Tinder Boy Stole my Heart.

 Benidorm. The place known as ''Britain in the sun'' which consists of cheap family holidays, the TV show, hen & stag do's, tacky wannabees, sex, alcohol, and drugs. This place I would consider my ''guilty pleasure'' it is an area in Spain where a 200' pound woman walking down the street naked is considered normal and a place where you have all walks of British people walking around the town which is amazing if you love people watching like me. Benidorm is a place I love to visit but hate telling people about because there is a stigma and quite frankly (call it snobbish if you like) I don't want to be associated with it. But this crazy place so happened to have been the place I met a boy that I came to nearly love. Ironic how life works out.

Another thing I also call my ''guilty pleasure'' is tinder. An app to find love but nobody nowadays uses it for the right purposes. An app that makes it so easy for people to hook up and have a good time; so no wonder why chivalry is dead. See I hate explaining to people why I am on this app because nobody understands me. Do I use it to hook up with people? No but it has happened. Do I look to find a relationship with it? No I think you should meet people naturally but again it has happened. So time and time again I have been asked the same question ''What are you on here for then?'' Well the answer is I love to see what is on the menu and I love killing boredom. There is nothing wrong with looking at the menu or ordering from it.

April 2017 - A fresh-faced 17-year-old on a family holiday to Benidorm who swiped right to a decent looking guy called Fernando. Fernando messaged me throughout the day though the conversation was beginning to bore me and when a conversation is dead with a guy I become pretty blunt and distant but for some reason a little voice in the back of my brain something was telling me If I did not meet him I would regret it. So a few hours later and hefty persuading my Mum to let me meet this stranger we arranged to meet at my hotel.

I remember sitting on the terrace in anticipation with my pretty white sundress on ordering a double vodka and coke for some dutch courage. At 17 this scenario was pretty scary; I had never been on a date with basically a stranger before I mean hell he could have catfished me. Luckily enough he didn't and I remember being pleasantly surprised because he looked so much better in person than he did on photos. Instantly I had never felt an attraction so strong before in my life. It all hit at once and the way he used to look in my eyes I felt he was looking deep into my soul. I knew and know 100 percent to this day that the attraction there for me was just as strong as it was for him. A girl knows and sometimes it is not the words somebody speaks but their body language and actions. We met at 8 pm and got so lost into the conversation we did not finish speaking until 3 in the morning. I think we only realized how late it was because the once busy Terrance became a ghost town and they were closing the bar. Our conversations could go on for hours and on many occasions what one person said was what the other was thinking; it was freaky.

By 3 am we were both a Lil tipsy; the bar had shut though the Terrance remained open because it was by the pool and after battling our physically attraction to one another for hours we kissed. The kiss felt like fireworks were exploding in my body and I had never kissed somebody that way before feeling that type of attraction. Impulsive and drunk I decided to take the kiss further and before we knew it we were in the swimming pool toilets having earth-shattering sex. Not my finest moment but at the time I never thought this stranger would become a key figure in how my personal life has been shaped and frankly I did not care about the consequences or impact it would have I mean I never thought we would talk after that considering it was his last night and he was going back home to Essex. After a few more hours of doing ''you know what'' I never thought saying goodbye to each other would have made me feel sad. We got into a pretty deep chat about our past relationships and I learned he had just come out of a two-year relationship. We eventually said goodbye to each other and he promised he would come to Brighton.

The next morning chilling by the pool brought back all memories from the night previously and I could not look at those toilets the same. Heck I have been back since and I can still not look at those toilets the same way I did and that was 4 years ago. To my surprise he had messaged me from the airport and we continued to speak while I was on holiday. I had a really lovely holiday both before and after what happened with Fernando and soon returned back home. We continued to talk and phone each other and he had booked to come visit me in Brighton.

I remember him coming up on Friday. I was in college counting down the hours to see him. I went back to my best friends house to get ready as she lived in the center of Brighton. When I met him at the Hilton we looked at each other the exact same way we did in Benidorm. We went out for food and cocktails and again all night we chatted away like we were some long lost lovers. It felt so good to feel so comfortable in the company that you fancy. If you have ever truly fancied somebody then you would know exactly the emotions I am struggling to express. I ended up staying with him for the whole weekend. He wanted to meet my best friend so we arranged to go out for drinks with her and he wanted to meet my parents. My family and him got on so well and instantly it felt like he just fitted in plus my best friend approved. Life was going so well; he would speak so freely about how he could not believe how strong his feelings were considering before we met he was struggling to get over his break up. We just felt really happy and content with each other and it was horrible when he went home after such an amazing weekend.

He told his family about me and we continued to carry on the way we did. It was a struggle that we had to wait a month for him to come down again as his boxing training was taking priority but that was just how things had to be when we lived in different places. My parents were viewing houses in Spain so I had a free house all week and my best friend was staying with me. He was meant to come down for a couple of days but unfortunately things started to turn sour. He had problems with coming down (I can't remember exactly what) and I was feeling pretty disappointed because I really missed him. After some back and forth I got some good news and he came down to my house. We had an amazing night; laughing and joking with my best friend for hours and got extremely high. We had mind-blowing sex as always and after he would always open up and tell me how he felt about me. We spoke again for hours before falling asleep.

In the morning after making some coffee he received a phone call outside and was on the phone to his Dad. He looked pretty concerned but maybe I was just imagining it. After 20 minutes on the phone with his Dad he took me to one side and said that his Grandad was feeling ill and he needed to go home as his Dad wanted him back. (I am not entirely convinced this was true and I have my suspicions) he looked and acted so disappointed and was hesitant to leave. But regardless of how I felt family always comes first and I told him to make sure to tell me how his grandad was. He went back home and though I was feeling quite sad my best friend always cheered me up and we had a good laugh that evening and got extremely high.

After this, when he was in contact for the first day he was blunt on his texts. I had sent him a text based on his last message and then I was completely ghosted and he did not speak to me at all. I felt so many emotions but mainly disappointed. I had let this guy I thought to have been decent and who I thought felt the same way I did into my life and my heart only for him to ignore me? I felt betrayed but I had to keep up a pretense because my best friend was staying with me. I am not going to make her feel bad for staying with me even if I was down in the dumps. I am really glad she was with me when all this happened because I don't know what I would have done without her there as my support. After 5 days of being ignored I had enough. Who did this fucker think he was playing with my emotions. I remember us going for a walk while I sent him a text telling him how I felt. He decided to ring me but the conversation went bad when through guilt he decided to put the blame on me. I let him have it and he then apologized and was just saying this because he felt bad that he had to leave and had been stressed.

We did not speak after this and it all started to fizzle out. I and my best friend even though I was feeling heartbroken inside ended up having an amazing week and I look to that week as good memories now considering the week started off bad.

The worst thing about social media is you can find anything. Sometimes things should be left unseen because they are only going to hurt you. It was taking me a long time to get over this with this guy because I knew I would have ended up falling in love with him. I stalked his Instagram and saw he had been liking loads of girls' pictures even while he was dating me exclusively. (We put a label on it) this really hurt me because even though somebody is ''only liking a picture'' that meant he found other girls physically attractive while he claimed to have ''liked me''. This really bruised my ego and if there is one thing I am scared of is rejection. I felt pretty used and I felt like he was a fraud because he played with my emotions.

The best thing to do when ending things with somebody is remove them off social media. You can no longer see what they are doing and that is really important for moving on because if you can see he's liking every girls post it would be a constant reminder of ''what if..''. I blocked him and moved on.

About a year later when I moved to Spain he was on holiday in Benidorm and really wanted to meet up with me. I think deep down I needed closure as lots of things went unsaid between us. At this point I had really moved on and when we met it only clarified those feelings for me. We had a good conversation on why he did what he did. He called me a ''Dimond in the ruff'' bit rude considering I am the koh-i-noor but whatever. I decided to kiss him and see if I felt the same way I did a year earlier but I felt absolutely nothing and looking at him I hardly felt an attraction. I felt I had the upper hand and he had realized what he had missed out on; a good decent girl. He explained he felt we came into each others lives ''5 years too early'' and that ''He's only an ocean away''. I definitely knew that the chapter had officially closed and I ended up getting blocked on Instagram from him a couple of months later for no apparent reason as we ended on good terms. But it was his loss anyway and if you can't appreciate what is in front of you, then you don't deserve it.

This moral of this story is to never let somebody think they are better than you. Every person walking this planet is an equal (apart from murderers, rapists and pedos). Sometimes though easy to be caught up in it a bubble is not good. You need to be realistic in what you deserve and if those needs are not being met then stand up for yourself. If you can't be a priority in somebodies lives then probably you never will be so walk away with your pride still intact. Don't be involved with somebody romantically if you know you cannot give what they want; it will only hurt the person when their lives could be invested into something/someone else. Be open with how you feel regardless if it will hurt somebody or not because being honest means your maturing and growing and it shows you can empathize and put yourself in somebodies shoes. You seep what you sow in life so if you are a good human being then karma will come back around and vice versa if you are a bad person. Always prioritize yourself first.

Erin x

*Disclaimer* Every person involved in my stories names will be changed due to respecting their privacy. Every story I post is 100 percent genuine but may be considered biased.