I knew that the people at V wanted something as soon as I saw the name of the editor in my inbox. It’s not like the editor was a pest, but usually when her name showed up with a random email out of the blue it meant either one or two things:

1.She was drunk off her ass and felt the need to share with me the inner workings of her whimsical drunken mind or 2. She wanted me to write something.

No surprises then when I opened the email to find a request for an article about romance, emotion, love, feelings and all that other crap. Hold the cynicism. Well, a multitude of failed romantic conquests later, sadly my cynicism was the only thing keeping me warm at night. Wrong person, but apparently they wanted a truthful look from an average teenage girl. Plus they were offering me a nice little payment in return so here I am, sitting in a dimly lit room of rented student accommodation, freezing my ass off and ignoring the huge amount of reading I should be doing, for the sole purpose of reliving some past relationship mistakes and making myself increasingly more bitter to everything involving love. But where oh where do we start?

My first full on proper boyfriend was tall, dark with a killer smile, oddly clean cut and a bit of a rebel. Oh yes, we’ve all been there. His name was Paul and I was so hooked up on him at the time it was as if the world revolved around him. This godlike fixation, however, was pretty much ruined when I saw him eating the face off some random girl at a house party when we’d been together a few months. Suddenly all the warnings from my close friends took on an entirely new meaning. I didn’t make a scene…okay blatant lie - I marched up to him, called him some very derogatory terms and threw a drink on him. Yes ladies and possible gentlemen, I am the living embodiment of the word “class”. Bear in mind it was a teenage house party and alcohol was not only flowing down Paul’s face, but pretty much everywhere else as well. Not one glass in the house was empty.

I exited with mind blowing grace (I fell down the three steps outside, landed on my ass and burst into tears with one of my best friends calling him bad names and dropping in the subtle “I told you so” every few minutes with lines like: “Oh, I never liked him anyway, you’re better off without him - he’s a creep!.”)

Paul disappeared, never tried to contact me or apologize in any form and I haven’t seen him since. Last I heard he was living in a different town, and was a walking sexual disease. Lucky escape for me? I like to think so.

Next was a string of random hook ups. It wasn’t that I was on the rebound, on further reflection I realised what an idiot I was and what a mistake I had made. I also swore never to go for a guy like Paul again, maybe that’s why my desires never take me near a clean cut guy anymore. It was a good long time before I met anyone who really sparked up my interest in the male species again. Then I met Mark.

Mark was from London and had an irresistible accent. He was musically skilled, pretty intelligent and shared my love of, I guess you could say “kinky” relations. I was on holiday in London at the time, in a damp, dark, dingy club that smelled like cigarettes and underage sex watching a band play. Yet again I was slightly drunk (okay, fairly drunk). He found me in the crowd. There was an explosion of fireworks. The next thing I know I’m outside with my back against a wall and a very handsome boy having the make out session of my life. We had one of those relationships that are like relationships but not really. We acted like a couple, but never labelled ourselves as one. His brother lived in Dublin, so he’d come over to visit, we’d meet up have some fun and everything would be perfect.

We fought a lot and a drunken phone call on my behalf back in March in which I insulted his sexual prowess and declared that I wanted someone else instead of him, didn’t help much. Now we’re not speaking. Joy.  

Seeing as how I was having such a shit time with men, I decided (and this is the absolute perk of being bisexual) that I’d try my luck with a girl. So I kept my options open, had more random hook ups but never felt anything. Then, just as I was about to give up hope, I met Rachel. She was totally not my type in any way but I fell for her. It was a turbulent relationship to say the least. We were pretty volatile in every sense of the word. I recall one fight that turned absolutely vicious and involved flying vases, shaking hands and lots of tears. We were perfect for each other I guess you could say - perfect in a suicidal kind of way. We ended up staying together for a good few months and were pretty serious, but it fell through and the break up was nasty. Very nasty. She couldn’t cope with my distance, and I couldn’t cope with her smothering.

The two weeks following the break up were absolute hell. Not only did I have the worst case of the flu in the history of man, but I also had a string of tiring phone calls that stressed me out even more and made me end up hating myself for dumping her in the first place. But I got over it. I saw her a month afterwards. She asked if we could talk. I said no. I haven’t seen her since.

That experience really made me open my eyes and I haven’t been in a “proper” relationship since it all occurred last year. I’m currently back on my random hook ups. Well…having started college there are a few people I’d like to get to know better and another person I’d like to figure out just what the fuck is going on with.

So there you have it. “Write us an article,” they said. “No cynicism”. Well my apartment is freezing and like I said before, my cynicism is the only thing keeping me warm at night lately - and it makes one hell of a blanket.