Help Me!

by Marianne Power

  On Saturday 31 January I was having coffee in Bread and Bean. That Depeche Mode song came on the radio . . . ‘All I ever wanted,/All I ever needed/Is here in my arms’ and I sang along quietly while looking out of the window. Snow was falling like a secret being whispered. The world looked soft. An overweight bald man wearing hot-pink trainers walked down the street. I had a warm feeling inside. A feeling of calm and joy so profound that, yet again, tears pricked my eyes and I saw that life was good, I was fine. These moments are precious but if we pay attention we realize they’re happening all the time.

  15

  Get the Guy, by Matthew Hussey

  ‘You become so obsessed with meeting THE guy, you don’t meet ANY guys.’

  ‘All this smelling the roses stuff is fine but where’s the action? Where’s the shagging?’ asked Rachel’s friend Paul, who was three pints down and in fighting form. We were in the St John pub in Archway and the place was packed with people keen to celebrate the end of dry January. It was my first night out in weeks.

  I’d been waxing lyrical about living in the moment and just accepting everything as it was. I felt I exuded a calm and serenity that all around me would sense (and envy), but so far nobody was picking up on the fact they were drinking with a redheaded Buddha.

  ‘I thought you were going to do a dating book,’ agreed Rachel.

  ‘I was,’ I replied, ‘but I don’t know whether to bother with more books. The Power of Now was kind of it for me. I wanted to be happy and now I’m happy, so job done.’

  ‘But dating might be fun after all the soul searching,’ said Rachel.

  ‘I don’t find dating fun,’ I said. ‘And anyway, all the books say that you don’t need to find someone else to make you happy – you can only do that yourself. And I have.’

  ‘Is the bloke who wrote The Power of Now single?’

  ‘No, he’s with someone.’

  ‘What about F**k It John?’

  ‘He’s married.’

  ‘So they must think that love is good. Don’t you want to meet someone?’ asked Rachel.

  I never knew how to answer that question.

  ‘Why don’t you get the next round and flirt with the barman?’ suggested Paul. ‘When he gives you change, stroke his hand and look into his eyes.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake. I’m not going to do that.’

  As I waited at the bar I got annoyed. After everything I’d done in the last year, all anyone wanted to know was when was I going to find a man.

  Why did everything have to come down to that? Wasn’t it enough to have found peace and contentment? To feel the bliss in broccoli and to have turned the voices in my head into a low hum rather than an all-out slanging match? To have maybe, possibly – don’t tell anyone – had a ‘spiritual awakening’?

  ‘What can I get you?’

  I looked up at the barman’s big brown eyes and felt a hot jolt of excitement. Oh!

  ‘Two red wines and a pint of IPA, please,’ I said.

  I felt myself go red and looked away.

  And just like that I was back. Back in the real world. Back in the dating game – if, indeed, I had ever been in it.

  Put the word ‘dating’ into Amazon and you get 13,111 results. Books with titles such as Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man; He’s Just Not that Into You and Getting to I Do. Each promised to unlock the secret to how to snag Mr Right and each made me cringe.

  After an hour or two of looking, I ordered Get the Guy, a book by an English dating expert Matthew Hussey. It had lots of five-star reviews with readers saying it was down to earth and helpful, without being gimmicky or game player-y. Even Eva Longoria is said to be a fan, though I find it hard to believe that she has problems pulling on a Friday night.

  According to the blurb on the back of his book, ‘Matthew Hussey is the world’s leading authority on attraction. He’s studied over 10,000 men, and analysed over 5,000 dates, all to bring you the truth about how men really think and how you can attract the best of them.’

  This tome promises to teach you: ‘How and where to meet the best men; Eight words that instantly build attraction and chemistry with any guy; Bulletproof techniques to get the guy you like to notice you.’

  Conveniently for me, one of the best places to meet men, according to Hussey, is coffee shops. ‘You could ask him to move away so you could grab something off the shelf,’ suggests Hussey, ‘or you could ask if he would hold your umbrella while you fish out your purse or ask him where he stands on the flat white versus cappuccino debate . . .’

  From the sublime to the ridiculous. One minute I’m wondering, ‘Is there a God?’ the next I was being taught how to flirt in the coffee queue . . . which got me thinking about The Greek. We’d been speaking every week since the New Year and it felt wrong to go back into the dating world without telling him.

  By chance I was near Soho for work, so I called him from the coffee shop we had met in.

  ‘I wish I was there with you,’ he said when I told him.

  ‘Nah, you’re not missing anything. It’s grey and wet here,’ I said.

  ‘So what’s happening?’

  ‘Well, I’ve got a new book to start . . .’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a dating book.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Ah, OK,’ he said, followed by another pause. ‘Well, OK. It’s good that you have some fun.’

  ‘What about you? Are you seeing anyone?’ I asked.

  It was the first time we’d talked about this.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘There is a girl in my local bar that I am flirting with but I don’t know . . . I don’t have much to offer a woman at the moment.’

  He said he had to go.

  Hussey says that most of us leave our love lives to fate. We focus on every other area of our life – our friends, our family, our careers – then the years pass and one day we wake up and realize that we’re thirty-seven and Mr Perfect hasn’t dropped in our laps. Then we panic.

  We become so obsessed with meeting the guy we meet no guys.

  Hussey says that to meet more men you need to, well, meet more men. Literally as many of them as you can. ‘Every interaction with another human being is a possible gateway to some new world or experience, which could, in turn, introduce you to the love of your life,’ writes Hussey. He advises we start conversations everywhere – in parks, bookshops, at the gym. Ask people’s names. Compliment them. Smile. Ask men about their books and gadgets – all men like to talk about their gadgets, according to Hussey. You don’t have to fancy them, it’s just practice in smiling, chatting and flirting.

  It’s a numbers game. In fact, Hussey reckons that if you were in a party of a hundred men (some party!), you would have chemistry with about twenty of them. Out of that twenty, after talking to them there might be ten you would like enough to go on a date with. Of these ten, five might warrant a second date – and of those, you’d be doing well if you like one enough to see again.

  Hussey asks: How many new guys do you meet in an average week? If it’s only one (or zero) how long is it going to take for you to find someone you like? Answer: A long time.

  So my challenge for the first week of operation Get the Guy was to smile, compliment and chat to anyone. And that’s what I did – I became a one-woman charm machine. I talked to the binmen about the weather. I talked to the man in the launderette about his holiday. I told the waiter at our local Italian – who described the chocolate cake as ‘three floors high’ and assured us that ‘I am here for your desires’ – that he had a great way with English. I told the guy at the corner shop that I liked his jumper. I told Mike’s new colleague at Bread and Bean that I liked his beard. I told Mike that I liked his tattoos. He looked confused that I was commenting on them after a year of seeing him pretty much every other day. But he said thank you and he liked my jumper.

  ‘Thank you. My friend says I have to stop wearing these big jumpers but I like them.’

  ‘I t
hink you should wear what you like,’ said Mike.

  ‘It wouldn’t put you off that a girl wore a big jumper?’

  He paused. ‘Nah, it’s nice when someone is comfortable with themselves.’

  Yay! Compliments all around.

  On Day Two of dating, on 4th February, I asked a man on the Tube about the book he was reading called Stuffocation.

  ‘What’s your book about?’ I asked.

  ‘Er, it’s about how we don’t need so much stuff in our lives.’

  ‘Is it good?’ I asked

  ‘I’m only on the first page,’ he said, ‘so I don’t know.’

  I looked down in his lap; he really was on the first page.

  I continued: ‘Do you think it’s going to make you want to go home and chuck out all your possessions?’

  ‘No.’

  Oh well.

  When I got off the train, I popped into the supermarket to get some food. It was 6pm and it was full of men. Matthew says that anywhere is fair game when it comes to meeting guys, but could I really chat up men in the Tesco in Archway? Or did that cross a desperation line I didn’t want to cross?

  The first man I saw was wearing a leather jacket and standing by the freezers. I shuffled closer and saw he was looking at ice creams. Was I going to do this? I stood, frozen, by the freezers, trying to think of what to say. Hussey hadn’t given instructions . . . F**k it! Marianne, just open your mouth!

  ‘Er, have you had that flavour before?’ I asked.

  He looked surprised but he smiled at me and said, ‘No.’

  ‘What is it?’ I asked him.

  ‘Peanut butter and raspberry jam,’ he replied. Then I must have made a face because he laughed and said, ‘Yeah, I know. A bit too hectic maybe.’ I liked his use of the word ‘hectic’ but before I could engage him in a fascinating conversation about vocabulary, he put the ice cream back in the freezer and walked away.

  I felt rejected. It was embarrassing. I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed the encounter. It didn’t look like they had, but I picked up a tub of the hectic ice cream, just in case. That way it looked like I really was just interested in the ice cream.

  My adrenalin was pumping, though, and I wanted to make use of it. A small, arty-looking man with a bright blue scarf was deciding between a bland-looking Niçoise and an equally bland-looking feta salad. He picked the feta.

  Do it, Marianne. Go on . . .

  ‘Have you tried that one before?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ he said, but this time I got a big smile. ‘I hope it will be nice,’ he said, ‘it’s my dinner.’

  He sounded Italian and it seemed he would be happy to chat but I didn’t know how to move this salad conversation forward. ‘Enjoy!’ I said in a silly, fake voice before going home and eating the ice cream for dinner. On my own. It wasn’t all bad, though – peanut butter and jam ice cream is surprisingly nice. Not hectic at all.

  I realized halfway down the tub that in fact I was pretty good at talking to men now. My months of Rejection Therapy and fear-fighting had made me much less embarrassed. My only problem was with men I actually fancied, as I discovered the next afternoon on Hampstead Heath when a tall, black-haired man in a tweed blazer appeared with a Labrador. He was walking in my direction and was scruffy but smart, good-looking but not pretty-boy good-looking. A cross between Heathcliff and Ryan Gosling. I could see in one split second that he was kind and clever, good with his hands and probably very successful in something arty but practical . . .

  As he came closer my thoughts raced.

  Just look at him and smile, say hello!

  He got closer.

  Come on, do it.

  He got closer still.

  Smile, Marianne. Just smile. Or look at him – that’s enough . . .

  But I didn’t smile or look. Instead I diverted to a side path to avoid him. I was so scared I practically threw myself into a bush.

  Seriously – what was wrong with me?

  After all I’d done I could not simply smile at a handsome man.

  Why did it always come down to this? Why? When was this going to change?

  What was the worst that could happen? I’d smile and he wouldn’t smile back? Come on, so what?

  I walked back home furious with myself. What progress had I made after a whole year if I was still this useless with something everyone else could do? I was nearly forty, for God’s sake! There were thirteen-year-olds with more game than me.

  I passed the St John pub and out of habit I looked through the window to see if I knew anyone in there. There was nobody except the twinkly barman who had served me when I was out with Rachel and Paul. I kept walking and berating myself . . . then it hit me. I had messed up with Heathcliff, but I could talk to the barman. I had to.

  And then I remembered something Matthew says in his book – staff are paid to be nice, so you’re not going to get rejected. So I did it. I turned around and walked back to the pub, pushed open the heavy door and headed to the bar, where I pulled myself up onto a stool. An older man at the end of the bar nodded at me. I nodded back. I felt self-conscious. I never sat in pubs on my own.

  And there he was. Standing by me. Smiling. Twinkling.

  I smiled back, then panicked.

  Don’t be obvious, Marianne! He’ll think you do fancy him and that you’re a desperate loser who can’t get a boyfriend and has to hang out in bars on her own.

  ‘Hello,’ he said.

  ‘Hello,’ I replied. Heart pounding.

  ‘What can I get you?’ he asked.

  ‘Um. A small glass of red wine, please.’

  ‘What kind?’

  My mind froze. You’d think after all the years of practice I would know what kind of wine I liked by now but I didn’t.

  ‘Er . . .’

  ‘Shiraz, Merlot . . . Pinot Noir?’

  ‘Merlot, please.’

  As he went to pour the glass I pulled out my phone. You know, to pretend that I had friends and a life. That I was in demand. Nobody had texted. I started scribbling in my notes . . . I am alone in a bar . . .

  He passed over the glass and I uttered words that no woman should utter to a man, ever: ‘That looks very small.’

  ‘You did ask for a small one, didn’t you?’ he said.

  ‘Oh yes, I did. Sorry.’

  I never ask for small glasses and only did it this time because I didn’t want him to think I was an alcoholic.

  For the next twenty minutes or so he served other customers while I sipped my (small) wine and texted Rachel asking her to rescue me. What now? Matthew said I had to ask his name or find out something about him.

  Mr Twinkly poured the man at the end of the bar another pint and then walked up to me.

  ‘Do you want another one?’ he asked me, smiling. He had such a nice smile. I smiled back.

  I didn’t want him to think that I was the kind of girl that hung out in bars on her own trying – but failing – to pick up the barman, so I started lying.

  ‘I’m meant to be meeting a friend but she’s just texted to say she’s stuck at work . . . I don’t know whether to wait more or go home.’

  ‘Have another drink, it’s cold out,’ he said and smiled again. Was he saying that because he liked me – or because he was a barman and that was, well, his job?

  ‘OK, sure, one more.’

  ‘Small?’

  ‘Oh sod it, make it a large . . .’ I smiled back. Was this flirting?

  Then I did it: ‘I’m Marianne, by the way, what’s your name?’

  He smiled. ‘Antonio.’

  ‘Where’s your accent from?’ I said, heart pounding. Cheeks on fire.

  ‘Brazil.’

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Ten months.’

  ‘And how do you like it?’

  ‘It’s OK but it’s hard. I work, I get the Tube, I sleep . . .’ he said. This was hopeful. At no point did he say, I work, I get the Tube, I make love to my beautiful girlfrie
nd and then I sleep . . .

  ‘I think that I am not a city guy. I come from countryside. A small village.’

  ‘Why did you come to London if you don’t like cities?’

  He shrugged. I won’t lie, the conversation was a bit of a downer.

  That’s why Matthew Hussey says that we have to start conversations with the guys we like – if we don’t, we build them up into this perfect thing, when actually a five-minute chat might make it clear that you’re not at all suited to each other. But even though my guy was a bit miserable, I still liked him. At least he was honest.

  It also sounded like he was lonely. As he went to serve someone else I practised the sentences in my head: ‘Well, if you ever fancy seeing fun bits of London, then let me know . . .’ or, ‘If you ever get a day off, I’d be happy to show you around.’ I’d say it when he moved back down to me –

  I felt a tap on my shoulder, it was Rachel. I’d forgotten I’d texted her.

  She looked at the barman, who was walking over.

  ‘Shall I go?’

  ‘No, no, no!’ I said, terrified he’d overhear. After that I lost my nerve. The pub got busier and he went off to serve other people. We had our drinks and left. I hadn’t told him I liked his smile or asked him about his iPhone. I felt embarrassed and rejected. This was how I always felt around men I liked – embarrassed and rejected. No matter what they actually did, that was how I felt.

  That night I was too unsettled to sleep. Man stuff – it always opened up all sorts of feelings of hope, insecurity, fear . . . Did he think I was a loser for sitting there on my own? Was it really obvious I liked him? What did he think of me? I started putting on the old records – thinking about how fat I was, itemizing everything I’d eaten that day . . . Then I worried about my teeth and the fact that my hair was a mess . . . Why can’t I have straight glossy hair instead of hair like a ginger Brillo pad?

  Stop it, Marianne. Feel your feet. Be Here Now.

  I closed my eyes and focused on my body, bit by bit, working my way up from my toes to . . . hips . . . and . . .

  ‘Which one is he?’ Paul bellowed when we walked into the bar. ‘The skinny one or the one with the shirt?’