The Underground Gang

In case it wasn’t clear, the majority of my close friends are male. Some are ex-boyfriends, some were friends-turned one night stands after being out drunk together and getting crazy one night, but most of them are just friends and never have been, and probably never will be, lovers. I enjoy the company of men for a multitude of reasons:

1. They rarely get jealous
2. They don’t like to talk about other boys and how much they do or do not like them and whether or not they think that boy likes them back.
3. They like to watch and talk about sports.
4. They more often than not find me attractive, which is always a boost to the self-esteem.
5. In short, they are not female.


I do not have a problem with girls. They usually have a problem with me oddly enough. Because I get along with men better than I generally do with women, and thus surround myself with men, this can often ignite jealousy or resentment in other girls, especially if one of the said men surrounding me is their boyfriend or a boy they would like to make their boyfriend. More often than not, I pose absolutely no threat to these girls, but having been on the other side of the jealous girlfriend equation, I completely understand where they are coming from.

Don’t get me wrong, I have many female acquaintances. I am in an exclusively female drinking society and love those girls to bits. However, in terms of genuine relationships with people outside of the drinking and partying realm, that short list is almost exclusively male, with one brilliant and quirky exception. Here is my short list:

1. Lad Boy (see “Forget Diamonds …”)
2. Dr. Boy (see “To Love One’s Self")


I was running out of ways to describe people as Something Boy, and frankly quite bored of it. Scanning my room my eyes fixated on the tube map pinned to my message board. Thus, the remainder of my male posse shall be named after tube stations appropriate to their personalities.

3. Shoreditch: Because he’s just that kind of guy. But in a less pretentious way.
4. Heathrow Terminal 3/T3: Because he’s foreign and would be chuffed to be nicknamed after a Terminator movie.
5. Goodge Street/Goodge: Because it was the goofiest sounding station I could find.
6. Cockfosters/Foster: Because every time I get on a Picadilly train service that is going towards Cockfosters I have a silent chuckle whenever the posh voice comes on and says “This is a Picadilly line train to (deliberate pause?) Cockfosters.” Likewise, this boy unintentionally makes me laugh with his awkwardness and incessant requests that I sleep with him.
7. Westminster/Wes: One of my favourite places in London. One of my favourite boys in Oxbridge.
8. Briony: the only female on the list. Neighbor in college, confidant, partner in crime, fellow alcoholic. Why Briony? Because looking at her you’d think her name was something posh like that. Also because it would probably annoy her to know that I named her as such in any kind of story.


None of the great eight know that I am the sex blogger. I have slept with none of them, almost slept with one of them, and would probably sleep with four of them. Not at the same time of course.

The tube stops and I went out Saturday night for a friend’s birthday, and of course to watch the rugby (Fuck off France! Johnny Wilkinson I love you.) I was the last to arrive, as I am chronically late to everything.

“Alright half-pint?” Goodge asked. More a comment on my size than my drinking ability – I can drink half of them under the table, particularly Shoreditch and Wes. Goodge is ridiculously tall, just accentuating the goofiness, so it was good that he was sitting down and I could bend down to him to kiss him hello. Not so good that I was wearing a dress and nearly flashed the rest of the party (“I see London, I see France …” Wes teased.) Considering our “party” consisted entirely of boys and yours truly, I don’t think they would have minded a peep show. I was wearing tights anyway – a girl’s next best friend after Lads.

I turned to the birthday boy next. “What’s this one? 47?”

“Who invited her?” he asked before pulling me in for a massive hug and pursing his lips out for a birthday kiss. Birthday Boy (BB) isn’t one of the tube posse. We rarely see him due to his course schedule, but it’s always a party when we do see him. And by “party” I mean absolute and total mayhem in celebration of his brief glimpse at the outside of his department walls.

I’ll spare the details of the greetings of each and every boy, as they were all pretty identical. A brief summary though:

Shorditch: You’re blocking the telly.

Wes: Oh-rite babes? (He liked to hype up his East London accent for my entertainment.)

T3: Hullo. (Read: foreign)

Foster: Hey there miss.

Foster is the biggest sweetheart of the group, and it is a common goal of the group to get Mr. Foster laid. He isn’t unattractive, so it’s puzzling as to why we’re usually unsuccessful in this quest. Often being the nearest single lady at hand, it’s often suggested that, should we fail to find someone else, it’s on me to get the job done. Ta, fellas. In an effort to help Foster, I’ve tried to figure out just what it is that puts me off of him. It’s just a vibe. A very distinct “I do not want to sleep with this boy” vibe. Poor Foster, I do love him … as a friend (cringing men everywhere).

Shoreditch is the kind of boy, who when drunk, will constantly say, “If we were both single … Pffffffff … Man. We would be AH-MAZING together.” Sure, Shoreditch. I always laugh, which to him means “Yes, we would have fantastic, wild sex together. I want you!” To me, I am literally just laughing at him, and the notion of sex together.

T3 is foreign and loves to dance like a spastic. As his English improves, so does his entertainment value.

Then there’s Wes. The first time we met I found him extremely attractive, and then for whatever reason I didn’t see him for about two months, and the next time I did he had a girlfriend. Bugger.

My romantic detachment from these boys makes our pub sessions much more enjoyable I must say. Less enjoyable for Foster, but he’ll live.

We took turns buying rounds for the group and BB and by the end of the match we were rowdier than anyone intended to be that early in the night and were over emotional after England’s loss, cursing at the telly and throwing beer everywhere.

We involuntarily left the pub after leaving them with broken glass and spilt beer to clean up, and took Hurricane Tube down the road to a college bar that had cheap drinks and a dart board with which to arm ourselves with sharp objects to drunkenly flail into the air.

Briony had come to meet us at the college bar we were in and sat drinking her diet coke and vodka and having what was probably one giant awkward conversation in the corner with Foster. Separately they are fantastic conversationalists, but together they manage to click into some kind of socially inept mode in which he unsuccessfully propositions her and she shoots him down, yet keeps talking to him, thus encouraging him to proposition time and again. It’s a vicious, and rather awkward circle.

The amount of lager I have consumed at this point could be enough to kill a Welshman and I am too drunk to even incoherently text Shag Buddy to meet me at mine. Goodge takes away my dart-playing rights and I ceremoniously take away my own drinking rights by pouring my Stella into Foster’s Guiness. I overhear Wes on the phone to his girlfriend telling her to come over.

“B! Let’s DOOO ONE!” I slur to Briony.

It isn’t that I dislike Wes’ girlfriend, we would probably be friends under different circumstances, but she looks at me the way I use to look at girls I thought were after my boyfriend. I am not after Wes in the least. We do have a rather banter-rific relationship at the moment, but nothing else. Nothing like him drunkenly kissing me and then telling me he has feelings for me and then apologising endlessly for it. No, nothing like that … Taxiiiiii!