Chapter 1 #2
‘Baby! How did the date go? Are you still on it, or should I call back later?’ My mum’s deep, melodic Ghanaian accent lightly decorated with a South London flair came through the speaker, brimming with excitement for the update.
Like many Ghanaian mothers with their firstborn daughters, she’d been eager for me to settle down and start a family for the past ten years.
Never mind the fact that I have a younger brother – already engaged and with a child on the way – at the end of the day, the weight of preserving our family legacy rested squarely on my shoulders.
The future of her matriarchal lineage depended on my matrimony.
Well, I hope they’re prepared for a dose of disappointment!
‘Ahh, Mum, please,’ I started, using a facecloth to slowly take off the cleanser before I started to apply my trusty hyaluronic acid serum.
‘I thought it was going well, but then he kept talking about how much I was eating and commenting on my weight and stuff so I just walked out, man. I couldn’t be bothered with all that shit again.
It keeps happening to me and I’m sick of it.
Ugh.’ It actually felt good to vent to my mum – we’d developed a really candid, casual relationship where I felt good being able to open up to her.
As I began to unravel the events of that evening to her, I could begin to feel a prickle behind my eyes.
I could feel the frustrations of the last few dates beginning to build up and, in that moment, I just wanted to cry.
Why was dating this hard? Why couldn’t I just find a nice, tall, intelligent, handsome man who had good conversation, worshipped the ground I walked on and wanted to have sex every once in a while?
Was I asking the universe for too much at this point?
‘So at the end,’ I continued, stifling a sniffle, ‘I just walked out but then I forgot my bag so I had to go back in to get it – it was so embarrassing. He was actually smirking at me when I headed back in so, yeah, I guess that’s the end of that. Back on the apps I go, I suppose.’
‘You actually went back in?’ my mum replied, scoffing. ‘Girl, you should have asked one of the waiters to grab the bag for you! But it’s fine. You won’t see him again, I guess. A shame, he sounded nice.’
‘Is it me, Mum?’ I said, now applying my Ole Henriksen retinol serum in a bid to keep the fine lines at bay.
‘Do you think I need to do something about how I look? Because every guy that I’ve dated since the New Year keeps mentioning either my weight or my “appearance” as the reason why they don’t wanna continue seeing me, and I can’t lie …
it’s triggering me hard.’ I wiped a tear as I applied the final product of my skincare routine – my Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair night cream – in thick strokes before massaging it into my face.
‘Cassie, baby, it’s got nothing to do with your weight or whether you need to change yourself, darling.
How many times have I told you this? You’re fabulous in the body you’re in, your mum doesn’t make ugly children, and I’ve taught you to never base your worth on the validation of others – least of all, men! ’
She made a gagging sound as she said this, which made me laugh, as I instantly knew she was thinking about my dad. Her rant continued.
‘The men in the UK are very mad and have no one to tell them because of the patriarchy. Look at your dad, for instance; a very useless human being who also at one point tried to tell me what to wear and how to do my hair, talking about how he preferred it natural – d’you remember that?
A very mad man. He met me when I had a wavy BLONDE weave and then all of a sudden he expected me to walk around looking like Angela Davis?
At that point I knew that it was giving “Divorce” …
Is that how you young people use that phrase? ’
‘Yes, Mum; very good,’ I replied, smiling. She was up to date on her Real Housewives binge, it seemed.
‘Speaking of Dad, he texted me again this morning, asking how we were – and of course by “we”, he obviously meant you. When are you gonna tell him you’re going steady with Femi?
I can’t keep being the buffer between you guys.
You should just let him know and he’ll probably stop bugging you once and for all? ’
At this, my mum loudly kissed her teeth. ‘Fuck him. I don’t owe that man anything except for giving me you and Steven. Even when it came to making you two, he couldn’t even last two min—’
‘IIGHT MUM THANKS SO MUCH I’LL CALL YOU IN A COUPLE DAYS BYE.’
At that, I hung up the phone and applied some face oil to finish off my regimen.
As close as we were, some boundaries still needed to be had!
As much as I loved Pretty Woman, the thought of seeing a conventionally attractive woman getting the life of her dreams wasn’t something I was particularly in the mood for any more, especially after tonight. I needed to ingest more relatable content.
‘Hey, what’s going on, guys? It’s your girl Simi P and welcome back to yet another episode of The Jungle Diaries where I go through some of your dating dilemmas and we talk about the absolute stress of trying to date in this here London!
We’ve got a packed episode for you; I need to update you guys on this absolutely diabolical date I went on last weekend with this guy I matched with on Tinder; note to self and you guys – take out your Invisalign trays before leaning in for that kiss! ’
I hopped into my pyjamas and brought Toby into bed with me as I listened to my favourite dating podcast. If I was going to go turbo mode on dating this year, I needed all the help and advice I could get.
While listening to Simi P reading out this week’s dilemma – a listener who wasn’t sure if she should wear her lace front wig before sleeping with her new date who happens to be white – I opened up the message I’d received from Calvin twenty minutes prior and grimaced.
Hey Cassie. Um, I don’t really know what that was about earlier; I was just trying to give you some advice and I don’t think it was cool for you to take it so personally. Nice knowing you, I guess.
Toby softly made biscuits against my forearm as I typed back; keeping it short and sweet.
One thing to learn on your next date, I think: don’t preach on about the eating habits of the person you’re on a date with; especially if they are bigger than you. It’s rude, if you didn’t know. Don’t contact me again pls. xx
Satisfied with my response, I sent the message and proceeded to block him.
Mum was right: I am fucking gorgeous. I have a wonderful personality (if I do say so myself), I’m intelligent, I’m somewhat funny at times, I’m kind, generous, laid-back, yet for some reason, my curves always seem to get in the way of me achieving any kind of dating success.
It’s absolutely wild to me, dear reader, as I thought we were in the midst of a curve revolution.
Body positivity and all that, huh? Weren’t curves supposed to be in?
It had been refreshing to see over the last few years a multitude of women who look like me being shown in magazines and online – all bodies are beautiful, after all – but somehow, this hasn’t translated into the dating scene.
The truth is, I’ve never had a boyfriend.
And it’s something I carried a lot of shame about for years growing up, as it felt like a rite of passage at school to have crushes on boys and have them reciprocated and all that.
The shame only intensified as I finished uni and started getting pressure from my parents about marrying up and settling down, despite only being twenty-one.
I’ve always been somewhat confident in my skin, with the odd run-of-the-mill nervous breakdown here and there but, ultimately, I’ve never let my body hold me back from living my best life.
Even in the dating scene I’ve always been someone to take up space and be unapologetic in my confidence but, for some reason, men see my body and suddenly decide they’re no longer interested.
I’m at the point now where I really want to feel desired.
I’m thirty-four, for crying out loud. I want to go out on normal dates, feel adored, be sexed up spectacularly on a regular basis and eventually settle down, but it’s hard enough trying to get someone to swipe left on me, let alone marry me.
But this year I told myself that I WILL have a successful dating life, by any means necessary.
As a feminist, nothing gives me the ick more than seeing women revolve their lives around men.
While I’m making a conscious effort to avoid doing the same, this year, I’m focused on having as much fun as possible – and if I happen to meet someone special along the way, that’s just a bonus.
I could hear the low, hypnotic purr of Toby, who had fallen asleep in my arms as I lay back and allowed myself to be swept away by the drama of Simi P’s hilarious listener letter:
‘Babygirl, if it were me, I wouldn’t wear a wig if I knew I was gonna sleep with him soon but you do you. As long as you don’t use gorilla glue to secure the ting cus that shit’ll ruin your scalp, still!’
I allowed the rest of the podcast to play out as I slowly fell asleep.
Date six? A complete disaster, but I wanted to cling onto the hope that something better would come for me soon; it had to.