Roly Poly | I Went To A Strip Club

"Why do you do it? Don't you see that you're making yourself seem pathetic in these blogs, nobody will ever take you seriously if you continue to write about your failed attempts with women, your miserable outlook on life and your passive-aggressive writing is going to be your ultimate downfall" to which I replied "Ross, don't ever doubt yourself".

What a great story I have for you today.. it's a bit cheeky, bit after hours, little bit explicit, very much another one of those classic "Ross you old dog" stories that everyone is so fond of (e.g. My Mum).

You already know, it's in the title. I went to a Strip Club.

This amazing Photo done by none other than Rob Gray! The guy is a Photoshop genius!

Did I start my night thinking that I would be staring lovingly into a strippers massive... eyes? of course not. It was just another night out, specifically it was a delayed 23rd birthday night out for me in Peterborough with some work colleagues. The classic pre-drinks games of Ring of Fire and Never Have I Ever (Which is basically me not drinking most of the time until someone asks "Never have I ever cried myself to sleep"). I was on the Southern Comfort and Lemonades, a sophisticated drink which really oozes class when poured into a plastic cup. By the time we got out to the town I was pretty drunk, and by pretty I mean I can't really remember a lot, most of my night was traced back by a series of snapchats from one of my friends who decided to document me trying to chat up the back of a girls head because she wouldn't turn round and give me the time of day.

As for the night out it was pretty standard, our group thinned as the night went on, some to go home due to being too drunk and some to go drink tea and watch the Jungle Book. Until there was just me and a friend left.

I'm not sure what it is about my relationship with alcohol, it can do one of two things to me.

1. Overly Confident Ross: Imagine a tortoise in a shell, all his life he was raised to use this shell as protection from being attacked by female tortoises'. Imagine that one day that same tortoise was minding his own business and happened upon some whiskey smelling liquid in his garden. Imagine the tortoise drank some. What does the tortoise learn? He learns that he's mother fucking Blastoise from Pokemon and he has nothing to fear! He swaggers over to the lady tortoises (of course he bloody does) and even if they reject him (which they clearly will, he's no Charizard), its like *ping* his shell is indestructible, the rejections just bounce off. He is confident, he is funny, he just has no cares in the world. Until of course the morning after when he realises he is just a tortoise.

2. Existential Crisis Ross: I'm in a black and white film. I'm sat at a bar on a Wednesday night, alone. I stare at my drink in front of me, the liquid sits peacefully exactly half way in the glass. I ponder, is my glass half full or is it half empty? Ludovico Einaudi composes the scene beautifully with a chilling piano score. I slowly pick up the glass and realise that it represents my life, it's not full... there is something missing and every time I drink it is getting less and less full. I down the drink. It is empty. Just as I am about to break the Barman comes over and fills my glass "No! I'm only 23" I think to myself "It's okay that I haven't figured everything out yet. Life is full of ups and downs and that's okay." Colour begins to fill the screen, everything is warming up. The guy next to me goes to grab some peanuts from the bar and knocks my drink over my favourite shirt... The colour drains... I cry.

On this night, I happened to be in Overly Confident Ross mode which is why when my work colleague said "Hey, Lets go to the strip club" I replied "Great! More women for me to scare away!".

So we rock up to this strip club in Peterborough and there's a big bouncer guy on the door, he goes "Rules are, no touching, no phones and no abusive behaviour towards the dancers". I'm not worried, I'm respectful, my phones got like 10% battery and I doubt I'm going to play FIFA with one of them so no abusive behaviour from me. £10 Entry, about the same it costs to go see a film a the cinema. No worries. 

We walk in and its pretty dire as you expect, there's not really many people in there just a few seedy old men and us, there's about 7 or 8 girls walking around in their underwear and one on the stage dancing on a pole.

I know for a fact that if I was sober I would have probably exploded with discomfort, but alcohols a beautiful thing. We sit down on a table and there are a couple chairs around us. All of a sudden I hear "Hey Cutie" (she started as she meant to go on... with a lie) and a stripper sits on my lap. I'm like, alright, this is weird, there's a free chair right next to me but sure just sit on my lap, I guess you wearing just your underwear gives you some sort of confidence sword that strikes down peoples personal space. So this stripper has pissed me off already, its not that I didn't like what was happening, its just more that I didn't understand it, I like to ease myself into new situations, which is why I order the same thing from domino's every single time.. Calories and guilt. 

So this stripper's just sat on my lap and just sort of sighs and goes, "I could do with a drink". A clear hint to me that I should go and buy her a drink.. But I play hard ball, you have to get up pretty early to catch me out with those tricks I thought to myself, I know her game, So I just say to her "Me too, I'll have a Beer" My work colleague looks mortified at what I just said and sort of intervenes and says he will get the drinks. So he wonders off to the bar and its just me and this woman in an empty corner of a room.

So anyway, perhaps it was the mix of alcohol and the fact I had never been to a strip club before I gave in.. But almost definitely 100% peer pressure..  I accepted to have a dance. She leads me into this room and I sit down on the sofa, I've still got my beer with me, at this point I'm clenching it tight hoping she doesn't try and have a swig, shes already said she wanted one. So she looks me dead in the eye and takes off her bra, I'm hating this, I'm way too awkward for things like this, so I'm debating in my head whether or not I should look or just try and seem unimpressed. Then I remember I paid for this so I should really look, my eyes are going all over the place, I'm surprised my eyes didn't roll back and I warged into the stripper herself like bran from Game of Thrones. Anyway, so she continues, shes doing her dance, and all of a sudden she takes her knickers off.. Now this may be me being a naive fool, but I never knew strippers got fully nude, I mean, my experience of strip clubs up to this point was through movies and GTA V, and they always had pants on. So I am completely shocked... The dance finishes and I storm out, a little horrified by what I have just learnt..

I go up to my work colleague about to reveal this excruciatingly important information to him but hes being chatted up by two strippers, they are everywhere, There is no escape. I calmly and quietly sit down and he goes to me "I've worked out a sweet deal where we get to have a dance together" So I get dragged up and taken into another room, there are two sofas in the room one on one side and the other completely opposite, he sits on one and I sit on the other and the dances begin. I'm not entirely sure what the point of having a dance together was because we couldn't exactly partake in interesting conversations and banter when we were so far apart, so I sort of give him a wave whilst both strippers are looking away as an attempt to further bond and let him know that I am thinking of him. He sort of shakes his head in embarrassment but I know that he really wanted to wave back.

Anyway, we are coming towards the end of this dance and I've not really been paying attention when all of a sudden my stripper sort of grinds with her butt about half way down my leg. What happens next took pretty much the whole room by surprise. A noise emerges from down below, the stripper looks at me and is like "What the fuck was that?!". I look behind her to see my friends face in complete disbelief and his naked lady looking at me like I had just voted for Donald Trump in the presidential elections.

I play it cool as a cucumber, I just reach down into my pocket and pull out my Darth Vader key ring with light saber noise effects and light up eyes. I press the button on it again and shine the light around the room displaying the amazing features of something that I am proud to have my keys attached to. I look them all dead in the eye and say "It's cool right? I got it as a Secret Santa present last year when I worked in Game".

I have attached a small video element to this blog where you too, can be amazed at this piece of engineering beauty.

About 20 minutes and a couple drinks later, I have decided to ignore my friends recent lecture on how I should behave in a strip club and decide to regress back to my usual self deprecating time bomb of awkwardness. I begin thinking its a good idea to wave at the stripper who is currently hung half way down a pole upside down. She sort of does a bit of an impressive flip round the right way and waves back at me.

She finishes her routine and comes straight over, she looks at me funny and then goes "Oh, I thought I knew you", I tell her that I just have one of those faces, and she asks me why I waved? "I just like waving".

She sits down with us and looks a bit tired, but shes a hard worker and starts to try and graft me to have another dance. I'm pretty much done at this point, I'd seen enough boobs to put my browser history to shame and I just wanted a normal chat. I just start asking her really random questions. She tells me she loves dogs and suddenly my face lights up! "I HAVE A DOG! I ALSO LOVE DOGS! HERE'S MY DOG!" I get my phone out and show her Luther. She doesn't seem impressed at all. I'm a little offended, my dog is awesome I think to myself, I shout across the way to my friend and his stripper "Hey. Don't you find Luther awesome?". Once again I get disapproving looks from my friend, I also notice behind him a very disapproving look from a rather towering bald man.. It happens that in my drunken state I may have forgotten one of the rules... Phones aren't even allowed for sharing cute animal pictures or memes. 

It's getting near the end of the night now and I am still talking to Kat (Let's be realistic, I don't remember her name...). She tells me that she's having a good time talking to me and wants to continue the conversation in the back.. I ask if they have Mario Kart back there and she laughs and leads me into the back... There wasn't Mario Kart. 

So we are in this new room and there is a bed, she offers me a dance and by this time I'm once again at that state of, why not?. I lay back on the bed and feel the sprung mattress dig into my back, I say to her that she should get a Sleep Genie Adam Mattress but she ignores me. I lay there looking at the ceiling when all of a sudden... Well... The only way to describe it.. Is she roly poly'd on me. She sort of put her head on the end of the bed and flipped over so that her legs were now either side of my face and I was staring into, what can only be described as, an Ood from Doctor Who. 

I'm struggling to come to terms with what just happened, I used to Roly Poly on my bed when I was about 10 pretending to be a Power Ranger, but this grown women has just done it to me, on top of me.. and I bloody paid for it. Just as I think things can't get any weirder, she takes her knickers which she was holding in her hand.. and just places them on my head. She put them on me! and then sort of leans back and tilts her head and say's "Awww look, now you're the king of the strip club"... SHE JUST CROWNED ME WITH HER KNICKERS...

It also didn't grant me any power... I said to her as King that I wanted my money back, she ignored me again. 
The dance finishes and I get up from the bed and try to walk out, she forcefully takes my crown off of me in a rather quick swipe which would be enough to give a small toddler whiplash.

The strip club DJ says the place is closing and we leave.

The next morning I wake up with a terrible hangover and a feeling of dread.. I suddenly realise how much I spent in there...

£119.

Never Again.

Thanks for reading, please don't come up to me and put your underwear on my head. I won't pay you.

If you enjoyed this please give it a share, tell your friends, show it to a stripper, give it a like and most importantly have a fantastic Christmas.

This will be my last blog of 2016 (I might do some in 2017) and I just want to say a massive thank you for anyone who's taken the time to read them, It really means a lot!

If you are a first time reader, why not check out my other entries? Here are some links!

Remember the time my Ex's Dad took me to court?

Remember the time I went on an unsuccessful date?

Remember the time I was on Dating Apps?

6.5/10 | The Art Of Dating Apps

Do you like Pictures? This Blog has loads of pictures, of text, that you have to read.

But,

Before I begin, I just want to say a massive thank you to everyone who has been reading my blogs, I am genuinely so humbled by the support and love that they have received. If you've never read any of my blogs here is what others have had to say:

"Love your blogs Ross" - Jan
"Looking forward to your next blog post. You're a very funny writer!" - Bobby
"Love reading these, helps me take my mind off of my own appalling love life." - WIll
"This is the best thing in the world. Thank you Ross" - Holly
"This happened 4 years ago and it just shows that you have no respect for people" Anonymous

I love all the feedback I have received so thank you! 

Moving on.

The famous saying is "Write about what you know", which is why most of you are scratching your head at the title. However, contrary to belief, Me, a 23 year old, single, self deprecating and desperate fool is on dating apps. It's not that it's a complete disaster, which will upset most of you, it's just that, like your favourite TV show when it hits series 3, it's not going well (there are exceptions I know, but just let me have that one, okay?).

But before we get to Dating Apps, let's talk the real world.

I've always been a bit of a romantic and old fashioned when it comes to dating. I want to wine and dine you, serenade you, write you poem-

I'm kidding, what I really want to do is take you to laser tag and shoot you in the face with a laser show that rivals Epcot at Disney on New Years Eve. It's then quite hard to believe that I haven't been on that many dates, probably less than five. The dates I have been on have been a bit hit and miss, for example, one date spawned a relationship that lasted nearly two years, which I would call a success, whilst another ended with the girl getting back with her ex, I count that one as a failure.

I think the main reason I don't go on more dates, other than being a 6.5/10, is that half the time I chase after the wrong girls.

Take for example my Secondary School crush. This girl I fancied for years, I thought she was absolutely amazing, I would go weak at the knees every time she passed me in the playground and would choke up if she ever tried to talk to me. I remember working up the courage to tell her how I felt on MSN, I'd logged on and off again 5 times in a row just to get her attention only to be met with a resounding "no" to my advances... Anyway.. she has a girlfriend now. WRONG GIRL

Take for example my first crush in my new school for sixth form (no, not the one from the Nandos blog). We were great friends and I even went to see her Christmas show performance of the Grinch just because I thought it would help me get further with her, It didn't, but the show was actually pretty good so.. Anyway, I mistook her friendship for "I love you Ross, you will be the father to my child".. Well I'm not. WRONG GIRL (Congrats by the way!)

Take also for example the stripper I had a lap dance from recently. She was awesome. Down to earth, incredibly beautiful and loved Dogs (Yes, I talked to a stripper about dogs. I showed her a picture of Luther, I also showed her my Star Wars key ring, she loved it). Things were going great until I had to pay. Bit of a gold digger, only in it for the money. WRONG GIRL

But it's hard on a day to day basis to meet someone that you genuinely like and connect with. The likelihood of me playing PS4, eating 5 sausage rolls in a row and a girl bursting through my door and making love to me is 0%.. Although it sounds like a decent plot for a porno.

So how do you meet and talk to someone? In the modern day it's a very rare thing (unless alcohol is involved) for a guy to have the courage to walk up to a girl and strike up a conversation. Which is why I will forever be awkwardly staring at the really pretty girl who sits across the way in the office space. It's just not in our nature. Is it the fear of rejection? Is it the need to play it cool? I'm not sure.

But, of course, like most things, there is an App for that
Tinder/Plenty of Fish

See, Dating Apps are a beautiful thing. It takes the most romantic, courageous and confident aspects of a guy walking up to a girl and saying hello and replaces them with seediness, cowardliness and fake confidence that allows them to message "nudes?".

Guys, I'm going to let you into a little secret, these sites are great, but, if like me, you are rated under a 7 in the looks department, then don't expect to get many matches.

Now I've probably divided you, you're either thinking "Oh don't be so hard on yourself Ross, you're attractive enough" Or "Naa to be fair Ross, you look like Neville Longbottom"

- Side note. You know what annoys me the most when people say that? It's afterwards when they say "Yeah but the guy who played Neville Longbottom is hot now" and I'm like.. Yes.. But I don't look like Matthew Lewis the now attractive actor.. I look like Neville fucking Longbottom. Matthew Lewis had to have a fat suit and false teeth. I could have saved Warner Brothers fortunes. 

But anyway, that's not to say that I don't get the occasional match, because I do. I'm not sure whether it's what my Bio says, the fact I have Luther in my picture or that the girl is epileptic and someone flashed a light in her eye and the spasm accidentally sent her swiping finger flying right.

Here's my Tinder for Reference.

So that's success right? Nope. Once you've mutually agreed that you sorta like the idea of seeing the other one naked you then need to actually message.

So at first I struggled finding what the perfect message is to say. The problem is girls on Dating websites get hundreds of guys messaging them, so saying something like "hey" or "hows it going?" just isn't going to make you stick out.. I also wouldn't recommend poems.

*The screenshots you are about to see are completely real, these are sourced by mine and Matt Arter's (another lonely heart) experiences on Tinder and Plenty of Fish. Pictures on Tinder have been hidden and Usernames and Pictures on Plenty of Fish have been hidden to protect the identities of those involved and stop any unwanted defamation of character (Although, That's not how Defamation of Character works, but a lot of people don't know that)
Im getting good at disclaimers.

At first I tried generic attempts to be funny.. met with resounding rejection.

There was the one who didn't like the Kaiser Chiefs

The one who didn't get a blatant reference

And the one who didn't like this excellent play on her name. Like really, I thought I was a bloody genius for this one..

After a while of getting rejected and no replies I watched a video (yes, I did my bloody research) on how to send interesting messages, and this one Youtube channel suggested role playing divorce as a method of getting their attention, a typical conversation would be as follows:

"Hey! I have some bad news!"
"Whats that?"
"Our Divorce papers have come through, I'm taking the cheese toasty machine and silk sheets"
"Well I'm taking the dog and the Television..."
and then we go from there.. It actually works pretty well and I've gotten a few numbers from doing this.

You're now thinking "Okay, that's cute Ross, but why have you told us this?" and the answer is you need to know that is my usual go to chat up line before being met with these amazing rejections.. I said it worked pretty well, not that it works all the time.

There was the one where I thought it was going really well... but wasn't.

The one who wanted to go on Jeremy Kyle

and the one who was going through a really tough time

You may be wondering (If you're still reading this, bloody hell, this one isn't as good as the last two is it?) if anything has ever gone further with any matches and successful conversations I have had. Could it be a modern romantic tale? He swipes the girl, He fake divorces the girl, He gets the girls number, He gets the girl to date him, He falls in love with the girl, He gets the girl to fall in love with him. Answer is, No. In all honesty, I've only gone on one actual tinder date and a bird shat on me whilst we were sat on a bench in town.. A pigeon that is.. Not her.

If I'm being honest, I go on these websites out of boredom and loneliness rather than an actual need to find a romantic partner. Sure, I would love to meet someone I really like but I know deep down that my future wife isn't Hannah who has the dog snapchat filter on and lives 22km away, but until I bump into the famous actress that I will marry, at the Oscars, after months of planning and stalking, she'll do.

If you do happen to enjoy what I write, it really does mean the world to me when you praise me like a dog who's suddenly stopped shitting in the house and learnt that it's much more fun to do it in places where people might step in it, so give it a like, a comment or even a share.

Super-like and out.

The Disappointing Sequel | Expectations vs Reality

Wow..

First of all I want to say a massive thank you to everybody who took the time to read my last blog (You can click Here if you haven't read it yet), I was literally so surprised how many of you took the time to read it and was really pleased with the feedback and reception it received. I suppose being taken to court has it's advantages. Level up: Popularity +1.

Now I need to be honest. That last blog was a complete and utter fluke as far as I'm concerned. I had something pretty huge happen to me and it made for a cracking story of love, loss, crazy bitches and court. Outside of that? I'm boring. (Unless you're a single female.. I'm really exciting, interesting and completely not desperate.. Inbox me).

Take a normal day in my life for example, I wake up, I order pizza, I spam right on tinder hoping to get at least some form of interaction with a human from the opposite sex, I fail, I ring my mum, I go to bed.

You know, It's not an overly exciting lifestyle to write about for a Blog. However, a few of you have asked me to write some more and continue churning out stories of my misfortune with the ladies, work and life. Thanks for that. 

I have a few more stories up my sleeve, so I'm probably going to try to do a blog every 2-4 weeks. Hopefully that way It will make my blog last a little longer instead of exhausting all my resources straight away and hopefully in that time more interesting and miserable things will happen to me. We can only hope. 

Right, enough of that. You're here for a story of me making myself look like an idiot.

How about my disappointing first date? Does that sound like something you want to laugh at? Good. 

Like most of my stories, I'm going to have to take you back in time, this one goes back to 2011 when I was in year 12 studying for my A-levels. For those of you who don't know, I went to a different school for A-levels, the reasoning behind this move was because the school offered what I believed to be a better prospect for my future. AKA. It had girls I hadn't met yet.

This is where I want to bring in this week's theme for my blog. Expectations vs Reality. If anyone has ever seen the film 500 days of summer you might be familiar with this. you can find the scene I'm talking about below. It's depressing.

So.. This blog and the story of my first date will use the Expectations vs Reality format.

For Example..

Expectation

I would start my new school, make loads of new friends, connect with a girl that I really liked, get a girlfriend.

Reality

I left school a Virgin. 

Or..

If you look really closely you can tell that the one on the right has been Photoshopped. I just bulked for the other. (Thanks to Rob Gray for photoshopping my face on two different men's half naked bodies)

You get the picture.

Anyway, so I made friends at my new school (shocker) and there was this one girl who I really liked. Once again, I won't be using real names, not only because I think it's horrible to name and shame people but also because every time I say her name my heart begins to break in half. Shit.

So anyway, Sarah wasn't only pretty, but she had a great personality, sense of humour and taste in music too. I was pretty much smitten. She was giving off signs that she might like me too, such as-

1. Looking in my general direction.

2. Talking to me.

So, I mean, you can forgive me for thinking that she was into me. The signs were all there.

Anyway, drunk Ross told her how he felt and got shot down, which was a bit confusing, apparently I was a good friend but wasn't seen in a romantic way. I believe the scientific term for what happened was "Friendzoned". Which completely caught me off guard, I thought her talking about other guys and also saying "You're like a brother to me" were all shoo-ins.

Some time after Sarah got a boyfriend and although I never really talked to him he was a pretty popular guy, the couple times I did talk to him he was actually a really nice guy. Which actually, funnily enough, makes me the Villain of this love story. 

They had probably only been going out a month when they broke up. I immediately pounced on the opportunity to be a rebound and start operation get out of the friend zone. #Frexit. I mean, It was my turn bro. She was upset and I was there to comfort here. Cue First Expectation vs Reality.

Expectation

I ask her on a romantic date, she says yes. She immediately starts to think of me as more than just a friend and see's that there is potential to develop something more between us.

Reality

I ask her if she want's to do something. She says yes. She wants to be distracted from her ex. 

So.. To take away from that first point. I'm now thinking that when we do something, we are going on a date, romantically. That's pretty clear right? When you say to a girl "Hey, let's hang out" there is no way that she can misinterpret that to anything other than "One day I'm going to marry you and we are going to start a milkshake business, franchise it, become millionaires, move to LA, sell our success story as an Oscar winning film starring Matthew Lewis as me and live happily ever after ". Text book stuff.

Anyway, the day of the date comes around and at this point in my life I am still washing dishes for £5 an hour at The Pavilion in Broadstairs (Shout out to everyone who I worked with there). I finish work, go home, get showered, put a shirt on (I'm making an effort) and then get in my Dads Toyota Yaris and drive to go pick her up.

Now, She happened to be at a family gathering during the day and she asked if I could go pick her up from there instead of her house, I have no problem with this, she's cool, her family will be cool. She tells me her Uncle is a policeman and that's fine with me, I've not done anything illegal.

Expectation

I arrive outside her family gathering, go to the door, knock, she opens, I give her a kiss on the cheek and a hug (of course I bloody do). She invites me in where I meet the family. I make a witty joke, they fall in love with me. I go up to Paul, the uncle Policeman, have some banter with him, he pretends to put me in handcuffs for being too much of a bloody good laugh. I say goodbye to everyone, Paul invites me round for Christmas later on in the year. We drive off on our date.

Reality

I arrive outside her family gathering. I begin to panic as my 18 year old self begins to feel the pressure of impressing people he has never met before. I start to worry that the Policeman uncle might somehow know that I have an illegal copy of Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street at home on DVD. I ring Sarah and tell her I'm outside and ask her to come and meet me out the front. She gets in the car. We drive off on our date.

Pussy.

2011 was a funny year, I'm not sure whether it was our age group or something that had really just taken off, but, if you were to take a girl on a date, there was only really one acceptable place you could take her. A place that would make sure that she knew that you cared about her. A place that would make her question whether there really was something more than just friendship.

Nandos. Obviously.

So we rock up, I do a sweet reverse park into a space right outdoors and we walk inside.

Expectation

We enter, the waitress asks "Have you been to Nandos before?" I reply "Yes" I impress Sarah with my mad knowledge of the Nandos menu. We sit down at a table and I go straight up to the cutlery bar and grasp knifes, forks, napkins and sauce.. No messing about from this Nandos expert. She's now realising that this clearly isn't my first Nandos date and that she should snap me up before I have the next one in my sights.

Reality

As we walk up to Nandos I spot there is a bit of queue, At the back of the queue are family friends. This date is not going to plan. We stand behind them and I hope to god that they don't turn around so that I don't have to make the awkward chat and introduce Sarah to everyone. Obviously they turn around and spot me. We awkwardly chat and Sarah is introduced. Finally the queue dies down and of course we are seated on the table right fucking next to them. I'ts fine though, I can make this work, even with the new added pressure. I go up to the cutlery bar and grab the knife's, forks, napkins and sauce. As I'm walking back, I realise that perhaps grabbing all this stuff was a little too ambitious for my-

I drop the sauce. It smashes. The customers of Nandos let out a collective "Wheeeeeeeeeeey". A group of lads sat across the restaurant yells "Spillage is Lickage" and I turn bright red and sit down.

You can imagine that by this point I'm not too hopeful. This date has really not gone the way that I would have liked it too. I've not done anything to impress her and really just made myself look like a scared little sheep who's got his head stuck in a barbed wired fence.

Anyway, we look at the Nandos menu. I think I wanted a double chicken breast, medium, in a pita with peri peri chips. An average Nandos for an average date. I can't remember what she had, I'm going to guess a double chicken breast in a wrap, medium. Classic Sarah.

Expectation

I pay for the Nandos. She is so touched and feels like a princess. She starts to see me as a guy that will treat her to things because I think the world of her. She begins to realise that I'm the sort of guy that would buy her Diamond rings and take her to Paris for our 1 month celebration of awkwardly dating at school. My money and my willingness to pay for things makes me suddenly much more attractive. She wants to be with me.

Reality

I paid for the Nandos.

So afterwards, we leave. I've had a fairly fun time even though my expectations haven't aligned with the reality of the evening. But then again, I expected her to want a pudding and she didn't so I saved about an extra £4.50 there. So.. Swings and Roundabouts.

Dinners over. So what next?

Expectation

I ask her if she wants to come back to mine. She says Yes. We go back to mine where I have carefully planned the evening of the date to when my parents and sister are all out of the house doing other stuff. She comes back to mine. We watch a film, something good but not that interesting or plot driven so that her attention isn't divulged away from me too much. So we are watching Shrek 3 when I start to pull out the moves. Ross, you old dog. I put my arm around her, she gives me that look and then my prayers are answered.

Reality

She wants to go to some guys party I've never talked to before which happens to be tonight. Fuck. We go to this party, full of people I've never met or talked to at school. They are, lets face it, a different class of 18 year olds compared to me, you know, social, good looking, all sleeping with each other. I'm sat there whilst all these girls come up to Sarah and ask about what happened between her and David (again, not his real name) and she begins telling them about how they broke up, but also how last week she lost her Virginity to him. I'm sat there playing, fucking.. Doodle Jump on my phone trying not to cry. 

By this point I'm done with the night, I make up some bullshit reason of why I have to go and just leave. It wasn't successful. I drive home and Beyonce's "Best Thing I Never Had" comes on the radio. I get in, go to my room. I open up my laptop. I go to my history. I open the page and  I start to furiously ma-

tch.com.

I get a text from Sarah saying something along the lines of "Thanks for taking me out tonight. I had a really good time. You're such a good friend helping me keep my mind off of David. Love you xx"

Now, what you read is what the text actually says. What I read was

"Love you xx"

So I go to sleep, I'm a naive fool but I begin to think that the date was successful. Sure she said "Friend" but why wouldn't she want to date someone who's her friend?

Now here comes the last Expectation vs Reality. It's a shitter. But it's 100% true and was bloody heartbreaking for 18 year old Ross.

Expectation

I wake up the next morning. I look on my phone and she's text me. "Hey, So I've been thinking, that was a lot of fun last night, we should definitely do something again soon! I have a free house tonight, want to come round?". We live happily ever after.

Reality

I wake up the next morning. I look on my phone and there's no texts. I log in to facebook. I watch a video of a screaming goat. I scroll down. "Sarah is in a relationship with David". 

Yeah. She legit got back with her Ex the day after I took her on a date. Which leads me to believe that I may have misinterpreted some signs along the way and that perhaps, just perhaps, the date wasn't that good. In fact, it was so horrific that she probably thought "Fuck. I'm running out of choices here, I don't want to date boring guys like this for the rest of my life. I better go and get my Ex back."

So yeah, thats the story of my first "date" and a life lesson that you should never ever believe that your expectations will match the reality.

I talked to her the other day actually and asked her if it was okay that I wrote about this, can never be too careful, people will take you to court over anything.

She was like "Yeah sure, use what you like. It'll be interesting to read because I don't think I actually remember it"

I'm glad I have that lasting effect on people.

Thanks for reading again,

I hope it wasn't too much of a disappointment. If you did like it however, would be really nice if you gave the link a Like, Share or a Re-tweet. Helps me know that I'm doing something right.

Judge's Verdict | Nonsense

Welcome to my first Blog Post, technically, it's not my first Blog post. This blog used to be filled with 17 posts that I have since archived as I count this as officially the first in a re-branded blog. Hence why this will be the first you see. That was long and boring... Now enjoy the good stuff!

Wow.. My blog just took off in 2015.

I completely forgot I used to do these. 17 blog posts in total sharing my life like an open wound. It's been 18 Months since my last one. So what's happened in that time?

I graduated from Lincoln.
I moved back home.
I got a job at Game.
I got single.
I dusted.
I got a new Job.
I moved to Peterborough.
I shop in Iceland.

(they are the main things)

Great, you're all caught up.

Now I'm going to take you back, back to the year of 2012, when I looked like this..

You may be wondering about the title of this blog and where I'm going with it. Judge's Verdict? Oooo That sounds a bit serious. To be honest, it is kind of serious. Spoiler Alert: In 2013 I was taken to court by my Ex-Girlfriends dad. Yeah. That actually happened. It's mental.

A lot of you will probably have heard this story since it's one of the more interesting things that has happened to me.. along with the time I soiled myself and the time a girl completely Rekt me.

Anyway, I'm not really sure about the legal repercussions of using actual names and documents that were used in the case so for the purpose of this blog the name of my ex will be Chloe Buckerby (absolutely no where near her real name) her dad will be called Jeff Buckerby (Very far from his real name).

I need to give you all some back story about this before we get to the actual court case battle and what not.

So I met Chloe the first week of Uni. She was living with my friend Tom from back home (big shout out to Tom who's currently doing stuff in Ethiopia up a mountain). We didn't immediately hit it off, like, I was a very awkward and socially inept 19 year old and she fancied Tom. Anyway, I can't really remember the specifics of why Tom didn't go there but I was a sort of rebound on one of the nights, which was great for me at the time, a Virgin.

Having never had a girlfriend before or anything close, I clinged onto this attention like a fly on a doughnut (I know that's not the saying but I can't imagine a world where a fly would rather be on some shit than a Krispy Kreme). I probably did some right romantic shit and then asked her out. She said Yes..

(Obviously)

And things were, as far as I was concerned, great. (looking back, an obvious crazy sign was that she didn't like cheese.. yup)

Fast forward to January 2013. Things are still good, not as great as they were, but I'm still invested. She's pretty hot.

Her family are planning a holiday for the summer and talks about Florida are up in the air. Chloe wants me to come but I'm not in the sort of position where I can pay for food from Sainsbury's let alone a trip to Florida. So I decline. Chloe must have gone running to her parents anyway as soon they offer to pay for me to go with them, I let them know that I'm grateful but wouldn't be able to pay them back and they are fine with that, it's a gift.

Florida gets changed to some tour around Europe on a train and it's planned for August 2013

It's May 2013. It's now not good. She's a jealous wreck, clingy as fuck and we have to spend every weekend around her parents when all I want to do is get drunk and play FIFA 13 with my flatmates.

Now that may seem like I'm being harsh but this girl genuinely went psycho. Here are my top 3 crazy moments from her.

1. She was so jealous that she had a go at me for watching Twilight: Breaking Dawn part 2 without her. I did her a solid as far as I'm concerned! It just wasn't a great film.

2. She didn't want me to watch Game of Thrones by myself because of all the naked women in there. Apparently I might fancy them more than her which scared her. I mean, Natalie Dormer would be fantastic but let's face it, it's not going to happen is it Chloe.

3. I was directing a short film for University (which you can watch by clicking here.. It's good.. well.. it's okay.. ) that I wrote for our final year project. I was with my group (shoutout to group BJ) filming in the university library. Anyway, I get a phone call from Chloe and she starts having a go at me down the phone, the conversation went a little like this:

"Where are you?"
"What do you mean, where am I? I'm in the library shooting this film, I told you earlier"
"Well I was just in the library, and you're not there, where are you?!"
"What? I'm in the bloody library, I'm on the top floor!"
"I don't believe you"
*Takes photo of himself in Library to prove where he is*
"Well.. You could have just ran there really quickly"
Like.. DaFuq?! I'm not Usain Bolt, Chloe!

ANYWAY.. Back on track. So between May and June we are in a rocky place, quite frankly I don't want to be with her anymore but I couldn't break up with her because every time I did she just started crying and going crazy. I'm stuck.

I go home for the summer and we are still together.. It must have lasted a good two weeks before I had enough. She phoned me up and started talking about our plans for Christmas.. CHRISTMAS.. IN JUNE! She started saying that she didn't want us to be apart for Christmas and that I had to choose her over my family for either this year or the following (She was legit talking about the following years Christmas as well!). I just had enough, I was like.. Naaa.. Im spending every Christmas with my family..

So she broke up with me.. and I was like.. Fuck Yeah!.. for 5 minutes before she rang me back saying she didn't mean it. But this was perfect, I now had the power to say "actually, I don't want to get back together"

Many weeks of crying and text's and phone calls.. blah blah blah, Classic break up stuff. Probably Ben and Jerry's.. The usual.

Then one day I get a phone call from her Mum and Dad (Jeff). They start having a go at me down the phone, saying that I planned to break up with her when I was back at home because I was a coward. I mean, they raise some great points, it was definitely easier.. Mainly because it was impossible to do it to her face because she wouldn't accept it.

They then start banging on about the holiday, which at this point I had completely forgot about. They tell me that I am going to be paying for my space and that the bill will be coming through my door. I'm like, naa, you're alright Jeffy, you know I didn't have that money and you offered to pay. I hang up.

Scene.

About a month later I get an E-mail. All very formal, from Mr. Buckerby. He calls the e-mail some bullshit like "Tying lose ends" or something. In it he basically says that Chloe has some of my old stuff and they want to know what I want them to do with it. We had some collective money, What do they want me to do about it. and.. "Oh yeah.. We want £125 from you for your deposit otherwise we are going to take you to court. You told us you'd pay if you didn't go"

I read this and i'm genuinely like... Wut? £125? I mean, it's not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, I could probably afford that, I'll take a wonga loan out. It will be fine.

But that wasn't the point. The point was that my Ex's dad is now trying to scrounge money I don't owe him out of me, a university student. He started saying that I had made a verbal contract with them when this just wasn't the case.

So I E-mail back saying this statement but in a much more polite and well rounded way "Burn my shit, Keep the money, Take me to court"

He's not happy with my response so E-mails back saying that I have a week to pay him his money otherwise the court process will start. I just call his bluff and say, yeah okay Jeff mate, do so.

I get regular E-mails that week updating me on how long I have left. Like I didn't know how long a week is.

And that was it.. I didn't hear anything more. I had won.


Fast forward to March 2014. I'm at university again, New house, New girlfriend. Things are going pretty swimmingly for Ross. I hadn't bumped into Chloe since being back at University either which was nice and I was genuinely just happier than I ever was during my first year. I wake up one morning and go downstairs and there is a letter waiting for me, It's bloody court papers.

Mr. Jefff Buckerby vs Mr. Ross Williams.
Showdown on the 12th June 2014.

Obviously this is not a nice thing to receive, I knew that really this whole court case trial thing was absolute bullshit but it was still a horrible feeling that I was going to have to go to a small claims court room in front of a judge and give my arguments against his.

The following months was like a Rocky training montage but instead of punching big slabs of meat and drinking 5 raw eggs, it was me writing long boring documents about my arguments and researching how binding a verbal contract really is.

12th June comes around and coincidentally it is also the day I leave uni to go back home for the summer, My parents come up, our family friend who had helped me with my defense had come up and I also had the support of my then current girlfriend. All of which had helped me stay positive throughout a really nasty time.

So I'm ready for a fight, I'm waiting outside in the foyer, looking out for Jeff or Chloe or any of the Buckerby's that might come to support their argument. My name gets called and I go in. There's two tables, one to the left, one to the right and in front their is an elevated table with a judge behind.

I say hello to the judge and sit down in my place. He greets me and then let's me know that Jeff isn't coming as he's at work.

Like, C'mon. I was looking forward to this, If you're going to take me to court for a completely ridiculous reason then I at least want to see the look on your face as you lose Jeff mate.

Anyway, the judge reads through Jeff's written arguments and then asks me to go through mine. He's like, Yeah this is pretty fucking ridiculous and a bit of a waste of every bodies time. You clearly made no agreement with them to pay and breaking up with his daughter isn't a good enough reason to take you to court, it's life. They'll get over it.

So the battle was won, obviously.

I haven't heard from any of the Buckerby's since, which is nice.

But ya know, Chloe, if you ever happen to read this. We had some good times, you bought me Nerf guns for Christmas once and I still use them, so you weren't a total waste of my time.

In all seriousness, I have no hard feelings towards her. I think she's got a new boyfriend now and I wish them all the happiness in the world.

Bitch.

Thanks for reading, bit of a long one this but I'm sure you can understand and I hope my misfortune makes for a funny read. It may at least cheer you up to know that no matter how hard your heart is broken by somebody, their dad probably won't take you to court over £125.

Swings and roundabouts.

Later.