Low Expectations (6 page)

‘Obviously some people are just crap in bed, but I think it's just about finding that magic person with the same sexual peccadilloes. I saw a couple kissing on the tube escalators who were licking each other's tongues. They were lapping at each other like dogs.'

As I give an enthusiastic and sloppy impression of this meeting of mouths, our waiter passes by and flinches, revealing a micro-expression of pure horror. So much for
being discreet. He is clearly unused to the charms of the English Rose.

‘That's revolting. What is it about being on an escalator that makes couples go all lovey-dovey?' Sarah has a well-documented hatred of anything romantic. She once drunkenly admitted that in her first relationship she shared sickening bird-themed pet names with her lover. Months after they broke up, she hacked into his email account and found that he was calling his new girlfriend ‘My Cocka-Tootle-Poo'. Enormously betrayed, she rejected sentimentality with the fervour with which Linda Lovelace rejected porn.

‘Presumably every time they are stationary the enormity of their love overwhelms them,' I say in their defence, though it is met with sour faces. I secretly love PDAs, but it's not disgusting when I do it, obviously.

‘I don't get that. I love Henry but I've never felt like he completes me. I've always assumed I'd get married for the same reason my Mum did – become emotionally exhausted searching for some perfect guy, hit thirty and think “You'll do”.'

‘How depressing! She admits that?'

‘They are happy together so maybe that's the way it should be done. A shared love of
Crimewatch
and antiquing keeps them strong. So, Rose, have you seen any more of Scooter Man?'

‘Meh. I can't be arsed, to be honest. I cancelled on him
twice and yesterday he left me several drunken voicemails which were practically incomprehensible.'

Not texting back is one of those things that, when done to someone else by you, seems like no more than they could reasonably expect. It is a swift, clear and satisfactory end to an over-long, muddy and unsatisfactory meeting of minds/genitals. When it is done to you, however, it leaves you torn between bewildered hurt and a secret conviction that they have been mugged, sustained a head injury and are suffering from amnesia in hospital. Unable even to identify themselves, they are still, on a subconscious level, obsessing about you.

‘Voicemail is the devil. He'll probably redouble his efforts if you don't reply though, blanking is a well-known male aphrodisiac,' Sarah says.

‘Yeah, but what do I say? It seems a bit serious to have some stilted conversation to end a relationship that never began. I wish you could just be like, “Look, you seem like a decent enough fellow, but you leave my vagina drier than a drought in the Sahara. Please never contact me again!”' Rose sings, a bit tipsily.

‘Er, I believe that's exactly what “It's not you, it's me” and “We don't have chemistry” mean,' I say.

My phone beeps. I've had it on the table so I don't have to go through the tragic rigmarole of checking in my bag every ten minutes in case Beardy has texted me.

It's been four days since our fateful melon encounter and I
am starting to lose hope. Knowing my luck, he will never call and I'll be doomed to run into him in Sainsbury's while he's using his melon line on some other girl. She will be thinner, cooler and less eager to please than myself. They will live happily ever after in Victoria Park and have a brood of kids with their own mini-pairs of hipster glasses.

I unlock my phone, mentally preparing myself to see a message from my mum, but lo and behold! An unknown number. Oh Beardy! I knew it was written in the stars!

‘Yay! He's texted me! He says … “Yo. Drink later?” Hmm. That's quite abrupt, isn't it?' What happened to the wit and charm? How did wooing a lady with fruit turn into ‘Yo'?

‘Oh don't worry, it's quite rare to find a man who's good at text-speak. Henry never realizes when I'm taking the piss, gets offended and sulks. It's pretty pathetic.'

‘Still, imagine if Romeo had gone to Juliet's window and said, “Yo, fancy a fuck?” Which is essentially what this is. I mean – it's nearly 11 p.m. Texting someone directly at pub closing time is pretty much an out-and-out shameless booty call.'

‘I think you're reading too much into it. And if he were alive today, Romeo would totally do that; he was a right shagger! Rosaline didn't let him in her pants, whereas Juliet did and they both died of an acute case of the melodramas before someone else could catch his eye. Otherwise, I assure you, he would have eventually chucked her. The ending would
have been more
Jeremy Kyle
than Jacobean tragedy.' Rose concludes this depressing evaluation of the star-crossed lovers with a professorial air, convincing us all in spite of her occasional slurring.

‘Just text this dude tomorrow evening and say you were busy doing something vague and cool,' Sarah advises. ‘Actually don't even give him an explanation, just say hey and suggest another night. And don't send one of your funny texts, they never work on men.'

‘Are you saying my texts aren't funny?' I cry in mock-indignation.

‘They are to me, because I know you, but if I didn't they'd just be weird. Men don't care about humour initially; don't bother trying to impress him. It will only confuse him. Don't flirt either, you can sometimes come across as kind of mean. I think mysterious is definitely the way to play this one.'

I decide to follow her instructions to the letter and try out a new Mute, Mysterious Me on Beardy, as the Real Me has otherwise been a crashing disappointment. Everyone knows trusting your instincts in love leads to a slow suicide via industrial quantities of carbohydrates when even your most pathetic of relationships finally peters out. Then you must confront the grim reality that you are Not Special Enough and will grow old alone. Which is much worse than dying alone, if you think about it. In fact, a cramped retirement home might be the social highlight of my twilight years.

In the meantime, hope is not lost – the night is young and London is full of beautiful people trying to find love, or get laid. To that end, we double up on our drinking efforts in preparation to go dancing. I have it under good authority that whiskey has excellent digestive properties and will hopefully terminate my food baby by the time we get to the club.

*

When I awaken hours later, my supine form is sprawled on the living room floor. My face is nestled into the saucy remains of a kebab. I can't believe I had a second dinner. How the hell did I get home? And why can't I ever time-travel to my bed? I hope Stacy hasn't seen me; I may hate her but I also hate living up to her expectation of me as a disgusting slob. Even my hair feels polluted, to say nothing of my soul.

Why is my alarm going off on a Saturday? I scrabble blindly for the source of the noise, ready to turn it off and throw it across the room. Annoyingly, it's Rose phoning. She's already called twice. I debate whether or not to ignore it and continue the epic dream in which I, an alien prince, saved the world from imminent disaster. Though tempted, I pick up on the off-chance that she's done something terrible and has wound up in jail.

‘Hello? Rose, it's 10 a.m. This had better be worth it.'

‘Georgie, quickly, do you remember the name of the guy I got off with last night?' Rose whispers feverishly. I cast what's left of my mind back. We were all dancing drunkenly to bad
techno; Rose was pressed up against a wall with some handsome Mediterranean type.

‘Rose, I can barely remember my own name. You mean that swarthy-looking bloke? I have no idea. Did you shag him or something?'

‘Yeah, I'm at his now, he's just gone to make coffee. What should I do?'

‘Just style it out, man. Call him darling until you can figure out his name. Go through his mail when he's in the toilet or something.'

‘The toilet's down the corridor; I already tried that. His flatmate has a weird foreign name as well, I can't very well do a fifty-fifty guess!' Rose hisses. I start laughing; this is so unlike her.

‘Well, just say he has a very unusual name and ask him how to spell it—' The phone cuts out. Presumably the Italian Stallion has returned.

Ten minutes later, I'm cleaning up last night's sticky detritus from my coat when Rose rings me back.

‘He has two flatmates and his name is Steve. Thanks.'

She hangs up again, leaving me to slog through as much work as I can manage with a dreadful hangover, all the while suspecting that there is no point as I may, actually, be dying.

Procrastination, or ‘the creative process', as it is also known, is around one-third masturbation. Another third is spent reading the
Daily Mail
online, whose celebrity titbits are unrivalled in their profound vapidity and addictively frequent updates. The remaining period is devoted to productive activities such as plucking whiskers from moles, trying on experimental eye-makeup ideas from
i-D
and stalking future lovers on Facebook. When I have finally tired of these ventures, or run out of rogue hairs, deadline panic sets in and I find myself at three in the morning wondering what in God's name is wrong with me. Why I am unable to complete the simplest tasks until I have bored myself so completely?

All this is by way of saying that I am meant to be working
and have achieved very little. It is the horrible conundrum faced by many middle-class students who have chosen a creative degree; I am used to talking about work, thinking about work and mostly convincing myself and others of my own bullshit while rarely sitting down to complete any of it.

Guided by a conviction, born of years of being told I am special and talented by my parents and teachers, of my vast (largely untapped) potential, I feel sure that I am utterly capable – of something – despite the fact that I have rarely brought any self-directed project to pleasing fruition. My internships have been a baptism of fire into the world of design and taught me innumerable new skills. However, it is far easier to use your talents to construct someone else's vision under their direction, to act as a conduit rather than a creator.

I am sitting in the makeshift studio in my blessedly large closet, surrounded by fabric, paper, pins, a dummy, research material and miscellaneous craft utensils. Sitting here staring at a blank piece of paper is the easy part; having the self-discipline to construct something beautiful out of nothing is trickier. I comfort myself with the thought that my imagination is probably gestating a grand idea for my final collection that will spring fully formed from my forehead at any given moment.

It is early November and, being only three weeks into the final year of my degree, I should have plenty of time
to research for my first meeting with Zelda, my tutor, next Tuesday. A passionate and charmingly bat-shit-crazy woman in her early sixties, her intense love for fashion after all these years should be energizing but sometimes has the opposite effect of making me feel flat in comparison. I don't obsess about or feel compelled by this industry in the same way – perhaps, I simply don't want it enough to succeed.

Eventually I will need to present my collection of six looks. But first, baby steps. Collating research, fabric and mood boards, defining the clientele, comparative shopping, market research, consumer buying trends, economic trends and of course aesthetic trends are all a necessary background to a concept. What goes on after all that is where the magic happens. Or not. The moment of truth occurs when, having put pen to paper and turned paper to fabric, finally a body transforms it – into a visual delight or a dog's dinner.

Right. My date with Beardy is scheduled for this evening – I have four hours in which to produce something fantastic before I need to get ready. I start by getting out some swathes of fabric and draping and pinning them on the stand in an elaborate fashion, taking billions of pictures, drawing and making notes as I go. Images that ‘inspire' ideas are tacked up on every available surface, with others scattered across the floor. During term time, my room looks like John Nash's bunker in
A Beautiful Mind
, if he was into frocks.

By late afternoon I feel calmer now that I have actually achieved something. I turn myself over to the more immediate task at hand. That is, grooming, painting, plucking, buffing, fluffing and otherwise disguising my natural state as far as is humanly possible for my date with Beardy. I hop in the shower, shaving my legs and underarms for inner confidence even though it is too cold for bare limbs. I hesitate over my minge.

If I am groomed to porn star levels it will be extremely tempting to sleep with him immediately, if only to avoid wasting the precious twenty-four hours before my skin breaks out with ingrown hairs and bumps that will take a whole week to disperse. The prudish, Victorian part of me – it is, admittedly, a slender sliver – cries out weakly that I should leave a chastity hedgerow. Vanity is the only defence my weak virtue possesses.

However, as my self-control is tenuous at best, if I do get carried away in the heat of the moment it will be extremely embarrassing if he discovers what looks like a Muppet toupee stolen from Bert or Ernie trapped in my pants. Unless Beardy likes that sort of thing, which from what I have gathered would make him an anomaly.

When did this idea that a pussy needs to be bald totally permeate popular culture? When did pubes undergo the transformation from erotic and sensual to grotesque? If I were a superhero, I would be BushGirl and fly around the
world inciting vaginal hair to sprout in constant unruly rebellion until everyone bloody well gave in and stopped oppressing them. The ‘Pubic Spring', if you will.

Though I am well groomed, I am determined not to sleep with Beardy until we've had a few dates. Men think that they are irresistible players if a woman hops into bed with them immediately, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Enough social pressures persist that the fear of looking like ‘That Kind Of Girl' exerts its force amongst even those fundamentally inclined to sluttiness (i.e. impulsive females with active libidos who are, despite these grave hindrances, still capable of fidelity and loving relationships). The men you roll over for are the ones you aren't that bothered about seeing again. It's the ones you really like you wait for. Or so I'm told.

As with any rule of thumb, there are exceptions. If you get carried away by lust for someone you want with every fibre of your being, you may have to give in to voluptuous abandon. Then, you wait, and hope he's not the type to consign you to a mental bin labelled ‘Random Whore' the moment he reaches orgasm.

I hate that I am reduced to this kind of tragic forethought, but it is impossible to escape. Sex requires far too much effort to ever really be casual. Though having said that, I want badly to sleep with Beardy. Between two people who really fancy each other, why shouldn't first-date sex have the simple significance of an intimate handshake, a respectful but way
more fun method of saying I acknowledge your existence, am happy to know you and delight in your body?

I reflect on this unlikely scenario while blow-drying my hair. It is a tedious hassle and I never usually bother, but tonight I feel it's necessary to use every beautifying technique in the book. I leave it down for once, forgoing hairspray so it remains in touchable waves. I'm now ready for the real artistry of the evening. I put on my ‘natural' makeup face, which involves concealer, foundation, powder, blusher, bronzer, highlighter, eyebrow pencil, soft eyelid pencil, eye shadow, liquid eyeliner, mascara and lipstick. These are exactly the same components as for my ‘nightclub' makeup face, but the level of application makes all the difference.

Deciding what to wear on a first date with someone you suspect is out of your league must exist as a circle of hell overlooked by Dante. I'm drawn to excess, but being obviously try-hard is the kiss of death. Whatever I put on is variously too sexy, too dull, too wacky or just unflattering and I regurgitate the contents of my wardrobe onto the floor in the process. I finally choose a clingy-but-grungy grey knit jumper that's a bit old-school Marc Jacobs, covered by a beat-up, fitted leather bomber. I pair this with a long black skirt, huge wooden platform ankle boots and gold hoop earrings. It's a little bit sexy, a little bit rock, a little bit chav and a lot Amish. But, you know, in a cool way.

I leave the house with a spring in my step, feeling chipper,
excited and only slightly nervous. You know how women are supposed to have some mysterious feminine intuition? Well, that's a load of balls, otherwise I would have anticipated the humiliation to come and stayed in with a bottle of vino and
Apocalypse Now
.

*

We met in Dalston. It started well, with no uninterested silences on his part or inane babbling on mine. I was remarkably relaxed considering how much I fancied him and felt I was on good form – a bit more argumentative than is usual for me, but I blame that on the tequila shots.

Perhaps I should preface this by mentioning how very bad some of my dates have been. I have managed to give myself a black eye and concussion by tripping down a stairwell into a railing (A&E is a shit venue) and once had to leave a bloody tampon that wouldn't flush in the toilet cistern of a man's bathroom left thoughtlessly devoid of loo roll and bins. I can only pray that if discovered, it was never spoken of, but silently blamed on his flatmate's girlfriend. I also once cut a date short when it slowly dawned on me that I had slept with his brother a few months previously. Even I have certain standards to uphold. But the worst date by far – until now – still brings on fresh waves of shame.

Being a smoker is now much like being a heretic. Unless you are in the company of other sinners you must publicly hide your sickness in the knowledge that large swathes of the
population consider you to be a worthless pariah. However, safe haven from this persecution can still be found in France and Italy, where respect for one's lungs has largely failed to catch on.

You may have heard that there are some negative aspects to smoking: being the recipient of whingey comments from overbearing tourists, contracting frostbite in winter and a few health risks that I like to think of as Bolshevik propaganda. But the worst aspect – well, I say it is the worst, but it is the most embarrassing thing, really. The
worst
thing is premature ageing. The most
embarrassing
thing is the unintended consequences of the smoker's cough.

The resulting phlegmy vowels can on occasion, after a late night, sound quite sexy. You feel as if you're some fifties temptress that's spent a night drinking whiskey with Sinatra. ‘Oh Sinatra! You charming cad … Put down that cigar and take me on the billiards table.' At other times, invariably in public, this phlegm winnows its way up through your throat to gather sinisterly, waiting for the right moment to strike. You find yourself, mid conversation, coughing up and flinging this congealed goo into mid-air.

My worst date ever had the dubious honour of one of these projectiles landing in his pint. It's hard to recover from that, really. He didn't call, but he had an early tennis game the next morning and you know what that's like. Dangerous sport, tennis. Any number of fatal accidents might have befallen him.

What could possibly trump that, you ask? Perhaps these dates deserve equal billing in the mortification stakes but, as I like Beardy more, he wins by a narrow margin.

It was all going smoothly – too smoothly. He was fairly witty and very beardy; I was charming and light-hearted. I laughed at all his jokes, which were funny seventy-five percent of the time. Things got a bit frosty on his part after a drunken debate over whether the Western empire was in decline and China would instigate and win World War Three within the next twenty years. I put up a good fight, as one of my more useful life skills is being able to sustain cohesive, convincing arguments on topics I am minimally informed on.

However, I realized that things needed to get more sexy to revive the date and resolved, as per my mother's passive-aggressive dating advice, to ‘Let the man win, then disrespect him to your friends'. Her other gems include ‘Hate the man, not the gifts' and ‘Marrying down will always lead to misery – and, far worse, penury'.

So, I flattered his ego and amped up the flirting. At this point, we were in a dark, dingy basement bar with incongruously expensive leather furnishings and large white candles on gothic stands. Though extremely humid, the flattering lighting and excellent cocktails were worth a mild film of perspiration. He leaned in for a snog.

It was everything you hope from a first kiss: soft, insistent,
building up pressure slowly, getting gradually passionate and heated as our tongues and bodies intertwined. Disturbingly hot. Burning in fact. What was that shouting? Beardy pulled back and was staring at me in alarm. Time passed slowly. Bizarrely, someone kept shouting ‘Fire! Fire! Fire!' Still a bit dazed from the heat of our embrace, I looked around for the potential source of this calamity, only to see an enormous bouncer running straight at me. He was waving his arms like a madman, repeating ‘Fire!'

It dawned on me that I was on fire.

Beardy later said it looked like I had a halo of flames but that he could only stand and stare. The bouncer, bless his rapid-reflexed soul, smothered my head with his leather jacket, putting out the blaze and saving me from a wig-filled future. Thank God I had forgone hairspray that night. If someone, in a misguided attempt to put out the inferno, had tossed a cocktail in my direction, the night could well have been even worse.