‘I never thought you’d get married and have children.’– Mum
There was a burst of shocked laughter. One man coughed as he half choked on his coffee. Another turned away in embarrassment. An older woman with a grey bob let out a squeal.
‘Well, I have to say that this is a first!’ said a suited man with a shiny bald head, shuffling in his seat. He looked around the conference table where twenty-odd business men and women sat, in stunned silence, with folders, notepads and biros in front of them.
A voice from the back of the room interjected: ‘I’d take you out but I don’t think my wife would like it.’
I looked around and smiled at the speaker.
‘Mine neither, but if I was single . . .’ said another.
‘If I was twenty years younger I’d take you out on the town!’ laughed a man who looked like Father Christmas in a three-piece suit.
‘Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained!’ I said, my cheeks burning, and sat down.
Another first. Standing up in a room full of strangers and asking if anyone wanted to take me on a date. I didn’t know whether this counted as a high or a low on my road to self-development . . . Who was I kidding? It was the latter. Clearly.
When Paul suggested that I go to a networking breakfast with him because there were lots of men there, I agreed because Matthew Hussey says you need to say ‘yes’ to invitations.
It was only when we were on the Tube at 6.30am that Paul broke the news that every new person had to stand up and speak a bit about themselves. ‘You can either say that you’re a freelance writer who is available for copywriting,’ he said, ‘or you could stand up and say you are looking for a date.’
So that’s what I did. After listening to one guy talk about his print services and another sell his online marketing skills, I stood up in a room of twenty suits, wearing a sticker with my name scribbled in blue felt-tip, and asked for a date. At 7.30 in the morning.
A year earlier I would have sooner died – but now, well, it was just a Thursday morning. I felt embarrassed but not as much as I would have expected. And as soon as I sat down, the room filled with chatter. ‘Good for you!’ said a female voice from the back of the room. ‘I am also available for dinner! All interested parties could form an orderly line!’
Everyone laughed. A room full of stuffy business people instantly became lovely, human people.
As normal business resumed, a man wearing a navy blazer and large signet ring passed me a note on a piece of paper that read: ‘I’ll take you out . . .’.
‘OK!’ I wrote on it and passed it back.
‘Coffee after this?’ he wrote and passed it back to me.
‘OK!’ I wrote again.
We were halfway down our lattes when he popped the question.
‘Do you want to get married?’
Was he proposing or just asking for some general information? I couldn’t tell but either way, this was a big question to be asked in a Starbucks at 9.30am, from a man whose last name I didn’t even know.
‘Er, actually, I’m not sure,’ I replied. ‘I don’t know if I want to get married and have children. I don’t think that’s the path I’m going to go down.’
He looked surprised. The fact that I’d stood up and asked for a date in a business meeting probably gave him the sense that I was in a hurry to settle down. It was a fair conclusion.
‘Maybe you haven’t found the right man.’
‘Yes, maybe,’ I conceded.
We had a nice chat about his travels and his business and the fact that his parents had died.
‘I’m ready to settle down and start a family. I’ve built up my business, done well. I have no interest in one-night stands. I’m done with all that. I want something real.’
I admired his honesty and envied his certainty.
‘I’m away on business next week. When I come back we should have dinner. I’ll be in touch.’
‘Um, OK, sure, maybe . . .’
And off he went.
As I got the Tube home after yet another weird experience, I felt no closer than I had been at the start of the project to knowing what I wanted. Did I want to get married and settle down? Did I want kids? Was the fact that it hadn’t happened a sign that it wasn’t my path? Or was my independence just a symptom of my fear? Do you need to be with someone else to live a good, full life, or can you lead a good, full life on your own? Would all these questions go away if I met the right guy? Or was I so closed off I wouldn’t know the right guy if he smiled at me in a coffee shop?
We live in a world where happiness is equated with marriage and kids – and where, more often than not, being single is greeted with a sympathetic smile and some comment along the lines of, ‘You’ll meet someone . . .’ or ‘Never mind, you still have time . . .’ and that really annoyed me. The implication being that if you don’t, your life will have been a failure.
But was the lady protesting too much?
When I got off at Archway I phoned Mum.
‘Where are you?’ I asked.
‘I’m at home, ironing.’
‘OK.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’ve just been on another date.’
‘Oh! And how did it go?’
‘I didn’t fancy him.’
‘Did he like you?’
‘It seemed like it.’
‘Oh!’
‘Mum, there’s no need to sound so surprised.’
‘I didn’t realize you were a femme fatale!’ she seemed to find this idea very funny.
Then I asked her a question that I had never asked her before: ‘Don’t you think it’s strange that all my friends are getting married and I’m not?’
She paused and there was a silence on the line. I could hear the radio in the background.
‘Well, you’ve always been very independent,’ she said.
‘You can be independent and still have relationships.’
‘I never thought you’d get married and have children,’ she said.
This was big news to be getting outside the kebab shop on Junction Road.
‘Don’t you remember me telling you that when you were a teenager?’
‘No.’
‘You and your sisters were asking me what I thought would happen to each of you when you grew up and I told you that I did not think you’d settle down. And you got really upset and your father got very annoyed with me.’
‘I don’t remember that at all. Why did you think that?’
‘I could never see you living a domestic life; I always thought you’d feel trapped.’
My first feeling was one of relief – relief that my mum was saying that I didn’t have to go down that path. The thought of marriage and kids and a house and forever really did make me feel trapped – so trapped I wanted to scratch my skin off . . .
But then I felt a kick in my stomach. Suddenly I was back in our childhood kitchen, drinking tea when she said it. I remembered feeling a stab of hurt that even Mum didn’t think anyone would want to marry me.
‘She knows me really well, obviously,’ I said to my therapist – yes, I went back – the next day, ‘so maybe she’s right and I am meant to live on my own.’
‘It’s hard to know if her saying that was what made you go on and live how you have.’
‘That’s true but it was a relief when she said it yesterday. All my life I’ve felt like a failure because I wasn’t getting married or having boyfriends like other people – but maybe I wasn’t doing that because that’s just not what’s meant for me. I like my freedom and I really like to be on my own. When I think of what I want in the future I think of travelling and fun. I want to have great sex and romances but the idea of settling down makes me feel trapped. And Mum’s right – I hate cooking and domesticity.’
‘But that’s a very old-fashioned view of relationships,’ said my therapist. ‘People make relationships work in all sorts of ways.’
‘Do you think that I can be happy if I don’t get married?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I think you’ll have a good life whatever you do.’
‘But do you think that I’d be happier if I met someone?’
‘If it was the right someone then yes. But you need to really love them, love their smell, love their skin. Don’t settle.’
‘How do I know if it’s the right person? Maybe I’m just being too fussy?’
‘I don’t know, but I think all you can do is try to be open . . .’
The thing about being open is it’s tiring. Every day being hopeful but not wanting to get your hopes up. Looking at every man on the street thinking – should I ask his name? Ask him where he stands on the flat white versus cappuccino debate?
But then, just when I was about to give up, it happened. And by ‘it’ I mean He.
He was standing at the traffic lights in Old Street. He was tall, dark and beardy. He was wearing a tweed jacket just like the guy I’d fancied in Hampstead Heath. Actually, I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t the same guy. He was just as handsome. Salt-and-pepper hair . . .
Oh, God. Don’t bolt, Marianne. Do something.
According to Hussey, even in the twenty-first century, ‘I could really use your help with something’ are a woman’s most attractive words. These words appeal to a man’s primal instincts to provide and protect. It went against every feminist instinct in my body – but I did it; I played the damsel in distress.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, looking up at him. He had headphones in and didn’t hear me.
I lightly touched his sleeve. He jumped with shock. He took out his headphones. I could hear classical music coming from them.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I was just wondering if you could help me? I am trying to get to the Hoxton Hotel . . . do you know which way I should head?’
He paused for a second and looked at me. His brown eyes softened.
‘Er, yeah, you just keep straight on this road and then turn left by the lights.’
‘OK, thanks very much.’ I smiled at him. He smiled back.
‘I’m going that way, actually,’ he replied.
We walked alongside each other in awkward silence. The drizzle that had been coming down all day got heavier. He had an umbrella.
‘Do you want to share this?’ he asked. Hussey says you must always say ‘yes’ if a man offers you his jacket, or an umbrella. It makes him feel useful. I stood under it with him and we walked in more awkward silence. We were very close for two strangers.
I panicked and started babbling, asking him where he was going and what he did.
I found out pretty quickly that he was meeting his brother and that he worked for a charity. A charity! Finally, my sexy saint!
‘So you’re a good person?’ I said.
‘I don’t know about that but I try,’ he said, looking at the ground.
A good-looking but humble charity worker! And I was standing under an umbrella with him! Thank you, Matthew Hussey! Thank you, world.
‘I’m going straight on here but the Hoxton is just down there,’ he said, pointing to the left.
‘OK, thanks very much.’
‘No problem.’
‘It was nice to meet you.’
‘Yeah, you too.’
We stood for a second under the umbrella. I remembered standing by the turnstiles at the Tube in January with the artist with the hipster beard. This time I did not run away. I stood still and kept looking at Mr Umbrella. He kept looking back. I laughed. He laughed too.
‘Er, I’m not in the habit of picking up girls on the street but, er, would you like to meet for a drink sometime?’
‘Yes, that would be great,’ I replied in a way that, you know, suggested this was perfectly normal. Handsome men asked me out on the street every single day.
‘Oh! Oh, OK, good.’
‘Good!’
‘Well, I suppose I should take your number.’
I gave him my number and tried not to grin. Play it cool, Marianne, cool.
‘OK, bye,’ he said.
‘Bye.’ I waved and walked down the street.
‘I’m Harry By The Way!’
‘Hello Harry By The Way!’ I shouted back at him. He smiled and I practically skipped to the bar.
He texted later that evening, asking if I was free the following night. For the intervening twenty-four hours, I over thought everything. I couldn’t concentrate on work. I couldn’t eat. I worried that I was not pretty enough for him. Hussey says this is rubbish – if a guy has already seen you and has asked you out, he already likes the way you look. Then I thought about all the ways he might be the perfect guy and I might mess it up. In my head I was already picturing me meeting his friends, who would all be successful and clever, and then I was wondering where we’d live . . . he lived south of the river, which wasn’t ideal, but I could try Brixton if I had to . . . I pictured his house, which I’m sure would be filled with books and big windows. I pictured us having dinner parties and lazy Sunday breakfasts . . .
I was projecting like crazy.
This is another big No-No, says Hussey, who explains that women are too quick to meet someone and find a way of making him into ‘Mr Right’ in their heads. By doing that we’re allowing ourselves to fall for someone before he’s even proved himself, and our keenness makes us look like we are of ‘low value’. He says we have to remember, even when we like someone, that they still have to prove themselves to us.
We went for Ethiopian food. It was my suggestion. There was a place in Tufnell Park and I’d always been curious about it. He was already there when I arrived. It was nice to see him. I felt shy and awkward saying hello. He went in for a kiss on the cheek and then I moved away while he was going in for the second cheek kiss. ‘I never know whether to do one or two,’ he said.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
Then we went to the table and I felt self-conscious about everything – about walking in front of him, about him looking at me walking . . . I went to sit down just as he was moving around the table to pull my chair out for me.
‘You’ve ruined my moment,’ he joked. ‘I’d been practising my chair move all day.’
I stood up again and said, ‘You can do it now.’
‘No, it’s too late,’ he said, smiling.
We ordered drinks and started talking. We ordered a big pancake thing with lots of different food on it. I got self-conscious eating around him. The more we talked, the more I liked him. He was smart, funny. He seemed like a good person. He had his own flat. A good job. He was a real-life grown-up man. Too grown up for the likes of me. He asked me about past relationships and I felt my face flush as I said that there had been nothing serious. He offered to walk me home and he put his arm around me and I felt paralysed. My body was rigid.
‘I had a nice time,’ he said.
I didn’t say anything.
‘Did you have a nice time?’ He smiled.
‘Er, yes . . .’ I was frozen, like an idiot. Stop being a moron, Marianne . . . Act normal!
Matthew Hussey says that a big part of dating is ‘being comfortable with allowing an atmosphere of sexual tension’. I AM NOT.
He writes: ‘Women who aren’t comfortable with this will often deflect a man’s affections and immediately change the subject when he tries to communicate his sexual desires. Sometimes she’ll deflate the tension by closing down when the conversation veers into more intimate territory. This is fine if you are not interested in pursuing something more with him. If you are interested, it can stop momentum cold.’
This is what I do. I stop momentum cold.
Hussey says that there are lots of successful women who can talk to anyone – but are terrified of being playful, flirty and feminine. So there. That was me.
Flirting makes me cringe so much my teeth blush.
Harry walked me home and as we stood at the door, he started to lean in for a kiss and I panicked. I pecked him on the cheek, bolted up the steps and said: ‘OK, night!’ I said it like I was saying goodbye to my grandmother. When I turned around at the top of the steps, he had already started walking away.
My heart sank.
The next day I texted him to say thanks for a lovely date. He didn’t reply all day. At 8pm a short message saying it was great to meet me too. No request for a second date. I had to rescue this! ‘Would you like to do it again?’ I texted.
Two hours later, the reply: ‘I’m away a lot for work over the next few weeks so the timing isn’t right.’
I’d blown it.
For years I’d thought I didn’t have boyfriends because I wasn’t pretty enough, skinny enough, blonde enough. I now realized this was bullshit. I didn’t have boyfriends because I was terrified.
I could meet guys, it turned out – much more easily than I had thought. And I could chat to them happily. The only problem was when I met a guy I might actually like. Then I ran scared. And all the dating tips in the world probably weren’t going to help me. If you’ve been single for as long as I had, there is always deeper stuff going on . . .