his partner onto the dance floor where it turned out he was a great mover as well- and he dispersed my worries that he might be married. Still, his three kids must have come from somewhere, so I let it slide and just enjoyed his hands around my waist.

He walked me to the tube and gave me his number- two days later we had lunch together and I couldn't sleep all night beforehand for the excitement of seeing him again.

Admittedly, he did look a bit older in the bright sunlight, but not old enough to have a son in his mid-twenties... and his eyes sparkled even more than I remembered.
Over lunch, he asked very interesting questions leading to some fantastic conversation, he listened and told me about his businesses, his house in the country, his dogs and places he'd travelled to. His eyes kept following the small diamond I wear on my hand and he asked about its significance.

Being the only thing vaguely similar to a family heirloom that I own, I saw his relief when he understood it didn't signify the presence of a boyfriend. Yet, he picked the following minute to enlighten me to the fact that yes, there was a Mrs Married.
Who looks after his dogs in his absence, amongst other things I am sure.

My heart fell, and I felt myself take a big emotional step back. It stung, but there was nothing I could do. It was only lunch, after all...

Then, a couple of days ago, dinner- followed by another night out with friends.

I gave him a hard time when he said implied he wanted to invite me along to his recent skiing trip- saying it's not my habit to frolick in the snow with married men...

He was quiet for a few days, but has since been back with a vengeance. Admittedly, he is respectful and not pushy, I enjoy his company as much as he enjoys mine, but I wonder what his wife's take on the situation would be.
Last night I felt pretty low.
Is this all I deserve, the undivided attention of someone who can go home to his wife and family, whilst I have nothing?

I've been seriously considering buying a dog, but haven't found anything suitable yet.

"You can't have a dog," Mr Married earnestly told me, "you're not settled yet". Well, smart-ass, maybe that is as good a reason as any to get one, because it may settle me a bit more.

Nights in with something warm and affectionate are beginning to sound a damn sight more attractive than nights out with trashy bankers, Alicia Duvall and the risk of puking up in the back of a cab.

Whilst I am not so cynical to think I will never get married, I am realistic enough to realise that my chances are greatly reduced if I fall for a guy who's married already, without a divorce on the cards.

On the upside, I had a very nice first drinks date with a cute guy I met online, who's divorced (and also a dad, albeit not of a 26 year old).
We had a real riot and I found him attractive, but I've not heard anything since Sunday. A bad sign?

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I have fallen deeply in lust with a guy who has a 26-year old son and another 15-year old kid from a following relationship, yet is still living with his wife.

What a muddle- any sane person would stay a mile away instead of getting involved, but I feel that I have more than dipped my toe in it by accepting his invitation to lunch last Thursday, and speaking to him every single day.

In fact, I feel like diving in head-first.
His easy, confident manner, gentlemanly behaviour and voice, his sparkling eyes and well-kept hands bearing his family crest on onyx are somehow pushing all my buttons and making me feel with a scarily inevitable certainty that I will be his, very wanted and willingly.

I told him of my new-years' resolution: "No more toyboys or meaningless affairs", but whilst he seemed to approve on the first count, I feel I need to re-iterate the second before it's too late.

He has gone away for a bit, leaving me to play with Salsa Boy, a guy I met at a work do before Christmas. His company makes for fun afternoons and jolly cocktail hours, but I haven't kissed him yet. I am somehow waiting to feel more attracted to him, a feat which is made more difficult by the dull colours he wears and a distinct lack of any aftershave, making him smell somehow bland.

Last night however I kissed a friend's cute brother (who was unfortunately too shy to dance and too obsessed with my nationality to really incite my passion), and turned down a 26-year-olds proposal to go down on me in the club (a decision which was made easier by my resolution, and the fact that he smokes).

Still, good to have options I suppose, when you are trying not to launch yourself after a man of dubious family circumstances with the vigour of a midair jumpseat-accident victim after the parachute instructor.

This morning I came so hard, I fell out of bed.

Do you know the kinds of dreams you get when you are desperate for the loo or a drink of water? Everything in those dreams focuses around meeting that very real physical need, you may dream of squatting to pee in a shopping mall or behind a bush in a park, but relief doesn't come. You may see yourself in a desert which explains the dry feeling in your mouth, desperately reaching for a glass of juice...

This was a dream focusing around another physical desire, sex.

I dreamt I was in a building with a shallow pool on the roof terrace, which joined on to a lower building with a deeper pool behind.
I launched myself athletically over the banister of the first terrace, straight into the deep pool below, splashing into the water and swimming to the side of the pool, climbing out dripping wet.

I entered a bedroom where I spotted two men making out. I watched them for a while, and it was turning me on so much I squirmed on the steps I was sitting on.
I noticed one of them was Dolphinboy, and I called him over to me in a husky voice.
When he got up to approach me, I followed his gaze out of the window to the office building opposite. A large group of mostly black guys were standing by the window wearing suits, but largely undressed- displaying large, hard penises which were straining to penetrate each other whilst they watched me and the two guys behind me.

Dolphinboy pulled my wet knickers aside and parted my newly hairy lips, discovering the moisture beneath which I could feel seeping out of me.
I was desperately turned on and began to become aware of the fact that there was, in fact, no-one touching me, that I was dreaming and asleep in my bed, alone, but with the girl's equivalent of a raging hard-on.

This made me even more turned on and increased the physical need for penetration, which led to the most extreme scenario playing out in my dream... Dolphinboy entered me and began fucking me, slowly but vigorously, touching my G-spot and making me drip. The other, anonymous boy came up behind him and entered him anally, whilst Dolphinboy continued to fuck me, gasping as he was penetrated from behind.
I reached around behind Dolphinboy and my fingers slid up his smooth bum cheek which was pounding me rhythmically, to find the other boy's smooth cock firmly enclosed in his arsehole.
I felt him penetrating me whilst I felt the other guy penetrating him, and I continued to stroke the shaft of his cock where it entered my lover.

(I should probably add that this unusual scenario had never before entered my thoughts, at least not in this much detail. If someone suggested it to me I doubt I would agree to partake in that particular threesome...)

My dream reached that stage where I had to come or wake up. I was so turned on yet nothing was actually penetrating my pussy, so I slowly came to and found myself waking up sufficiently to reach between my legs and discover my wetness for myself.

The dream and its visuals and sensations still firmly lodged in my mind, I stroked myself to orgasm, and violently turned onto my stomach as I came... with the image of the two boys intertwined, fucking me, vividly experienced as I convulsed with orgasmic spasms. I fell out of bed onto the floor where I continued to wriggle and come, not caring that I might have hurt myself. I climbed back to bed and slept for another hour or so, sated and exhausted, and surprised by the extraordinary images my brain comes up with after nearly two months of celibacy.

In my quest to be more discerning concerning potential lovers, drinking less and trying not to end up in potentially compromising situations again without my informed consent, last night the following happened:

(I succeeded on the first and last count, but failed miserably on the second- being instrumental in the effort to drink 3 magnums of Moet and a small bottle of (free) house champagne...)

A current promotion in a London nightclub promises groups of 6 people and more a free bottle of bubbly and some food if they take a table during January, and experiencing the devastating emptiness in the usual hotspots last Thursday, I can understand why- NOBODY is out and about at the moment... save the odd Hollyoaks hunk too shy to dance, and Alicia Duvall throwing her tits and hair at smarmy-looking 26-year old WBankers one of whom slipped her his tongue in between texting the girlfriend on his mobile.

Anyway, my girls and I were only a group of four, and in an effort to make up the numbers (we got turned down by two trash-but-fun Essex girls bulging with beer bellies the size of a 6-month gestation) we decided to pick up the rejects from the Chinawhite queue.

And like rejects they looked, indeed: Two had shaved heads, two wore trainers and one had on an extremely unflattering hoodie under his boring jacket. My friend knew one of them from a party in his home country, and they tagged along with us despite facing the stony expressions (and swiftly retreating backsides) of us other three girls.
One even stopped to piss in a doorway just off Piccadilly, which really took the bisquit.

Althought we encountered initial problems at the door based on their attire, the party started as soon as we entered the club- and Bald Boy bought his first bottle of Moet!

I loosened up somewhat and we kept clinking glasses and dancing away merrily until I decided to just recline on one of the white leather sofas to watch the action unfold. It is funny how a huge bottle of champagne just attracts girls like flies, and I pretended I had paid for it by my relaxed attitude and lorded it over the table, glass in hand and a Mona Lisa smile plastered across my face. Soon, that smile wasn't the only thing that was plastered, as Bald Boy came to sit next to me and put his head on my lap, tired from the tramps on the dancefloor... just like a dog returning to its owner after chasing rats in the field.

I was beginning to feel quite drunk as by that stage we had finished two bottles. A few more people joined in with the drinking I should add, but he and I definitely had the lion share of the bubbly within our ever-expanding group.

I began to massage his head and he purred, trying to turn his face towards mine in an attempt to kiss me, but I wouldn't let him. He smelt nice though, and I enjoyed the sensation of his strong Norwegian body next to mine.

He pulled me up to dance, and we really showed them. In reality, we probably looked like two drunk idiots bumping into people left, right and centre, but I felt like Baby in Dirty Dancing.

Most of my friends had left by then and I began to feel tired and drunk enough to want to call it a night, so we left the last Magnum to its fate and stumbled out into the street.

He followed me up to Piccadilly, and when he clambered into a cab behind me I told him he could drop me at my doorstep, but that I was definitely not inviting him in.
The closer we got to my house, the more insistant he became. "Hey, let me just crash on your sofa, please... Come on, can't I stay at yours? I promise to behave...".

All this went in one ear, out the other. Heard that, done that before, lost the T-shirt and my knickers and had to wash the sheets... So I was determined NOT to let him in.

It didn't help my mood that I was having to face out of the rolled-down window to avoid throwing up about a litre of champagne in the cab, and that the driver refused to change the radio from Magic FM (a station I hate with a passion not warranted by the crappy noise they call music, which is like cold coffee to my ears) to Passion FM.

Driving extra slowly to squeeze out an extra 3 quid on top of the usual cost for the journey, the cab driver finally got us to my house, but instead of waving me goodbye and returning to the West End, Bald Boy jumped out with me and started waving a credit card at the bewildered cabbie.

I pointed Baldie to a conveniently-located cashpoint and the driver towards Baldie sauntering off drunkenly clutching his credit card, and let myself into my house, glad of the painless escape.

As I let myself in the door, I fell over twice whilst trying to take off my boots, then ran to the loo to throw up about £150 worth of premier cru.

I managed to get myself to bed, turned my phone on silence and tried to go to sleep, spinning like a space rocket in freefall.

My doorbell rang, and I jumped up to get it before it woke my flatmate, but too late, she was at her door fresh out of a dream and looking confused. On my way to turn the doorbell off I fell over again and felt like a total mess.

I woke up this morning feeling rough as hell and couldn't keep anything down, stand up or think straight until 2pm.

I then discovered two missed calls from my friend at 3:23am, and a text telling me that Bald Boy had been mugged outside my door after his unsuccessful attempt to get in.

I was shocked. Not that I live in the safest area of London (are there any?), but that his bad judgement, my inability to assert myself sufficiently to hammer the message into his drunken head that he wasn't invited to spend the night at mine, and my refusal to open the door to him should land him in such a mess made me feel really guilty and bad for him.

Why he just let the taxi go after I disappeared without leaving my phone or flat number in a silly attempt to change my mind, I will never know.

But I guess he is a grown man and has to deal with the consequences of his actions whilst under the influence (after all I didn't ask him to buy the champagne, drink it, or follow me home). In any case, I prefer this to having to deal with mine.

Actually I should be worrying about things like the chasm of unemployment, looming deadlines and a house party at my flat in my absence, but I have more pressing issues to address first:

Like, new year's resolutions.

As most people on this wonderful website will have witnessed, trying to have sex "like a man" in order to get over a broken heart doesn't really work, and it don't lead to love either.

Basking in the warm glow emanating from my phone whilst I listened to a friend describe her new-found real love (since Christmas Eve), I decided that I will have to change my tack somewhat.

No more crappy, second-rate dates, or rather no more sex with crappy, second-rate men.
My newly-lowered libido thanks to the rediscovery of a year's supply of the Pill in my nightstand should help me in this quest, as should my other resolution, less alcohol (in order to lose the weight which has brought the spectre of PCOS wreaking havoc with my body with a vengeance).

Ok, it may make for boring reading but I can really do with a year without unreliable, cake-and-eating-loving Tall Boy, without various in-and-out-again guys, over-affectionate and overweight Phat Boy, intimacy-and-baby-phobic boys barely out of nappies, guys I only fancy when goggled by beer or gagged by champagne, and people who don't treat me very nicely.

Admittedly, I've also not been very nice in the past. I mean, how "nice" is it for a guy who thinks he's picking up his girlfriend (or at least a very close contender for the position) at the airport to be unaware of the fact that she has just been busy shagging a 21-year old Scotsman all night?
How fair is it of the woman who is happy sleeping with you who doesn't want a "boyfriend", to expect calls and emails from your trip abroad and go ape if she doesn't get them?
Not very, I suppose.

Whilst I love sex and being spontaneous, how much better would it have been, had at least half my encounters over the past 3 years or so happened with someone I truly love, who respects and accepts me for who I am?!
Instead, I will never really be able to share the ecstasy or the disappointments with someone who was involved, or recount certain experiences with someone who actually gives a damn.

I guess I am doing well so far.
I've not had sex or even kissed anyone since November, and I like having a free head and mind.

How much nicer is it not to constantly wonder or worry where someone is, what they are thinking, what/who they are doing or whether they care about me or not!?

No worries how I will get home from a random drunken encounter, I always know who to ask when I can't find my keys (friends and family), and I save lots on phone bills and plenty of time and head space.

If I pick up the phone it's to catch up with people who have been in my life for between one and 30 years, not just a few months or weeks.

I've had friendly texts from a guy I had a dance date and lunch with before Christmas, two other casual internet acquaintances, and two boys I see regularly at live music events who like me have sent nice Christmas wishes and I really appreciate that, but I can sit and wait for someone "real" to come along before I let myself get emotionally involved again. I hope. I mean, I may be over-estimating myself here...!