Stella #2
When I get to the pin Louella dropped for me, she’s standing outside, wearing a floor-length cashmere coat, hair slicked back into the kind of bun that makes her look like an off-duty model and makes me look like Miss Trunchbull from Matilda.
‘You look fit,’ she says, hugging me.
‘You look really rich,’ I reply.
‘Thank you! The coat’s rented and it came with someone else’s fake eyelashes in the pockets.’
‘New or used?’ I ask.
‘Oh, very used. Previous owner’s eyeshadow all over them. We’re going in here.’
‘Conjunctivitis-y. Fun,’ I say as she steers me into a massive, glossy co-working space. ‘Where are we going?’ I ask.
There are signs everywhere reading HER MAGAZINE. I have a horrible feeling I know where this is going.
‘Oh my god,’ I say, looking around at the dozens of other middle-class women carrying tote bags. ‘Is this some kind of panel discussion?’
Louella nods. ‘Kind of.’
‘If this is a self-help event I’m going to push you in front of the Tube on the way home,’ I say, teeth bared.
‘I’m on the Overground so that’s not happening,’ she snipes back.
‘You said this was going to be fun. Self-help is not fun.’
Louella looks guilty. ‘I know, and I lied, but there’s a Mexican-Iranian pop-up we can go to afterwards, and I’ll pay, and this won’t be fun but it will actually be useful. I promise.’
We take our seats in the main space where there are rows and rows of chairs filled with rows and rows of different versions of the same woman.
Louella and I are one hundred per cent on brand.
At the front there are four chairs and a big screen that reads, Navigating Modern Love.
Underneath, it explains that we are going to understand how to be better at dating because of these three experts: Jessica Rhodes, co-author of Seven Rules for a Perfect Marriage, William Green, author of The No-Method Method, and Lexie Leung, author of The Mantourage.
‘I cannot tell you how much I hate this,’ I whisper to Louella. ‘I already tried not having a method, I already had what looked like a perfect marriage and I don’t know what a “mantourage” is, but I do not want one.’
‘If you complain one more time, we’re not getting margaritas at dinner,’ Louella says, taking pictures of the stage for her socials.
Eventually the room is full and the panel sit down.
Jessica Rhodes is a pregnant redhead, William Green is a tiny, dark-haired guy with little round glasses and Lexie Leung is Asian, and has a full fringe and the kind of triceps I can only dream of.
Everyone claps, the host introduces the panel and then they start talking.
At which point, I think I can forgo a margarita because I’m going to complain to Louella non-stop after this.
The redhead woman is saying some sensible stuff about relationships but I’m not in a relationship and I don’t think most of the other women here are, because who’s paying money to go to a romance lecture when they’ve already got a partner?
And the guy keeps saying that not trying and not doing anything is the best way to find happiness and, like, yeah, okay, William, how did you get an entire book out of that?
Just as I’m wondering whether I could pretend to faint so I can leave, the host backtracks.
‘Wait, Lexie,’ she says, her bright pink manicure wrapped around the microphone.
‘There might be some people here who haven’t read your book or followed you on socials – can you explain what the mantourage is? ’
Lexie smiles and lifts her own microphone to her mouth.
‘Sure,’ she says, taking a long pause. ‘So, I grew up in a family where marriage was expected, ideally in your mid-twenties, certainly before your late twenties. And alongside that expectation was my own desire – I wanted to get married and have a family. But I’d been at medical school and doing my doctorate, so I’d barely dated.
And I realised that if I wanted to find the right man, I needed more experience, but I didn’t have a lot of experience.
So I took inspiration from the medical school where I’d studied.
When you’re training to be a doctor you do rotations, so you spend time in lots of different types of medicine – sometimes you’re in dermatology, oncology, paediatrics, and, at the end of it, you’ve got more experience of being a doctor and you understand what you’re best at.
So I put together a kind of rotation of men, who were all different archetypes, who offered different benefits and of course each had their own flaws.
And I dated them simultaneously for six months – they were all aware of this, obviously.
I’m not like a man – I wouldn’t do this dishonestly! ’