to have fun, is it?
‘So this is your online dating weirdo, how are things going?’ he asks, nodding towards the heavily tattooed, muscular man that I’m using as a bed. I take a moment too long to answer. ‘That badly?’
‘All good,’ I reply, unconvincingly. I’ve been dating Ben for about three weeks now, and things aren’t exactly going that well. Last night was our third date, and despite every girly magazine I could get my hands on assuring me that date three was when the magic happened, the magic did not happen last night. Still, from the way Nick is looking at me right now, I doubt he believes that. In Nick’s head I’m his hoe-bag flatmate who seemingly ploughs through internet dates, when in reality that’s not the case – I wish I were getting even one per cent of the action Nick thought I was.
Nick fakes a gasp.
‘Are you telling me that you hooked up with a guy you met via your phone and it’s not a fairy tale romance?’ he asks sarcastically.
I cast my mind back to our date last night. As much as I don’t want to give Nick the satisfaction of being right, the need to tell someone feels greater.
‘Things have been going well, it’s just…I met up with him yesterday and he told me he was taking me to a family party,’ I start.
‘Weird,’ Nick chimes in. ‘You’ve only been on a couple of dates with him, kid.’
‘I know, and weirder still: what he didn’t tell me was that it was a wake.’
‘A wake?’ Nick echoes loudly in disbelief, and in a much higher pitch than his voice usually is.
‘I’m awake, I’m awake,’ Ben says, panicked as he jumps to his feet. He does so without having realised I was on top of him, causing me to fall back onto the sofa. As he glances between an angry-looking Nick, and me in my underwear, he puts two and two together – coming up with wrong answer.
‘Look, calm down, nothing happened, OK? I didn’t sleep with your girlfriend,’ Ben babbles, stressing it in such a way that makes it sound like this is an excuse he has to make often.
‘Oh, charming,’ I say, annoyed that Ben thinks I’m the kind of girl who would have a boyfriend and still date around, but he isn’t listening.
‘She’s not my girlfriend, she’s my roommate,’ Nick corrects him.
I watch as Ben expresses visible relief.
‘Well, in that case, good to meet you, I’m Jonathan,’ he chirps, offering Nick a hand to shake. Nick doesn’t oblige.
‘Your name is Jonathan? I’ve spent three dates calling you Ben,’ I blurt out.
‘Yeah, I thought that was like a cute nickname or something,’ he laughs.
I giggle, puzzled, but what I see as a hilarious story for my blog, Nick is unimpressed by.
‘I just don’t get you, Ruby Wood,’ Nick says angrily, pointlessly using my full name like a pissed-off parent. ‘What are you doing with your life?’
‘What are you, my fucking dad? Why can’t you just be cool?’ I ask him, sounding like a teenager whose dad just confiscated her cigarettes – incidentally, something Nick has done with me before. In the end it was just easier to quit smoking than it was to put up with his complaints and his borderline OCD smell-removal techniques.
‘I’ve got to get to work,’ Nick tells us. He heads to the kitchen, rinses his bowl and spoon, places them in the dishwasher and then leaves without so much as a ‘see you later’.
Jonathan – not Ben – and I are sitting on the sofa next to each other awkwardly.
‘So your roommate seems fun,’ Jonathan says sarcastically.
‘He really is like my dad or my granddad or something,’ I reply, irritated, still sounding like a teenager.
‘You should move out,’ he tells me, like maybe that hadn’t crossed my mind.
‘There’s no way I can find a flat this central for this cheap,’ I tell him honestly. ‘Nick comes from a super-rich family, but he won’t take any money off them, so he reckons he can’t afford to move either. If either of us should move out, it should be him, don’t you think?’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ Jonathan replies, followed by an awkward silence.
I wonder how I managed to call him by the wrong name for so long. I suppose that’s app dating for you, it’s like fishing with multiple lines. I guess as I reeled this one in, I mixed up his name with a different fish.
‘Listen, Ruby, we’ve had fun right?’
I think for moment. No. No we haven’t. On our first date he suggested we go to the cinema – a rookie error, because it involves sitting in silence for two hours – and on the second we went to a bar and got drunk. Oh, and then the wake date. Jonathan is a good-looking dude, but he’s a bit weird. There’s something almost tortured about his personality, like he’s got some issues he needs to work through. Don’t we all, though? Still, he does have his good qualities too, so I’m happy to see where this goes. I’m not going to ditch the guy just because he took me to a family funeral without telling me.
‘We have,’ I lie with a warm smile.
‘Well, I think we should call it a day,’ he tells me. I feel my smile drop.
‘What?’
‘I just…I think we’re moving in different directions.’
‘Oh my God, seriously? Are you really giving me the old lines? Is it not me, is it you?’
Jonathan grabs my hand.
‘It is me,’ he assures me, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze.
‘You’re damn fucking right it’s you,’ I reply.
Jonathan drops my hand and jumps to his feet, wrestling his clothes on as he talks, his tone suddenly becoming significantly less friendly.
‘OK, cards on the table, when we got back last night I thought I might get lucky, but you didn’t even want to sleep with me,’ he explains.
‘Dude, we’d just got back from your dad’s wake – that you didn’t even tell me we were going to.’
Oh, did I not mention that it was his dad’s funeral? I suppose I didn’t want to give Nick too much ammunition when he teases me about this every day until one of us moves out.
‘Yeah, well don’t you think I needed some comfort after that?’
‘So I’m supposed to bang you out of sheer sympathy?’
‘Well, it would’ve been nice,’ he replies, like it’s a fairly reasonable expectation.
‘You’re disgusting, get out,’ I demand.
Jonathan puts on his shoes and heads for the door, slamming it behind him.
Lying back on the sofa, I massage my temples for a moment. My head is banging, and I’ve got to be at work in an hour. Is getting dumped a good enough reason to call in sick?
‘Awkward,’ I say to myself. ‘So, so awkward.’ Not only what just happened with Jonathan, but my dream about Nick too. Not only do Nick and I not get on, but we’re like enemies, both driving the other crazy, but neither of us in a position to move out. The fact we’re stuck with one another only makes us hate each other even more.
I glance around the floor for my outfit from last night, only to find that Nick has folded my dress and placed it neatly over the back of the sofa. I grab it, shaking my head at his anal neatness as I meaningfully and defiantly unfold it. All communal areas of the house must be neat and tidy to a military standard. Sir, yes, sir.
Tossing my clothes through my bedroom doorway, I head straight for the shower. I know that I’m running late, but