100 dates - 1 -11

   

When I speak to my mum this week, she tells me that she admires me for continuing with on-line dating. She is not the first person to say this to me. Friends say, ‘I couldn’t do it,’ and ‘if I broke up with my husband, I don’t think I’d bother dating again,’ 

Whenever I have felt like giving up, (which has been many, many times) I go back to a promise that I made myself. I would go on one hundred dates, and if after those one hundred dates I still had not met someone I wanted to keep going on dates with, and they felt the same way about me, I would call off the search and admit that there just might not be someone out there for me. 

Every few months since I started OLD back in 2017,  I’d decide to write about my experiences, abut then I’d start to worry that it was unethical, what people would think of me, that my family, boss or   that past dates would read it and recognise themselves, and I’d stop and not write about something else.

People want to hear the details of dates, how was it, what did you do, where did you go, did you like him? The truth is that most first on-line dates are actually pretty mundane, text chemistry rarely translates into something tangible, and really, if you think about it, it’s kind of a weird way to meet someone.

These are the 100 dates rules:

·         An actual date has to happen – it can be in the real life or a virtual date

·         Second and third dates with the same person are included in the account

·         Dates that happen as a result of an in the actual real word meeting count

·         Personal details are changed – this of course includes all names

            What happens on some dates, stays on the date 

Dates may not be in exact the exact time order, because as I am sure any other experienced on-line dater will tell you, it can be difficult keeping track when you are spinning multiple plates at once. Using WhatsApp messages, I have pieced together the following timeline as accurately as I can.

Let’s share this pain. 

1. The Builder

I made plans for later in the evening with two friends in case this didn’t go well. The Builder was actually very good company, so he ended up staying out for dinner with me and my friends. He had a complicated home life, (living with his ex- partner and their children) and worked ridiculously long hours. Trying to set up a second date was a massive headache due his work and kids schedule, and he kept cancelling plans at the last minute. I always had the suspicion in the back of my mind that he was very much still with his ‘ex’ and his long working hours were a good cover for sneaking off on dates.

Eventually I gave up on trying to set up a second date. He asked if we could be friends. I declined.

2.  Lord George Byron (Summer 2017)

He had recently moved recently London to work as a teacher. Much better looking in the flesh than in his photos (which of course you’d never say to someone’s face because it’s insulting), he had beautiful browny-green eyes and very white teeth. He was obsessed with Byron, but spent the whole date showing me screenshots of bad Tinder profiles and messages he had received from terrible women. Byron never responded after I sent him the episode of Drunk Histories which begins with the legendary words, ‘Lord George Byron fucked his sister.’

My other abiding memory of the date is that while I sat in the courtyard of the British Library waiting for Byron to show, there was a man sitting at a table eating a catering sized pot of strawberry yoghurt. When he caught me watching him, he curled his arm protectively around the pot as if I might rush him and steal it. 

3. Billy Gorilly (Autumn 2017)

In one of his photos he was wearing a gorilla costume. We met for a coffee. When I got there, he already had an empty cup in front of him. I asked if he wanted something else, and he declined. He had a grease spot from lunch on his blue shirt.  He was super awkward. He couldn’t look me in the eye. He lived with his mum and she did all his cooking and cleaning for him. It was a profoundly depressing, uncomfortable date and I left feeling like I wanted to cry. He mistook my friendliness for interest and asked for a second one then and there. I said yes, feeling terrible, but I didn’t want to crush him in public. I had to Dear John him later and it felt like kicking a puppy down the stairs. I am sorry, Billy. 

4.     X-Factor (Autumn 2017)

He had very weird hair and I couldn’t stop looking at it. He liked going on game and talent shows. The date lasted an excruciatingly long 45 minutes.

He talked about moving out of his mums in the next few years but he was too comfortable at home where she did his cooking and cleaning (what is it with these man children?) when I said that he would need to learn to cook, he looked at me as if I said, ‘you will have to murder your mother with her own kitchen knives and then shit on her corpse,’

On the walk back to the car, he hinted at meeting again the following week. I blurted out, ‘I don’t want to go on a second date with you!’ there followed a few seconds of wounded silence, after which he stuck his hand out and said graciously, ‘it was nice to meet you’

5.  Zoom (Summer 2018)

A real-life meeting! I meet Zoom on a night out in London. He was very sweet and perky, we swapped numbers and texted back and forth for a few weeks. He would text me 3 times a day to ask me what I was having for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

We arranged a date and he was almost 3 hours late. To his credit I got a running commentary on his journey and ETA. We went for a walk, drinks and some food before I dropped him back at the station.

I had realised pretty much straightaway that I wasn’t attracted to him and dodged out of the way of a kiss.

I messaged him later saying I had a lovely time, but I wanted to leave it there and not carry on messaging him because I didn’t want him to think it meant something.

He texted me a year later after finding my number in his phone. He referred to himself in the third person. He last texted me as we went into lockdown, and I am ashamed to say that I have not responded. 

 

6.    Mr Cheese (Summer 2018)

This is the date I plead the Fifth on. Let’s just say I was in my Questionable Decisions stage of dating and leave it there.

7.   BOB (Christmas 2018)

This was an actual, real-life meeting and not an on-line match. I include it here because we went on a date. Kind of. By date I mean there was one night I went and met him and his mates down the pub and two occasions where he came round to my place to ‘watch a film’.

We met at Christmas, and by Easter he had blocked me from all social media accounts, un-liking all previously liked posts. That didn’t stop him texting me late one night in July to ask if I’d called him.

Yes, BOB, I did. In March. I never replied to his last text, and he has never contacted me again.

8.    Frogman (Spring 2019)

My friend Lulu says that I fell in love with Frogman, and I probably did. He looked like Billy Idol with his bleach blonde hair, white t-shirt and skinny black jeans. He was covered in weird tattoos. We talked the whole night and ended the evening with a lovely hug.

There’s a Maya Angelou quote that goes ‘when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time,’. Here was my clue: Frogman said to me, ‘it’s easy to be interesting when you just make stuff up,’

We bounced messages back and forth for a few days after the date, then I got the slow fade before he disappeared for good.

That’s the last time I go on a date with living, breathing version of Common People by Pulp.

 9.    Milky Tea (Summer 2019)

‘Milky Tea’ is a semi-affectionate but mostly insulting name Lulu has for bland dates. There’s nothing terribly wrong with them, but there’s nothing all that special either.  Milky Tea was scared of wasps and spent the entire evening flailing his arms around and ducking. I took him for Thai because I’d left my purse at home and he bought all the drinks (I went home to get my bank card).

 After the date, we exchanged a few more texts, and talked about maybe going for ramen sometime. He replied to my last text months later, to wish me a Merry Christmas.

10 & 11   Joe (Summer 2019)

Double-dates, arranged by Lulu.  Joe was funny and friendly, but had a complicated relationship with his ex, who he had been with since…since forever. There was something about his face that reminded me of an ex-boyfriend and I couldn’t shake that off. Lulu had marginally more success and dated Joe’s friend for a couple of months, but it didn’t work out.

Aside from Joe’s unsettling resemblance to my ex, I couldn’t get on board with his habit of deliberately winding people up and we had a few needlessly heated arguments. Yes, on first and second dates. He popped up out of the blue recently with a random text that he later said wasn’t for me, but with another girl with the same name.

Join me next time, for more mildly disappointing dates.

The Cringe: 1992

 

 

Over twenty years ago, I destroyed most of my teenage diaries. My mum watched me do it, and told me I’d regret it.

‘No I won’t,’ I said, with the kind of deluded conviction you only really have when you’re 18.

Guess what?

I regretted it.

Some survived though, and I don’t know why I chose to keep these in particular, given that rereading them made me cringe so hard I’m pretty sure my bumhole has relocated to somewhere near my spleen.

Please note:

• I was 13 years old
• I fancied pretty much every man on the planet
• I was horse mad
• I had zero self-awareness (I genuinely thought I was going to write and publish a best-selling novel at this age)

Names have been changed. [] indicates adult me’s comments.

23^rd February 1992

Dear Diary,

Hello! Keanu Reeves is so lovely. Brad Pitt is so sexy. (so is KR and Christian Slater) Surrounded by the world’s most hunky men, I dunno! I mean, you have to agree with me!

Oh yeah, today went fine, but I didn’t go out for a ride. Punchie [my on-loan pony] was in one of his better moods and Sali lent me Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure so I can watch one of the most gorgeous blokes in the world strut his stuff. It’s excellent! Ah...but complicaTED though [see what I did there?]

24^th [assume Feb, not properly dated though]

Dear Diary,

Sent home with crippling tummy ache. Sat and talked to LS for an hour. Didn’t have to go up to the yard today.

Stephanie Slater’s (estate agent) kidnapper was found. He is believed to be the killer of Julie Dart – oh, now on the news he’s just claimed that he didn’t kill Julie Dart [Michael Sams was convicted in 1993 of the murder of Julie Dart and the kidnapping of Stephanie Slater]

Lady has claimed that she was horse-whipped by one of Prince Phillip’s hunting thingy people.

Benetton’s ads were banned because they were too ‘explicit’ and had no connection with their clothes. They showed a man dying of AIDS, a slaughtered elephant amongst others.

I’m writing this all down so that in years time I’ll remember what kind of world I lived in at the age of 13.

Shakespeare’s Sister’s ‘Stay’ is still number one in the UK chart.

25^th February

Stayed home. It’s 5 to 8 on a Tuesday. I’m listening to Capital. I’ll do some ironing, hoover and watch Bill and Ted again. I’ve written to Vicki and the damned stamp isn’t sticky, so I’m battling with the glue. Write more soon...dead boring day.

Undated

They’ve built a dual carriage way on the bridle path next to Spencer’s farm! Sali got kicked by Max.

I saw ‘Gleaming the Cube’ with Christian Slater. ‘Gleam the cube’ means to go to the point of break, yah know? [Uhm, nope] Christian has his hair bleached in it and had an ear pierced but by my [scribbled out, I’ll let you imagine what I wrote]

I hope to be a journalist. My poem is to be published in a book!!! This is the first step to stardom! I’m gonna be famous world, ahm gonna show you who I am!! Prepare to have your eyeballs spin back in your head and your tongue to drop out. [I don’t know why I thought journalism = fame]

PS, Bryan Adams is a pretty hot rocker.

Undated ‘The Opal Incident’

First, let me tell you about Opal. She is a chestnut mare, 15.2 hands high and she is a complete nutter. Well a girl called LM had her out on loan.

We (Sali on Chips, me on Punch and L on Opal) decided to ride down to the Moor. Opal reared and L fell off. Terrified, Opal galloped out on to the road and galloped up P_ Rise. Chippie and Punch love a good gallop, and took off after her. Three times she was nearly hit by a van as she galloped uncontrollably around the streets.

Sali was screaming, ‘Opal! Opal!’ and crying. Luckily a man jumped out of his car and chased her down a dead-end-street where we caught her. [I don’t know what to say about this, what we did was so dangerous, but when you’re 13 you don’t think about consequences of things. Sali later bought Opal. I can’t remember what happened to L, I am assuming she recovered from her fall.]

April 17, 92

I have entered a comp to win a jacket identical to the one Christian wears in Kuffs, which I am going to try and see. Un-problemo. It’s a 15. [Kuffs was an excellent film, if anyone has a copy of it pretttty please can I have it? Thanks!]

Sali and I are in lurrve! With two boys we saw out shooting [the boys were out shooting, not us] I think I recognise one. He is rather nice and has a stunning, sexy smile! We hope to see them again. [I think ‘being in love’ meant ‘I have a lady-boner’]

Sali bought some reins from Robyn – they broke. The lesson here is never to buy ANYTHING from Robyn!!

Deeply Dippy by RSF is no. one, it’s a great song [it’s really not]

The W’s have left [the yard] and everything is hunky dory. I feel confident about myself, etc.

The best film I have seen this month is Pacific Heights, which has lots of bonking, swearing, cockroaches and spooky violence in it. [I still benchmark how good films are by those 4 things] I’d recommend it to anyone.

Mum has loaned out the Silence of the Lambs on video, but she won’t let us watch it. But I need research for my novel [is it bad that I still use this excuse? I really hope no-one ever has cause to seize my laptop to see what I’ve been Googling, because they’ll find an almost unhealthy interest in murders, forensics, police procedural and death] 

24 April 92

Dear Diary

Hello. It seems that the whole world flips over into the deepest obscurity when you think of certain male people.

Opal has been ridden by [some very famous male riders, most noted for Olympic show-jumping]

I hope and pray that I have won that Kuffs competition. Please o’Lord [bah haaah, like he’s Irish or something] you have to know just how much it means to me!! PLEEEAAASEE!

Tempest had a rearing fit in the field – in fact all the horses did. I think a storm is brewing. Horses can sense that sort of thing.

Carla’s owners have left her without food, water or a clean bed for four days now. People like that should not be allowed anywhere near horses!! [I like to think that other people on the yard fed Carla and mucked her out, but I can’t remember if they did or not]

I saw a bit of Heathers at Sali’s house – put it this way – it’s not a normal film. In fact it’s ‘damned strange’ [Heathers is now one of my favourite films...and I’d been sneakily watching Twin Peaks, hence the ‘damned strange’ comment]

Robyn’s b-day tomorrow. I have nay bought her a pressie. Old cow [Robyn was about 25 years old, max] yesterday she called Sali ‘a fucking wimp when it comes to horse riding’ and ‘too fucking big for her own boots’

The thing with Robyn is she thinks she knows it all.

Signing off.

Write ya later, dear diary.

26^th [April]

Dear Diary,

I threw a bit of carrot at Max and it hit him on the head. He looked up at the sky!

Saw the rest of Heathers and it’s weird. JD (Christian) blows himself up in the end.

Undated

Dear Diary

I saw ‘Mobsters’. It’s very violent but a good film. N has it on pirate.

J and A are leaving the yard. Rats deserting a sinking ship, heh? First the W_____’s, now the P___’s.

I’ll remember Penny because she farted and sneezed at the same time and went flying across her stable. Funny haha funny peculiar.

I tell you Violet, Noah’s ex is both – she’s really gone strange, I can’t explain.

Hopefully we will see ‘Hook’ on Monday today is Saturday) ‘cause it’s a bank hol but I have to find N’s number first. I’ve practically turned my bedroom inside out. Also saw ‘Dances with Wolves’ it deserves all 7 Oscars – it’s excellent [it’s really not]

Hold on my Heart! I love it! [the one and only time I’ll admit to liking anything to do with Phil Collins] Oh well, I’d better go. I’ve got numbers to find!

Undated

Diary,

Saw Pump Up the Volume. Great film about ‘freedom of speech’ SO BE IT! [you can read my review of PUTV here. It’s not really about freedom of speech at all, but I liked to throw around things I didn’t understand – I still do, as anyone who has got into an argument with me can confirm]

Please God, I have won that jacket, haven’t I? [I still hadn’t won the jacket]

Summer exams – heat waves – dear me!!

This boy went into a newsagents with his little sister (he’s 14) to buy some fags. The cashier had just passed the Marlboro over the counter when the boy’s little sister blurts out, ‘you’re not 16!’

 

Dear Diary,

It’s the 8^th of July. As you can seem I have not written for a while.

Andre Agassi won Wimbledon 1992 against Ivan Snitch [I meant Goran Ivaniševic] and mum and dad are splitting up and my world just fell apart. The match lasted nearly 3 hours. Agassi was most excellent. 3 hour match. [I like how I casually throw in my parents’ divorce in the middle of my Wimbledon review]

SB is getting married and I am going to the wedding.

I am hoping some how I’ll find someone to help me I can’t talk to anyone. God. Yeah, like I’m gonna turn into a regular bible basher.

13 July

I feel so much better, like I’m making a positive step forward to a less cluttered life, with no strings attached [I have no idea what I was wanging on about here, but some 27 years later, absolutely fuck all has changed in this regard]

It’s really time that I calmed down and reorganised my life [I say this every single Monday morning] Again I feel good about myself. No-one can upset me. Hurt me. Put me down. Because you have to have a rhino skin to go through life. Knocking back the insults, rumours that people will say about you. Hooray for a new, happy and organised me. [lies, all lies.]

20 August

Finally we are about to set off on holiday to Cornwall which should be good fun. I bought a beautiful dress for SB’s wedding. It’s blue and very figure hugging. [I had about as much ‘figure’ as string bean when I was 13]

We go back to school soon, what a shame.

I love Edward Furlong. A bit younger than Mr Slater and Mr Reeves, eh?

But anyway, he could be coming to...ENGLAND!!! AND wait for it...HE WANTS TO MEET A GIRL HERE! [I was that girl. In my dreams]

Sazy [Robyn’s horse] is still lame, but his leg has lost a lot of its heat and swelling, which is very good, bit he is still going to be out of work for over six months. Poor Robyn. Punchie is very well and he seems happier than he has been for a while, he has put on weight which he needed to do. His eyes are no longer swollen, sore and weepy.

I suppose I am looking forward to going back to school again...I don’t know.

Sali is a bit bitchy at the mo...I wonder why [I can’t remember why now, but I obviously didn’t want to write it down at the time.]

One month til my birthday and S’s wedding, so I’ve got that to look forward to.

Did I mention I saw Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey? It’s very good.

Most of what I’ve written further back in this diary is a load of crap, basically. Or am I in a cynical, sarky mood? Oh I don’t know.

Tomorrow I’ll go back to deep and dark thoughts about the universe but being able to see my darling [Punch] at weekends after mom and pop have split puts things into a brighter perspective.

Friday 26 August 1992

One more day to go before we set off! Hooray! Celebrate...holiday...it would be so nice!

I said goodbye to Punchie who was in a good mood. Sazy is still lame.

Well it’s 12.09 and time for lunch – or something [I went to the EL James school of creative writing] Finished packing, but I’m sure there’s something I’ve forgotten.

Check list:

T-shirts – 4 of them

Jeans – 1 pair

Shorts – 3 pairs

Jumpers – 3

Waist coat

Tights, socks, knickers, soap, swimming cossie, flannel, toothbrush, face cream, a ton of books. I think it’s fairly sorted out now.

Later

22

Today is the day! I am sitting in the car ready to set off on some excellent adventure (NOT!) it’s raining which is a bit of a shame. Ah well. nothing’s perfect, eh? Oh, we’ve stopped – about 16 feet away from our house. What the heck...we are off. It should be a fairly boring journey from now on so ta ta.

Luv

Well on our way, now, we are journey so far – one hour. 4 to go.

23^rd

So here we are. The caravan is very nice. There’s no farm, we’re on top of a hill facing over the sea which makes it really windy. It’s all very tacky, a bit like Butlins. No other people here our age [I meant me and my younger sister’s age] but I’m trying not to be so disappointed.

There’s nothing to do, our caravan is miles from any other people.

Is this going to be another disaster holiday? It’s going that way. [this was the first holiday that our dad had taken us on without our mum, and I was an ungrateful brat]

Undated

It is raining. That really horrible ‘spitting’ kind of rain.

It’s dead boring here, maybe that’s why half the people have packed up and left. I thought this place was supposed to be a farm – wrong. It’s got a really tacky club Butlins-type thing which is really dirty and has rubbish everywhere. No doubt maggots in the kitchen!

The bedroom isn’t big enough to swing a gerbil, let alone a cat!

Can I complain?

Yes! [though I really shouldn’t have] There’s no-one here our age. The door of our caravan doesn’t shut and I miss mum and Punchie.

Dad’s gone off somewhere. Still raining. Ohhhhhhh Gooooddddddd!!!!!!

Undated

When I wrote it was over a month ago. Well now I get back to school and who should seem to be the most gorgeous boy in school? None other than Noah. But he fancies Ice Queen Melanie R. there’s no hope. He pushed past the grounds and actually hugged her in front of everyone.

He wrote I Love Melanie R all over the Goldfish Bowl terrapin windows!

Dear me! It’s so unfair. Sigh! Maybe I fancy someone else next week, or someone will fancy me. But it’s not likely, (someone fancying me) I feel bad and down about it, that’s not any good. You cannot get depressed about it, cos it will drag you down.

You see, Noah likes girls with big breasts and a pretty face. It’s depressing.

Today I said a last goodbye to Punch. Well, I couldn’t because he wasn’t there. Anna had taken him out for a ride. This great lump rose in my throat when I collected my things. He has a new grooming kit. Anna and Punch’s Grooming Kit, it says. I wanted to cry. It isn’t fair. I couldn’t say goodbye properly. I gave him up on Saturday morning and Sat eve, Anna’s moved in. Such great sadness fills me as I realise that Punch will soon forget me, and adjust to Anna.

Punchie was my friend and teacher for nearly two years. He has taught me a lot. To ride with confidence but without cockiness, to look after your perfect pony as he deserves to be looked after. So I owe a lot to him. Feeling horribly cut up inside will not help scream and cry.

1^st November 1992

I saw Kuffs which is excellent. White Men Can’t Jump and City of Joy. (City of Joy! Inappropriate title if I ever knew one)

I do not fancy Noah. He’s not worth it ‘cos he’ll never go out with me, plus I’ve totally gone off him. I told you I’d fancy someone else within about a week! [adult me says: if only I could apply this rule to my dating life today, instead of still insisting on chasing down uninterested men that don’t fancy me. 14 year old me was obviously far more sensible than 40 year old me. What happened??]

Elisa Lam 2018

At the end of 2015 and beginning of 2016, far away from home in a strange country, I'd pass sleepless hours watching Youtube videos, in particular John Lordan's channel, Lordan Arts. John's channel focusses on missing person's cases an unsolved crimes, and his series on Elisa Lam are amongst the most thorough and well-researched out there. 

The Chinese-Canadian student's strange and loney death on the roof of a grubby, run down hotel in the wrong part of Los Angeles haunted me. I would wake and think I could see Elisa standing in the dark corners of the bedroom. I was in a strange country, like she was. Most nights, I was alone in a gated apartment complex, but I didn't always feel safe there.

Elisa's case still frequently features in internet chat forums to this day, though the general consus has moved away from the haunted hotel / demonic possession / foul play angle into the more plausible and likely theory that in the grip of a break from reality, Elisa died as she tried to hide from an imagined persuer in the rooftop water tank.

As the time has passed since I wrote about Elisa, I have come to agree with this theory. I had already discussed how Elisa's mental health may have made her vulnerable while she was travelling, and initially I thought this may have been because she would have been an easy target for a predator. Now I think that Elisa did become unwell on her trip and made her way to the roof and into the tank of her own accord.

The doors to the roof weren't locked and alarmed as hotel staff claimed they were. A group of Chinese film makers proved this when they travelled to LA, checked into the hotel and easily accessed the roof via a fire escape.

 The water tank Elisa was found in did have a lid, but it wasn’t especially heavy and it obviously wasn’t locked. The hole it covered was also wide enough for someone to be able to climb through.

The ‘preternatural’ elements that made this case so strange are really not so strange under scrutiny. The one that’s talked about the most is the elevator camera footage of Elisa behaving oddly; waving her arms about, peeking into the corridor, pressing all the buttons and hiding in the corner. I think it'sobvious now that she's talking to someone created enitirely in her own head; not a murderous guest, or a ghost, or an evil spirit. 

The bookshop owner that said Elisa’s behaviour was ‘normal’ the day she came into the shop to buy gifts for her family.

Her clothes in the tank with her, covered in a fine sandy substance.

What she was doing on the fifteenth floor in the early hours of the morning.

But then there’s the other guests she was sharing a dorm with, who were so concerned by her odd behaviour, they asked for her to be moved to another room. There’s her missing medication.

And there’s this: she was a real person, with a real family and real friends. She wasn’t a ghost, or a host for a demon, or a medical experiment test subject gone wrong, or a spy. She was an unwell woman. Lone women are already vulnerable. Mentally ill, lone women (mentally ill people full stop) are even more vulnerable. She was far from home. She had no-one around her to know that her bahviour wasn’t normal and to look after her.

The time has come where it feels appropriate to delete the blogs that I originally wrote about Elisa, so that we can lay her to rest properly.

I'd still like to finish with the post that I finished my very last installment on Elisa's story though, because I think it's so very fitting. I do still think about Elisa from time to time - she reminds me so much of my travels to strange countries, and her experiences with feeling at odds with herself resonated with me. My journey with her ends here, though. Goodnight, Elisa.

Elisa,

This will seem stupid to many people, because I am writing to a dead person.

I don’t know you and we have never met or even knew of each other’s existence until your tragic fate. When I first heard of the news and saw your picture. I don’t know why, but I felt torn and drawn to you. I became obsessed in finding news articles about the case. I tried but could not let it go. I became obsessed in finding more about you.

Now, after reading your tumblrs, tweets, and this blog. I am at a loss for words because I feel like I am literally staring at a mirror of myself. Your words are the very words I’ve spoken (and typed) in my life. Your questions are ones I’ve asked myself so many times. Your fears, regrets, and even the joys and cheers. I understand the cause of your depression, as it is for me… the unfulfillment of two greatest desires: to be loved, to be understood.

You are a perfectionist, and you are looking for perfect love. 
And so much that to the world you seem odd and out of place, this letter. 
Because at the very least, you would know… someone does understand. 
But even in death, you have helped others. 
Because knowing you, now I know… someone understands me. 
My whole life, I’ve asked that question too… if only… if only someone understands me. 
Understands what I am going through. 
The irony of life that I finally found someone who does, and she is gone.
My only regret is… not finding you sooner.
*sigh*
 
God bless you. Good journey…

Re-Reading: Jemima J by Jane Green

Libby

One thing I'll say for Jemima J is at least she's not as much of an insufferable douche noodle as Libby is. That doesn't mean I like Jemima, our morbidly obese eponymous heroine. I don't think her creator, Jane Green, thinks much of her either, and that's because Jane Green seems to hate women. Fat women, confident women, women over forty, young women, bitchy women, smart women, stupid women. None of them are safe from Green's judgemental snark cannon. I started to think that Green might actually be a lonely fat, angry Red Piller who was rejected at school by girls, not because (as he misguidedly thinks) they find his physical appearance replusive and should get to know the 'real him', but because he's actually just not a very nice person.

Jemima lives with flatmates Sophie and Lisa, who are right out of The Brother's Grimm. Beautiful, stupid and bitchy I am not sure what purpose the two serve to the story other than to try and make us feel sorry for Jemima.
Jemima's eating issues and weight problems are never really explored. She's fat and she eats alot. She has troublesome relatonship with her critical and selfish mother, but then who doesn't have mummy or daddy issues? We never know why Jemima is the way she is, which misses a huge opportunity for Green to explore our issues with food and body image in a sensible way instead of ham-fistedly trying to imagine what it might be like to be fat.

 I don't think Green has ever met a fat person - Jemima is about 100Ilbs overweight, or 7 stone. Let's assume that the average healthy weight, 5"7 British female weights what - 9 / 9.5 stone? That would put Jemima at 16 stone. Jemima manages to lose 7 stone in THREE MONTHS. THREE MONTHS. With no 'loose skin' because apparently over excersising to the point of exhaustion means you don't have any loose skin when you loose that much weight that quickly.  This is such a fundamentally dangerous and unhealthy message to send to younger readers - that they can easily lose that much weight that quickly with no health consequences whatsoever it made me want to throw this stupid book at a wall. It's hinted ever so slightly that people are worried about Jemima's miraculous weight loss - her PT for example expresses concern but does little to intervene and make sure Jemima isn't headed down the opposite road of her eating disorders. Jemima also manages to achieve a six pack and muscular thighs in this time, which is so fucking laughable I almost cried.

By the time she's lost weight, she's reinvented herself as 'JJ' and has started an internet romance with hot Californian Brad, despite being in love with her handsome colleague, Ben. Sadly Ben only sees Jemima as a friend and nothing more.

JJ works on local paper the Kilburn Herald with bitchy Geraldine and handsome Ben. The three of them form a closeknit friendship in which they never hang out with each other or phone each other. After Ben leaves the Herald for the bright lights of showbiz TV, JJ flies out to LA to meet Brad, even though she's afraid he might have catfished her (though this book was written in the days before the term was invented).

Brad turns out to be as hot as his photos and for a week Brad and JJ fuck, exercise, eat salad, fuck, exercise, eat salad, fuck, exercise, eat salad, fuck, exercise, eat salad. Oh and they go to a coffee shop 'calling itself Starbucks'. Brad of course, is not all he seems and it turns out that he's actually in a relationship with his fat assistant Jenny. He was only using JJ for her looks, because a man of his stature (he owns a gym) needs a hot girlfriend. This is the plot twist. Yes, really. Man fancies fat woman shocker.

It was pretty obvious that Brad was going to have a dark secret, and I should have seen it coming a mile off when Jenny was so openly hostile to JJ, but I didn't. After I'd got to this bit in the book, I read it again to make sure I hadn't hallucinated that bit. Why would a gym owner need a hot girlfriend? Why is it weird that he has a 'fetish' for fat women? (there goes the snark cannon again) it just didn't make any sense.

Round about the time JJ has found out Brad has a fat festish, Ben is flying out to LA to interview a movie star, who of course is goregeous but is into physcobabble bullshit and thus stops being alluring to Ben. While he's in LA, he keeps seeing this beautuful blonde woman and can't stop thinking about her. He finds out that Jemima is in LA and calls her.

When they meet, he doesn't recognise his old friend - he's just sp pleased to have randomly bumped into the hot blonde he kept seeing around town. JJ's heartbroken, but agrees to meet up with Ben again and reveals that she's really his old friend.

The fact that Ben only fancies Jemima now she looks how she does was so, so disappointing. And it made me hate Ben but it made me hate Jemima more for falling for that bullshit. Green tries to salvage this in the epilogue, saying that Jemima is now 'a healthy size 12 and Mrs Ben Williams' but it's too little too late. The message that if YOU change YOU'LL get the man makes me furious, furious, furious.  Green also bangs on about the power of never giving up on your dreams and what a small, narrow world it is if by great things you mean losing weight and getting the man of your dreams who wouldn't look twice at you when you were fat.

Fuck you, Jane Green. Fuck you.