by Polly James
“Won’t Trade Descriptions say something about that?” I say, or rather, gasp. “It’s dishonest, isn’t it?”
Pearl tells me not to be ridiculous and that no man would seriously think Sophia Loren would do online dating, “so they’re bound to realise it’s just a talking point”.
“And it’s no less honest than men are about height and weight in their profiles, anyway,” she adds. “Or how much hair they’ve got.”
Joel says he never thought he’d have a great aunt who went in for catfishing, when I finally arrive at the house and let him in. My phone starts ringing before I have time to ask him to explain what catfishing is.
It’s Eva calling, from her car.
“Hannah,” she says. “I’m stuck in traffic but hopefully I won’t be long. Oh, and seeing as you’re so unsettled by the Dan thing, I’m bringing something to cheer you up.”
“Hopefully not a man,” I say. “I’ve got my second-worst set of underwear on.”
I didn’t realise Joel was lurking in the hallway. Wriggling out of saying that proves difficult, so I’m quite glad when my explanation is interrupted: first by the arrival of Marlon and some of Joel’s other mates, and then by Eva herself. She really is bearing gifts.
“For you,” she says, chucking a beautiful beaded flapper dress at me. “Got it from today’s photo shoot. It’ll suit you better than me, seeing as bosoms were a no-no in the Roaring Twenties.”
That’s an attitude that can’t come back soon enough, as far as I’m concerned.
“Just to make it clear,” Eva adds, “in case you are now confused by my apparent breach of my own sartorial rules, women our age are allowed to wear one-off, very special pieces like that dress. We are not allowed to wear anything our mothers would have worn, because those risk looking age-appropriate.”
“Ah,” I say, though I haven’t a clue what Eva’s talking about. She works for a magazine that promotes all things vintage, including clothes, so what’s the problem?
“Clothes are only vintage if you don’t look old enough to have worn them the first time round,” she explains, after spotting my confused expression. “Otherwise, they’re simply your old clothes. Now make us a coffee, and pass me your laptop. I have a plan – to get you a man.”
I do as I’m told and then watch, totally out of my depth, while Eva flicks through various internet dating sites, only to rule half of them out straight away.
“Tinder’s no good for you,” she says. “Not just because you’re at the top end of their age-range, but also because of your cack-handed inability to tell left from right. You’d keep swiping the wrong way and end up dating nothing but weirdos.”
“Thanks,” I say, and then I tell Eva about Pearl pretending to be Sophia Loren.
“Good for Pearl!” she says, before ruling out Match.com for some reason that I can’t recall, and then something called Grindr because I’m not male or gay.
I rule out other sites myself, either because they require you to be a practising Christian or because I’m not willing to pay to be humiliated, which is what’s bound to happen when no one bothers to contact me. That prospect’s bad enough, but when Eva tries to take a photo for my profile picture, the result’s so awful that I tell her I’ve changed my mind about the whole idea.
At that point, she gives way to irritation and says it’s no wonder I’m such a mess when I always think the worst of myself, and am “totally unwilling to experiment”.
She smiles as she says it but the accusation stings, so I give her carte blanche to do whatever she thinks best, then head for the kitchen to make something to eat. (I made the mistake of telling Joel I was a bit tired of his signature pasta dish the other day and he hasn’t made a new batch since.)
By the time I return, having accidentally tipped one pizza down the back of the oven shelf and dropped the other face down on the kitchen floor, I’m wishing I’d been more appreciative of Joel’s culinary expertise. I’m also starving, as is Eva, but at least she’s achieved her task more effectively than I have mine.
“You now have fully fledged dating profiles on Plenty of Sharks, and No-kay Cupid,” she says. “Now pass me some food. What is that? Pizza, or some sort of weird, lumpy pasta sauce without the pasta?”
“More to the point,” I say, staring in disbelief at the screen. “Who is that?”
My profile picture shows a blonde woman who looks awfully familiar, though not from looking in a mirror, and my username is PintSizedPammy.
“It’s Pamela Anderson,” says Eva, who’s still turning bits of pizza over with her fork and inspecting them warily. “I thought if Pearl could get away with catfishing, then so could you.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Eva,” I say. “You’re as daft as Pearl. No one’s going to believe I’m Pamela Anderson, and even if they do, they’ll just be disappointed when they find out I’m not. Whatever were you thinking?”
“I got bored waiting for you to choose a profile picture you could live with,” she says, “so I chose one of Pammy at random. You can change it when you next log in.”
Before I can argue, she shuts my laptop down. Then she phones to order a takeaway.
* * *
I’ve corrected all the lies Eva told about me in my dating profile now, but it’s hard photographing yourself, especially when your eyesight’s rubbish. I’ve taken about ninety selfies in the half-hour since she left, but all of them are terrible. Either my eyes are looking in the wrong direction or I’ve caught my chin(s) at the most unflattering angle possible, despite switching to self-portrait mode. The trouble is, I need my glasses to see whether the photo will look any good before I take it, but I haven’t mastered the art of keeping my head (and eyes) in exactly the same position while removing my glasses and then taking the shot.
I’ve tried everything I can think of to improve the results I’m getting: sideways angles (which are rubbish), pouting (even more ridiculous), and putting my chin down while peering upwards into the camera. That last one gave me at least five more chins, along with an odd, simpering expression, but the alternative (looking upwards while sucking my cheeks in, like the Fembot does) made me look demented. I can’t think what to do now, and I’m not at all sure I want to have my face on display so that people I know could recognise me, anyway. Maybe I should try some sort of disguise?
I ask Joel if he’s got any masks left over from all the Halloween club nights he’s been to over the last few years, but the only one he can find is a full-face rubberised mask of a malevolent pig.
“You going to a fancy-dress party, Mum?” he says, which gives me an idea.
The last time Theo and Claire had one of their ghastly parties, the theme they chose was “Gangsters and Molls”, mainly because Claire had just bought a red ’30s-style dress and matching shoes, and Theo thought molls were guaranteed to wear stockings. He was disappointed, unless you count the male guests who went in drag, but I guess that’s life.
Dan decided we should go as Bonnie and Clyde, so I wore one of my old berets and Dan bought a cheap fedora from our local market, which I’m pretty sure is still in a box on top of our wardrobe.
I retrieve it, and try it on. It’s so big it slides halfway down my face, leaving only my nose and lips on display. Even better, if I suck my cheekbones in very slightly and then angle my head a little, I look mysterious, full-lipped and a bit like Marlene Dietrich, before she reached the age when she started yanking half her face behind her ears and taping it there. I take a quick test shot and the result’s so good, I wonder if I could wear a fedora in bed?
I’ll try it, once there’s a realistic chance of finding another person in my bed. Until then, I’ll just upload the photo, change my username, then go to bed and wait and see.
Chapter 13
God, I’m hot. I’m seriously fucking hot!
I’ve just got home from work and checked my emails – twice, because I thought I was seeing things the first time I did it. I’ve only been online dating for less tha
n twenty-four hours and I’ve already got over a hundred messages in my inbox on Plenty of Sharks, and you should see what some of the senders would like to do to me, or rather to Pammy, seeing as I can’t work out how to change my username.
No-kay Cupid’s proving a bit less fruitful than POS so far, but I don’t care. A hundred sharks are more than enough to be going on with, and I can’t wait to tell Eva about my new status as a sex symbol. In fact, I won’t. I’ll phone her now.
“Hannah,” she says, “how are you doing?”
“I’m hot,” I say. “Really, really, mega-hot.”
“Well, use that paper fan I gave you,” says Eva. “They’re the best thing for hot flushes. Can I call you back? I’m still at work, in the middle of something important.”
Honestly, anyone would think I was past it, if the first thing my friends assume when I say I’m hot is that I’m menopausal. (I may be, for all I know, but that is absolutely not the point.)
And I’m too busy to chat myself, now I come to think of it. I’ve still got ninety-nine emails to answer before I go to bed.
* * *
I’m at work, designing yet another stupid icon, but I can’t help logging into my POS account every hour or so, because the whole thing’s such a buzz. My inbox is still filling up, and I had no idea I was capable of attracting so many men – or even any men.
It’s doing my confidence a world of good, and now I’m surprised Dan managed to keep his hands off me so much of the time. He must have overlooked whatever it is about me that’s so appealing to other men, unless I’ve improved a lot over the last few days, which maybe I have. The Fembot asked if I’d changed my beauty regime when I arrived at the office this morning, because I “looked much brighter”. Not bad for someone who’d hardly slept at all because she’d been awake until 3am replying to admiring messages.
I’m only keeping half an eye on the ones that keep coming in today, not reading them, but Esther says I’m being stupid anyway. Well, first she says she wishes she had the confidence to try internet dating, and then she tells me that I’m being stupid.
“What if the Fembot’s monitoring your computer?” she adds. “You could get fired. Don’t forget she threatened to sack those guys last week – you know, the ones she caught spending too much time on Wikipedia.”
“Well, that was idiotic of her,” I say, “as I told her when she did it. In my head.”
Everyone at HOO uses Wikipedia all the time. That’s how we get enough information about things we’d otherwise know sod all about to answer our users’ dodgier questions, like whether failing a drug test invalidates probation, but I guess Esther’s got a point. I’ll wait until I get home before I check my messages again.
If they keep coming in at this rate, though, I may have to give up work, as well as housework and going out. Otherwise, I won’t be able to keep up.
* * *
I’m back home now, but I am traumatised. I’ve just opened a POS email to find a photo of a guy who looks younger than Joel, and who’s stark-bollock-naked, apart from a tattoo of the Nike swoosh just above his crotch, and another that says, “Just do it” on his upper thigh.
“Does your mum know you’re sending women stuff like this?” I type in my response. “Concentrate on your homework, instead. Just do that.”
I hit send, then I delete Master Nike’s message and turn my attention to the others in my inbox. A lot are from men who’ve taken their tops off in their profile pictures, though I can’t think why, in the case of some of them. Their ages range from thirty to seventy-five, and their body weights vary between skinny and enormous, so let’s just say some of their profile pictures are more aesthetically-pleasing than others.
Men are rubbish at choosing usernames, too, if this lot’s are typical. BertieBigOne obviously has an extremely small appendage (as well as a freakishly small head), and BillyFatWallet highlights that he’s a merchant banker in his one-line “About Me”, in case we’d otherwise fail to grasp his point.
Dan would definitely say Billy’s got one letter of the word “banker” wrong, but Dan’s not here, and that’s why I’m reading these cringeworthy messages, isn’t it? I plough on …
There’s abcde1234, who sounds about as imaginative and interesting as his username, and then there’s SocratesButCleverer, who obviously has an ego the size of one of the larger planets. Finally, I get to PaganPaul. He’s a diamond geezer.
I work in mental health, and I’m married, but I’d like to have sex with you in every position ever documented, as soon as it can be arranged.
I have no idea what to reply to that, or whether to even bother, though I was brought up to reply to everything.
Paul’s married but wants to shag me senseless, while working in mental health? I wonder what his wife’s psychological state is like, poor woman. Pretty shitty, if she lives with that creep, I should think.
My mental health’s not too good already, if the fact that my head often feels as if it’s exploding is anything to go by, so I delete PaganPaul as fast as I can. Then I get to SexyJockeyJoe, who wants to know whether I’d be willing to dress up as a topless pony and then walk round and round in circles in a field while he shouts instructions and brandishes a whip. (Answer: No.)
I’m about to give up and log out when I spot an email that’s just come in, from someone called RealNiceGuy. The subject title says, “Please read this – high priority.”
I’m a sucker for good manners, so I click idly on the message, start to read, and then freak out.
Hi Pammy, I can see you’re new to Plenty of Sharks, so you’re probably only just finding your way around the site, but did you realise you’d ticked the box saying you were “up for anything”? If you didn’t mean to, I should think your inbox is already filling up with dodgy stuff.
That’s understatement of the year, so I check my profile, and of course, he’s right. According to bloody Eva, PintSizedPammy is “up for anything and everything”, but you know what’s even worse than that? Mr RealNiceGuy doesn’t ask me for a date, unlike Mr Naked-in-Socks, Mr Pervert Pagan, Mr Small Head et al., including the crazed fantasist with a penchant for golden showers. I had to post a question on Halfwits myself – anonymously, of course – just to find out what that was.
* * *
Oh, brilliant. Over the last few days since I stopped being “up for anything” on POS, I’ve only had five messages, and one was from someone half my age, and three were from men older than Pearl, so I ruled all those out straight away. I know that’s probably being just as ageist as the Fembot, but I don’t want to date someone a quarter of a century older than me. I want a man my own age, just like Dan.
Number five is only a couple of years older than me. He also doesn’t have an idiotic username, or a half-naked profile photo, so once Eva’s failed to persuade me that I should follow her example and date much younger men, she says I should meet this one for a date.
* * *
Esther disagrees and says I shouldn’t, “as he’s bound to be a conman or something”, but she’s been so fed up since the Mr Flobby incident that her opinion of men has become even lower than it used to be. Her judgement’s even more impaired about what she looks like, too, so I draw a portrait of her at lunchtime today, to prove she’s prettier than she thinks she is. She thanks me politely, then puts the drawing under a pile of folders on her desk, so I have no idea if it worked or not – and I still haven’t a clue whether to listen to her advice, or Eva’s, either.
I rack my brains for someone whose judgement I definitely trust, now I can’t ask Dan for his opinion, but nobody springs to mind until this evening’s rowing lesson, when I ask Albert what he thinks.
“Faint heart never won fair gentleman,” he says, just before I drop my oar and then almost capsize the boat when I lean out to recover it. “Just make sure to meet him on dry land.”
That’s why, when Mr FairandSquare suggests we dine together at the floating restaurant, I suggest we don’t. But I do agree to
his alternative suggestion: drinks at the new cocktail bar in the centre of town, at 8pm tomorrow night!
Chapter 14
I have no idea whether I’m having a super-extended bout of hot flushes or whether I’m just excited – or terrified. Why on earth did I let Eva talk me into this? Okay, so Mr FairandSquare looks normal, and can express himself competently in an email, but there are probably serial killers who can pull off that particular combination. And why did I agree to a date at such short notice, too? I haven’t got a thing to wear, and I look like shit.
If I’d thought about it, I’d have realised that I needed to leave at least two days between arranging the date and the damn thing actually taking place, if only to allow some time between shaving my legs and fake-tanning them, to avoid the rash I always get when I do both things on the same day. Now I’m sounding like Esther with her allergies, but spotty red legs are not a good look. I’ve got similar red lumps all over my upper lip as well, thanks to the last-minute plucking of a few stray hairs. I look as if I’ve got the plague.
“I can’t go through with this,” I say to Eva, when I phone her in a panic with only half an hour left before my cab is due to arrive. “And I’ve just lied to Joel, too. I told him I was coming round to yours, so you’d better cover for me if he ever asks.”
“Why did you do that?” says Eva, as if lying to Joel was the most important thing at a time like this.
“I thought he’d be upset if he knew I was going on a date,” I say. “I know I am.”
Eva instructs me to drink a large gin, and then to tell her exactly what I’m wearing.
“The dress I wore to go clubbing,” I say. “Without your necklace this time, obviously. It’s the only relatively-new dress I own.”
Eva sighs, but then says, “Okay, well, I guess that’s fine. Send me a picture of your hair and make-up. Now.”
I do as I’m told, only for her to order me to change my hair, and then to put more mascara on. Lots of it, and eyeliner, too.