Ok guys, let's throw it back… all the way to first year. I’m now in my fifth year, so this was long enough ago that I should probably have some perspective, but not long enough that I don’t lie awake wondering if I accidentally invented an entire situationship with a man who was only half real.
Coming from a small town, I arrived at university with some pretty wild preconceived notions about sex, love, drugs, and honestly – just life. A few too many years of reading what can only be described as pure filth had given me unrealistic expectations of what uni would be like. I thought there would be mysterious romances, dramatic encounters, and a whole lot more public sex. Instead, I found overpriced drinks, a near addiction to Maccas, and a whole lot more UTIs.
Anyway, setting the scene: I was in the Zoo. It was first year, and everyone was feral, dressed in their brand new Speights merch. The crowd was rearing to do some questionable things in the stands that would be subsequently broadcasted to our grandparents TV’s. Somewhere between ignoring the rugby game, chatting with my friends, and stumbling up and down the stands, I met a boy. In a rare moment fuelled by liquid luck (Smirnoff sodas), I decided to ask for his Snapchat. A bold move, I know – I am essentially Casanova. We started chatting, sending face snaps and performing the classic flirting ritual where you think you don't really care but always end up responding to them in a very timely manner.
This continued for a year. We weren’t anywhere near ‘together’ – we were just getting to know each other. I definitely felt like there was something there. It was enough of a ‘something’ that my brain decided it needed to start writing fan fiction about him.
Now, I'm not a big dreamer. When I sleep, my mind enters what can only be described as a black void. I don't wake up with deep messages from my subconscious or remember magical adventures. Sleep is just a system shutdown. But for about 2 months, something changed and suddenly my dreams became a full-blown television series.
It was basically The Pitt. Every night, I would go to sleep and the dream would continue exactly where it left off. Suddenly, this guy I was causally snapping was the love of my life. In my brain, we were having romantic moments, great sex, and unbelievable character development arcs. I would wake up convinced something had happened between us, but alas – it was always just a dream. If you think you yearn, you haven’t met me.
Then one fateful Wednesday, I saw him at Pint Night. After months of my brain building up this imaginary romance, reality finally caught up. We ended up sleeping together, and then continued to see each other for a grand total of three weeks before I realised we weren't as compatible as I’d dreamed.
The problem was that after we ended things I genuinely started struggling to separate what had actually happened from what I had dreamed. Adding in the fact that I was smoking as much as Cheech and Chong combined, my memory became less of a reliable timeline and more of a badly edited compilation video.
Which brings me to the biting.
I swear he used to do this thing where, whenever he hugged me, he would gently bite my shoulder or neck. Not in a gross hickey way, or a scary vampire way – just an affectionate little nibble. I’d accepted this at the time: being young, infatuated, and apparently willing to overlook rat-like behaviour so long as he fit the narrative in my head.
But years later, I have to ask myself if that was even real. Was he actually a biter? Or did my brain, desperate to make him more interesting, create the entire concept of “the biter” and then convince me it was a real memory? Was I still dreaming?
Maybe he was a biter. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe I spent a year falling for bits of a guy and then filled in the gaps with a romanticised version I created myself. Either way, I still fein for horny dreams like the ones I had for those two months.
