Single White Failure

by G. J. H. Sibson

  More often than not, the girl in question isn’t actually bothered about the answer. But it is imperative to her that I am honest at all times. However much she says that though, I can’t bring myself to tell her the truth. And she knows that I’m lying, usually. Don’t be fooled into thinking that women only get this sixth sense after having children, oh no, they have honed the skill of spotting a fib all their lives.

  When I was with Jessica, I would find myself telling a lie most days (or as I liked to call them, ‘little porky pies’ – it made me feel less guilty, or rather, not guilty at all).

  1. Her: ‘How many women have you slept with?’

  Me: ‘4’ – I always say 4. It is a good in-between number; not too few to be inexperienced and yet it still makes them feel special, like I’m selective. Am I bollocks.

  Truth: (12)

  2. Her: ‘Do you fancy my best friend?’

  Me: ‘No!’ emphatic

  Truth: (All I can think about is her in sussies spread-eagled on my bed begging me to let her sister join in)

  3. Her: ‘Has your ex contacted you recently?’

  Me: ‘No darling, of course not.’

  Truth: (Yes, in fact I met her for lunch last week, we’re just friends but I know that you hate her and if I had told you, you’d think something had happened)

  4. Her: ‘What are you doing tonight?’

  Me: ‘Going out with my mates’

  Truth: (true)

  But – the supplementary question:

  Her: ‘Can’t you go another night? I wanted us to cook spag bol, drink Lambrini and watch Bridget Jones… again.’

  Me: ‘No I can’t, I’d love to but I have to see Edward and Raj because Raj needs comforting after his new girlfriend, you know Charlotte, has been diagnosed with chlamydia and they’re waiting for the test results to see if she can still have children. Also, Edward and I really have to meet up and go through the business details of the company we set up last year before the end of this financial year.’

  Truth: (We’re getting shitfaced)

  Conversely to the male of the species, I have found that women are usually brutally honest. The truth is not something to fear. Jessica never had a problem with being upfront. She was always telling me how much she disapproved of my friends or if my clothes didn’t look right. It has been even worse in the single world. You pluck up the courage to chat to a girl in a bar, only to be sneered at and told in a lady-like manner, “Fuck off, you’re too short”.

  What is even more frightening is how honest and unabashed a woman can be about what she wants from you and out of a relationship. We had all been finding it difficult to see a woman on our terms, or even where our terms were actually considered. But the women we were dating had been making their intentions very clear from the start. They weren’t apologetic for what, at times, seem unreal demands to be making; whilst we felt we had to keep our cards close to our chest, like a losing hand in a poker game against Cat Ballou.

  My girlfriends tell the truth because that’s what they would want to hear, it doesn’t matter what I want. Frankly, I don’t care if my girlfriend tells the odd porky pie, in fact there are times when I wish she would. I want to be able to believe that she’s a virgin when we go to bed together. I don’t want to have the type of conversation made famous in the scene between Andie MacDowell and Hugh Grant in Four Weddings. I don’t want to know that Billy Bob loved to do it up against the wall or that Jimmy’s is bigger than mine. If her ex calls one evening, I would prefer it if she made out it was her mum. Guys are like ostriches. Perhaps men aren’t so beleaguered by their internal guilt, they don’t feel a need to have everything out in the open. My lying makes my life easier at the moment of committing the untruth. Ironically, it usually leads to complications and confrontations when I am inevitably found out.

  I have been working at the same media company for the past eighteen months. It was the ideal starter job in London, but it wouldn’t be good for my career to stick with this place, so I have secured a job with a bigger company situated in the West End. It will be good to be within walking distance of Covent Garden and the multitude of bars and clubs that help to make this part of town so appealing. If nothing else, I will be able to smile every time I walk through Covent Garden market and picture Ed in the back of his rickshaw, getting jerked off for the world to see.

  I only have a couple more days in this job. Presently, I’m in the process of going through the last few files on my desk and nicking all the company’s knowhow. I get an email from one of the girls on front desk. Curiously, don’t you find there is a tendency to employ blondes with long legs and big tits on reception. Ours is no exception. Her name is Carol, she is 24 and lives in Southend. I’ve spent the past one and a half years walking past her in the mornings, at lunch and on the way home at night. As soon as I am out of sight, I usually have to wipe the saliva that has been dribbling from the corner of my mouth. Each time, I smile (perhaps a little more enthusiastically than your average smile) and say hi, perhaps I ask her how her day’s going, you know the sort of thing. But other than that, we’ve spoken relatively little.

  Her email says that she’s sorry to hear I’m leaving, and to make sure I say bye before I go. I’m not actually leaving until Friday, and it’s only Tuesday. I give her a call.

  ‘Hey Carol, it’s…’

  ‘Hi Max, nice surprise.’ I hope she has caller I.D. on her phone.

  ‘Er, yeah. Just wanted to say thanks for the email.’

  ‘Oh no problem, I didn’t know you were leaving. Bad boy, you didn’t tell me. We should have a drink together before you leave.’

  I almost drop the receiver. She just asked me out. Cool.

  ‘Erm, yeah, sounds good. I’m free tomorrow evening, is that good for you?’ I ask.

  ‘Perfect, let’s go to Jerry’s after work.’

  Jerry’s is the wine bar next to the office. I meet her outside the back entrance around five the next day. She didn’t want the other girls on reception to know we are meeting up, they gossip too much, apparently. I am a big proponent of not shitting on your doorstep, but I leave in two days, what can go wrong?

  She’s donned a very short camel skirt for the occasion and a loose white summer blouse. Black Versace shades perch on the crown of her head, keeping her long blonde hair from falling forward.

  Ensconcing ourselves at one of the terrace tables for two, we order a couple of glasses of white wine. This is the first time that we have ever really talked. The conversation is pretty routine, as first date conversations go. It is a date, there was never a pretence that it is a ‘goodbye’ drink. Then we start to talk about sex (inevitably) and her sex life in particular.

  ‘So do you normally have sex with other women, when you have a girlfriend?’ she asks.

  ‘Er, no,’ I say, a little shocked, ‘Not normally. Why, do you?’

  ‘No, of course not. But I don’t mind if my boyfriend does, as long as he lets me know and doesn’t do it behind my back. It’s only sex after all.’

  This would be music to most men’s ears. But it goes against the usual rules of nature, and soon my excitement turns to concern. Perhaps that should have been my first warning. What was I saying about Andie MacDowell?

  The evening ends on a good note, with a rather pleasant snog and a brief fumble of her mammorious delights. And we arrange to meet up again once I’ve settled into my new job.

  I see her the next morning as I saunter into work, past the front desk. She surreptitiously gives me a little wave. The other girls are bound to know what’s going on. Oh well, I’ll be gone in two days. I give her a wave and a big smile. As I go up in the lift, I start to feel a little nostalgic about the place. Getting to my glass-partitioned office, I sink into the chair and treat myself to a full 360-degree swizzle, before booting up the computer. I take a chug of my Pret coffee and slam the cup on my desk. Carol’s emailed me already, to say thanks for a lovely evening. I start to pen my own response, expressing similar
sentiments and how I’m looking forward to another drink with her, some time. I’m two lines in, the phone rings. It’s reception.

  ‘Hey you, how’s it going? Did you get my email?’ It’s Carol.

  ‘Ye-es, I was just writing you one back,’ I explain.

  ‘Great, well send it, send it!’

  I’m not sure what to put in the email now, I just told her it all over the phone. So I briefly repeat myself and send it. She replies almost instantly, saying exactly the same as she said on the phone. How strange.

  I have only been working for half an hour before she calls again.

  ‘Hey, how you doing?,’ she asks as if it has been days since we last spoke.

  ‘Yeah, still good, how are you?’

  ‘I’m really well, thanks. Just thought I’d let you know that I’m working till 4 pm today,’ she thoughtfully explains.

  ‘Great, well I’m going to have to go, I have a lot to get through today.’

  ‘Sure, see ya.’

  I hang up. I shake my head and go back to sipping my latte. Full fat, double shot, extra sugar latte.

  Dan, from general office, pops his head round the door and gives me my morning’s post. Three letters from clients, an industry circular and one piece of internal post. I bin the circular, file the client mail and tear open the internal letter. Holy shit, it’s from Carol. It’s dated this morning. I read it in utter disbelief. It’s a love letter. In parts it is exceptionally complimentary, but the whole tone of the letter is very worrying. These are sentiments that you surely can’t hold for someone after one date, but even if you do, you don’t tell them. As well as the nice things she says, she also manages to touch on numerous abstract subjects like fidelity, the pill, her future. It’s all a bit odd.

  The phone rings, it’s her again. In a frenzy I press the divert button. An email from her appears, it asks if I have received the letter. I decide to ignore it. What am I going to do, I can’t avoid her. If I want to take lunch, I have to walk past her. I’ll just have to sit it out until after four.

  There are more calls, all of which are diverted through to voicemail. They are coming so frequently now that I have to answer, I have to tell her to stop calling.

  ‘Carol!’ I say sharply, as I put the receiver to my ear.

  ‘Hey Max, how are you?’

  ‘Er, yes, fine thanks.’

  ‘Listen I can only be quick, meet me by the lift at four.’

  ‘Carol, why do I need to meet you?’

  ‘Just meet me, I have to give you something.’ And then she hangs up. I feel nauseous. I start to think about all the terrible things she might want to give me; a giant teddy holding a red satin heart that says ‘I love you snuggle bunny,’ a Winnie the Pooh helium balloon, an STD?

  It’s just before four and I’m fidgeting by the lift shaft. My hands are clammy and I’m rocking on the heels of my feet. The lift counter, the one on the right, is counting up from the ground floor. I’m on the third floor, it’s just gone past first. It’s stopped, no, it’s moving to second. It’s left second. Ping. Is it her? Is anyone looking? No, thank God, it’s quiet. The silver doors slide open and Carol pops her head around the corner, as if to check the coast is clear. It’s like something out of a low budget espionage film from the 1950s, Matt Helm perhaps?

  She runs up to me, her long legs bounding along like a springbok’s. She plants a kiss on my cheek, looks left and then right. She thrusts something into my chest, ‘Here, this is for you.’ And with that she runs for cover back into the lift, which hasn’t even had a chance to close its doors and head back down to reception.

  I stand there bewildered. Getting a grip, trawling myself back into reality, I scurry into one of the team meeting rooms. I slide the frosted-glass door to.

  ‘Not another letter,’ I plead with myself.

  Deciding not to sit down, I rip open the envelope. It looks like another letter, if only it was. Carol has written me a poem. An eight-stanza poem entitled ‘My Ego’. I begin to shudder with fear as I read from one line to the next. It talks of me being ‘the skin that she wears’, ‘her reason for living’ and that I am ‘the destroyer of women’s hearts’.

  I spend the next two days as if I’m on some covert military operation. I get in early, to avoid seeing her on reception and leave only once her shift has finished. They are two of the longest days of my life. My colleagues think that I’ve gone mad, that I’ve become a recluse. I refuse to answer my phone.

  I left work on the Friday and I never saw Carol again. But why did I feel as if I had done something wrong? I felt like the bad guy, for what I wanted, even though I believed my ‘terms’ were reasonable. I felt that Carol had acted utterly unreasonably, but because she was so upfront about her intentions, because she told the truth about what she wanted, it was all ok, however ludicrous it appeared. I didn’t feel as if I could be as honest with Carol as she had been with me.

  Ultimately, I felt weaker through my deception, or rather my inability to lay my cards on the table. But my girlfriends seemed to gain strength in their relationship by telling the truth. I realised that if they are comfortable telling me that I am the skin that they wear, then surely I can tell them that I would sooner have a relaxed relationship, consisting of the occasional dinner and trip to the theatre.

  There’s not much you can say in opposition to the truth, it’s a case of like it or lump it. What if I tried the honest approach? So I did.

  The next week I go out with a friend of mine called Chantal. She is a cracking girl with an ethnic mix of Afro-Caribbean and Oriental. It would be fair to describe her as exotically attractive. Chantal is a petite thing with a great figure and, as Ed correctly asserts about Oriental women, she has tits like rocks.

  We had been on a few dates, hanging out with friends. One night, we decide to have dinner together, round at her place. It is the first time we’ve been together alone. Dinner was lovely, I really enjoy her company. But there is that definite feeling in the air that tonight will be the time when things step up a gear or two. Even though each other’s intentions are quite clear, both of us pretend it’s like any other previous time we have been together.

  As we’re chatting on the couch, over a glass of shiraz, she starts flirting even more outrageously. The last thing I want is another Ms Right. I want my own strong independent successful woman that I have been promised by society, the sexual revolution, TV, the propaganda glossies. Chantal seems like the kind of girl who could do ‘casual’ – the kind who wants to party but doesn’t expect to be legs akimbo in the delivery room nine months from now, with me holding her hand, telling her to ‘breathe’.

  Yet, I am still concerned that I could be lured by the promise of a physical relationship, only to feel trapped in something more serious. If that happened, I know I would do a runner, and lose an important friendship in the process. I decide that this has to be the right time to try being honest.

  No deception, no promises – no longer a man of straw.

  ‘My God Max, you’re such hard work!’

  Oh no, she’s going to say it, I know she is. It’s at times like this that, as a guy, you appear as though you don’t know what they’re getting at, that you’re blind. But it’s not that, I know full well what’s coming. It’s just that I hate tackling these complicated kinds of issues. I stay silent, looking quizzically as if she’s slightly deranged.

  ‘I’m just going to come out with it,’ she soldiers on, as she realises that I’m not going to say anything.

  I’m feeling more uncomfortable by the second.

  ‘Max,’ she says, earnestly.

  ‘Yes, Chantal?’

  ‘You know I really like you. And I want to take things further.’

  The pretence is over. It’s crunch time. I know what I want – I want to take things further too. But is it worth stealing even one kiss, if it will be followed by all the usual aggro. Will she turn out to be cool after all, should we make the relationship a physical one. Will I feel t
rapped. Will I lose a friend? Oh God, why aren’t I at home playing on my Xbox!

  Normally, this is where I would agree with whatever the girl says, clasping my hands together with delight and yelping, ‘Me too.’ Not this time. For a change, I will be totally honest with Chantal. It’s not the easiest thing to do, at this very moment, but it is fair on her and she should respect me for being honest with her. If it turns out that she isn’t into a casual relationship, then at least she can’t claim I was never upfront with her, or that I deceived her. Here we go.

  ‘Chantal, I do like you,’ I start, sincerely. ‘It’s easy to see we’re attracted to one another. The only thing is, I don’t want to have a serious relationship at the moment, having recently finished one and the fact there’s so much going on in my life. I like you, you’re a friend and I wouldn’t want to hurt you.’

  While I’m talking, I notice that she starts to look at me a little indignantly. I think she thought the last bit was arrogant, but it wasn’t, at least it wasn’t intended to be.

  ‘Max, what do you think you can do to me that will hurt me?’

  I have a few ideas of my own. I stop myself, just in time.

  She continues, ‘If two people like each other, it’d be a shame for them not to act on it.’

  I don’t say anything, I don’t know what to say. I look down at the stem of my wine glass that I’m twiddling between my thumb and forefinger. The small remaining drop of red wine revolves around the inside of the glass, Christ’s tears drip down the inside.