Every guy you’ll hook-up with before immediately regretting it

Sure, if boys were better it might be better, but they’re not – so it’s not. While trudging through the dating minefield you’ll come across gym bros, bitter exes, out-and-out fuckboys and that one guy who is definitely way too old for you to be dating. And guess what? They’re all as bad as each other.

Here’s every guy you’ll hook up with, ever. Or at least, before you bar your windows and commit to a life of celibacy.

You thought he seemed semi-normal, albeit a little uptight, but then he turns up on the date wearing a pastel Vineyard Vines t-shirt with his boat shoes and his chinos and one drink in he’s talking about how Trump is just more fiscally responsible you know. He may have ridiculously white teeth and a year round tan (his parents own property in Martha’s Vineyard, obviously) but can you really cope with knowing he voted Trump in a swing state and now your birth control is in his sweaty, manicured grip? No. You can’t.

You hate yourself every time you sleep with him, so obviously you stop sleeping with him.

When you show up at the bar he’s already there, drinking a deconstructed Old Fashioned and reading a copy of Naked Lunch which is fashionably distressed (bought off Amazon purposely because the condition was described as “acceptable”). He’s the IRL equivalent of Jughead Jones, a tortured creative who recommends you poems that were on week one of your freshman syllabus and wears vegan docs and laments that you, like so many other women, fail to understand him.

Look, I know you feel like the Vera to his Vlad and the Zelda to his F Scott (wait what does the F stand for), but is it worth it? This is a lot of hassle just to have some guy smoke Marlboro Reds and stare at the ceiling judging your intellectual ability every time he comes.

The Peter Pan is in his mid twenties (you’re not quite sure how old he is) but he acts like he’s just turned 18. He drinks Natty Light, wears college jumpers and backwards caps and invites you to your ironic sports bar date – it’s probably Hooters isn’t it – before showing up 10 minutes late wearing shorts and flip flops. He makes fun of you for being a GDI in college and tells you about his plans to head down to Miami.

Realistically you are only sleeping with this guy because a) he ignites a sweet nostalgia for the halcyon days of college in your heart, or b) it’s been so long since you’ve slept with someone you go for what you knew because it’s easy. It’s not worth it.

I’m not going to sugarcoat this. He’s stupid as fuck.

You’re probably on this date because you think it might be a strange but good experience to have sex with a huge guy, and he’s kind of played up to this at first by showing up in clothes so tight he may burst out of them Lou Ferrigno style at any moment. He’s wearing brown slip-on shoes and has a lovely watch and nurses one beer the whole evening because it’s not good for you, you know.

OK but here’s the thing: Gym bros never ever realise that they’re dumb as fuck. They’re actually surprisingly sincere, albeit completely oblivious to how they appear to the outside world. They’ve committed to their heteronormative caveman vibes and expect you to as well – this means they’re giving out quite serious relationship vibes. They’ll talk about family values and don’t like you going out to party (why bother, it’s just empty calories and you could have an evening in with him instead as he talks about how he wants to visit the country of Africa and how Inception still blows his fucking mind).

You leave him because of this but also because of what the steroids have done to his genitals.

This tiny young man might make you feel fun again for a summer fling – you only ever get with them in the summer, weirdly – but really, you just feel a little bit tired out by the end. And you feel fucking old too. He gets really drunk on your dates and he’s just discovered the most basic, well-known, tourist track part of the city he’s moved to (the part you and your friends decided was completely tragic months ago). He’s an intern and is sexually intense and sometimes you do wonder if he’s got some strange mommy issues that he’s playing out with you.

You’ll ultimately dump him, not because of the sex or how much he loves coke, but because you literally can’t introduce him to your friends.

He’s a silver fox in a suit and you’re convinced that you’ll show him your fun, young world and he’ll treat you right in response (there’s a lot of “don’t worry, I’ll get these”). But he’s old. Like he’s fucking old and that means it will develop an intense, middle-aged loneliness vibe earlier than you’d like.

Eventually you’ll have to get rid of him, despite the romantic minibreaks you never have to pay for, despite the lovely restaurants, despite his beautiful flat and the way he’s so self-assured, because he’ll assume that because of your age you’re down for exploring calling him daddy and having a threesome, and you’re less sure that you’re OK with that. Wow, vanilla.

I don’t want to sound like a fuckboy when I say this but come on, you know what this is. You know who he is, and you don’t even date him. He’s literally there, a disembodied topless userpic in your phone to text at 3am and hook-up with because you’re too lazy to put in any graft with anyone else in the club. It will never develop past this and eventually you become so sick of short, sleepy 3am selfish sex that you put a “do not contact” note next to his name in your phone. But you still call him, so you end up having to delete the number.

Probably for the best.

Your friend is average looking. He has an awkward smile and he’s been your back up since you were both like 15 (you say those passive-aggressive promises which nobody ever thinks are offensive at the time, like “omg if we turn 40 and we’re still not married we should just get together ha ha nothing weird here!”). But you know each other, you know each other really well. So when you eventually hook up, despite the laughing and the “this is so weird!” that you both keep saying, you assume it’ll be fine. You’re Sally, he’s Harry, all of that. So it surprises you inevitably when you have sex once, he fucks you over and you never speak again, tearing the friendship group asunder.

Here is a tip: don’t have sex with your friends you idiot.

Backsliding is gross. You know this. You know you’ve moved on and glo’d up and now when you see his tagged photos on Facebook you visibly shudder and think “fuck, how did I ever think that was worth it”. You know all this but sometimes at our lowest point we look at our grey, nondescript exes and think “eh, would it be that bad”. It’s the definition of ease – you know what each other like, and maybe it’ll even be fun and nostalgic.

It won’t. Keep moving on. Remember that really weird face he makes during? Yeah, you’ll have to see that again.

Illustrations by Bobby Palmer

@rosielanners