Step one, the first meeting. We’ve all been here, the first glance. The moment when your eyes meet across the room and your heart skips a beat. You flutter your eyelashes and there is an instant connection. Every cliché imaginable starts to collide into one intense moment of perfection, heavily fuelled by your Saturday night alcohol intake. Stolen glances turn into a shy and difficult: ‘Hello’. Briefly followed by each others introduction yelled over the music. A few uncomfortable moments, then you get his phone number and he gets yours, a few more awkward moments and then you get his full name and again, he gets yours.
That’s right, his full name, does his surname match perfectly with your first name? Because lets be honest here, if it doesn’t, this isn’t going any further.
You then spend the rest of your night trying to look like a sex kitten, imagining your wedding to Mr. Perfect and trying desperately hard not to be the drunken idiot you actually are.
Step two, the wait. You’ve got his number, you’ve got his name, so now you play the waiting game. It’s a well known fact that women play games with men, never allowing them to have the upper hand in any situation and always keeping the ball firmly in our female court, always on our terms. Whether we want to or even intend on playing games or not, inevitability we always do.
We never want to make the first move, we want him to like us enough, to use the initiative, to contact us first, usually by text message. We never want to seem too keen, or too needy, or too desperate, despite the fact we’re already mentally planning the wedding complete with seating plan and flower arrangements.
while we’re waiting for THAT text message, we find the need to research him on every social networking website that has ever been invented, which almost certainty opens a whole new can of worms.
“I can’t believe it! His favourite band is Bon Jovi too! No way! He loves watching back to back soap episodes on a Sunday with a hangover, just like me! We are made for each other! He has got to be the one! But hang on, what’s that written on his wall? He’s left three x’s, she’s not prettier than me! But it does say he’s single…”
This is no overreaction… Well actually yes, yes it is, and worryingly, most of us are guilty of these unreasonable and ridiculous thoughts. All over some man we’ve only met once and hasn’t sent THAT text yet. We just need to calm down and maybe make contact first?
Or maybe he’s seen the pictures on Facebook of Vicky’s Hen Party in 2008, the ones with the tequila, and the toilet and the sick? Possibly time to expect an AA meeting as a first date if he does get in touch!
Step three, the first date. So you’ve done it, snagged a date with Mr. Perfect from Saturday night. He’s managed to see past the drunken photos and the potential stalking but this is where the nightmare really begins.
What do you wear? Something smart and sexy. But not too sexy, or too short, so no, the latest Ann Summers outfit won’t do, just yet. But nothing too smart, you want causal, but not so causal it looks like you haven’t made the effort, but not too much effort.
Where do you meet? Is it to be coffee in a cute and indie cafe or maybe cocktails in a chic and trendy bar? Somewhere preferably not too noisy, you want to be able to talk, and somewhere not too busy, you do want to be able to get a drink when necessary. And not forgetting the golden dating rule, somewhere that you don’t usually frequent, just in case you run into somebody you’d rather not, i.e. the ex.
Questions such as: what happens if you can’t remember what he looks like? Or, the horror of, what if you don’t fancy him? Should have both been answered already by the inappropriate social media stalking.
But once you’ve made it through all these struggles and it turns out that Mr. Perfect is just as perfect as you remembered (you lucky, lucky girl!) another big stumbling block gets in your way and tries to ruin everything…
The bill. Who pays the bill? In a perfect world, if the date hasn’t gone well you should probably split it, you’re not going to see him again and splitting it seems the only fair thing to do. If the date has gone wonderfully and he offers to pay, excellent, ring the bell for date number two. Ding! Ding!
But the problems start when he expects you to pay. Get out of there fast, leave via the bathroom window if you must and never look back. You deserve to be treated like a Queen, and as we all know, the Queen never carries cash.
Step four, the fourth date. You’ve had drinks, you’ve seen a movie or two and you’ve even had a romantic stroll around various parks and woodland, now it’s the fourth date and it’s time to seal the deal.
It’s the make or break date, you’ll be spending the night together, in bed, attempting to have sex and it’s now or never! If it doesn’t happen now, or in the very near future, you’ll be destined to end up in the friends zone, and judging by how well it’s going, neither of you want that!
Don’t forget to be wise before the big night, if you don’t want to discuss contraception with him just yet, make sure you carry condoms with you because you can guarantee he’ll forget to bring them, or if he does remember he might not want to use them, if this situation arises, you should take sex off the cards right there and then. Respect yourself and your body above all else.
Step five, the morning after the night before. You did it. You did the deed, and now you’ve woken up. Now here is the bag of mixed emotions you probably weren’t expecting. Was I good enough? Of course you were, you’re amazing.
Will he still like me now he’s seen me naked? Do you think he noticed that scar/bruise/red mark? The lights were probably out and you were probably hiding under the covers so he probably didn’t see that much. But don’t forget, he probably doesn’t know what day it is either, let alone noticing that tiny scar to the left of your belly button!
What happens now? What do I say to him? Just relax, hopefully these questions will be answered by the warm loving arm he places tenderly around your waist and with the gentle kiss he places on your forehead.
Step six, the honeymoon period. The best part, the peak of the relationship, he becomes glued to your side and the two of you are inseparable.
You can’t get enough of each other. You spend all your time cuddled up on the sofa watching movies, eating out together, spending lazy days naked in bed and having sex all the time. You are simply blind to each others faults. Nothing and nobody else matters. Life is wonderful.
You get to meet the parents and grin stupidly at each other when both sets of parents agree you’re a fantastic couple.
Time not spent together is time spent on the phone in long conversations with each other or sending and receiving loved up texting messages, the modern day love letters. You get butterflies every time your mobile phone beeps and it’s him. You’ve never been happier and you’ve never been more convinced that your Mr. Perfect is the one!
Step seven, the first serious argument. The relationship has been so perfect for such a long time now, something had to give, and usually it’s something unbelievably stupid, like leaving the seat up on the toilet, for the tenth time in a row, or for the ladies, leaving your long hair clogging up the drain in the shower.
But the first serious argument can leave you deflated, extremely unhappy and very angry. You may not even have contact with Mr. Perfect for several days now depending on how serious the first serious argument was.
But never fear, as soon as someone gives in and it’s been decided that the whole thing was just really silly and won’t ever happen again, make up sex steps in and solves everything. Then before you know it, it’s a hop, skip and a jump and you’re quickly back to step six in no time.
Step eight, the big move. You’ve bitten the bullet and decided it’s time to move in together, he’s moved into yours or you’ve moved into his or maybe you’ve found somewhere new. Either way, these are challenging times for you both, as people and for your relationship, nothing can prepare you for the turmoil of living with someone else, especially someone of the opposite sex that you’re in a loving relationship with.
Decisions on whose belongings live where, whose furniture do you want to keep, paying the mortgage, and how to split the bills start to make your relationship very unromantic and if you’re not careful the fun can start to fade away.
Changes in your sex life will begin to appear, the urgency to have sex completely disappears, because now you see Mr. Perfect every night and wake up next to him every morning. While the notion of this is romantic in the early days, he will probably snores, or sleep walks or sleep talks, or just generally move around a lot in his sleep, which will makes you angry in the long run, especially when these things wake you up, every, single, night, and he can just seemingly snooze through an earthquake.
Step nine, the breakdown of the relationship. Everything’s been heading downhill for a while now. You argue a lot, you can’t remember the last time you had sex and step six feels like it took place in another life.
If Mr Perfect, or even yourself for that matter, is going to be unfaithful, now would be the ideal time to do it, you’re feeling low, unloved and you need some form of ego boost. The social networking websites step in again to play a part. The messages will begin to appear from long lost friends and ex-partners and it finally feels like everything between the two of you is slipping away.
You’re clutching at straws but you’re not quiet ready to give up on your relationship just yet.
Step ten, the break up. So you’ve reached that point, they call it a break up because it’s broken. This is an extremely painful time for both parties.
The house and all of our possessions needs to be divided up equally and fairly. But there is nothing that takes into account the mental impact the break up is having on you or him.
You’re currently dealing with lots of different emotions, maybe anger, well defiantly anger if someone else was involved. You’ll be experiencing sadness because of all the time and effort you’ve put into your relationship has amounted to nothing. You’ll be feeling disappointment that all of those plans you made together for the future will never come true, and continue to be merely just a dream.
A break up is really soul destroying at the time but don’t worry because everything happens for a reason and you’ll pick yourself up, dust yourself off and realise he just wasn’t Mr. Perfect in the first place.
See you back at step one, to start all over again!
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