Cecilia came in today. She doesn’t normally come in on a Monday but apparently her sister had called off their usual bridge match and she thought she might be ‘helpful’. She asked if I would like her to go around the museum and wipe down all the laminated information sheets.
I thought ‘like’ was a really strong word for it: ‘couldn’t care less’ might be more accurate. I thought about asking her if she’d pop to Tesco Express for me instead and choose something for tea but that felt like it might be taking liberties, so I just gave her a J-cloth from the kitchen and let her get on with it.
The highlight of the day for Jess came when we were peeling potatoes and found one that looks a bit like a bum. She wouldn’t let me cook it and obviously, then, she couldn’t possibly eat the mash as that was me having cruelly crushed to death all of Bum’s friends. She made a bed for it next to hers using a baby wipe she fished out of the bathroom bin, so that was nice.
Lay awake for quite a long time worrying about tomorrow’s date. What should I wear? Should I shave anything? (Like legs – not head.) How much make-up says, ‘I take care of myself but am not high maintenance’?
Today I kissed a boy!
OK, not an actual boy, a real grown-up man, but you know what I mean. I don’t think the date with Robbie could have gone any better if it had been created for one of those scenes in a film where a date goes really well and the heroine swings around a lamp post on her way home. We ate green curry and drank wine and talked about books and laughed and had that eye contact that goes on just a little bit too long.
It’s been so long since I had that that I’d forgotten about it, and how giddy it makes you feel. It’s amazing, isn’t it, how much that extra second can say, without either of you having to say anything at all?
After dinner we walked along the seafront. It was dark, but the promenade was lit with strings of lights and you could hear the sea lapping at the sand. I love the noise of the sea when it’s dark and everything else is silent – it’s very different to how it sounds in the daytime, for some reason. It has a much more magical air about it.
We were about halfway along the front when he stopped and took both my hands, turning me to face him.
‘I really want to kiss you right now,’ he said. So masterful! I had clearly got the make-up balance right. I leant in towards him and went up on my tiptoes (he was as tall as his profile claimed) and we kissed and I lifted my right foot off the floor in one of those little kicks, even though no one was watching, just to reinforce that fact that I was kissing a boy. (Sometimes I worry that I overthink things.)
Now I am lying in bed, wide awake with a big smile on my face like I’m about thirteen years old and I’ve just been passed a note in chemistry from a boy I like.
Wine – 3 glasses (medicinal due to new filling and not at all to do with Robbie). Jaffa Cakes – 0 (dentist guilt).
I had a message from Robbie this morning when I woke up.
‘Just wanted to say how lovely it was to meet you last night,’ he wrote, ‘I had a great time.’
‘Me too,’ I wrote back, smiling to myself and doing a little toe wriggle under the duvet. ‘That was definitely the best date I’ve had in a long time!’
He sent back a smiley face.
‘Just to let you know, though,’ he wrote, ‘next time we go out I will expect sex.’
Err …?
Perhaps it was a typo? I gave him a minute to correct himself. Maybe he’d meant to write ‘the chance to hang out with you for a bit longer’ or even ‘split the bill’?
‘Um … what?’ I replied.
‘I had a great time,’ he said, ‘it’s just that sex is very important to me in a relationship.’
‘Well, sure,’ I said, ‘nobody’s asking you to commit to celibacy, but we have only met once!’
‘I understand if you’re just not a very sexual person,’ he wrote, ‘but it would be best for me to know if that’s the case.’
Seriously? We had such a good time! We kissed! I did the little ‘lifting one foot off the floor’ thing, for Christ’s sake. What’s the matter with me? What’s the matter with men? I’m not sure that online dating is for me if it’s going to be so fucking brutal. I don’t swear much, but this warrants it, surely? Properly brutal.
Stared at the ceiling for a bit, trying not to cry for the state of mankind/my destiny to die alone. Should I have stuck with Ian? Am I being unreasonable to want a partner who I find sexually desirable and who is, at the same time, a decent human being?
Passed around Robbie conversation at Busy Beavers for Sierra and Lou to read in stunned silence. Sierra shook her head. ‘What an absolute bellend,’ she said. ‘At least you know now what a complete bastard he is.’
Lou was about to comment when a small girl with pigtails threw up near her feet.
Bum the Potato has been going to nursery with Jess every day this week. He is starting to look a little sorry for himself.
Period started but I’d forgotten the check the app for the last week so it caught me by surprise and I didn’t have any tampons. Gawd.
Maybe I need an app to remind me to check the app?