I am not a casual person.
my experience with casual sex for the first time (uni canon event? or just me)
Despite many efforts, I actually do not have a bad relationship towards my sexuality. When I was younger, my mum made efforts to humiliate me for expressing crushes openly by calling me names like ‘boy crazy’ or telling every auntie within a 15 mile radius that I had a crush and pointed out the specific boy by name and look. To say this was humiliating would be a lighthearted way of putting it. Back when I felt embarrassed (I haven’t felt embarrassment since I was 16), it was a very high scale on the things that would keep me up at night. Because of this very public method of ridicule, I learnt not to voice I had any crushes. If she asked, I’d deny, deny, deny, which was hard, because I had a period where all I could do was laugh whenever I saw my crush. I couldn’t say anything, literally just laughed uncontrollably. Later, when I messaged a friend privately that I was in love with my crush and could see myself getting married to him, I was punished severely and learnt not to voice to anyone my likes on chats. Now, the girl who desperately wanted to have the marriage of a lifetime and children has turned into me, who has decided to experiment and come to the conclusion that I am definitely not a casual person.
I was in the club with two people. One I had met once before at a house party and had walked with her with a bottle of Dead Man Fingers Rum in my right hand and a random girl I had just met’s hand in my left. I added both of them to my Snap private story after. Her, along with a girl I had met that night, had been faking sobriety for about an hour with very limited success. The mutual friend who had brought us together had also brought a group of her religious friends with her, who go to clubs stone cold sober and don’t allow anyone with them to drink in front of them to avoid temptation. Out of respect, we all drank in her room and I made the suggestion to get Captain Morgan’s for the Coke I brought. They said they didn’t really feel it yet. I smiled. We put it in a bottle to go and the second they started walking, both went ‘fuck’. I told them ‘you’re feeling it now, right?’. We were the kind of silly drunk where everything was funny. Even getting up a chair was a struggle! We drank on the way to the club in two restaurant toilets and upon arrival, danced and felt the buzz before going for tequila shots, our final drinks for the night. Around 3am, one of the girls I came with left and it was just me and the other girl. As I messaged my ex fiance to see if he was good after our tumultuous (and unbeknownst to me, final) call, I bumped into a man in front of me. Our eyes locked. Once I had met him, I turned my phone off and forgot my message.
He was tall. That I knew for sure. I’m 5’7 and I was wearing 4 inch heels. He still seemed to tower over me. He had curly black hair and glasses on. He was wearing a black t shirt, was quite skinny and he had a big nose with a moustache/goatee combo. He was very clearly East African. Based on how he was looking at me, the attraction between us was instantly acknowledged and reciprocated. My first words to him, with a smile on my face that I tried to suppress, were ‘You’re tall’. He told me he’s 6’3. I told him I knew he had to be tall because I’m 5’7 without heels and he’s still basically towering over me. We exchanged names and we exchanged ages. When he told me he was 21, I made an awkward smile because for the last few days, I was stuck in a streak of 26-30 year old men on me and it had finally broken. He saw this as disinterest and tried to walk away, but I stopped him and told him if the age isn’t an issue to him and it isn’t an issue to me, we should see each other. He told me that if I bump into him again, he’ll take it as fate and he’d give me his snap. We bumped into each other 5 times. I had his snap by the end of the night and told him if he didn’t message me within a few hours, he’d be blocked. I woke up on the floor of my friend’s accom with three new messages from him sent at 6am. We had left the club at 4am. Oh, I was in.
The next few days came with him trying to invite me out to another club with him and sending me snaps. Or him replying to my snap story. To be very clear, I did not change my content for him. I sometimes show my face on there, but it’s always about me ranting about something. The last I did a pretty snap on my private story was last year. Moving on! One day, I’m finally able to come to a club the same time he is. The morning before we go, he calls me and I answer. I don’t know how, but I ended up agreeing to seeing him at 4am. I realised that I had free will and really, nobody could check me. He had complained the last time I watched a film without him, so this time, I watched a film with him. I chose ‘Django Unchained’. It was an interesting films. He was squeamish at the fake blood scenes. I watched and laughed. I can’t really tell you much else about the film. We didn’t focus much on it, although it stayed on. But this wasn’t the kickstarter of any extra feelings towards him, no. It was that club night.
That night, we had established that he’d let me do my own thing there. And I did. I was accepting free drinks because why should I not? But the second I saw him with another girl laughing, shit wasn’t funny anymore. I went and upped the ante to a different level. I danced with multiple guys, kissed one (I actually lowkey forgot about this kiss because I was very drunk, but it was a very quick kiss. He asked for one and I said ‘sure…’ and pressed my unmoving lips onto his and smiled, only to turn to my friend dancing and shrugged) and did everything I could to make sure that he’d see. At the end of the night, my friend and I were in his car and we had an argument. The argument was very clearly leaning into an issue I had with him I wasn’t saying yet, so my friend leaving for her Uber was very much needed. In the car, I complained about him laughing with another girl and hearing he had expressed interest in another girl 2 days after meeting me. In the car, he basically yelled out that he only liked me and I’m the only one he could think of that entire night. He told me he wasn’t jealous when he saw me with all those other guys. Once I told him I really needed to pee, he sped me through the streets of London to find somewhere decent for me to use the toilet. Then he arrived at my place. In the car, he took my shoes off and told me he’d be going back to his place. Once he told me that he needed to pee, I told him to come up. In my room and in my bed, I gave him one kiss and suddenly, we had finished having sex. I don’t know if it was watching him speed through roads for me, yelling in his car his attraction to me, or a mix of both, but he had me. I knew from then I wanted more and I obsessed.
It was a strange obsession. I watched his profile over and over. I wondered when I would see him next. After that night, I immediately asked when we would be seeing each other again. I told him I had to see him and I was tired of the clubs. I wanted to see him trying to impress or nervous. I wanted a date. After such a passionate declaration in the car and him telling me that he didn’t want to lose me, I thought a date was just around the corner. Then, the week we were meant to meet, I had to stay home. The next week, his car broke down. I saw the vids on his public snap, it wasn’t fake or anything. Another week came and now I was just desperate. It was narrow miss after narrow miss. His SIM card fucked and I missed his calls. He’d call me, I’d miss by a minute. I’d call him, he’d miss by a minute. Finally, I felt straight desire and told him about it. He planned to see me the very next day. I knew we had established a casual relationship and I knew that I couldn’t be mad at what I had, but I was nonetheless unsatisfied. The day he came to visit me was terribly intimate in my room and when he left, I felt a strange sadness like I knew it would be the last time I’d see him.
My issue with these casual relationships is that it cosplays the affection that I believe should be a natural byproduct of the care that leads to a proper relationship and ends in a night. Like a spell. The carriage has turned into a pumpkin and Cinderella is back to being a used person in her own home. I hated that feeling. I hated that the growing feelings I was getting was not being reciprocated. An imbalance of feeling just cannot be reconciled. It builds resentment. I get it’s not for everyone, and after my experience, it definitely isn’t for me. I can’t see how such affection and passion was only reserved for sex. I’m glad that I was at least told of this imbalance and was able to make a decision from there, but I know I cannot do that again. It just arises the feeling in me that I deserve MORE.
Why would I settle for a room when I could have the world? In the same way, why would I settle for casual when I could have soul-crushing, passionate, reciprocal, understanding love? Not simply liking, but loving to the point it transcends the simple body, the complex mind and hits my very soul?!
After this, I have truly understood that I am not a casual person. Casual is not my thing. I shouldn’t have to compress the romantic in me or be angry at my capacity only to grow in love when I feel good, rather than be stunted? Does the tallest flower apologise to the rest for its success?
-Halle
If he had returned your feelings but the relationship still only lasted a moment would you feel differently? I think there is some beauty in short, passionate flings but it doesn’t work if everyone isn’t all in
Friends to lovers is all I can add to that as well, in that way you KNOW they care