Hot Mess_Bridget Jones for a new generation

by Lucy Vine

  Rich continues, ‘Was Tim his name? I thought it was Alan?’

  ‘Alan? ALAN?’ I shout. ‘MY DAD? You thought my dad was my boyfriend? OHMYGOD WHY DOES EVERYONE THINK MY DAD IS MY BOYFRIEND?’

  Rich looks crestfallen. ‘Oh Ellie, I’m sorry, it’s just that you’re all over Facebook together and I just . . . ’

  Fucksake. I don’t really add things to Facebook – it is primarily a creeping tool for me – but my dad loves it and is constantly taking ‘selfies’ of us to post and then ‘checking us in to’ the Crown and Anchor seven doors down from his house. So yeah, of course people think we’re dating. Of course. Everyone I went to school with, who I never spoke to but am now obviously friends with on there, all now probably think I’m dating my dad. That is fantastic.

  Fan-bloody-tastic.

  Hmm. At least they think I have a boyfriend.

  Rich looks really disappointed. ‘OK, I’m really sorry. Forget about Ron.’ He logs out of his Facebook and shuts the page. Goody two shoes.

  Maddie huffs, clearly disappointed we’re giving up on this dreamboat so easily.

  ‘Hey, I tell you what, Ellie,’ Rich adds excitedly, turning back around. ‘How about if we’re both single when we’re forty, we get married?’ He laughs too loudly. ‘Haha. Marriage pact? Haha.’

  I narrow my eyes. ‘Didn’t you just turn thirty-nine, last week?’

  Maddie giggles and Rich coughs awkwardly and then suddenly springs up out of his seat. ‘Haha. Just a joke. Haha. You’re so funny, Ellie. Just popping to the loo, haha.’

  He stiffly turns to go and then turns back. ‘So, no marriage pact then?’

  I stare him out until he leaves. Sigh.

  It’s approaching lunchtime and I’m openly applying make-up at my desk. I’ve booked in a one o’clock Tinder date because I’m trying to be efficient about all this and I figured that an easily escapable hour here and there seems like the answer. Especially since weekend dating appears to require me to shower and get out of bed, which is increasingly out of the question. I’ve been making a real effort to go on dates in the last couple of weeks, partly to get the taste of Nathan out of my mouth, and partly to appease Sophie and Jen, who told me I could stop when I got to thirty-five dates. I’m up to fourteen already and I think they’ve actually been impressed with my dedication. And also extremely disappointed in me because they’ve all come to nothing.

  The trouble is, there seems to be only five types of men on dating apps, and I don’t like any of them. There’s:

  1. The ‘Nice Guy’.

  This is the simmering-with-fury misogynist, who will tell you over and over how ‘nice’ he is, even as he calls women ‘bitches’ for not being interested in him. He wants you to know how many times this week he has opened a door for a lady who didn’t even thank him, or paid for some ungrateful bitch’s lunch, only for her to ignore him. He doesn’t understand why being ‘nice’ doesn’t entitle him to your vagina. He is the one who texts you after your coffee date when you’ve explained you’re not interested, to ask you to give him back the £2.55 he paid for your latte.

  2. The Shagger.

  The guy who seems perfect and into you. You have a great time, share everything, talk about the next date; he wants to take you for drinks in the Shard – Have you ever been? The view is almost as gorgeous as you are – and you laugh together about the cheesy line. You go home thinking, actually, maybe a relationship wouldn’t be so bad. And then he will totally fucking ghost you, and all your friends will try to convince you he’s lost his phone/is in the hospital/is just scared by the intensity of his feelings. He’s none of these things, he’s just a prick who likes the validation of your attention, and/or your vagina.

  3. The Bomber-Wearing Model with a Manbun.

  It’s not a model, it’s a fifty-five-year-old guy living in his mum’s basement masturbating over your enthusiasm to meet up. Sadly, he’s always too busy with his, like, Save The Children volunteering and sexy mountaineering hobby to ever actually go on a date. He wants to keep texting you FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER though and if you could send a sexy selfie he’d be really grateful.

  4. The Oversharer.

  Dude just wants free therapy. He wants to tell you about his failed relationships, his failed career, his failed life. How he’s been thinking about re-training as a life coach and what do you think about that? He’s going to tell you about that time he stole a ten pound note from his mum’s purse when he was seventeen and how he’s been carrying that guilt around with him his whole life, eating his feelings late at night. And he’s going to cry in your mouth when you sympathy-snog him. But at least it will shut him up for five minutes.

  5. The Guy Who Wants a Wife.

  At any cost. He just wants to settle down. Now. Whoever walked through that door, you were Her. He will text you when you go to the loo that he misses you. He wants to be your boyfriend that very night. When you have sex, he’s going to look so deeply into your eyes and tell you he can’t believe he’s met you and he is so, so, so lucky. And when he texts you after that one date – about going to Canada for Easter to meet his cousins – you are going to have to spend the next week and a half trying to break up with him – with lengthy, emotionally charged texts back and forth about his FEELINGS. SO MANY FEELINGS.

  Also, I’ve realised there are only four interests men on Tinder are allowed to have:

  Music.

  Photography.

  Travelling.

  Sports.

  I’m not particularly into any of those things – I don’t like hobbies at all – so that’s tricky. And if one more guy passive-aggressively tells me their height, because apparently, ‘It’s all women on here seem to care about,’ I will start removing the legs from everyone on the internet.

  But here I am, on my way to yet another date. Today’s lunch date is Robbie. He’s twenty-nine, works in marketing – his office is round the corner from me – and is not good at all on texts. But I’ve learned that is also meaningless. A talent for messages has been no indicator of real personality so far. Some guys who’ve been hilarious on text have been absolute shambles of human beings in real life, less fun than the clichéd watching paint dry. More than once, I’ve had to resist the urge to ask if they’re getting friends to compose texts for them – there can be no other explanation. I stop outside the restaurant to change my shoes, which is unfortunately when Robbie arrives and makes his approach.

  ‘Ellie?’ he asks, looking down at the one heel I’m wearing and the one Primark slipper (shut up, they’re sooo comfy).

  I laugh. ‘Sorry about this,’ I say, indicating my shoe. ‘I was trying to make a decent impression with heels. Guess that didn’t exactly work.’

  He laughs and offers me his arm to balance on as I put the other shoe on. His arm stays there as we head inside and I’m grateful. I forgot I totally can’t walk in these heels.

  He’s handsome-ish and I’m touched by his laid back attitude to the shoe situation, but I quickly realise – after I’ve asked him about his life, his work, his family, his week, his journey to work this morning, his thoughts on the changeable weather, whether he thinks the loos here are nice, if his fork is clean – that he is one of those people who doesn’t ask any questions. In fact, that ‘Ellie?’ at the beginning of the date is pretty much the only question mark I hear for the whole date.

  I start to flounder. ‘So how long have you been on Tinder?’ I try.

  ‘Four months.’

  ‘How are you finding it?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Any good date stories?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Oh, so . . . all fine?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How, how . . . old . . . is . . . your . . . mum?’

  I’ve run out.

  ‘What?’

  Oh! A question!

  ‘Haha, sorry, I meant, do you have any pets?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even, er, when you were growing u
p?’

  ‘A goldfish.’

  ‘Did you win him at the fair? I was always terrified that might happen. My mum told me she’d flush it down the loo if I ever brought one home.’

  ‘No. It was from a pet shop.’

  ‘What was its name?’

  ‘Goldie.’

  ‘That’s a great name!’

  I try again to volunteer some information about myself, in the hopes that it will spark a conversation. ‘I never had fish for pets. Seems like a lot of hard work for not much return! They just sort of float there, looking shiny, don’t they?’

  [silence]

  I keep going anyway. ‘I had a dog, though, when I was little. Ralph. He was a Yorkshire terrier and the nicest little guy. He used to hide in my bed and surprise me when I got home from school. He died a few years ago, but my dad still has his little sister, Lily – although she’s very old now and can’t really see or hear.’

  [silence]

  ‘Bumps into things a lot.’

  [silence]

  ‘So that’s nice.’

  I breathe out slowly. Thank fuck this hour is nearly over. I have never wanted to get back to work so much before. Derek will be so impressed with my enthusiasm this afternoon, you just watch.

  [silence]

  OK, I can’t take this any more. ‘Right, this has been really sooo great, but I better head back to the office, work to do,’ I say, getting up slowly, like it’s just occurred to me and not, in fact, something I’ve been resisting doing for forty minutes. ‘I’ve got a bunch of pig sketches to do,’ I add, attempting to pique curiosity.

  Nothing.

  He nods. ‘I better get back too, I guess.’

  ‘Busy afternoon?’ I try one final time.

  ‘Probably. It usually is.’ He half smiles and gives me a kiss on the cheek. We walk out together and he points in the direction of my office. ‘I’m going that way.’

  I panic. ‘Oh, I’m down here,’ I nod in the opposite direction and he looks a little disappointed. ‘Bye then!’ I wave in his face.

  ‘I had a great time!’ he says as I start walking away. He continues talking to my retreating back, ‘I’d really like to see you again, it’s not easy to find someone I can chat to so easily.’ I don’t look around.

  I hide, crouching behind a car for a while until I’m sure he’s gone, and then head back to my building. But when I get to the door, and see everyone busy, dashing about inside, I realise I can’t quite face going in. I’m already late back, but it’s not like Derek will say anything, so I head for the back stairwell to have a quiet sit for a few minutes more.

  When I get there, Nick from across the other side of the office is already occupying my usual spot.

  Nick and I have an unusual connection, in that we’re on the same loo cycle. The Hales’ office has a unisex bathroom, because we’re just so unconventional, guys, and we reject society’s societal social constructs, yeah? I’m being sarky but I do actually get irritated by the sexist signs on gender specific toilets. The ‘quirky’ representations of the sexes? Last week I saw one where the ladies’ was a shopping bag, and the men’s was a football. Nice. Anyway, having a unisex loo here essentially means there is regularly an unflushed poo in there. I’m not blaming the men of the office, but it is definitely the men of the office. I think sometimes constructs are about protecting you from men who don’t know or care how buttons work. So Nick and I generally end up accidentally weeing together in side-by-side cubicles then complaining about the lack of hand towels, at least twice a day. We’re bonded for life.

  ‘Are you all right, Nick?’ I ask, trying to be friendly, and then realising with horror that he’s crying.

  Erk. We’re not that bonded. Maybe I should go.

  ‘Yeah, I’m OK I suppose,’ he says, wiping at his eyes.

  ‘Can I do anything? Get you anything? Do you want some water?’

  He smiles gratefully at me. ‘Better not, wouldn’t want to knock myself off our loo cycle, would I?’

  I laugh a little, unsure what to do. ‘I’m sorry, do you want me to leave you alone?’

  ‘Not unless you really want to,’ he says. ‘Sorry about all the emotions. I’ve been having a rough few days.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I’m sorry you’re not having a good time.’ I plop down next to him and we sit for a minute in companionable silence on the cold steps.

  ‘I think my marriage is over,’ he says suddenly, and the silent tears start again.

  ‘Oh God, Nick, I’m so sorry. So sorry. How long have you been together?’

  ‘Twenty-six years. Ellie, I love her so much.’

  ‘If you love her, isn’t it something you could work through?’

  ‘Do you think that’s possible?’ He looks at me hopefully, through watery eyes.

  ‘I don’t know what’s happened,’ I say cautiously. ‘But I know that everyone makes stupid mistakes, and it doesn’t mean you don’t love that person a lot. I believe people can forgive each other.’ I pause. ‘Did you . . . have you . . .’

  ‘She cheated on me,’ he says quietly.

  ‘Fuck.’ I don’t know what else to say.

  ‘Do you think I should forgive her?’

  ‘I can’t really answer that. Do you want to forgive her?’

  ‘I think I do. I really think I do. I want to. I love Emma so much. I know she’s flawed, but that’s what I’ve always loved about her. And like you say, Ellie, everyone makes mistakes, don’t they? I have to get over it sometime. I can’t keep holding on to this anger. Emma doesn’t deserve that.’

  He stands up, renewed.

  ‘After all, like Emma says, I have another brother I can talk to, I don’t, like, need Simon in my life. And like she says, I should stop moaning about the STD she gave me, because the antibiotics will clear that right up. There’s really no reason I shouldn’t forgive her, and like she says – has she really done anything that bad?’

  I feel my eyebrows shoot up.

  ‘You’re right, Ellie,’ he says again. ‘Everyone deserves another chance. And I didn’t like spending Christmas with my family anyway.’ He pulls out his phone, presumably to call the unrepentant, riddled wife who has been sleeping with his brother.

  ‘Thanks, Ellie, you’ve been great.’ He wipes his face with his sleeve. ‘You’re so lucky to always be so happy and never have any issues. You should stay single forever! Life is a lot easier, trust me!’

  He laughs, shouting, ‘See you in the loo!’ as he heads back into the office.

  I sit there on the hard step for a few more minutes, feeling hollow.

  Poor Nick. Imagine having to ditch your family over Christmas for a partner.

  God, families are a mess. I have a flash of our last proper family Christmas together before Mum got ill. It was claustrophobic, overwhelming, and I spent the whole week begging Dad to please for the love of God turn the heating down, but it was also really nice. Mum, Jen and me were on the day-wine for five days straight, and we got so drunk on Christmas Day that we ended up spit-roasting the living-room furniture to a Liberty X album.

  I wish my mum was here. I wish it so, so hard.

  I miss her all the time. But that’s not enough, those words aren’t enough, because it’s more than that. I read somewhere once about phantom limbs, how people who’ve lost a leg or an arm still feel an itch or pain in that missing limb. My mum being gone is like I’ve lost my arm. Every time I look down, expecting to see it, I feel the loss all over again. I’m getting by without her – I’m smiling, I’m doing what I need to do to survive – but my life will never be as good as it was with her in it. It still hits me sometimes, how fucked up it is, the way everyone just carries on, as if the most important person in the world hasn’t left it.

  The weight of it crushes down on me and I cry now, alone in the stairwell. And then I cry some more because I’m ashamed of crying.

  Mum would know what to say to make me feel better in this moment. She’d tell me that everything �
�� my work, the house, these terrible dates – will all figure itself out.

  And then I laugh, because actually, she wouldn’t have said anything remotely as comforting. She would’ve hugged me, and then she would’ve said the daftest thing she could think of, just to make us both laugh. She never put any pressure on me about finding The One, or getting married. She just wanted me to be happy, that was all that mattered to her.

  I don’t know how to talk about how much I miss laughing with her. How much I miss arguing with her. How much I miss the smell of her and the warmth. Dad talks about her sometimes, but he gets so emotional, I don’t want to burden him with the depth of my feelings. He needs me to be strong. I can’t fall apart with him.

  I want so badly to talk to Jen about it, but she won’t. Or can’t, maybe, I guess. I wonder if she misses Mum like I do. I want to ask her how to do this – life – without Mum’s help, because I feel like I don’t know. And I don’t know how to hold the family together without her. Mum was our glue. She was the one who dressed up as Father Christmas – the worst one you’ve ever seen – to hand out presents every year. Even that last horrible, horrible Christmas, when she was so sick she could barely get out of bed, she still insisted on wearing the hat and beard. And then she complained that we’d ruined the magic when we kept asking her if she was OK – if she needed her sick bucket.

  It’s so unfair. That’s the worst of it, how angry I feel all the time. I feel angry with Mum for leaving us, I feel angry at Sophie and Thomas and everyone else for having their mums, I feel angry with Dad for being OK without her, I feel angry at Jen for moving away with Milly right after the funeral and not coming back. And I feel so angry with myself for feeling this way. I don’t know how to get over losing her and I don’t know if I’m even supposed to get over it.

  I angrily wipe the wet tears from my face and follow Nick back in.

  10

  7.40 p.m. Friday, 29 March

  Location: Sophie’s large living-room. Things are somewhat, er, less perfect than usual. There are discarded toys lying on the floor, a smelly wet towel thrown over a chair, and a half-eaten ham sandwich that does not look organic, sitting disapprovingly on the sofa.