Remember when you were a child and May Day meant twirling around a maypole? It used to be so much fun. Fast-forward to forty-something and it’s turned into Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.
Sitting in an Italian restaurant in Soho, I desperately glance at my watch. It’s past midnight and the waiters are clearing up around us. One’s even mopping the floor. All the other customers have gone home, which is where I’d like to be. However, my date has other ideas.
‘Another two limoncellos, please.’
‘Of course,’ nods the waiter, putting down his mop.
Forget having fun with coloured ribbons; it’s now an emergency distress call to rescue me from my online date.
Nick seemed relatively normal in his profile. He works for a sports company and listed travel, red wine and running as his interests. I like two out of three, which isn’t bad. He also looked quite handsome in his photos, none of which were arty black-and-white headshots or involved him leaping out of planes and hiking up Everest. (I had no idea how many men who are online dating have climbed Everest. It almost seems a prerequisite to being on a dating app. That summit must be jammed with single men taking selfies for their online profiles.)
Plus, most importantly, he was keen to meet up in real life. Which would seem kind of obvious to me, being from the old-fashioned dating world where you actually got dressed and left the house, and didn’t just loll about on your sofa with your phone sending nude selfies and emojis, which I always struggle to decipher, as I’m not fluent in Emoji.
So I was both pleased and nervous when I walked in and recognized him already waiting at the bar. It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a date. Life before Ethan seems fuzzy and hard to imagine; less bruised, more hopeful, with fewer anxieties and more certainty. I was five years younger and ten pounds lighter. Spaghetti straps were still my friend. Ditto low-waisted jeans. Now it’s things I can tuck in and sleeves.
We greeted each other with a polite kiss on each cheek. He was a little shorter in real life than he’d looked in his photos, and his aftershave was a bit overpowering, but he gave me a big smile which immediately put me at ease.
It’s just –
I knew. I knew it the moment I walked into the bar and laid eyes on him: he wasn’t the one.
‘Hi – Nell?’
‘Hi, yes – nice to meet you.’
I pushed the feeling deep down inside me. I was determined to give him a chance. I hadn’t spent this long getting ready to turn around and go home again. Plus, perhaps I was wrong. I’d been wrong about a lot of things so far in my life. Trust your instincts, they tell you. Listen to your gut, they say. Except I’d listened to both and look where that had got me: sobbing my eyes out 30,000 feet above the Atlantic; overdrawn from a failed business venture; sharing a loo with a man I’m not sleeping with.
Standing in a bar in Soho on a Monday night, still looking for love in my forties, and wishing this trouser suit wasn’t so tight around the waist.
‘Drink?’
‘Yes, please. Glass of white wine, thanks.’
On the tube ride over, I’d decided it was time to finally use my head when it came to men. My whole life I’ve got into relationships for a variety of reasons, none of which has been particularly sensible. In fact, choice probably isn’t the correct word when it comes to my love life. It gives the impression of rational thought and deliberation, a weighing up of someone’s character and shared interests. Not a series of random, impulsive moments, often involving alcohol, where I leapt, and fell, and was swept away.
Nice eyes; a drunken snog at the office Christmas party; a nose ring that I knew would shock my mother. That’s my twenties gone right there. Poof. And don’t get me started on my thirties. I’ve spent more time reflecting on which sandwich filling to choose than I have on who I’m going to sign over my precious heart, soul, and years of my life to.
‘So, Nell, how are you finding the dating site?’
‘You’re my first date.’
‘I am? Wow. I’m honoured. An online-dating virgin!’
So what if there are no sparks or butterflies? Sparks and butterflies break your heart and drive you to the edge of insanity. They give you adrenaline-fuelled highs and desperate-on-the-kitchen-floor lows. I’ve never done heroin but often think it must be like that kind of love. It’s an addiction. A craving followed by a fix.
But it’s never enough. You’re never enough.
And I can’t do it any more. The highs just aren’t worth the lows. This heart of mine is so cracked and broken it’s barely holding together, a bit like my iPhone screen. One more blow and it will shatter forever.
‘So, Nell, tell me, what are you looking for?’
‘What, you mean, like in life, generally?’
‘No, as in a partner.’
‘Erm, I’m not sure . . . someone kind, funny . . . sane.’ I try to make a bit of a joke. It feels more like an interview than a date.
‘The same life goals are important, don’t you think?’
‘Oh yes, absolutely. Those too.’
I need to do away with these romantic teenage notions. Couples who have been together forty years don’t talk about passion and racing pulses. They talk about making compromises and common interests and security – I look at Nick and it hits me. Oh God, it’s happening. It’s time I gave up looking for chemistry and moved on to the next stage: companionship.
I used to always read about companionship in the advice columns of the magazines my mum reads. Middle-aged couples talking about how the spark has gone and how they don’t have sex any more, but how at least they’ve got someone to watch boxsets with and flush the central heating system.
It sounded dreadful. I used to gloss over those articles, like you gloss over adverts for stair lifts and natural-looking dentures, with a shudder and a sense of relief. I was far too young and far too busy having great sex to bother my head with boring things like companionship. That stuff happened to old people, even the tanned and silver-haired couple laughing with abandon on the winter cruise ad.
But now here I am, several hours later, in a restaurant, listening to Nick telling me all about his Fitbit, showing me how to measure my resting pulse and how many calories I’m burning; and part of me is thinking that at least he’d be someone to put out the recycling and go on a cruise with.
‘I can get you one if you’d like. I’ve got a fifty per cent off voucher code.’
‘Oh . . . thank you, that’s very generous, but I don’t think I’d use it.’
‘We could share our stats, keep track of how many steps we’re taking, set daily goals and challenge each other – just think! There’s so much we can do!’
I’m grateful for: