The Dating Detox (3 page)

After a few months of what I considered to be a rather nice relationship, I heard him refer to me as ‘a friend…with benefits’ when he was talking to his mates in a bar. A cold chill ran over me, but I was too chicken to bring it up that night. (The ol’ fear of confrontation strikes again.)

‘How do you…uh, feel about, us, what’s going on with us?’ I asked his teddy bear Ivan the next night, as we watched DVDs in his bedroom. (Clapham Brodie liked to chat via the medium of the teddy.) ‘I am bear. I feel ggrrrrrrrrrrreat!’ growled the toy.
(Ivan was Eastern European.) I glanced at Clapham Brodie. He kept his eyes on the TV. I decided to try again, in a silly way he might respond to. ‘Do you think…are we…you know, officially going steady? Like, swinging hands?’ I asked in an American accent that I hoped belied my hopeful tone. Clapham Brodie put the toy down and looked at me. ‘I was wondering when this would come up…’ he said, and promptly dumped me. If I hadn’t asked him, he would have let us keep wandering on for months. Friends with benefits infuckingdeed. Bastardo. I was quite upset about Clapham Brodie, I must admit. The ability to be silly is so attractive and rarer than you might think.

Shall I just tell you about Break-Up No.4 quickly? Go on, then. We’re nearly done in my Tour O’ Heartbreak.

Break-Up No.4:
Smart Henry. A bit less than a year after Clapham Brodie, I met Smart Henry at a BBQ in Putney. (People who live in Putney have to bribe you to come and visit them by offering you food.) I was there with Bloomie, who was dating the BBQ host, a man now known as The Hairy Back. Smart Henry was The Hairy Back’s cousin. Smart Henry lived in Putney too, in a grubby little terrace. He was very tall and thin and scruffy, and always wore a battered tweed jacket that had belonged to his father, which made him look like a genteel English professor-in-the-making. Smart Henry seemed to have the perfect combination of indie cred (he freelanced for the
NME
and reviewed films and bands for the
Guardian
), genuine braininess (he had a degree from Cambridge) and politeness (he stood up when I approached the table, and always made sure I had a drink), with just enough silliness to surprise and satisfy (he’d frown at me when I teased him and say funny, mock-patronising things like ‘you’re smarter than you look’, or ‘that’s a spanking for you’). He always called me by my real name—Sarah—rather than Sass, which everyone has always called me, ever since I can remember.

Smart Henry was also older than me—32 to my 26—which
was refreshing. Enough of these boys, I thought, I want a man. He was nonchalant about everything, and suggested cool, grown-up things to do—like see arthouse films, or go to new restaurants no one else knew about yet, or art fairs where we’d drink brandy out of his hipflask and make up faux-expert reviews. He was a bit serious and detached, but I put that down to age. I was happy.

Then just less than six months after we met (a record long relationship for me), Smart Henry announced he was moving to the States to go to Harvard for an MBA as he was ‘fed up with earning fuck all’ and wanted to ‘make some serious coin’. So he broke up with me, and I went home and cried.

Was I really devastated? I don’t know. Yes. I think I was. But I was tired. I felt like I’d been dating for decades. It seemed like they always really liked me until they got to know me. And each time I met someone new, I tried to be as positive and open and hopeful as I could be. Each time I got so damn fond of them and I’d wonder if I was falling in love. I thought they were having fun. I certainly was. (Though then again, I find it pretty easy to have a good time. It’s one of my better qualities.) But each time it went wrong.

Of course, over the years I also met a lot of guys who were almost great, with one fatal flaw. I don’t think I’m being too picky, either. Would you date someone who had a horrible snake-tongued kissing technique, or who ate with his mouth open, or talked about money all night, or admitted to an extensive Crocs collection, or who said stupid things like ‘Global warming, I’m not sure I believe in it’? (‘It’s not the tooth fairy,’ I replied. “Believing” makes no difference.’) Well, I wouldn’t. One date was enough. Sometimes I ignored them afterwards, sometimes they ignored me, whatever: a disappointing mistake is a disappointing mistake.

Oh, Smart Henry. I hope you’re making some serious coin now. You cockmonkey. If I’d only known what was ahead of me. The next guy was Rick.

I can’t bear to think about him right now. I just can’t. Anyway, I’m almost at work.

I get out of the tube at Piccadilly Circus and start walking up past Burger King to my little corner of Soho. I love it at 9.30 am. The streets are scuzzy, and fresh air mingles with the smell of last night’s sin, but the sun is shining in its absent-minded London way, and Soho looks all small and personal. Not big famous naughty Soho. My nice little Soho, with my favourite little hidden coffee shop, where they know what I like without me having to go through the whole ‘latte but with a bit less milk slash macchiato but with a bit more milk’ thing.

I work in a tiny advertising agency on a little road just near Golden Square, just around the corner from Piccadilly Circus. My first ever boss, Cooper, left the (big, glossy, soulless) ad agency we worked at to start it, and after a few months of witnessing the Machiavellian politics at the big agency, I scurried off to join him. It’s a fun job, not a real job like being a doctor or a teacher. But I like it. Anyway that’s all I’ll say about work for the moment. The only thing more boring than hearing about other people’s jobs is hearing about other people’s dreams.

‘I had the most bizaaaaaaaaaaarre dream last night!’ chirrups Laura as I walk into the office. She’s a Mac monkey—that is to say, a very junior designer. Very kooky, very sweet, constantly stunned and excited by everything.

‘Really?’ I say, turning on my computer and settling at my desk. I sit in the far corner, facing the room, back to the wall, so I can see everything that’s going on. If I slouch in my seat, no one can see me from behind my monitor. It’s the perfect place to hide on a day like today.

‘I dreamed that you were marrying Mark Ronson! Can you imagine? Mark Ronson? Hahahaha! And you were wearing this fabulous fabulous long long dress in a sort of creamy Thai silk, you know, like oh, what’s it called, like, uh, oh…Hmm. Oh no, that’s not it, not Thai silk, I mean the other one. The heavier one but with a shine but not like cheap shine, like, expensive shine?’

‘Satin?’

‘Yes! And it was sort of gathered here and here, with a big thingy here, and we were in a big church and Coop was there, but he was painting the walls, no, they weren’t the walls, they were the puzzle windows, you know? The puzzle see-through windows? With the—the colouredy light, you know?’

‘Stained glass?’

‘Yes!’

I let Laura’s streaming dream commentary ebb and flow around me. Coop isn’t in the office this week. He’s been in Germany, meeting some old clients to sweet-talk them into being new clients. This is extremely lucky, as I feel vague and distracted all morning. I edit some copy I wrote yesterday, cheer myself up with Go Fug Yourself, and over lunch take a very serious look at topshop.com, shopbop.com and netaporter.com. Soul-cheering retail therapy from the comfort of my desk. I don’t buy anything, obviously. Anything purchased the day after a break-up will be forever afflicted with the taint of heartache. And for me, netaporter.com only exists so that I can recognise the designer knock-offs when they hit Zara and H&M.

‘Sass, my job needs a quick proof,’ says a flat male voice.

Ah, yes I didn’t tell you—I’m what they call a copywriter. Theoretically, I help think up advertising, erm, ideas. (If that’s not an oxymoron.) We’re a tiny agency, which means there’s not the usual creative team structure there is in big places, and I do just about everything else to do with words, too: posters and websites and emails and leaflets and all the millions of little things that you read every day that someone has to write. And proofread.

‘Now,’ the voice adds.

I look up. It’s the senior art director. Andy. He’s in his late 30s: short, scruffy, with a pot belly and curly, slightly dirty hair. He dresses like many creative hipster hobbit clones: dirty skinny black jeans, battered studded belt, yellow 70s-motif T-shirt with too-short sleeves revealing arms with the muscle tone of a toddler. Most of the time you’ll find him spouting predictable counterculture snob-pinions in a loud mockney voice.

He’s also fundamentally sexist and uneducated, which makes him prone to saying things like ‘Jane Austen? Mills and Boon in a corset, innit?’ which is, obviously, stupid on about ten thousand levels. It’s odd, because he thinks he’s so daringly creative and maverick—shades of Arty Jonathan—but of course,
he’s just following a different party line. Lots of art directors, of course, are brilliant and funny and original, like Cooper. But quite a few of them are like Andy. (It goes without saying that I’d never date someone like him, doesn’t it? That’s probably another reason I spend so much time in bars: I’m never going to meet someone via work.)

‘What job?’ I say, getting up from my desk and following him. He’s already walked away from my desk, knowing I’ll follow. Arrogant bastardo.

‘Shiny Straight,’ he says, sitting down on his chair with a spin and a sigh. He’s referring to one of the shampoo brands we work for.

I nod, and look down at the copy on his screen. He can’t even be bothered to print it out for me to read properly. It’s an A5 ad insert that goes into magazines like
Cosmopolitan
and
Elle.
(Yeah, those annoying leaflets that fall out when you’re reading…someone has to write them. Sorry.) But I’ve never seen this ad before.

Reading it briefly, I can quickly see that it’s all wrong. The strapline (the big type at the top) is new. The supporting copy (the smaller type below that talks about the product) only uses one of the three key words the client requires us to use. The whole thing sounds weirdly formal, not girly and friendly the way it’s meant to. It doesn’t even have a clear call to action—that’s what we call the line that tells people what to do (like go online to register for a freebie, or use the leaflet as a discount voucher, or whatever). It’s just a jumble of lines I’ve written before, put together all wrong. And there’s a punctuation mistake. It’s a mess.

(Did I say it’s boring hearing about people’s jobs? Too bad, dudes. I have the conch. Heh.)

‘I’ve never seen this before,’ I say, looking up at him. He shrugs.

‘Where is this copy from?’ I try again, blushing slightly. I find his obvious contempt hard to deal with. I repeat my mantra:
posture is confidence, silence is poise. (It’s not a particularly clever mantra, I know, but it stops any nervous babbling when I’m confronted with a difficult situation. And it really does make me stand up straight.)

‘I wrote it,’ he says breezily. He means he copied and changed things from my previous work, the douchebag. ‘And Charlotte approved it.’ Charlotte is the account manager. She’s in charge of making sure the good people at Shiny Straight are happy with everything we do, and prone to giving me briefs that say things like ‘it’s bespoke and tailored and personal’, not realising these all mean the same thing. She is not responsible for writing. If anyone is responsible for writing in this 12-person agency, it’s Cooper, or it’s bloody well me. ‘Just proof it, Sass. It’s not a big deal.’

‘Why, um, was that?’ I ask, trying to look calm as I stare at the dreadful copy on screen. ‘Why didn’t you ask me?’

‘Last-minute brief. Didn’t have time to include you. I’ve read enough of them to know what to say,’ he says. ‘Anyway, it’s the design that counts. Words are bricks, as they say.’

I glance over at him, my scalp prickling with anger, and see him looking at his design underlings with a smug smile.

‘Well, I can’t, um, approve it,’ I say. My cheeks are burning. ‘I can’t approve that copy.’

The entire creative department—Andy, his two art directors and a freelance illustrator—is looking over. Laura, who they put over on my side of the room because she’s a girl and they love their little boys’ club, is staring at me. Even Amanda, our receptionist/Office Manager (she prefers the latter title, always in caps, so I tend to call her Amanda The Office Manager in my head) says ‘one moment please!’ and puts her caller on hold so she can devote all her attention to what’s going on.

I want to tell him that it’s crap copy, and words aren’t bricks, and he’s an arsehole, but I can’t. As you know, I hate confrontation. Plus, I think everyone else really likes him, though I have no idea why, so they’re all probably laughing at me.

‘Well, I’m not staying here all night waiting for you to write the fucking thing. So proof it, or I’ll just get Charlotte to.’

‘Cooper…’ I hesitate. I’m sort of friends with Cooper, more than anyone else is anyway, and everyone knows it, so I try to never use him as a pawn in this sort of battle. I wonder if that’s why I always lose them.

‘Cooper would probably prefer we didn’t miss the deadline with the printer. Which is in ten minutes, by the way. So just fucking proof it. Fix the essentials.’ He’s being openly hostile now.

I take a deep breath. I can feel tears sneaking into my eyes. Why do I cry whenever I’m angry? This is the last thing I need today. It’s not that important. I’ll just give in. I lean over the computer, fix the punctuation mistake (an errant apostrophe in ‘its’) and look up at him.

‘There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?’ he smiles. His lips are dry and cracked. And I know if I got within two feet, his breath would smell of coffee and badly-brushed teeth.

I turn around and walk back to my desk. Andy snickers and covers it up with a cough.

Who cares? It’s only a stupid ad.

But copy is my job. I could have written the shit out of that. And they should have briefed me.

Ignore it.

Now a crap ad is going out. What if Cooper sees it? What if the client realises how crap it is?

It doesn’t matter. At times like this, I really miss Chris, the art director I worked with at the big agency. He was talented
and
nice. Which shouldn’t be as unusual a combination as it is.

I hide behind my monitor at my desk as our little room goes back to normal, and get an email from Kate. She can’t join us for drinkydinks tonight, so we’re catching up tomorrow night instead.

I don’t know why I just said drinkydinks. I’m sorry. I’m not quite myself today.

Andy leaves me alone for the rest of the day, talking instead to his art minions about Doom, or some other sociopathic computer killing game, and how good he is at it.

I try to work, but my mind keeps wandering. I’m sure that by now, you know what it’s wandering back to. Dumped again! Six times. Etc.

OK, let’s get it over and done with.

The man I caught shagging a Pink Lady.

Break-Up No.5:
Rick. I didn’t even really fancy him at first, honestly. We met outside the Westbourne in Notting Hill one sunny Sunday afternoon in late summer two years ago. From that very first meeting, he pursued me with an intensity that was hard to resist. I mean, he
really
pursued me. Sarcastic texts, funny emails, more wordplay than you could shake your innuendo at, flirty flattery…As you can imagine, I was a bit of a skittish dater by this stage and tried hard to see the potential bastardo in any man. And I thought he was too slick, too arrogant, too charming, so I tried to stay away from him when I could, and was sarcastic and flip when I couldn’t. That seemed to interest him even more. His flatmate worked with Bloomie, and they were friendly and somehow we seemed to run into him a lot at bars and parties. Loads of women were always after him—I wouldn’t call Rick the most handsome man I’ve ever dated, but he had charisma. And he always made a beeline for me, which was flattering, obviously.

So, after about four or five months of Rick’s charm offensive, during the dark, endless depths of January when it’s really, really depressing to be cold and single, I said yes to dinner. We met up one Thursday at Notting Hill Brasserie, where the food and wine and ambience combine to make you feel important and happy and interesting, all at once. And we talked till they closed. It was the best first date I’d ever had. He bared his soul, and I bared mine, and I realised that what I’d thought was slick arrogance was just hard-earned confidence (he’d won several scholarships to school
and university) and genuine charm. We found each other interesting, and funny, and smart—at least he kept telling me he thought that…I now think he was lying, of course. But I thought he was wonderful. We kissed, and sparks went off in my chest. At the end of the night he said, ‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering if I’ll call tomorrow. I’ll do better than that.’ He called me the minute I got home and we talked till I fell asleep. I was smitten. (I mean smote. No, smitten.)

For the first three months, I was in dating heaven. Rick was sharp and witty and worldly and attentive and all those other attractive things that make a girl flexible at the knees. But then, almost overnight, he started to, well, be not quite so nice. He stopped emailing and texting first (an absolute must, and yes I am a feminist, dash it, but all the same), and didn’t suggest meeting up as much as he used to—in fact, he would wait for me to gingerly bring up the subject and then say ‘let’s play it by ear’ to see if something (someone?) more exciting came up. He never asked how I was, or what I had planned that week. He’d ignore my call on a Thursday and not return it all weekend while I tried to remain positive and think, ‘It’s cool! He doesn’t have to see me! I love me-time!’ and then on Sunday afternoon would text me to come round for, well, not-particularly-interesting hangover sex and a DVD. Which he chose. So it was something like
Sin City.
Or
Death Proof.

A bastardo, in other words. A Class-A bastardo cockmonkey that I should have ditched the minute he turned sour, like milk. But I didn’t. I tried to pretend I was fine and happy, and made excuses to my friends and myself: he’s working, he’s stressed. I felt him pulling away, dimming the addictive, warming spotlight of his adoration and I couldn’t bear it. We’d been perfect! He knew me, I knew him! I spent days and nights racking my brain, thinking how to make him go back to adoring me like he had at the beginning. I analysed every text and email, and hoped and hoped and hoped that everything would go back to being good. Don’t look
at me like that. You’ve probably done it too. Everyone has one person they really lost their head over. And he was mine.

Why, you ask? Because I thought he understood me? Because I thought I understood him? Because of my immature, impossibly hopeful disposition? Because all my previous relationships paled in comparison? Because each successive break-up had left my self-esteem in tatters? Or because all my previous disappointments made me determined to hang on to this one potentially perfect happiness if I could?

I don’t know. There are a thousand possible reasons. None are really good enough.

And you know what’s even worse? Even during those six torturous weeks of him acting like this, we’d meet up once a week or so—me, sick with nerves obviously—and it would be bliss again. He’d apologise, blame work for being too busy to see me, we’d have a bottle of wine and talk and laugh and sparkle and I’d adore him more than I ever had before, despite the days of confidence-eroding worry beforehand. I’d feel totally secure, blissfully happy, utterly content. And it was during one of those nights when I told him I loved him.

I know! Don’t look at me like that. Trust me, I know I shouldn’t have said it.

I hadn’t planned it, it just popped out. It’s not the kind of thing I’d ever, ever have said if I’d been in the least bit in control of myself. I’d never said it to anyone else. Maybe I felt so happy and relieved that the sparkly secure feeling was there after a particularly long week with almost no contact from him. Maybe—probably—I subconsciously thought I’d prompt him to say he loved me too, and we’d go back to being sparkly all of the time. Who knows? The female brain is an annoyingly mysterious thing. Even to us. At the time I thought I meant it, by the way, but I realised pretty soon it wasn’t love…it was more like addiction.