Don't be a Twat. Part 3.

2001.

I'm coming to my last few months at college, and to my last chance to man up and make something happen with long-term crush Z. (It hasn't crossed my mind that I'm too busy to make anything happen with her, regardless of her lack of interest.)

During these few months, I've applied to about 4 different universities. Salford Uni interviews me and offers me a conditional offer almost immediately. The three others turn me down. My future, for the next two years at least, is mapped out.

I finish my college work to the best of my abilities, getting a middleish grade and fulfilling the conditions of Salford's offer.

I make a last-ditch attempt with Z and, while smashed on watermelon Bacardi Breezers one night (I know...) I show her how much of a romantic twat I am. At the end of the night, before she gets in her taxi, I give her a copy of What Can I Do To Make You Love Me by the Corrs, which I'd recorded onto tape a few days before.

When she gets home she texts me thanking me for the nice song before blowing me out for the last time.

When I sober up, I cry so much I can't cry again for another 5 years.

*

I get to uni and realise how little I'd learned at college: everything is a thousand times more complicated, even though there's hardly any actual coursework to do. I ask the university for support with the coursework. Because the work is largely technical, and what I have is (wrongly) labelled as dyslexia, the staff don't have a fucking clue what to do to help me. So they opt to do nothing.

2002.

My course is going nowhere, but I know it's my responsibility to connect with people in a way that I couldn't at college. At the start of my second semester, I go on my first uni-student night out: Love Train at the Ritz.

The DJ has a stick-on black 'tache and a wig and a terrible American accent (he's probably a bald guy from Salford underneath). I'm with a group of mates on the club's spring-loaded dance floor, loving the 70's music wishing I'd been born in a different decade. I'm sipping a glass of Baileys (again, I know) looking out over the club, which is mostly the dancefoor. It's rammed with students.

From a few paces away a girl pounces on me and she's tall and blonde and young and she's sucking my face off. I'm quickly wondering whether this is for sympathy, or if she's incredibly drunk or deluded. I'm kissing her for about an hour, saying nothing to her, just sipping my Bailey's like it's cool.

Hmm.

I feel strangely relaxed, like it's normal. When the club closes I get her number. Let's call her C. She texts me pretty much the moment she leaves me, hinting that she wants to see me again.

What throws me at that moment is that I could pull a girl as beautiful as C, with no effort, yet a girl like Z- who now seems so average- would consider me not good enough for her. I have no idea what I've done right this time.

Over the next few days she texts me constantly, almost nagging me, plugging me for info. It turns out she's only 16, she lives on the other side of the city quite far out, and she's just split up from some boyfriend.

“You're really good-looking,” she texts. “So I don't get why you haven't had a girlfriend.”

I stare at the text, trying to figure out why she would say that. I don't remember the conversation with my mum about my cousins' friends.

I go to the pictures with C. It's my first ever date. She looks amazing. She asks me again about the girlfriends I haven't had. We agree on Ali, the Will Smith boxing biopic. As the lights go down, she takes my hand in hers. As soon as the first boxing sequence starts, she pounces on me again, kissing me until the fight is over and the scene changes. Then she sits totally still, still holding my hand. She doesn't kiss me again until another boxing scene starts. She doesn't even squeeze my hand during the bedroom scene. I, of course, couldn't sleep the night before through nerves so now I've got a screaming headache and I can't be the kind of confident person I had planned to be.

After the film she doesn't hang around- just kisses me and gets her bus. We'd talked loads via text before the date but hardly at all when I saw her. The moment we part, we start texting again. Something is missing, though, and when I try to arrange a second date a few days later, she's nervous over the phone and keeps the call short. Then she texts me saying she's still in love with her ex and she can't see me any more.

And she doesn't.