This is not a story about pick-up. It’s not a cry for sympathy either. It’s a dissection of the precise moment everything collapsed—ego, illusion, identity.

I’d gone from being an invisible kid with acne and self-loathing to a bleach-blonde nightclub peacock strutting through Manchester in the 90s. Fur coats, pink mohair jumpers, rings, arrogant smirks—the whole look. I wasn’t particularly handsome. I wasn’t jacked. But I walked like I owned the city. And women noticed.

It was an act. A grand, drug-fuelled pantomime of confidence.

And it worked. Until it didn’t.

The Illusion of Power

The first girl fell for the act. Miss C. Stunning. All the bouncers wanted her. She picked me. Not because I looked the part, but because I acted the part. Because I was different. Mythic. Or so it seemed.

Six months in, it crumbled. I didn’t know how to lead. I didn’t understand polarity. I was needy. I suffocated her with my presence, my weakness, my unspoken demand: Please don’t leave.

She left.