The Norwegian Hickie

I met him playing sport. Which sport, you ask? Well, I’ll leave that to your imagination—let’s just say there were balls involved and a lot of sweaty camaraderie. Amongst all the sweaty faces and flying limbs, he stood out: short, a disproportionately large head (which, weirdly, I found charming), blondish hair, those glacial blue Norwegian eyes, and a sort of quiet cuteness that made you think, “Yes. That one.”

And so began the little adventure. A few flirty chats turned into dates. The kind of dates where you laugh too much and pretend to like obscure Scandinavian films just to seem interesting. By the third or fourth rendezvous, I was proper smitten. Not in a writing-his-name-in-hearts-on-my-notepad way, but enough to fantasise mildly about a shared flat with Nordic furniture and a fridge full of pickled fish.

Then came The Picnic.

Ah yes, the classic romantic picnic in the park. Blankets, overpriced olives, something fizzy in a bottle that looked posh but was definitely on offer at Tesco. He turned up in a jumper—a snug, woolly, distinctly Norwegian sort of jumper that looked like it had survived many a fjord.

We’re there, sprawled out, me trying to look alluring while also avoiding grass stains, when I clock it: a strand of hair. Long. Red. Clinging defiantly to his jumper like it paid rent.

Now, I don’t have red hair. Not even in weird lighting. So naturally, I point this out.

His response? A sheepish, “Those are yours.”

“Come again?” I say, giving him a side-eye sharp enough to slice cheese.

More awkward silence. A bit of mumbling. Then the bombshell drops: he’d slept with someone else. Last night. Said goodbye to her that morning before swinging by for our wholesome picnic.

My face did not stay neutral.

I mean, yes, technically we hadn't had the talk about exclusivity, but forgive me—I just thought if you really liked someone, you didn’t shag someone else the night before a picnic date. It's not in any dating manual, but it should be.

We argued. It was messy. He shrugged and played the “Well we’re not exclusive” card as if it was a Get Out of Jail Free pass. I felt like an idiot. I really liked him, and suddenly I had no idea what to do.

But oh, dear reader, do you know what I did that evening?

I did what any slightly unhinged but romantically wounded woman would do: I gave him a massive, theatrical, downright cinematic hickie. A sort of deranged “you’re mine” gesture. In hindsight, it was less “marking my territory” and more “I need therapy”, but in the moment? It felt righteous.

Spoiler: the hickie didn’t work.

The romance fizzled out, as these things do. He drifted away like a poorly behaved Viking on a longship of missed potential.

Fast forward a few years.

I’m hanging out with this brilliant girl I met through sport. (Yes, same sport. Yes, still sweaty.) We’re chatting, bonding, sharing tales of romantic misadventures, as you do. And then she casually drops: “Oh yeah, I dated a Norwegian guy once...”

Something inside me paused.

“Short? Big head? Blue eyes?”

She nods.

Then I clock her long red hair. Oh. My. God.

We connect the dots. The timelines match. She was the girl with the hair. The one who spent the night before my infamous picnic with the very same Norwegian.

You couldn’t script it.

And in the most unexpected twist of fate, we actually became really good friends. Shared trauma has a way of binding women together—especially when it involves jumpers, infidelity, and hickies you regret by sunrise.

Moral of the story?

Sometimes the man of your dreams turns out to be the star of someone else's nightmare. But every red hair on a jumper has a story, and sometimes, the best part of heartbreak is the people you find in the rubble.

So here’s to unexpected friendships, rogue hickies, and spotting the red flags—even when they come in the form of literal red hair.

Now, where’s that bottle of prosecco? I feel another story coming on...