"Arrange Me a Marriage"

I am watching the above programme about marriage and the current 'star' is an idiot in her past relationships. The bird on it went through the 'star's past relationships and that's the sort of thing that underlined it.

She, for example, hooked up with a guy who ended up cheating on her and so left him. She went to his best mate, who - shockingly - cheated on her, too. So she got back with the first guy.

I'm not that retarded.

So, just to make sure I'm not an idiot, I'm going to do a brief run-down of my old relationships to prove I actually am still perfect. Or near-as-dammit.

The beginning is a very good place to start, allegedly, so let's do it.

(Like during healthcare prose, I'll use pseudonyms so I don't get caught out)

Girlfriend 1: BK

Not Burger King, unfortunately. I'd been kissing a lot of girls, like a real tart, but never really been going out with one by 17. I met BK through a mutual friend and we bonded over music, mostly. I did most of the chasing and, after a bit, we hooked up. Two things really led to the end of BK and I. Firstly she said she didn't really like public displays of affection. Which sort of betrays the point. She wouldn't, for example, hold my hand. Or give me a kiss on the cheek. Yet when we were alone she was a bit of a wannabe sex goddess. Mixed messages for sure. Bizarre. Ontop of that, we were together over the bits of Christmas in whatever year it was. I hosted two parties over the big nights (Christmas Eve and New Year) and she came to neither night. We ended shortly after, with her making quite a scene of it. So public displays of grief - she liked those.

Result: I made all of the moves and ended up making the terminal one when she became far too clingy. Began to set a trend, really. 2-0.

Girlfriend 2: CL

CL actually knew BK, which was a bit weird, but funny. Ever since before BK, in my tarty days, I'd always been very pro-girlfriend, thanks to Saved By The Bell and other such pieces of Americana. Whereas BK was lovely in a kooky pixie princess kind of way, CL was beautiful. Way outta my league, back then, I thought. It transpired that (again, mostly thanks to my efforts) she liked me, and we got it together. And for a bit it was perfect. Then she decided to ignore my texts. Then she got annoyed that I stopped texting her when she ignored me. It sort of went downhill from there. I broke down in tears in the middle of a canteen about this one, which was a bit of a low.

Result: My first real heartbreak. And I was really broken. But, in what seems like a world ago, I wasn't really bitter. I blamed myself. And felt the sting of karma, worrying I was perhaps too clingy to her and not hot enough. 0-2. The dream was over.

Girlfriend 3: SC

SC and I met at college. That's before University, if there are any Americans reading. She'd actually perved on me during a dance performance by me, which was bizarre. There was a big night back in my college days were we went to watch bands at a rugby club and drink cheap beer which they sold to us even though we were underage and they knew it. I sort of got speaking to her there. Someone had the bright idea of getting on the hour-long bus ride into Liverpool to get more hammered. We flirted on a number ten bus and kissed all night long in a sweaty club. From then on we were pretty on-and-off, mostly due to myself fucking up twice and being completely immature to near-adult relationships. She was also a bit of a dicktease by the end of it, so we were hardly the perfect couple. The night out before I left for uni I think I attempted to apologise which she took as a come on. Which I suppose it was, a little bit. But I walked away, so I count it as a no score draw.

Result: Bit of a score draw, really. Call it 3-3. I was immature and a bit of a dickhead. She got a little bit hurt and so decided to hurt me. All fun and games, really. Good preparation for the battle of the sexes to come.

Girlfriend 4: IW

Tricky to count this one as an actual girlfriend, but I will do for the sake of ease. I met IW through a friend and, to put it bluntly, a few days later she was giving me a blowjob in my living room. This was after she insulted me to all my friends, who she didn't know, and acted like something of a druggie. Suffice to say, after this I started to ignore her. She didn't take kindly to this and once threatened to punch me. Good days, they were. I extracted myself from the situation, past offers of 'just casual sex'. The kicker was, in the early days of us 'going out' I'd lent her a fiver, which I never got back. My friends now insist I'd paid five squid for a blowjob, which is quite funny, all things considered. I'm glad I came out of the 'relationship' without a black eye.

Result: My first proper sexual experience. And on my living room floor to boot. IW taught me that girls can be scary and just a little bit twisted, which was, in retrospect a highly useful insight. With the fiver in her pocket, she just edged it. 2-3.

Girlfriend 5: JK

I met JK quite randomly at University. JK was great. Fuck that, she was amazing. I lost my virginity to her, which was all kinds of fun. We sang together live a few times which was on the romantic side. And generally, when together and drunk couldn't keep our hands off of each other when we were out. Sometimes when we woke up, in the light of day, we were a bit awkward but I put that down to the early stages of getting to know one another. Pure honeymoon period, really. I once thought I fucked the whole thing up by being drunk enough to be sick on a big night out. She put me in a taxi, got out of the taxi when I was going to be sick, sat with me while I was sick, walked me back to her bed and let me sleep. Easily the most romantic thing which has ever happened to me. As I say, I thought I'd fucked it up but she insisted I hadn't, musing how weird it was that she still fancied me rotten after seeing me lying near my own bile. About 2 months after this she stopped speaking to me, and I later found out from a friend that she wasn't really interested anymore. This broke my heart, somewhat.

Result: I was a broken man. I pretended I wasn't, and found strength at times which I can still look back to proudly, but in the end she'd thrashed me. 1-4, I'm talking. It took quite the while to move onwards and upwards.

Girlfriend 6: MD

MD was, shockingly, a bit of a case of rebound. I still had faith in the image of a relationship and she was reasonably fun so we got together for a few months. She was a virgin and, careful of the pitfalls, I told her I didn't want to have sex soon. She insisted she wanted to do it, so we did, and it was awful. I'm no sexual predator, but she was terrible in bed and tried far too hard to be porn-star-sexy. I ended the relationship after 2 months, to which she wailed "I can't believe I gave you my virginity!". After the caution I'd used, and the amount she'd insisted, I was not amused.

Result: 3-0 to me, this time. It would've been two, but I got a late goal when her stories of me being a grade-A cunt fell apart and people started to realise she was a strange one.

Girlfriend 7: SL

MD had told everyone who would listen about what a cunt I apparently was. SL hadn't been involved in the circles these rumours were abound in, so was somewhat immune. SL was something of a legend before I actually spoke to her. She was hot, she was cool, she was interesting. I'd always knew she was hot, but I really fell for her when I found a story of hers on disk in the library. I read it all before I got to her name, returned it to her and things sort of proceeded from there. We were together for about 9 months into the end of University, with all the ups and downs of that. She moved back down South for 3 months and then went around the world for 6 months. We got together again when she got back for 9 months which subsequently went down the pan, due to her getting a fancy job and turning completely uncool. The relationship was, suffice to say, rocky. I felt like I was holding up the entire charade on my own, which was a bit of a theme through the whole trail.

Result: It was a tough 0-0 draw for the entirety, with each side jockeying for position but coming up against formidable opposition. I scored a late goal, maybe even a penalty, in the 31st minute of extra time, capturing the points and happiness for myself. 1-0 AET.

Getting out of my lovely-to-awful relationship with SL made me realise I actually quite like being single. More reasonably I could say the end of things with SL convinced me away from the typical view of pop-society that relationships are wonderful and all there is to life.

Suffice to say, going through the main relationships of my life has proved one important thing to me. I'm doing things better than idiots on 'Arrange Me a Marriage'.