N.A.

What are the chances that both Emma and I meet guys who are not interested in sex within a couple of months of each other.


Ok, so mine first...so I start dating this guy back in July last year, let's call him Tim. We met in a pub in Covent Garden. I like him, he is good-looking, tall, funny, gets my weird sense of humour. There are lots of plusses - he owns his own place, likes his job and the industry that he works in, all round he's ok. We chat a lot on the phone over the ensuing weeks, email, have a few dates and then with no real explanation, other than he's 'depressed' (his words not mine!) he finishes it, which is fine. After a few days I think no more of it. Anyway, that September I finish with another boyfriend and on a lonely Tuesday night just feel the need to reach out to someone and chat. I call Tim and he answers. We talk and we end up arranging to meet the following week. Seeing Tim again was nice (such a bland word, I know but appropriate in this instance), like old friends we just slotted back into our old ways. We talked, he took me out, I went to his house, it was nice.



Now, things with Tim always moved slowly, both times that I dated him I was coming out of very messy/complex situations and I didn't want to just sleep with another guy and get myself even more confused, so here we were in mid-October and we still hadn't slept together, hadn't done anything in fact but that suited me at the time. We had arranged to go out in Angel, which remains one of my favourite places to socialise in London. Let me set the scene - we were in one of the pubs there, I forget which one, sat at a table for two together in the window, he had a pint of something yellowy, I had a vodka and something. Now, it was an evening after work so I was in my office attire but I knew we were going out so the outfit had been picked accordingly. I had on a, let's be honest, very tight, black, pencil skirt, white blouse (opened one button lower than I would at the office) with red vintage beads and red shoes. I sat holding my drink in one hand, with my legs crossed infront of me, pushed forward to one side of the table, shoes resting ontop of each other, hair swept over one shoulder falling in loose curls to just above my bustline. I was leaning back in the chair, pulling my shoulder blades together just enough to show my boobs off to their best advantage without being too obvious. The other hand rested on the outside of my thigh, altogether things were looking ok. He was leaning in and we were just chatting, then with me poised so perfectly in my red 'fuck me' shoes, he blindsided me. He looked me square in the face and told me that he wasn't that sexual a person. I felt myself actually slump, I wasn't able to control it but I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach. I mean I hadn't even felt his cock and here he was telling me, one of the most sexual people he will probably ever meet, that he is 'just not that sexual a person'. After that for me, it was over, we were done. I saw him maybe once more but my heart wasn't in it anymore. All my illusions that he waited because he cared that I had been through traumatic times were well and truly shattered. He didn't want to shag me, not because of that but because he just wasn't that interested in it - never had been apparently. I never took it as a personal slur, maybe I should have done. I just moved on and he became one for the Blog but when Emma told me that she had had a similar experience I was shocked. It was almost like the 'No-Actions' were taking over - surely they should have all died out, you know, survival of the fittest. If they don't like to procreate then their genes should have died along with them. Maybe these were the last two - let's hope.



Anyway Emma's fella - he is another one from her work circle. Emma works in one of those shared office conversions in Soho where lots of different businesses occupy the different floors. He works in a different business to her but their offices are next door to each other and they often meet on the way back from the kitchen or (in a rather hideously cliched way) at the watercooler. They are involved in the same industry so they are always at the same functions but never plan to actually go out together. They had flirted for months, like nine months. Emma said they had great chemistry, him confidently joking, her coquettishly laughing, running her finger around the edge of the plastic cup, you get the idea. Then in late May he told her he had a new girlfriend, which was fine, he had often shared this sort of info with her as she had with him. One night though shortly after this him and Emma get it on. Well, they are out together on a work night and end up snogging in a darkened corner (his girlfriend wasn't out that night) and then back at his house in St. Katherine's Dock. Now Emma thinks that she has maybe struck it lucky, they really get on, they work in the same field, he understands the pressures of her work, they have great chemistry, he's a great kisser. This could be something really special. (For the more moral amongst you, she does ask about the girlfriend but is given short shrift as he intends to finish with her now he has Emma, whom he states he has wanted for months). So they eat a little, watch a little TV, have some wine, time slips by and they make their way to his bedroom. Emma gets undressed seductively and slides under the duvet. She rolls over towards him, shuffles her head further over on the pillow. He lifts his arm so she can rest her head on his chest. She leans up and they kiss. Her hand starts at his nipples and then slowly travels down, meadering across his stomach, down further to below his navel and the next thing he slaps her hand away. (I know this sounds bizarre but totally true I swear!) She looked up at him quizzically and he says 'I think you'll find in England (Emma's American) that girls just like to kiss and cuddle'. Fortunately the room was dark and so Emma's open-mouth shocked face was partially disguised. Feeling just a little humiliated she rolled away, there was no more kissing or cuddling. She did manage to sleep a little, albeit on the other side of the bed, that night. The next day was Saturday and so she awoke early hoping they would head over to Borough Market for some breakfast. She again rolled over and put her arm across him, not to intiate sex but was greeted with him loudly announcing 'Emma, it's 6am!!!'. That finished it for Emma. She waited 'til he had slipped back into unconsciousness and then dressed and exited speedily. She called me early from Southwark Cathedral where she sat on the grass eating her Borough Market breakfast, whispering much of what had happened as she was sure that a tramp on a nearby bench was judging her.



As we chatted about her pretty horrific night, my very own 'No Action' Tim came to mind and I reminded Emma of him. The conversation quickly became Blog orientated. Emma and I did the only thing that we could in this situation, we met up to go out on the pull that night but we still had a nagging feeling about our early morning conversation - after years of fighting off men, does it seem now that we have both found a new breed of man? Guys who just don't want to be intimate. The holy grail - men who just want to cuddle - shame that we are not 14 anymore and require something more. I don't think that it makes us sluts - I just think that it makes us human.