Chapter Twenty-Seven
After the disaster of the postman date, you would think it would put Sasha off online dating for life. That it would make her swear off forever, with or without a solemn oath. Yet here she was, sitting in front of the computer again, like a moth to a flame; a sucker for punishment. She still clutched her hope, although now it was slightly battered. She was determined not to give up; not to fall at the first hurdle. After all, this was her year of living with no rules, of taking risks, of prying herself away from the confines of her sofa and her comfort blanket. This was her year of taking chances. Who knew what the outcome was likely to be, unless she was prepared to take risks?
With these motives in place, she approached the website again, tanked up on drive and motivation.
“You have ten messages,” the website joyfully informed her. Rifling through the scant profiles, the lack of photos, the zero-effort one word messages, she noticed that one profile shone out as particularly promising. Looking at his photos, he was tall and slim, with a lazy slanted smile, dark hair and he was certainly good looking. Their messages bounced back and forth. Not beating around the bush, he asked for her number, requesting that they chat on WhatsApp. Sasha wondered why guys preferred to chat on WhatsApp. Surely it made no difference whether a message appeared in text form, WhatsApp or a dating site message? However, she pondered that perhaps a WhatsApp was more immediate. The message popped up on her phone straight away, so she was likely to reply more quickly, rather than waiting until the next time she logged on to her dating profile.
Acceding to his request, she dutifully gave out her number and then watched with quizzical interest as a barrage of texts appeared.
Him: Hi, how’s you?
Her: I’m good thanks, how’s you?
Him: Gd.
‘Gd’. That meant ‘good’. Really? He couldn’t be bothered to give more of an explanation of his day except to write ‘good’? And even at that, he couldn’t be bothered to type the two essential vowels in the middle of the word, reverting instead to lazy text speak? What did this say about him as a character? If he couldn’t even be bothered with his texts, how bothered would he be on dates or in a relationship?
An hour later, he texted: How are you now?
Her: Good. Just watching a bit of telly. What are you up to? x
Him: Same x
Wow. This was hard going. Was this really going to continue like this all day? An hourly check-up on what she was up to?
Him: How are you now?
Her: Grand. Just cooking dinner. You?
Him: Same x
An hour later:
Him: What are you up to now?
Her: Just gonna run a bath.
Him: Nice.
Sasha really couldn’t believe her eyes. When had men become so…. Needy? Was it just an online thing? Were they so socially inept that they had to hide behind a computer screen, an iPhone and a lack of social etiquette?
Her patience well and truly tried, Sasha replied to each and every text with the tolerance of Mother Teresa on a bucket load of ecstasy pills.
Her: Good thanks. Just chilling, watching a bit of Made In Chelsea. My guilty pleasure! What are you up to?
An hour later:
Her: Good thanks. Did a bit of exercise, had a lovely bubbly bath, what are you up to?
An hour later:
Her: Good thanks. Just feeding my birds and doing my bit to help nature, LOL. What are you up to?”
She was tempted to write:
Her: Good thanks. Just went to the toilet and wiped my bum – was that enough information on how my day is going?
But she didn’t. ’Cos that would be rude.
Instead she thought, well hey, he’s obviously keen. So I might as well bite the bullet and suggest we meet up. No point in texting constantly all day, let’s just meet and see how we get on.
So she did bite the bullet. She texted, she suggested they meet for a coffee, he agreed, a date and time and place was arranged. It seemed that all systems were go.
Except that the date was six days away. Which meant that she had six days of hourly, needy texts to endure. However, armed with her (slightly battered) hope, she fielded each question, like a soldier in battle lifting his shield to each blow.
She was calm, pleasant, courteous; flirtatious even. Admittedly, with each inquisitive text, her interest levels in him decreased – with increasing momentum.
Does he really have nothing better to do with his day than text me constantly?
Is he really the good-looking, tall, slim guy behind that photo or is he in fact a fat, balding, lonely old man who is using this façade as bait to try to get comforting texts from a girl?
Sure enough, one hour before the planned date, Mr Needy feigned sickness.
“So, so sorry. Not going to be able to make it today. Feeling so sick. So sorry to let you down. Could we re-schedule for next weekend instead? X x”
Sasha momentarily considered another week of texting this guy on an hourly basis. The drudgery of it dragged out ahead of her like an unwanted week of work.
And have to put up with another week of constant texts? No thanks.
Instead she decided drastically just to delete and block his number. She could not prolong the misery any longer. She could not endure another week of hourly texts to an imaginary guy who probably looked nothing like his photo. Putting Mr Phantom Needy text guy in the bin, she neither reacted to him nor made any explanations. She simply blocked him and stuck him in the ‘never to be communicated with’ section of her brain filing system.
Unfortunately, just as her hope was being battered that little bit further, her mind started to play negative tricks on her. It started to prod her gently with good memories of Kirk.
‘Remember the good dates you had with Kirk,’ the negative recesses of her mind taunted her. ‘Remember how easy it was. The pleasant messages, the easy chat; the fun of each date. How different it was to these awful online daters.’
The thoughts crept up on her like unwanted weeds in a garden, threatening to depress her and pull her down into a pit of negativity.
As if to totally push her over the edge, a message from a guy called Will popped up on her dating messages. Looking at Will’s photo, Sasha realised that she recognised him. To her surprise and horror, Sasha realised that Will was the first guy who had ever messaged her on an online dating site – and that was maybe ten years ago. Ten years. To think that her rotation of men was now coming round to full circle depressed and frightened her. Had she really fished the pool dry? Were there really no more choices, was it just regurgitating old rejects?
Will seemed charming enough in his messages but a warning voice inside her, the battered voice of hope, was screaming That picture is ten years old. He does not look like that any more!
He invited her for coffee and the voice continued to shout, It will be a disappointment. Don’t bother!
The voice, she realised, was on the other shoulder from hope. This was the voice of doom. It was negative, fearful, pessimistic, realistic and moreover… bruised.
The voice of doom, she realised, was so bruised by the Kirk incident that it acted like a guardian of fear.
‘Hold on!’ doom said. ‘Kirk was like being in a car crash. He broke you. You fell to the ground, almost dead. Your self-esteem was in bits. You were depressed. You surfed the sofa for months. You wallowed in DVDs. Still he tortured you. The doctors fed you anti-depressants. You crawled through each day, one day at a time, like a slug in a marathon. You’ve only just picked yourself up. Do you really want to put yourself through that again? Do you?’
She realised that doom was screaming at her. Loud and angry and forceful. Hope, meanwhile, was small and tentative and tiny. It was a losing battle.
Sadly, with depleted energy, Sasha realised that she didn’t want to put herself through that again. Her subconscious had a large and very forceful magnet pulling her towards being single and that’s why she was single. She didn’t want to get hurt again. She didn’t want to get into another car, if it meant a car crash of epic proportions.
She relayed this reasoning to her friend, Jason. Qualifying her fear of dating, by reasoning that it wasn’t good for her health to put herself through all this again.
“But what if you could go for a test drive in a few cars?” Jason advised, when she spilled out her realisations to him. “What if not every driver was as bad a driver as Kirk? What if there are drivers out there who would take you for a pleasant ride, without any crash?”
What if? Sasha wondered. Are there really any left out there? She was beginning to doubt. Still, she had made a promise to herself. One year. One year of taking chances. One year of living dangerously. Gingerly, she replied to Will’s messages, ignoring the fact that his photos were ten years old, reasoning with herself that she had also picked her most flattering photos, and not necessarily her most recent.