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12. Peanut Head (Summer
2019)
We met for a drink in a pub on Hampstead Heath on a lovely
summer’s day. I probably got a bit too drunk and overshared. We went for pizza and he walked me to station.
The next evening I got several essay length texts from him explaining why he
didn’t want to see me again. When I said it wasn’t necessary for him to go into
quite such detail about why I was all kinds of wrong, he responded with, ‘you
did say you’d rather know than just not hear from someone,’ Sure, I’d rather
know that they didn’t want to see me again, but I definitely don’t need
to know all the reasons why.
Peanut admitted that some of his photos that were at least ten
years old. To be fair to him, he hadn’t aged much in that time. His smooth as a
pool-ball scalp and haunted, hollowed-out eyes earned him the name ‘Peanut
Head’ from Lulu.
13. Mr Vain (August Bank
Holiday 2019)
I primarily remember this date because it was on the last day of
the carnival, and because when I got to my stop (which is the last on the line)
I woke up a sleeping, flagged wrapped boy to let him know he needed to get off
the train. He asked where he was, and when I told him, he said he should have
been in a town I’ve never heard of, which sounded like it was about 100 miles
away. He then shrugged, pulled the flag more tightly around him and promptly
fell asleep again.
Mr Vain told me that he’d cheated in every relationship he’d been in. He called me once after the date to say he was surprised I’d snogged him despite telling him that (me too, mate, me too) and that was left there.
14. Dick (October 2019)
Dick was a maths tutor I met on a cold, miserable night in late
October. He told me lots of maths related jokes, even though I said I wouldn’t
be able to understand them. He spent the whole time eating mints like they were
peanuts. An hour into the date, he stretched, yawned and said, ‘shall we call
it a night, then?’
I sent the polite post date text, he responded saying I should contact him if I ever went on a pub crawl. Did I contact him? No.
15. MHD (November 2019)
I met MHD on a freezing
cold Friday evening in late November. We had a fantastic date, talked non-stop
all night and regretfully parted ways at Kings Cross after a very public and
full on snog. We texted back and forth for a few days, and then he went dark.
When he contacted me again, it was to tell me he’d taken a mental health day
and couldn’t face dating. said that was
OK and wished him well.
He contacted me again at Christmas and there began a flurry of intense messaging which tipped into the realm of downright filthy. Then he disappeared again, like he had never come back. He cancelled a date for a ludicrous (and probably made up reason – I am the Master of these and can spot them from a mile off, having created many of them myself) More than sixth months on, and he’s still tuned into Radio Silence.
16 & 17 Tiny Welshman (November 2019)
TW had the faded boyish good looks and slight stature of a 90's boyband
star (think: Mark Owen) He didn’t have the Welsh accent, though which was
disappointing. He was also prone to asking me questions like, ‘have you heard
of Stanley Kubrick?’ and explaining simple things to me in great detail. On our second date, I was dog-sitting and we
took the pooch to the pub. The dog was a great buffer for a chemistry-free date
which was full of awkward silences. Sadly, the dog is also a massive tart and
focus puller, who commands the attention of everyone in the room, so I also
spent a lot of that date explaining what breed the dog is, and letting people
stroke him in exchange for treats (for the dog, not me)
I let the Welshman down nicely after that, because I wasn’t
feeling any kind of vibe with him. He
responded, (a tad over-dramatically, I thought) ‘I will delete your number from
my phone,’
18, 19 & 20 Oliver (Christmas 2019)
Oliver is sweet, gentlemanly, kind and spirited. We like the
same kind of books, and he experiments with baking with admiral enthusiasm
and mixed results.
He didn’t want to take things beyond the few dates that we had,
and he was refreshingly up front about that but still let me down easy.
We’re still in touch and I like to hear about what he has been reading
and baking. Hi Oliver! Let me know if you ever change your mind. (Please note I
am not just being complimentary about him because he’s the most likely to read
this and recognise himself.)
21. Nice Guy (March 2020)
I met Mr Nice for a drink on Friday that the UK went into
lockdown. We went for drinks in empty pubs, he groped me and told me liked my
donut belly. We had an aggressive snog (why not, could be the end of the world
as we know it.) He pestered me to take him home with me. I had plans for the
evening, so said no. I also said no, because I had the feeling that I’d never,
ever be able to get rid of him again. Also that I would wake up one morning in
one of the drawers under the bed, missing all my limbs.
Throughout the following day, he sent me a barrage of messages
wheeling, pleading, demanding and insisting that he came to mine that night. I
repeatedly said no, and he responded in typical ‘nice guy’ fashion by calling
me names and basically telling me I was an idiot for rejecting him.
He’d already unmatched me on the app before the date and after
we’d swapped numbers, so I just blocked him from my phone and Instagram.
Shortly after this date, I read The Gift of Fear by Gavin
de Becker and realised that my life-preserving spidey senses had kicked in with
this one. I actually had felt apprehensive before the date, and not in a
butterflies, excited kind of way. In a, I don’t think I want to do this way.
That feeling – that’s there for a reason for that feeling. Pay attention to it.
As a side note I am sure you are asking, I am not sure why I snogged him
either. Feel free to judge me for snogging a creepy stalker in the midst of a
global pandemic.
22 & 23. The Camden Hipster (April 2020)
This was my first lockdown date. We met for virtual drinks one
Thursday night. He wore a suit and tie, I wore my Casper sweatshirt and
straightened my hair. I enjoyed the date very much, and also enjoyed the second
date and one phone call we had.
CH was seemed to be sartorially stuck in the mid-noughties, with his
messy mop of dark hair that looked like it would feel crispy to touch. He was a
musician and writer, and I read one of his short stories only to realise midway
through he’d blatantly stolen the plot from an episode of Inside No.9.
I shall never find out if his hair feels crispy or not. After weeks of texting, he applied the slow fade, the passage of time in between his texts getting longer and longer. The final nail was hammered into the coffin when (controversial opinion alert) I told him I didn’t rate Dishoom and would rather have a peshwari naan from my local curry house. I haven’t heard from since the beginning of May.
24. DIY (May 2020)
So-called because he was spending his spare lockdown time on a
never- ending DIY project, DIY would sent me photos of re-tiling the bathroom.
After a couple of weeks of some extremely flirty texting, we met
on the last May Day bank holiday Monday for a walk in the sun (as we couldn’t
go to the pub) All of the chemistry had been used up in the sexy texting, and
there was no real life spark. This is an error I have made before and I will
have to put it on the list of dating ‘do not do’ rules:
Never sext someone before you know what their voice sounds like.
It’s just the wrong way round to do things. DIY was obviously not
feeling it either, and the date lasted less than an hour and a half. He spent a
fair amount of that time looking at his watch.
We agreed that it wasn’t worth meeting again, and that was
that, though he did say he was available to 'special' texting, wink face emoji.
No thank you, sir. No thank you.
Next week, all the ones that didn't make it to a date...
