You had your dry cleaning and I think you're dreamy

It's difficult to imagine what life would be like without what we do in the bedroom in the lights off.

Perhaps celibacy is where it's at. Perhaps loneliness becomes fun after a while. It might even become intimate- legs wrapped around a pillow, thumping your fists on the pillow, tears streaming onto the sheets.

We promise ourselves so much - and we can't ever live up to it, we can't ever be that perfect version of ourselves that always makes the correct decision and never trips and falls and lands somewhere unrecognisable, holding our head and bleeding profusely, wondering where all the time went. The saddest part is that we hold our relationships to this too. We read the lines and when things aren't going according to the script, and we panic, and we fly right into the sheets again, hoping a quick spastic fuck might be the answer, telephone ringing off the hook, mothers crying. It's breathtaking what we do to ourselves in the name of Hollywood.

So there's this boy, yeah? Well he's pretty hot, and interesting. I think he likes me. (Mistake number one) I really think it could go somewhere. (Mistake number two) I wonder if he won't mind that I don't have a job or that I have a small apartment or that I don't watch the news or read newspapers but pretend I do anyway.

So at that point you have their number and so on and you text him wondering what he's up to and he responds in a suitably jovial manner and then as the conversation winds on you get less and less excited and realise that either you have nothing in common or he's not as interesting as you thought or worst of all and what we are loathe to admit is that he really isn't all that bothered about seeing me again (or for the first time). Because we want it so bad, and our last relationship didn't pan out the way we wanted to we try extra hard to convince ourselves that this is worth pursuing and isn't just a hairy waste of time stalking around on Facebook.

And so you see the cute boy at the laundrette and notice his cute clothes and impeccable hair and you want to go up and talk to him but then you remember your waste size and all the old feelings of inadequacy come flooding back, crashing down on the Egyptian soldiers of your self esteem.

Why is it so hard to fall for someone? Or more pertinently, why is it too easy to convince us that we're falling for someone and get burned because in actuality it's not even worth a second glance.

Am I so alone that sex with strangers no longer feels like masturbation?