Number 2: Goth Boy

Goth Boy was my second ever serious boyfriend, and I met him at my first ever job. Back then I thought it was love at first sight, but now I know differently, and better: it was simply lust at first sight. I can still remember seeing his beaming smile for the first time. Dressed in the least flattering uniform in the world, my hair full of grease, smelling like a hamburger, I smiled right back at him.

Soundtrack: Sk8er Boi by Avril Lavigne.

“Hi, I’m NotSo,” I said, stuttering a little. I honestly thought he was the hottest man in the world.

“Hi, NotSo,” he said back. “I’m Goth Boy.”

I was obsessed with him from that moment onwards, idolised him almost. Hindsight is a very wonderful thing, I suppose. Looking back now, despite calling The Very First One my ‘first love,’ he most definitely wasn’t. It was Goth Boy through and through. No doubt about it. I was obsessed with him. It was the first time I’d ever felt like that. I’d have done anything for him. Followed him anywhere. Changed virtually everything about myself for him. You name it – all the [probably toxic] cliches.

He opened up a whole host of brand-new worlds, including happy hardcore music, spending hours and hours and hours and hours modifying cars, and the band Soil. Specifically, the song Halo.

Cue me screaming, MY LITTLE HALO.

Or y’know, Hixxy and Sharkey’s Toytown.

It all depended on the mood.

He might have been a happy hardcore boy, but Goth Boy was also, as the name suggests, a bit of a metal/goth/emo/rock boy. As soon as the sun went down on Friday nights he’d transform from a Very Serious Man with a Very Serious RAF job (which happened just a few months into our relationship,) to an emo hunk, complete with spiked hair (that took longer than my Avril Lavigne-inspired long, straight locks to perfect) black shag bands and chunky silver rings, and a wallet attached to his Criminal Damage baggy jeans with a chain.

Oh, what a stereotype he was. But damn, I fuckin’ loved him.

It didn’t take long before I started wearing those Criminal Damage baggies that my Pops would take the piss out of of much, because I’d adamantly wear them come rain or shine, then look a bit of a laughing stock when they’d absorbed enough puddle water from the knees down to fill the Thames.

I started shopping in Camden. Punkyfish and Cyberdog were my absolute favourite shops. I lusted after those flame-emblazoned New Rock boots like you wouldn’t believe, but I just couldn’t afford them on my meagre wages. I’d already gotten my nose pierced, but Goth Boy encouraged me to get my tongue pierced… probably for obvious reasons.

It was safe to say that I’d entered a little metal/goth/emo/rock phase of my own. I got another couple of piercings, then dyed my hair black. One shag band became one-hundred-and-one, and my baggies got baggier by the day. To be fair, I’ve never really left that phase. I still listen to Halo by Soil at least once or twice a month. My playlist from then is still my playlist now. You’ll still catch me screeching out Nymphetamine by Cradle of Filth on a fairly regular basis. Or Pyschosocial by Slipknot. Or a System of a Down classic. (Wake up, smgojagoihaigb make up, akfaukbgiaubg, keys upon the table, etc.) Black is still my very favourite colour, even though it’s not really a colour at all. Baggies beat tight clothes all day long.

I’d like to say that Goth Boy and I were inseparable from day one, but he had a friends-with-benefits situation that he needed to sort out first – and she was a right bitch. Let’s call her Horseface, HF for short. I guess HF could sense that we were flirting, fucking, whatever, because she then decided that she wanted Goth Boy for good.

My Goth Boy.

Except he wasn’t mine… yet.

HF gave GB the ultimatum: NotSo or me.

He chose… me.

To be honest, I don’t think either of us saw that coming.

HF made my life hell at work from that moment onwards, not helped by the fact that GB left to join the military.

“He’s probably fucking someone else now,” she’d say to me, or some variation of it.

I tried really hard to ignore it. Really, really hard. And I managed it for a while. I saw GB at weekends. We’d inevitably get drunk, head to the local metal bar, and rock out until the early hours of the morning, at which point we’d walk home, fucking all the way. Literally.

“I’ll drive you to work in the morning,” he’d always tell me, but he was never sober enough to do it.

We argued sometimes, sure, but my relationship with GB was actually pretty easy going. He never seemed to get jealous, start fights, or act out in other ways. In fact, he was always the perfect gentleman, going out of his way to make sure I was happy. (Aside from those morning drives to work, obviously.)

Everything was oh, so perfect.

That’s what I thought, anyway… 

This blog post comes next in the dating timeline: Shy.

If you’d rather avoid the smutty and spicy posts, skip straight to this one instead: The Rock Club.