Being Too Honest

Part One

On a Friday evening In London I met Arsene and another friend - let’s call him Sebastien - in one of those hip reconverted bars of Shoreditch. That one used to be a big warehouse by the docks. It was very busy and bustling, typical after-work City atmosphere. We ended up chatting with two British Indian ladies who were queuing for their drinks. We all sat down together. Good conversation… more drinks... One of them was all over Sebastien and she would end up going back home with him - he lived a few streets away. At the end of the evening I walked the other one back to the Tube station. We kissed goodbye at the gates.

“What, you’re not even taking my phone number?” she asked.

Oh yes of course, how forgetful of me. Always be closing they say. I took her number.

A few days later we ended up meeting for a drink date near Bank. Two-for-one cocktails and comfy sofas. The date was going well. I was being flirty-naughty and she was into it.

“If we both go back to your place, would that be unreasonable?” I suggested.

“Let’s be unreasonable,” she replied.

She lived outside London and at the time I had a flat in zone 2. So why did I suggest her place and not mine? The reason was a bit convoluted.

Let me explain.

At the time I was not completely free: I was in an open relationship with a girl who was living in Portugal. When we started seeing each other I had made it clear from day one that I didn’t want a girlfriend, exclusive relationship, marriage nor kids. She liked me so she found her own way to get in: she suggested an open relationship with special conditions.

Thinking back on it now, I find those special conditions very constraining but at the time I thought it was cool. Let’s put things back into context: this was the start of my non-exclusivity explorations so I hadn’t yet built up enough experience to know what worked and what didn’t.

Here was the deal in detail: she was ok with me seeing other girls as long as I didn’t invite them back to my place, as long as I didn’t take them on restaurant dates and as long as I didn’t spend a whole night with them. It had to be just plain sex and nothing more. In a way it was some sort of stricter version of Tom Torero's lover rules - for those of you who are familiar with his old blog. At first the idea seemed pretty cool. Your girlfriend allows you to sleep with other girls, who wouldn’t go for a deal like that? I had immediately agreed with the conditions she suggested but quickly realised that it actually made things difficult. It turned out to be completely unpractical and not in line with the way I want to interact with women in general.

This is why at the end of the drink date in the cocktail bar I didn’t suggest my place, which would have been the easier option. This was solely for the sake of honouring the “agreement”. To make things more interesting she didn’t stay in Central London: instead she lived in the sticks, somewhere north from London beyond the last stop of the Central line. When you live in Central London you build your own mental image of the City. After the last Tube station of zone 2, the train tracks give way to a deadly drop-off plunging into a dark and mysterious abyss populated with monsters and unknown dangers. And your Oyster card gets charged more as well.

So here we were, chatting away in the train that was taking us back to her place and away from safe and familiar London. Half way through the journey the conversation turned to past relationships - too early I know - and she mentioned her previous boyfriend.

“What about you, when was your last relationship?”

To which I answered in the most candid fashion, “Well I am currently in an open relationship with a girl in Portugal.”

She didn’t like it. Oh really why? We were sitting in the train heading northbound.

She looked at me and said, “I don’t like sharing. I suggest you go back.”

No hard feelings; have a good night. So I left the train at the following station and waited on the dark and deserted platform for a train in the opposite direction. Lucky for me we talked about this half way through. Had we discussed the topic at her place I would have found myself stranded in a remote village somewhere in the middle of the night with no train to go back home. It would have only made the story better.

Later on when I told the story to my friends, they all said, “Why didn’t you just lie and said you were single?”

Bad advice I think. I’d rather have a good story to tell than a girl who hates my guts because I hid something. It’s not so much about collecting successful lays by all means necessary but more about going through epic experiences and have good stories to tell.

Part 2

There was another occurrence of the same kind of situation with a British girl I had met in a bar - I was such a night-gamer at the time. Curly ginger hair, freckles, pretty and witty. She was taking stand-up comedy classes.

There was one first drink date where we kissed, then another event where she met Arsene, and finally another date that I arranged in St Katherine’s docks. For those of you dear Readers who don’t know London, St Katherine’s docks is a marina surrounded by restaurants and bars. Very cool place.

One of the rules I had set-up with my girlfriend from Portugal was “no taking a girl back home”, remember? So how was I supposed to handle the logistics that evening while still remaining in control? I went for the expensive option: I booked a room in a hotel in advance. Yes, I know: over-engineered, overkill and over-invested. It was a hotel I had tried before and which I liked. If worse came to worse, I would enjoy a staycation, as they say in Singapore.

We met at the bar, got a drink, moved to the restaurant next door, had a bite, moved to a pub, had another drink. Eventually we ended up in the bar of the hotel where I had booked the room. My conversation that evening was not great and I found myself running out of ways to escalate. I guess an ideal scenario would have been kissing, getting naughty then she would have asked, “Shall we go back to your place?” and I would have said, “No actually I have a room upstairs.”

It didn’t turn out like that: the conversation veered to past relationships - again - and the topic of my open relationship with the girl in Portugal came up. That killed the mood. This was our third date so she didn’t really like finding out about a hidden girlfriend at that stage.

“Well that is not going to work for me, I don’t like sharing. Is there any other weird thing I need to know about you and you haven’t told me?”

Well actually yes there was.

“I’ve booked a room in this hotel.”

She laughed.

“Ok I really need a drink, let’s order a whisky, I’ll need that if we are to carry on this conversation.”

I explained the “agreement” I had with my girlfriend. She found the whole thing very funny and promised she would use it as material for her stand-up. At one point it was time to say goodbye. I made one last attempt to entice her back upstairs, which she declined with a laugh.

She called a taxi and left.

I took the lift to my room which I would definitely enjoy on my own. It was a good room with a nice view to the marina. Very comfy bed.

So then again this was a story with a mix of telling too much and being entangled into the convoluted terms and conditions of an open relationship. Clearly, life became much simpler after I switched to being single while openly entertaining multiple long term relationships.

This story is taken from "Flops", Chapter 2 of our book "Do You Say That To Every Girl".