Chapter 1
CallumSUB:
Thanks for the tap handsome.
No problem Up to much?
CallumSUB:
Sod all. Watching tv with a glass of Vimto and eating biscuits. Rock n roll. You?
18.23
Olly4U:
Been working overtime to get the cash in
18:31
CallumSUB:
Ohhh what is it you do? Superhero?
18:36
Olly4U:
Yes, my superpower is rescuing men from dating apps and showing them a good time
18:39
CallumSUB:
What’s your superhero name?
18:40
Olly4U:
Shagman! Sorry, that was cringe wasn’t it
18:40
CallumSUB:
Ha ha. Don’t worry about it. So Shagman, do you wear your boxers on the outside too?
18:42
Olly4U:
I go commando
18:42
CallumSUB:
What do I have to do to get rescued?
18:43
Olly4U:
Just flash me that hairy chest and I’ll come running
18:44
CallumSUB:
Do you fly too?
18:45
Olly4U:
No, I arrive in a Tesla
18:46
CallumSUB:
To take me for a nice dinner?
18:48
Olly4U:
Of course. I always wine and dine
18:56
CallumSUB:
Before you 69?
18:58
Olly4U:
Now who’s cringe?
18:58
CallumSUB:
Not cringe, hopeful. My superpower is making the perfect brew. I’ll make you one when you stay over
19:02
Olly4U:
I’ll look forward to it. I take two sugars. What you looking for?
19:34
CallumSUB:
I’m not really a shag and go sort of person to be honest. I’d rather meet up for a drink and see what happens
19:45
CallumSUB:
***
19:55
CallumSUB:
Scared you off?
20:10
CallumSUB:
FFS
20:20
Closing the app, I lock the screen and lie on my bed with my iPhone on my chest. I should’ve learned by now to stop wasting my time, but the thrill of a match or a hot man tapping my profile feeds my addiction like lighting a cigarette after abstinence.
Each message comes with so much promise, and usually a dick pic.
I had no idea penises could be so ugly. After sleeping with the same one for six years, you get used to it, know its personality, its likes and dislikes.
I could print a picture book of all the ones I’ve been sent and put it on the coffee table next to a copy of Cosmopolitan as a conversation starter.
I didn’t make the usual resolutions this year to get fit or lose weight; I vowed instead to not fuck any more men on the first date. The last week of December I went on two first dates and fell into bed with them both – not at the same time, just to be clear.
First there was Dean. I’d been chatting to him for a week on a site which was meant for finding genuine connections and not just a quick shag and go, but after two bottles of champagne, the bubbles acted like lubricant to my Calvins; they ended up hanging, alongside my dignity, over his dusty lampshade.
I had hoped this encounter might lead somewhere other than a one-night stand.
We kissed softly at first, but as the cheap champagne infected our systems, we were soon two slightly overweight hairy messes making distinctly average love.
Not love at all, just a quick fumble on top of a polyester throw.
He left faster than shit off a shovel through the front door the next morning, his speedy exit paired with a text, Sorry, but you made me realise I still love my ex.
Phone back in hand, I check my roster. Report time for tomorrow’s flight is 14:00.
I can have a leisurely morning wrapped up in bed hiding from the January rain – if it continues, I’m going to have to take a canoe to the airport.
Sunshine is such a rarity in Manchester that men wear shorts and vests at the slightest crack of a sunbeam through the clouds, no matter what time of year.
I’ve already ironed my white shirt and hung it with the rest of the cheap uniform – a navy suit with a slightly lighter coloured tie.
It smells of fabric conditioner, but by the time I land in JFK, it will have that unique aircraft scent: eau de Boeing, a mixture of two hundred and twenty reheated meals and the stench of the same number of economy passengers who’ve been trapped in a metal tube for eight hours.
The first thing I do when I get to any hotel is peel off my uniform and jump in a scalding hot shower. No one can touch me until I’ve scrubbed away that layer of dirt you only get from cleaning toilets at 36,000 feet.
I thrust my trolley bag onto the bed, an expensive investment, but if you break it, you can take it into any airport shop in the world and they’ll replace it free of charge, no argument.
I’ve left my toiletries in from the last flight: toothpaste, moisturiser, hair gel.
Minimal. I open my bedside drawer and take out a small bottle of lube, under 100ml - I can put it in my case without having to check it in.
I don’t bother with the loose condoms. I pick up the little white tablet bottle containing pills the size of door stoppers and throw it in the case.
A Prep a day, keeps HIV away. I figure there’s penicillin for everything else.
I don’t make a habit of sleeping with men down route, but when you’ve been to New York fifty times and counting, there’s not much else to do.
There was the librarian in Toronto who had a verbal tic but was a very good kisser, the Nigerian in Calgary who didn’t have a verbal tic but was an awful kisser, and the Aussie who was big everywhere except for down under.
This will be the trip I turn things round.
No more men… not unless they’re really cute and have good intentions.
No more awful dates, only Michelin star restaurants for posh fish and chips from now on.
And no more shots of cheap alcohol… well, two maximum – to be sociable.
I throw a self-help book in the case, Women Who Love Too Much, I figure it’s the same advice for gay men.
It’s lived next to my nightlight for the past month, collecting dust.
The date with Dean was followed two days later by one with Andy, a 43-year-old from the East Midlands with a liking for Classic Coronation St and vintage Victoria Wood sketches.
Each message he sent came with a quote from As Seen on TV, which, being from Bury, the home of Ms Wood, I found endearing.
This time no alcohol was consumed, just several cups of supermarket branded tea, as Bet Lynch and Vera Duckworth provided background natter to the afternoon.
Andy leant over the sofa to read the title of the books on the shelf behind.
They belong to my flatmate, but I feigned intelligence and pretended to know the plot of Eat, Pray, Love.
As Andy turned back, his lips kissed mine.
We were kissing for hours between conversations.
My briefs were soaking wet with excitement.
It’s a talent of mine to drip like a tap before full orgasm – it drives men wild.
It drove Andy wild. He tugged at my clothes, stripping me naked, then turned me over.
Arse up, face down. Using me like I’ve become accustomed.
He was passionate, I was numb, my mind ahead of the act, already hoping this wouldn’t be the first and last time with him.
It was good. Vanilla, nothing experimental, just good old sex like a twenty-minute foxtrot – slow-slow-quick-quick-slow – he paused at half time to stop himself from peaking too soon.
He caught his breath, and his orgasm, before commencing the second act.
I appreciated the effort. There’s nothing worse than the preparation to have sex taking longer than the deed itself.
Andy was soon putting on his clothes, slurping his now cold tea - milk no sugar - and heading back across the Pennines to the East Midlands.
We exchanged several texts over the next few days.
Despite my best efforts the conversations were stilted, one-word responses from him raised my suspicions that Andy might not have been as available as he made out.
I was blocked when I half-jokingly sent him a text that read, If I didn’t know any better, I bet you’ve got a wife and kids at home.
I give up on the packing and sit on the bed, phone in one hand, glass of Vimto in the other. I try my luck with Tinder and start swiping.
Colin, 37 (looks 54), 5ft 11 (post box towers over him in the picture), looking for long-term but short-term OK. Swipe left.
James, 33, 5ft 10, works in education sector, wants kids. – I do not. Swipe left.
Mark, 32, 6ft 5, support worker, cat dad – would look stupid on the wedding pictures as I’m 5ft 10, I hate cats, I’m a dog man. Swipe left.
Marcus, 36, 6ft, compliance manager, bearded and he’s sat on a step outside a log cabin with a Dalmatian licking his face in the picture. He looks cheeky, Marcus, not the dog. Swipe right.
There isn’t an immediate match, so Marcus either hasn’t come across my profile yet, or worse, he’s swiped left on me.
Even if we do match, the likelihood of us actually meeting for a glass of Sauvignon is slim to none.
The hurdles seem endless. Is the banter good?
Do they live close enough to make dating worthwhile?
Do they talk endlessly about their ex? I have been found guilty of this offence.
If we send voice notes, do either of us sound too ‘fem’ for the other?
And the killer question, top or bottom? Two of either does not make a match.
Checking I’ve set the alarm to wake me up for tomorrow’s flight, I put my phone on charge.
I’ve looked at the crew list; I know them all.
It’ll be an easy trip across the Atlantic and back.
I open the Velcro cover on the top of my suitcase and complete my pre-flight ritual: passport, check; cabin crew medical, check; crew licence, check; aircraft qualification card, check; hi-vis jacket, check; airport ID, check.
I close the cover back up, lie down on the bed and take another swig of Vimto, which is arguably the best – if not only – soft drink to originate in Manchester.
It's still too early to go to sleep. My phone lights up with a notification, MATCH.
I click on the app. Marcus. I can’t help but let a little smile creep across my face.
I imagine Marcus and I hand in hand walking his Dalmatian through the countryside on a Sunday, then stopping off for a hearty Sunday lunch at a gastro pub.
I send him a quick hello and wait for his response.
Sitting up, I take the lube out of my suitcase and put it back in the drawer.
Yes, it’s early, I’ve only said hello, but I’m a one-man man.
I’ve been on umpteen dates in the previous two months, all on the same disaster spectrum.
Sometimes it was them, but mostly it was me.
My loneliness begging strangers to like me.
To validate me like ‘likes’ on my Instagram posts.
Some stayed friends, most didn’t. It led me to my resolution to not just have a transactional shag and go, but to hold out for a real connection.
Three days into the new year and my no-more-shagging-on-the-first-date resolution, I met Stewart.
A thirty-three-year-old slightly effeminate hairdresser from North Manchester with good banter and blinding white teeth.
The first date we didn’t even kiss, but the laughter was infectious.
On the second date, the wine and conversation flowed in equal measures, and the snogging was business class.
I consider kissing to be one of my unique selling points, along with making the perfect cup of tea and being able to sing along to every Sugababes song ever released.
They’re all skills listed on my profile.
The third date was dramatic. We went to see his friends in Hull, and between the four of us we got through twenty bottles of wine in one weekend. It resulted in a drunken fall and a trip to A I climbed on top and manoeuvred into the position that usually makes me shoot.
The underwhelming mating was prolonged by my inability to orgasm.
I threw myself off him and lay on my back, closed my eyes, and wanked for England until he was satisfied that I’d ejaculated all over my fur.
The evening, like the blossoming relationship, was dead.
The next morning, I woke with an overwhelming sense of loss and loneliness.
I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, counting the cracks around the coving.
Only five, but I repeated the count until I got to two hundred.
Consumed by longing to wake up with someone I loved, I lay paralysed, tears streaming down my face, only moving to wipe my snotty nose on the pillow.
The feeling of rejection from yet another doomed encounter had given way to a tidal wave of emotions that I’d felt when Liam walked out after 6 years, 3 months, and two days, leaving me stunned.
It had been four months since that Saturday morning, but the desperation I’d felt then as I fell to the floor and stayed there for eight weeks haunted me.
Even knowing it wasn’t meant to be, that the butterflies I’d had the night before had given way to moths, I still sent a final text to Stewart to see if we could have another date.
In that moment, in that empty bed made for two but occupied by one, sharing it with the wrong person would at least reheat the side of the bed where Liam once lay.
No, was Stewart’s reply. That no stung. I could still become a shaking, vomiting mess after being dismissed by a guy I knew I didn’t want. The rest of the day I smoked and drank that rejection away.
If I hadn’t made my resolution, I wouldn’t have made it to date four with Stewart. We would’ve shagged on the first date, realised it was bloody awful, both made pleasantries, and never contacted each other again.
Marcus has left me on read. The dog walk and the Sunday lunch vanishes before I have time to close the app. I take the lube back out of the drawer and throw it in the case, fold over the lid and zip it shut. I’m literally stuck between a shag and a hard place.