Chapter 4
Dating apps. My stomach promptly churns.
It seems the days of meeting people in a bar and living happily ever after have gone forever.
Naomi was the last of that particular breed.
She met Philip in a pub across the road from university and they’ve been inseparable ever since.
The last guy I dated, two years ago, Harry, sat beside me at a marketing conference in Chelmsford and we bonded over bad coffee and ecommerce.
We lasted three months before he decided that he wanted to date someone closer to home.
He lived twelve miles from me, drove a Range Rover and an expensive Sirrus bike.
I wonder how long it took him to come up with that excuse.
Bamboozle her with the distance from point A to B, that’ll work.
I wasn’t that upset to be honest. He once spent an hour insisting that Madame Butterfly was just the name of the opera and not the protagonist. Turns out he’d never seen it.
I remember my mum recounting a time before dating apps when people placed singles adverts in newspapers, without photographs, and you’d reply based on their advert.
Couldn’t spell? Didn’t matter, the newspaper would correct all your mistakes.
All you had to worry about was whether your ad was placed between the models or the air hostesses.
They were everywhere. She was certain some of these women lied, because there was an usually high amount of five-foot-ten, slim-build cabin crew in her hometown of Scarborough.
Still, if I’m going to embrace this challenge, I’ll need to take the bull by the horns.
Unless that’s an actual activity. Being gored by a three-thousand-pound animal just to change my dating status is a step too far.
The only app I know indepth is Flirt First, given that I’ve just spent two solid weeks staring into its badly designed abyss.
I’m reluctant to sign up for this, considering my involvement.
What if they find out and make me a damn spokesperson?
At least for this one there are no photos required from the get-go.
I hate that photos are a requirement. Hair, make-up, decent lighting and cropping out all the bras that have been removed and thrown across the room when I get home from work.
I don’t have time for that. Well, I do, but it seems like an arduous task.
That T-shirt bra can remain on my couch until I need it again.
I abandon my search for half an hour while I go and make some lunch.
Poached eggs and toast. I’m an expert at this particular delicacy, which is not always easy to pull off.
Surely that’s got to be dating material?
Not everyone can poach eggs to perfection so they don’t resemble little floating ghosts. I text Naomi to get her advice.
Why are you asking me? I’ve been married for three hundred years. Would def mention the eggs, though. That screams ‘keeper’.
Back on my laptop, I begin with Tinder, the worst fucking thing to ever happen to me, according to one review. Still, there are some with positive feedback.
I met my wife on here!
Easy to hook up in another city.
Just swipe everyone! Five stars.
Reluctantly I sign up, using two recent-ish photos of me from Instagram: one from the last office Christmas party (taken before Rupert tripped and splattered eggnog down my velvet dress) and one from a long weekend in Ibiza with my friend Ashley.
Five weeks later, she selfishly decided to move there.
Mum joked that it was an over-the-top way to just stop hanging out with me and I laughed while briefly considering that it might be true.
I set my age range from forty to fifty. At forty-five, anyone under forty seems immature and even with only a five-year age gap, over fifty feels like they might age rapidly and expire right in front me.
As I scroll, I realise just how right I was.
It’s also obvious that ninety-nine per cent of these men are just looking for a hook-up.
Which is fair enough but for the love of God, please trim your nose hair before taking a selfie.
Using the same photos, I sign up for Bumble, where women always make the first move.
Hinge is touted as an app for serious relationships but they want six photos.
I consider emailing to ask whether they all have to be me exclusively because I have quite an extensive collection of cats I met in Greece in 1998.
Next is Plenty of Fish but after a quick snoop I decide to draw the line here.
I’d barely chosen a username before the messages flooded in from men asking wot u up too, presumably with one hand.
Match want me to pay for the privilege of messaging, so I figure I’ll just see how these go first and save my money for my inevitable therapy.
I pull up the page with Alex Steward’s article, looking for more inspiration. There must be other online ways to find human beings who don’t want to debate opera or move to Ibiza.
I began looking outside of my own interests. I wasn’t into pottery but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in someone who is.
He makes a good point. I hate bagpipes. Maybe there’s someone perfect out there that happens to play the bagpipes.
Dating for musicians. Does playing the recorder in primary school count? I think it does.
Dating for the over-forties. I don’t want to be over forty but maybe someone does? I can respect that.
Just as I’m wearily ending my search, I see a link for the TV show First Dates.
First Dates? Would I have the nerve to go on television and eat my way into a public refusal?
No. But this is the new me. A woman who will risk her dignity and say yes when every fibre of her being is screaming no.
I fill in the form and press send. If nothing else, I’ll wow the nation with my astonishing ability to spill food that hasn’t even reached the table yet.
I bring Alex Steward’s article back up and read over it again. He makes this sound so easy. Fun even. I bet he looks like Theo James. How could dating not be fun if you look like Theo James? At the bottom of the article it says:
Alex Steward is a writer and fitness coach.
Fitness coach. Ugh. I bet he’s shredded as well. This doesn’t give me hope that us mere mortals will have the same luck. I open Instagram and start searching.
There are more Alex Stewards than I thought there would be and at least five with private accounts.
However, I find one that has writer in his bio but a profile photo with five other people: three guys and two girls.
No help with the tags either, unless he’s secretly a female synchronised swimmer from Ohio.
I turn to Google to see if I can find anything.
Alex Steward writer 365 days of yes.
I skip past the article, trying to find anything else he might have written.
Unless this was the only thing he’s ever written.
Finally, I find another article, explaining the difference between a fitness coach and a personal trainer.
At the end – Alex Steward. Writer and fitness coach.
No photo to compare to the accounts on Instagram but there is an email address. Bingo.
To: Alex Steward
Subject: Hello!
Dear Alex,
I just wanted to send you a quick message to say how funny and inspiring I found your ‘365 Days of Yes’ article. (Unless you’re the wrong Alex Steward, in which case, I now know the difference between a fitness coach and a personal trainer, so thanks.)
Anyway, despite my initial trepidation and the constant need to violently gag at the thought of this, I’ve decided to follow your advice and see if this 365-day plan works for me. Can’t hurt, right? I just thought you might like to know that your words have inspired action.
Best,
Sophie
PS It takes a brave man to publicly admit to using android. (Just kidding, I’m Samsung forever.)