onto my thigh, tongue edging out in anticipation. His breath smelled of coffee and pickled onions.
I glanced at my watch and then downed my mojito. This date hadn’t even made it to eight p.m.
The bar’s heavy door slammed shut behind me and the icy air hit me like a slap in the face. I don’t know why I hadn’t just told him the truth, protected my online dating sisters. Instead, I’d found myself garbling an implausibly long-winded excuse, involving a twenty-four-hour veterinary surgery and a fictional cat undergoing pioneering bowel surgery. I pulled up my scarf and began the familiar trudge to Charing Cross station, wondering what crimes I must have committed in a past life to warrant such karmic retribution.
Eight months prior, spurred by heartbreak and lured by the promise of meeting thousands of ‘like-minded singles’, I’d embraced online dating with gusto, envisaging it to be like shopping for a husband: ooh, add to basket. But after what can only be described as intensive participation, I’d begun to learn that the slick profiles—comprising impressive credentials and enticing photos—often omitted pertinent details such as a clubbed foot, sexual deviance. Or a wife. Occasionally, I’d found one who walked and talked like a normal boyfriend, only to reveal a deep dark shadow that would have even sent Dr Phil running for the hills. And after tonight’s offering of a misogynist with hair from the nineties, I knew it was time to call off the online search.
I let out a succession of sighs as I traipsed through the streets. It seemed that while I was being groped in Be At One, London’s entire population had paired off, and then gone on to organise some kind of flash mob snog-a-thon. Couples criss-crossed my path and flaunted their love.
Enter besotted duo from the left. Cue loving gaze in restaurant. Candlelight, please.
Despite auditioning for roles such as ‘happy bride’ and ‘woman in love’, it felt as though I had inadvertently secured the lead in a new blockbuster entitled: Everyone finds love … except for you. Even my name, Eleanor Rigby, the lonely subject of a Beatles’ song, would have been perfect for the credits. By the time I’d reached Charing Cross station, I was humming ‘all the lonely people’ and wondering if anyone would come to my funeral. I leant back against a railing and stared up at the sky. It was only two years since Robert had proposed, on bended knee in the pouring rain, declaring that he would love me for ever. We would have been married by now. I watched the stars glinting in the distance and willed fate to rethink its plan for me.
A man, seemingly oblivious to miles of unclaimed railing, came and stood right next to me and began noisily eating a Big Mac. I glared at him, then stared back up at the sky and began to wonder more about love. I’d spent my entire career analysing chemical reactions, albeit from behind the shield of polycarbonate safety goggles, in the controlled environment of the laboratory at ChemPlant. There, the outcome was predictable. I understood the variables and had learned precisely what it took to create an unbreakable bond, a bond that could withstand all manner of tampering. The elements didn’t need a dating website. Carbon and oxygen didn’t need to make small talk over the gentle flame of a Bunsen burner to determine whether they were right for each other.
‘So how do you feel about polyamory?’ asks carbon, eyeing up oxygen’s electrons.
I glanced back at the man just as he shoved a fistful of fries into his mouth. I tutted. Perhaps I’d been naive to think it was possible to manipulate chemistry outside a laboratory, and maybe an online enhancement of the Collision Theory wasn’t really the answer for me, or for all the other singles in the world.
When I eventually arrived home, I found Matthew, my long-term friend and short-term flatmate, lounging on the sofa, glass in one hand, wine bottle in the other, a wildlife documentary flickering in the background.
‘So, how was the six-foot-two international entrepreneur?’ he asked, sitting up to pour me a glass.
I snatched the glass and took a sip. ‘Turns out, selling T-shirts in Thailand was the pinnacle of his entrepreneurial endeavours.’
He smirked. ‘Well, there are around seventy million people in Thailand and they all need T-shirts …’
I unravelled my scarf and collapsed down next to him on the sofa. ‘Yes, but I suspect they knew better than to buy them from a guy on a beach working to pay off his drug debt.’ I took another sip. ‘And he was about half my height. Like he wasn’t going to be found out.’
Matthew laughed. ‘Maybe he was planning to win you over with his personality?’
‘Indeed. Now, was it the tales of childhood animal torture? Or perhaps the moment he almost stabbed the waitress with his fork? I just can’t decide which indicator of mental instability it was that won me over.’ I wriggled out of my coat and then threw it on the floor. ‘No more internet dates. I’m done.’
He topped up my glass. I took another glug and then stared helplessly up at the ceiling.
‘Where have all the good men gone?’ I sighed.
He slapped his hand to his forehead. ‘Ellie, please, no. Not Bonnie Tyler.’
I laughed. ‘I don’t need a hero, just a decent guy.’
‘And what, pray tell, is a decent guy?’
‘One who doesn’t have nasal hair, a porn addiction or a personality disorder.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘No nasal hair? That would be a tricky one.’
‘You know what I mean, tufts sprouting out of nostrils. Or one nostril even, that was weird.’
He laughed.
I turned to him. ‘What? What’s so funny?’
‘Do you realise that every time you come back from a date, you’ve added something else to your tick list?’
He picked up a pen and notebook from the coffee table in front of him. ‘Symmetrical nasal hair,’ he said, pretending to write.
I heard a strange groan. A quick glance at the TV implied that either it came from me or a horny hippopotamus.
‘But I have to discriminate somehow. I mean, look at my choices so far. It couldn’t really get any worse, could it?’
‘The male attracts the female by using his tail to spray her with faeces,’ David Attenborough announced proudly.
Matthew raised his eyebrows at the disturbing image on the screen. ‘See, it could always get worse,’ he said, and flipped his legs up onto the sofa. ‘So, where were we? Yes, your tick list. When we met, you must have been, what, fifteen?’
I nodded and took another gulp of wine.
‘Well, back then, you said that the only thing you looked for in a boyfriend was a cute smile.’
I laughed.
‘Then,’ he continued, adopting a bizarre cover-girl-like pose, ‘after a month or so, your requirements had progressed to a boy with a cute smile and a car.’
I could see where he was going with this.
‘And now, let me think, what are your requirements now?’ He moved his hand over his mouth in a dramatic shock gesture. Before I had a chance to respond, he continued. ‘He has to be aged between thirty and thirty-five (preferably thirty-three), over six feet tall, good-looking, successful, independently wealthy, fit and sporty, confident (not arrogant), intelligent, interesting, well educated and have a great sense of humour.’
‘Well—’
He put his hand up in a flamboyant stop sign. ‘I haven’t finished yet. In addition to that, he has to be sensitive yet masculine, affectionate and attentive, but not clingy. He must think you’re the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, cherish you for eternity and have manly hands.’
I tried to speak, but Matthew rattled on.
‘And now, since your recent bout of internet dating, you’re discounting men for the