Age, Sex, Location Page 6

  Swept up in the excitement, I made a list in my notebook of things I thought would come in handy over the coming month:

  cigarette holder

  kohl eyeliner

  very short flapper-esque dress

  bathtub gin distillery (?)

  I was chomping at the bit to get started but while enjoying a homemade highball after work (in the name of research, of course), I realized that, once again, I had an alarming lack of test subjects. With Popeye AWOL, possibly never to be seen again, the cupboard was bare, and I needed someone to experiment on. And the nature of the book dictated that I didn’t need just one someone – I needed several. There was no way I could summon up an army of men to be flirted and trifled with just by batting my eyelashes on the tube (though I’d certainly be giving that a shot). I needed help. Modern, forward-thinking help.

  I needed the Internet.

  So, on my lunch hour and after doing a quick sweep of the area to make sure no one was around to catch me, I signed up for Castaways.

  Castaways is based on the idea that one person’s trash is another one’s treasure. People nominate friends who’ve recently been dumped but who deserve to meet Prince/Princess Charming. The Dumper can also nominate the Dumpee if they feel their ex is a wonderful person but couldn’t quite get over the way they pronounced the word ‘prosciutto’ or whatever.

  I wasn’t entirely convinced that the people doing the nominating were genuine, but I’d heard that it was filled with decent, non-disgusting men and I didn’t have to take a psychological test to join, so I was sold.

  The catch was that I had to ask someone to write a testimonial saying how unbelievably gorgeous, talented, brilliant, hilarious, sexy I was and how they just COULDN’T BELIEVE that I was still single and it must be because men are intimidated by me because of my incredible beauty and searing intellect. At least that’s what most of the testimonials I scrolled through seemed to say, always accompanied by a very arty black and white photo of a pouty mouth or half a hooded eye.

  I asked Meghan, as I figured she knew me better than anyone and was bound by blood to say nice things about me. She doesn’t have all that much experience in the dating world herself, having married her soul mate, Sue, after they met at a Lilith Fair revival back in college.

  They live in a converted barn and spend their weekends blissfully making jam and knitting each other scarves. Meg owns a successful gardening center and Sue’s a surgeon at Mercy Hospital. That’s right, my sister is married to a doctor. Meanwhile, I’m conducting my love life as a science experiment, accidentally phoning my ex’s irate sister and joining a dating site presumably filled with lunatics and weirdos. Obviously luck is one thing that does not run in the family.

  Anyway, I asked her to write something that would entice the menfolk and she came up with the following.

  Lauren is an American expat who’s been in London for a while now. She reads, drinks and smokes a lot. She excels at the following activities: having fun, making sure her companions are having fun, eating baguettes, being clever.

  As a child, she rode a very fat horse named Jason, played defense in football, kick-boxed on a regular basis and got in trouble at her Catholic high school for reading Candide in church. When you meet her, none of this will surprise you.

  Now. First of all, let me say that all of the above is true. But more important to the cause at hand, it makes me sound like Ignatius J. Reilly out of A Confederacy of Dunces. And yes, I know that reference just reinforced her description of me, but I’m trying to hide my true, hideous self from prospective suitors (at least for a little while).

  So Meghan’s description just wasn’t going to cut the mustard. In the end, I confessed to Cathryn that I’d signed up to Castaways and begged her to write my description, hoping that her relatively scant knowledge of my adolescence would work in my favor. I was right, and Cathryn wrote a great, slightly fabricated couple of paragraphs that made me sound eminently more attractive than Meghan had.

  It went online today along with a full-color photograph of my entire smiling face and from then on it was in the hands of the Internet dating gods.

  Soon, messages from Castaways started pinging into my inbox. I was retrospectively pleased that I’d used my hotmail account rather than the work email as, by the afternoon, I’d clocked up over fifty emails from various online suitors vying for my attention. My head had swollen to the size of a watermelon.

  When I got home from work, I mixed myself a sidecar (more research) and started clicking excitedly through the replies. I soon realized that the number of emails wasn’t at all a reflection on my good self. The guys on this site were playing a numbers game, as there were lots of generic one-line emails from men who were just spamming all of the female Castaways out there, hoping one of them would bite.

  In fact, after a little bit of scrolling, it became clear that quality merchandise was thin on the ground. It was kind of like being a kid in a really shit candy store, one that was mainly filled with slightly stale licorice sticks with the occasional peanut butter cup shining through.

  After I deleted all the spammers, I weeded out anyone with a tag name like ‘Rocstarz’ or ‘ChocolateBum’. These men have qualities of their own, I’m sure, but they are not to be sampled by me.

  Here’s the thing that I quickly discovered about online dating: it enables shamelessly shallow behavior. All of these codenamed, speechless photos blinking up at me … it was impossible not to judge fairly heavily on the photo. So out went the hideously ugly, the morbidly obese, the wearers of wrap-around sunglasses. Off you go, Oakleys! Back in the sea!

  Finally, and most crucially, I got rid of all the dudes who used text-speak in their emails or, worse, emoticons. What self-respecting man uses a winking smiley face in a pick-up line? I ask you.

  I assessed my lot after the cull and was pleasantly surprised to find half a dozen decent-looking, sane-sounding, proper-grammar-using guys still in my inbox. I fired off what I hoped were reasonably witty replies while eating an avocado in my old gym shorts. If this was any indication of online dating, I was hooked. Not having to wear heels in some sweaty meat market bar was incentive enough.

  8 May

  My first Castaways date! Hooray! Eeek.

  His online name was inoffensive enough, and after a few fairly promising email exchanges, he suggested we meet up for a drink. Whoop! How easy was that? I immediately agreed and a date was set for this evening.

  Here’s what I knew about him. He photographed well (if a little moodily). He had dark curlyish hair and brown eyes and appeared to spend a fair amount of time leaning up against slightly grimy walls in East London. A female friend recommended him to the site, which made me slightly suspicious because if he’s so great, why wasn’t she dating him herself? But his profile made him seem funny and clever and interesting, so what the hell. Plus, I needed to start testing out my technique and he was as good a candidate as any.

  One interesting little curve ball: he was a fashion photographer. This was both alluring and terrifying. On the one hand, I quite liked the idea of someone a bit artsy and right-brained but, on the other, I hated the idea of going on a date with someone who spent lots of time in close proximity to models. I could already feel a hot kernel of jealousy ready to pop inside of me and I hadn’t even met the guy yet. Not good.

  I got ready in the bathroom at work, Cathryn looking on in fascination as I applied eyeliner.

  ‘I don’t know how you manage to get it in a straight line. I’ve tried it a few times and I’ve always got it in my eye,’ she said, blinking at me with her irritatingly long-and-mascaraless eyelashes.

  ‘Practice. My sister and I used to give each other makeovers all the time when I was a kid. I’ve been an eyeliner expert since I was seven.’

  ‘You were allowed to wear make-up when you were seven?’ Cathryn touched her peachy cheek with her hand, horrified.

  ‘Christ, no. Not out of the house. It was just for fun! What kind of a cracker
do you think I am?’

  ‘Thank God,’ she said, gently exhaling.

  I swiped some red lipstick on, knowing I would end up eating it off before I even got to the bar, and cuffed the hems of my jeans so my new yellow heels were on show.

  ‘All right, I’m off. Wish me luck!’

  ‘Be careful! Remember to call if you need to make your excuses! And for goodness’ sake don’t follow him down any back alleys!’

  ‘Thanks, Mom. See you tomorrow!’

  I stood outside the pub in South Kensington, took a couple of drags on my cigarette and then gave a piece of Trident a couple of chews to cover the smell. As much as I’d brushed off Cathryn’s warnings, I was a little nervous myself. The Photographer could be anyone. He could be a sociopath. He could be a drug addict. He could slip me a mickey and sell me into the sex trade.

  Within five minutes of meeting him, I knew my evening wasn’t going to be anywhere near as exciting as all that. The Photographer was a dud.

  He stood up nervously when I approached him and gave me a slightly damp handshake.

  We ordered our drinks (separately, with no movement to order/pay for/carry mine from him – suddenly I missed The Rules) and sat down at the bar so that I could begin to dazzle him with my sparkling conversation.

  Within fifteen minutes, I had resorted to talking about the weather. He was a nice-enough guy but, Jesus, it was like getting blood out of a stone.

  I referred to the book’s advice:

  You must always seem attentive to his conversation; conceal the signs of flagging interest at any cost, but yet don’t look too eagerly engrossed, or he will soon feel his talk is so delightful to you that he does you rather a favour by talking at all. Equally elementary, but highly effective, is the well-known policy of drawing a man out to speak about himself.

  I put on my most engaged-yet-slightly-disengaged face (remaining careful not to go cross-eyed in the process) and played a fine game of twenty questions.

  Throughout the Q&A, I was the perfect 1920s flirt. I nodded enthusiastically. I laughed merrily. I opened my eyes wide in fascination. To an outside observer, I’m fairly sure I looked like I had snorted speed earlier in the evening.

  The Photographer remained impressively stone-faced throughout the performance, answering only in haiku:

  Q: Where do you live?

  A: Leyton, by the station.

  Q: Where did you grow up?

  A: Stoke. It was shit.

  Q: How did you get interested in photography?

  A: My uncle. Also, porn.

  It got to the point where I was asking him about childhood pets and his favorite color. Except for the mention of porn, it was like interviewing a shy five-year-old.

  The only moment of fun (and the only time the book seemed to work) came when he went to the bathroom. Two attractive guys walked in and sat down at the table across from me and immediately started an entertaining discussion about the decor of the pub (which was, bizarrely, Sherlock Holmes-themed).

  ‘Banter!’ I thought. ‘God, how I’ve missed you. TAKE ME WITH YOU.’

  One of them looked over at me sat at a table on my own with two full drinks in front of me and two empty glasses to one side.

  ‘Drowning your sorrows, I see? And two different types of drink as well! Must have been a rough day.’

  ‘Man, you have no idea. This is just a warm-up. It’s bourbon next.’

  ‘Why not go straight for the absinthe? That always sorts me out.’ He smiled at me and I noticed that he was very handsome indeed. I raised what I hoped was a flirtatious eyebrow and was about to say something suggestive when the Photographer returned to his seat, which prompted the handsome man to raise an eyebrow of his own. I gave him a little shoulder shrug and the Photographer and I resumed our slow death march to the end of the date. After our second drink, the Photographer asked if I was hungry.

  ‘No, I’m fine, thanks. Actually, I should get going. It is a school night, after all!’ I looked down at my watch and realized it was only seven o’clock. Oof.

  As we walked out, we went past the other table and the fellow I’d chatted with gave me a long, brooding look. Ah, frisson. The Photographer picked up on the frisson and gave the handsome man a dark glance before putting his hand protectively on the small of my back. It was the most action I’d had all night.

  The book goes into detail about the benefit – nay, necessity! – of encouraging male competition and inciting jealousy. Morally, flirting with one man while on a date with another isn’t exactly a high point for me but there is something strangely thrilling and Discovery Channel-ish about pitting two guys against each other. It’s evolution, guys! And didn’t I say I was in this for science?

  For the notebook:

  Name: The Photographer

  Age: 29

  Occupation: See above

  Nationality: English

  Description: Dark hair, brown eyes, possibly the victim of one of those brain traumas from an Oliver Sacks book in which his personality was wiped out

  Method: The Technique of the Love Affair

  Result: Flirting makes even the most painful social occasions more diverting

  12 May

  Popeye was back in town but his ardor seemed to have waned. He sent me an innocuous text at a suspiciously late hour on Friday asking what I was up to, which I ignored. It was possibly the first time I’ve chosen having the upper hand over having sex. Victory doesn’t taste all that sweet.

  I waited until this morning, Sunday, to reply as breezily and coquettishly as possible. The book encourages you to play suitors off one another and to make it seem as though you constantly have men clamoring for your attention. Thus:

  Hello! Sorry I haven’t got back to you – my weekend has been crazy! Have literally just got in from the night before and about to go to a BBQ now. How are you?

  It wasn’t strictly truthful: I’d stayed up late drinking wine on the couch with Lucy, yes, but it hadn’t exactly been a wild night. And the BBQ was actually just me taking a book and a croissant to the park. But, hey, my prestige was at stake here.

  The response was almost immediate:

  My weekend has been much quieter than yours by the sound of things! What a popular girl you are … Would love to see you again soon … xx

  So far, so good. I didn’t respond and didn’t have plans to – in order to maintain my prestige, I had to hold out on him as much as possible, especially since he had been kind of useless recently.

  Incredibly, I also received a text from the Photographer saying he’d had a great time the other night and asking if he could take me to dinner next week. Maybe he was having an out-of-body experience during our date? Maybe he was a masochist? I wasn’t compelled to dig any deeper, so I sent a polite decline. I know I needed test subjects, but I couldn’t face another Q&A evening.

  13 May

  Today, a shock.

  I was sat at my desk putting together the costs for our new children’s after-school program when my phone rang. I looked down to find my cell phone judging me.

  Are You Drunk?

  ‘Of course not,’ I muttered to myself, ‘it’s three forty-five in the afternoon!’ The penny dropped. ‘Oh shit.’

  I answered as I ran into the corridor.

  ‘Hello?’ I said, trying to sound breezy while catching my breath (now proven to be a physical impossibility).

  ‘Hey, Cunningham. It’s me.’

  ‘Yeah, I know it’s you. What’s up, Adrian?’

  ‘Why didn’t you say so straightaway? And where are you? You sound like you’re training in a wind tunnel.’

  ‘I’m at work, jackass. Some of us have actual jobs. In offices. With computers and shit.’

  ‘Hey, I worked today! I wrote for an hour and a half. Now I’m in the park, doing research.’

  ‘The park can go fuck itself.’

  ‘That’s no way to speak of our city’s green spaces.’

  ‘What have they done for me lately?�
� I was now making for street level at full pelt. I suspected I was going to need a cigarette for this. ‘What do you want?’

  I heard a long sigh on the other end of the phone. ‘Look, I think I was a bit of a shit.’

  I pushed open the emergency exit door and lit my cigarette – which was now a cigarette of triumph. ‘Yep, I can confirm that. Anything else?’

  ‘I just wanted to explain what happened between us, because you’re a nice girl and I’m –’

  ‘A douchebag?’

  ‘Now, that’s not very nice, but yes, fine. A douchebag. I just felt like we were heading into relationship territory and I wasn’t ready for relationship territory.’

  I took a long drag. ‘First of all, stop talking like a pioneer. Second of all, I told you all along that I didn’t want a relationship! I just made you eggs! And sometimes eggs are just eggs.’

  Adrian laughed. ‘Yeah, I suppose. But you didn’t eat them yourself! You made them just for me.’

  ‘That’s called being a nice person, asshole. It’s not entrapment.’

  ‘Well, anyway. I just wanted to apologize for disappearing like that.’

  ‘Apology accepted.’

  I took another drag and held it in, waiting for him to say something. Something like, ‘Can we go for a drink tomorrow and then have lots of filthy sex?’ ‘Can we pretend these past two months didn’t happen?’ ‘Can we resume a twice-weekly almost-platonic sexual relationship?’

  But it was Adrian, so instead he said, ‘Right, Cunningham. I’m off: research calls.’

  ‘Yep. Bye, chief.’

  And then he was gone. I stubbed out my cigarette, walked back to my desk and spent the rest of the afternoon in a daze.

  Lucy and I dissected the phone call at length in the evening over wasabi corn cakes at the new Peruvian-Japanese fusion place that had opened up in Hoxton Square.