Pick One

“I’m not stupid, you know?” The Lapdog said to me, one afternoon. “I know that other guy is in the picture.”

Awesome. I knew that whole conversation was coming, but I thought I’d have time to get ahead of it before the conversation came up. I hadn’t exactly done a great job of hiding Grey from Lapdog, and vice-versa, but my plan had been to ditch Lapdog at the earliest opportunity, remember? That didn’t happen because we fucked instead. My bad, my bad. Yes, I’m a slag.

In all honesty, I wasn’t sure which one of the two men, I wanted more. They both had their quirks and qualities, and I had fun with them both… for very different reasons, of course. Each time I thought I had made my mind up, the other one did something to make me reconsider it. What was a girl to do?

“His name is Grey,” I told him, because there’s not much point in lying once you’ve already been caught out, is there? Honesty is the best policy, and all that.

“Does Grey know about me?” Venom dripped from that one-syllable name.

I pretended not to notice. “No, Lapdog. He doesn’t know about you. But I haven’t had the whole exclusivity chat with either of you. It’s not like I’m cheating.”

It wasn’t an excuse… but it also was an excuse. No promises had been made. Neither of them had asked me to be their girlfriend, or exclusive. Was I actually doing something wrong, or was I just playing men at their own game? We’d find out, I guessed.

“Okay,” Lapdog sighed. “But this can’t carry on. You need to pick one of us.”

“Pick one of you?” I laughed, but I didn’t mean to. His ultimatum genuinely made me laugh, because where was this gung-ho-ness when I actually wanted it from him?

“Yes. Pick one. It’s me, or it’s him. I’m not sharing you.”

I had fun with Lapdog, but I think we both knew that I wasn’t going to choose him. Not that I chose anyone on that afternoon, but mentally, I’d already chosen. Grey would win. Of course, Grey would win. Lapdog had too many things working against him: age, mindset, lack of gung-ho-ness, and work ethic, to name just a few. Grey was compatible with my wants in all three of those departments, and many more. Hell, he made me realise that I even wanted those things. It just didn’t make sense for me to choose Lapdog.

Essentially, his ultimatum had sealed our fate.

There was a massive wildcard in the situation, though: Grey. Would he pick me if given the same ultimatum? I wasn’t sure. I suppose that’s why I told Lapdog that I needed to think about things, but I’d let him know in due course. Formal? Yes. Necessary though, or so I felt. I needed to get my ducks in a row before I made a definitive decision. What if I picked Grey, but he didn’t want me? I’d lose both of them, and I didn’t really see the point in that.

Three days later, following no conversations with Grey, I told Lapdog – via text – that I didn’t think we were compatible enough long-term to make a relationship work. And it wasn’t a lie; I genuinely thought and believed that. He seemed to take it pretty well. There was a little texting back n’ forth, but everything went quiet and calm over the next few hours.

Or… so I felt.

The next blog post in the dating timeline is this one: NASS Festival.