Suzanne Portnoy

The onset of autumn always brings with it a faint desire for a boyfriend. This year especially, what with all the rain we’ve been having, I’ve often felt like spending the entire day under the duvet, preferably with someone. Now that the air is colder, I feel that doubly so. Even the guy at the dry cleaner said to me a week ago, as we were both looking out at the grey skies and the rain pouring down outside his shop window, ‘I can’t stand it. I just want to spend the whole day in bed. I think I’ve got that disease. You know the one caused by lack of sun?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s called SAD. I feel the same way. I think it’s time I got a boyfriend.’

Being the selfish woman that I am though, I’m loathe to give up my regular fuck buddies. On top of that, being ‘the boyfriend’ means meeting my kids, spending weekends together. Just thinking about that makes me feel a little claustrophic, although I suppose it wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t mind joining in to the occasional threesome on my kids’ free weekends.

On the upside, I’m now wondering if, once again, I’m going to be spending Christmas on my own after my eldest kid said he wanted to stay at home to study for his exams and the youngest one is insisting on going skiing. Not being the skiing type, I’m trying to find him a friend who might also want to go skiing and then I can ship them off together. Having a boyfriend would mean that at the very least I might have a holiday companion which means that I’d actually get laid while abroad, something that rarely has happened in the past.

Then there’s the distance. When I think about having a boyfriend, I think about a guy who could come over once or twice a week for a sleepover. I know that most chicks with boyfriends get laid far less than I do, but I can’t really see the point of a boyfriend if the frequency and intensity of sexual intercourse didn’t increase from the norm. Surely having a boyfriend means having more sex not less? I wouldn’t want a guy, for instance, who lived up North or too far South. I think part of the reason I fancied the decorator guy was simply because I could walk to his flat. That alone was appealing. I imagined popping over to his place after dinner for a quickie then I discovered he didn’t fancy getting laid more than once every three months so that idea went out the window.

On top of the distance is the issue of kids’ free weekends. Having a boyfriend with kids would mean negotiating these so they were in sync although I suppose if he were to meet my kids it might not be such an issue and, of course, there’s always the slight possibility I might find a man with kids and then we could be the Brady Bunch. Alternatively, there’s a strong possibility my kids might loathe his kids and then that would screw up the whole Brady Bunch idea. Even worse, his kids might be tearaway, drug-taking teenagers and influence my kids to do things I would prefer they didn’t do.

Then I think about my mates. Having a boyfriend would mean introducing him to my friends, turning us into one of those ’smug couples’ that I detest but are almost impossible to avoid becoming because being one half of a happy couple is so rare that one can’t help but be smug. And when would I find time for all my friends if suddenly I had a boyfriend to consider??

Finally, I’d have to find a guy I liked, was handsome, who made me laugh, could fuck for hours, liked cunnilingus more than most, had decent dress sense so I was not embarrassed to be seen out with him, was good natured, cultured, had a job that didn’t require he was on a plane 24/7, enjoyed going to the theatre from time to time (even musicals), liked good food, could drive a car and owned one.

Writing this all down, it all seems terribly complicated. Maybe instead of a boyfriend I should just get a hot water bottle.