The Dating Detox (4 page)

And no, of course he didn’t say it back. He just smiled, and kissed me. (We were in his kitchen cooking spaghetti bolognese,
which I hate but every boyfriend I’ve ever had thinks he can cook better than anyone in the world.) In a split second I realised he wasn’t going to say it back, because he didn’t love me, and never had. I wanted to run away and cry, but instead I poured another glass of wine and kept smiling. It doesn’t matter. Everything will be fine. Just hang in there and be positive and show him what a good girlfriend you are.

And the next night was the ‘Come As Your Childhood Ambition’ party.

For weeks—months—afterwards, I kept getting hammered and crying. I honestly felt like I should look like a human raisin, I cried so much. I turned 28 just two weeks after he dumped me. That birthday was a real low point. Bloomie organised a dinner for me and I had to keep a tissue folded in my palm to mop up the tears that just burst from my face, even when I didn’t think I was crying. I then got as drunk as I could, threw up, and had to be taken home by 10 pm. God, that was a pathetic period of my life. I hate that me. I fucking hate her. After every other break-up I’d bounced back pretty fast, with the help of the magic trifecta of friends, clothes and vodka, ready to head out and have some fun again. But not this time. Recovering from Rick was like recovering from a debilitating illness. I needed liquids (vodka), darkened rooms (bars) and rest (vodka-induced comas).

I don’t even know why Rick affected me like that. He just did. It was—oh God, it was a car crash.

In comparison, the Posh Mark break-up was like skinning my knee.

Rick never called me to apologise, by the way. In fact, we didn’t even have the excruciating/satisfying/sad ritual of giving each other’s things back. His flatmate gave Bloomie my eye make-up remover and various underthings I’d left at his house. (He had left nothing at mine. He’d refused to stay over after a few token efforts at the beginning. Another bastardo sign, by the way. The home game advantage is huge.)

I’m really not a victim, though you probably think I’m an absolute basket case after everything I’ve told you. You know, I secretly wonder—and sorry for using you as a shrink, but I can’t afford a real one—if, after six months of rampant partying post-Rick misery, I actually went out with Posh Mark not because he was nice and wouldn’t dump me, but because I expected it to fail. At least if I didn’t like him that much, it wouldn’t hurt. Hmm. Bloomie calls those kinds of relationships ‘emotional blotting paper’: they prop you up after a relationship Hiroshima until you get enough time and perspective to recover and start thinking about dating someone you actually like. And waking up wrapped up in nicely-muscled arms is better than waking up alone. Sort of.

Oh fuck me, I can’t imagine doing it again. Or rather, I can imagine it, but I just can’t face it. It’s so depressing to think about. So many mistakes. And I don’t want to go through it all again. Meeting someone, liking them, going out with them for dinner, waiting to see if they’ll call again…it’s exhausting, and it never works out for me. I’m obviously romantically-challenged. I just…I want out of this game, I really do.

At 5.30 pm, I leave work as quickly and quietly as I can—noting on the way out that today’s Urban Warrior sartorial theme clearly failed miserably and I should rechristen it Andy’s Urban Victim—to head down to meet Bloomie in a bar about ten minutes’ from South Kensington tube station. I’d like to get a black cab, but can’t quite justify it. (I spend an inordinate amount of time justifying the expense of black cabs to myself. My two go-to excuses are that it’s late so the tube could be dangerous—which it never really is within Zone Two—or that I’m wearing very high heels.)

On the number 14 bus on the way down the Fulham Road, I try to talk myself into being in a good mood. Despite the universe throwing every happy loved-up person in London in my path tonight (how can they all find love and not me? How can the drab little beige thing in front of me be calling her boyfriend to say she’ll put dinner on for when he gets home? Why, damn it, why am I unable to achieve that?), it’s not actually that hard. I’m cheery by nature, I love after-work drinks, I love Bloomie and I love the place where we’re meeting. It’s a restaurant called Sophie’s Steakhouse, but we only ever go to the bar part. It’s not quite a pick-up joint, but not all couples; not too rowdy, but not too quiet; not too cool and not too boring. In short, it’s the perfect place for the freshly single.

I push past the heavy curtain inside the front door, and see
the usual young, rather good-looking West London crowd. There are some gorgeous men in here, as ever, though I know they’re probably a bit rah-and-Rugger-Robbie for me. A few floppy-haired Chelsea types in red corduroy trousers (where do they sell those things and how can we make them stop?), a couple of older business-type guys waiting alone in suits for wives or girlfriends, and I can sense, but not see, a group of five guys having an early dinner in the restaurant part, as they turn around to look at me as I come in. I know it’s only because, well, I’m female, but still. It’s gratifying. Especially today.

Bloomie is, as usual, about half an hour late, so I kill time reading the fun bits of the paper someone else has left behind (you know, the celebrity bits, and the movie and book reviews). As soon as she arrives we start as we always do: with a double cheek kiss and a double vodka.

Things move swiftly from there. I don’t want to get hammered tonight as it’s only Wednesday and payday isn’t for another ten days, but quite soon we start going outside for cigarettes (neither of us smokes, except in situations of extreme stress, like last night, or drinking, or, um, gossiping on a Saturday, or sometimes on the phone), which is a sure-fire sign we’re here for the long haul.

Before I know it, I’m slapping the table with one hand to emphasise my point (which point? Who can say? Any point! Pick a point, please) and making dramatic absolute statements that start with ‘I will NEVER’ and ‘There is no WAY’.

From drink one to two we talk about Posh Mark, from drink two to three we talk about Eugene (the extremely lovely guy she’s been dating for a few months. She calls him The Dork because who the sweet hell is called Eugene?), with a quick side-wind into talking about Bloomie’s recently-redundant-and-leaving-soon-to-travel-the-world flatmate Sara, from three to four we talk about the state of the economy. (Just kidding! We talk about Posh Mark and Eugene again. Obviously.) And then drink five hits.
And the thoughts that have been percolating in my brain all day tumble out.

‘Bloomie. Bloomster. Listen to me. I can’t do it again. I can’t do it again.’

‘What? Drink?’ Bloomie is writing The Dork a text, with one eye closed to help her focus.

‘No—I mean, yes, I’ll have another drink…um, yes, a double, please. I can’t…I can’t date anymore, I can’t do it, I’m useless at it and I can’t do it.’ I’m hitting the table so hard to emphasise every point that my hand starts tingling.

‘Get a grip, princess.’

‘Seven years of this shit, Blooms. Six failed relationships. I don’t want to do it anymore. I just want it all to go away.’

‘It’s seven years of bad luck, that’s all. Wait!’ Bloomie throws up her hands melodramatically. ‘Did you break a mirror when you were 21?’

‘I mean it…I can’t do it again. The whole dating thing is fucked. You see someone for ten minutes in a bar and they chat you up and ask you out, and boom! You’re dating, but how can you possibly know if they’re really right for you?’

‘Well, you hope for the best,’ shrugs Bloomie, with all the confidence of someone in a happy relationship.

‘No. I can’t bear it…The nausea, the hope, the waiting for him to call, the nausea, and on the rare occasions that everything is really good and he likes me and I like him, the nausea of waiting for him to dump me. As he will, because he always does, no matter who the fuck he is. I’ve done it too many times, and I look back on them all and feel so angry at myself for dating them in the first place…And have I mentioned the nausea?’

Bloomie looks at me and frowns.

‘Is this really about Rick? Because I swear to God, that guy was…’

‘No,’ I interrupt quickly. ‘Of course it is not. I am over him. I really think, I mean I know, I know I am over him.’

‘OK…’ she says doubtfully. ‘Why don’t you just concentrate on work for a few months and not worry about it? That’s what I did after Facebook guy and it was the best thing I could have done. And after Bumface. And The Hairy Back.’ These are her ex-boyfriends. She pauses.‘I always concentrate on work, actually.’ She starts to laugh. ‘Imagine if I hadn’t had such a shit lovelife! I’d never have had any promotions.’

I look at her and sigh. I’ve never had a promotion.

‘I am a failure at my job, Bloomie. Today was…’ I close my eyes. I can’t bear to think about work. I’ve told Bloomie about my inability to deal with Andy before, and she suggested ways to handle it, but I’m just not able to tackle things like she does. (I believe the technical term is ‘head on’.) ‘It’s nothing, it’s not worth even discussing. I should just quit my job. I’m so bad at it. I’m a failure! At everything!’ Oh, there goes the drama queen again. Sashaying away.

‘Hey. Come on. You’re great at your job,’ she says loyally, reaching a tipsy hand out for my shoulder. ‘Though I wish you’d be as ballsy with them as you are with us.’

I raise a doubtful eyebrow at her. ‘Being ballsy with my best friends isn’t exactly hard. It’s the rest of the world that’s difficult.’

‘I had a bad day too,’ says Bloomie supportively. ‘You know, this is the first time I’ve left work before 8 pm in a month. I hate it.’

She so doesn’t hate working late, but I’ll leave that. ‘Really? Are you OK? What’s happening?’ I take a sip of my drink. I’m hungry, but the drinks here are expensive, and dinner will have to wait till I get home.

‘Don’t you read the papers, darling?’ she says, laughing. I notice, for the first time, the bags beneath her eyes, and that her nails are uncharacteristically bitten. ‘It’s more that nothing good is happening…I just need to keep my head down and not lose my job.’

‘Oh, um…yes,’ I say, stirring my drink. When it comes to the world of finance, I’m clueless. Have the banks started collapsing again? I always picture them tumbling down piece by piece. ‘I’m sure you won’t lose your job, Blooms.’

‘Yeah, yeah, it’ll be fine,’ Bloomie says, making a batting-away motion with her hand. ‘And The Dork is an excellent distraction. That’s what you need. You need a Dork to distract you.’

‘No,’ I say, and sigh deeply. ‘I can’t make the right choices no matter what I do…It will never work out for me. Never. And I don’t want to try anymore.’

‘I know you,’ says Bloomie, laughing. ‘You say that now, but tomorrow you’ll see some hot dude in a bar and think, yes, please.’

‘Exactly! I even walked in here tonight checking the guys out and wondering which of them might ask me out. I really do think like that, and I’ve been single for less than 24 hours. What the hell is wrong with me? I’m in a vicious circle where my life revolves around dating, but dating is bad for my life. It’s called an addiction!’

‘No, it’s not. It’s called being a single in your 20s.’

‘Well, I’m over it,’ I say. ‘I’m sick and tired and fed up with the whole fucking thing. As God is my witness, I am not dating anymore.’

‘You’re not religious, Scarlett O’Hara,’ says Bloomie, poking her ice with her straw. ‘You’re not even christened.’

‘OK then, as Bloomie is my witness…’ I pause for a second, and slam both my hands down on the table so hard that the bartenders look over in alarm. ‘Yes! Yes! I will officially cease and desist from dating and everything to do with it from this moment forth. No more dating, no more dumpings. Officially. For real.’

‘No men?’

‘No men.’

‘No sex?’

‘No sex.’

‘No flirting?’

I pause for a second. ‘No obvious flirting. But I can still talk to guys…’

‘You need to draw up a no-dating contract, then.’

‘Do it,’ I say, taking out a cigarette and perching it in my mouth expectantly. ‘I’m cleansing my life of men. It’s a total testosterone detox. A dating detox. Shall we call it Dating Rehab?’

Bloomie snorts with laughter. ‘No let’s make it happier than that. We’ll call it the Love Holiday!’ says Bloomie happily, looking through her bag for a pen.

‘Love Holiday? That sounds like a Cliff Richard movie. No, it’s a…it’s a Sabbatical. A Dating Sabbatical.’

‘What if you meet the man o’ your dreams?’

I roll my eyes. ‘Come on. What are the odds of that?’

Bloomie cackles with laughter. ‘When will you know it’s over?’

‘Six months. That’s the average Sabbatical, right?’

‘Dude, seriously. That’s a long time to ignore real life, even for you.’

‘That’s the point…OK, three months,’ I grin.

‘Right, I need some paper. I’ll ask the bartender. Another drink?’

As Bloomie heads towards the bar, I gaze around, looking in delight at all the men I won’t be dating. I feel deeply relieved to have the whole issue taken away. I can’t believe I never thought of this before! I am brilliant! High-fives to me!

The next morning I wake up with a predictably dry and foul-tasting mouth. I open one eye, noting thoughtfully the crusty-eyelash sensation that means I demaquillaged imperfectly, and discover a piece of paper on my right breast. Naturally, dear reader, you’re one step ahead of me—I’d expect nothing less—and you know already that this piece of paper will be the list that I remember reading (with one eye shut, due to mild vodka-induced double-vision) as I went to sleep last night.

THE DATING SABBATICAL RULES

1. No accepting dates.
   
2. No asking men out on dates.
   
3. Obvious flirting is not allowed.
   
4. Avoid talking about the Sabbatical.
   
5. Talking about the Sabbatical is permitted in response to being asked out on a date. Until then it would just intrigue them and be another form of flirting and in fact be taken as a challenge.
   
6. No accidental dating, ie, pretending you didn’t arrange to meet them just for a movie or something when you blatantly did.
   
7. No new man friends. It is just as confusing. And it would open up opportunities for non-date-dates, ie,
   new-friend-dates, which are just the same as dates, when you get down to it.
   
8. Kissing is forbidden. Except under extreme circumstances, ie, male model slash comic genius is about to ship off to sea to save the world and as you say goodbye he starts to cry and says he never knew true love’s kiss.
   
9. Actually, if you meet a male model slash comic genius who is about to save the world, you can sleep with him. Otherwise keep your ladygarden free of visitors as it will complicate matters. None. At all.
   
10. No bastardos.
    

I signed it and Bloomie signed it. Our signatures have, unsurprisingly, slightly more flair than usual. In fact, I’ve added an ‘Esq’ to mine. Hmm.

What the hell is a ladygarden?

Shampoo, condition, fuck shaving the armpits, brush teeth extra thoroughly, no one will see my legs, to hell with exfoliating, towel, where the fuck is the moisturiser, who cares, deodorant, perfume. My sartorial motivation today is comfort. So I turn to some very old Levi 501s, a soothing, eight-year-old grey T-shirt I call Ol’ Grey, a brown cardigan, woolly socks and Converses. I look like a Smashing Pumpkins fan. A male one. In 1992. This isn’t working. Normally, when I doubt my outfit, I give myself the ‘if I think it works, it works’ speech, but I can’t make this one fly.

I take everything off and think for a moment. What else is comforting? Living in the 70s would be comforting, I think. No email or mobiles, you could smoke everywhere, and use a typewriter. How simple. So I put on some very flared blue jeans, a ribbed white top, my Converses again, pull my damp hair into a side plait, lace a mildly retro silk (polyester, whatever) scarf from H&M through the belt loops and tie in a side knot, and consider myself again. Ah yes. Vaguely Co-Ed 1972.
This will do fine. Thank fuck I work in advertising and can wear anything I want; if I had to put on a suit right now I’d slash my wrists…Make-up…hmm. My eyebrows are being blatantly annoying, and I don’t have the patience to deal with them today. Lots of mascara, some bronzer and blush to fake good health, lipbalm. I add a beige checked men’s coat I bought in a charity shop and voilà. Slightly watery-eyed, but not bad. I check my watch. It’s taken me twice as long to get ready today as yesterday. This is the reason that I don’t drink. (Much.)

On the tube on the way to work I ponder the Dating Sabbatical. Obviously, it’s kind of a silly idea. But also so easy. An easy way to put off dealing with being back in the singles game.

I could go on a Dating Sabbatical and nurse my aforementioned bruised heart—OK, OK, so it isn’t bruised and I didn’t really give Posh Mark much thought at all yesterday. (Jeez, you’re a tough crowd.) But my heart is very shy right now and it doesn’t feel like coming out to play for awhile. It would rather eat chocolate in the bath and read Jilly Cooper’s
Polo.

I open my lucky yellow clutch to take out the Dating Sabbatical Rules for a quick review, and pull out a bunch of receipts from drinks last night adding up to over £60. Yikes. I mentally add this to the spreadsheet I keep in my head of incomings and outgoings. (No, it’s not a foolproof way to plan my finances, but it works for me. Ish. Since I don’t earn much money, I have to make some sacrifices to spend as much as I like on what I consider essentials, like clothes and vodka and black cabs. So I don’t belong to a gym, never get my hair done, and spend almost nothing on things like, you know, food. I eat a lot of baked beans, tinned tuna, bananas and toast.)

I get to work, the perfect coffee in hand, and email Bloomie:

Duuuuuude. I’m still in.

She replies:

Ha, really? Fine. You can test it tomorrow night at Mitch’s party.

I reply:

Roger that.

I hide behind my computer all day. Andy doesn’t look at me once, and though I’m meant to talk to him about a new brief, I decide to send him an email about it when he’s out at lunch. I just can’t face him today.

I’m meeting up with Kate for dinner. She’s the third in our trifecta from university, but is slightly more absent from our social lives over the last year or so as she’s in a ridiculously stable long-term relationship. We meet near her work in Mayfair at The Only Running Footman, a pseudo-rustic pub. It’s packed with finance-type people drinking away their worries but we find a seat in the restaurant bit downstairs. I notice quite a few very good-looking men here. Shame I’m on a Dating Sabbatical and not looking, I remind myself.

Over burgers and beers I explain the theory of the Dating Sabbatical to Kate. She nods very seriously and poses relevant and poignant questions, all of which I answer with what’s becoming rather slick aplomb, till—

‘Alright, Sass. This all seems like a very you thing to do. But what if you meet someone you actually want to go out with?’

I pause, chip in the air.

‘How do you mean?’

‘What if you…you know, you meet someone you really, really fancy and want to go out with?’

‘A guy? That I fancy? And want to go out with?’

I’m flummoxed. This idea hadn’t even occurred to me. I haven’t met someone I
really
wanted to date in years. I just sort of do it as it seems like something to do. And if they’ve gone to the trouble of asking, unless I find them ugly or sleazy or loserish or I’m positive they’re a bastardo, then I think I should say yes, and then just see what happens. (Though this approach, as history shows, hasn’t really worked out.) But I can’t exactly tell Kate that. It sounds stupid.

‘Hmm…well…I guess I never
want
to go out with anyone till he asks me out. I might think someone across the bar is hot, or whatever, but I just don’t think about it much more than that till he’s made the first move. Why waste the energy?’

‘That seems kind of…reactive,’ says Kate carefully, dunking a chip in the huge dollop of English mustard at the side of her plate. It’s really weird how much she likes English mustard.

A little more about Kate: very pretty, very short and thus kind of adorable. Probably my sweetest friend. She and Bloomie and I have been close friends since about day one of university, when we met in halls, got hammered together on cider and discovered a shared love of Jeff Buckley (yep, such clichés). She grew up in a little town in Cambridgeshire, going to Brownies and riding horses, and still has that milk-fed prettiness such girls always get. Boys always loved her. Men love short women, have you ever noticed? I’m on the tall side, by the way. And I’ve never had a boyfriend tall enough to wear three-inch heels with. (Does my dating agony ever end, I ask you?) Sorry, back to Kate. She’s an accountant, though I don’t really know why, as she read Italian and French at university. She even spent a year in Florence. She’s always been a bit of a control freak, the person who makes plans weeks in advance and panics when things change unexpectedly. Perhaps that’s what accountants are like.

Kate lives with her boyfriend, a guy called Tray. Bloomie and I referred to him as Tray Nice when we first met him, then Tray Serious. Now it’s Tray Boring. He’s perfectly nice, but brings nothing to the conversational table. It’s not that I don’t like talking to him, exactly. It’s just that I like talking to everybody else a lot more. I guess they must have some crazy connection to make Kate stay with him for three years. As my dad always says, no one sees the game like the players. (He is a bottomless well of sporting/relationship analogies.) She seems pretty happy these days—a bit quieter and less prone to silliness than she used to be, and we don’t see her as much as we used to, but happy.

‘Did you like Tray before he asked you out?’

Kate squints in thought. ‘I don’t know…I just thought he seemed very intelligent and sort of…kind. Kind and interesting to talk to. And I’d decided I wanted that in my next boyfriend. Yeah, I guess I did like him first.’

‘And sexual chemistry?’

‘Oh, yes, yes, all that too,’ says Kate quickly. ‘And you know, I really was intent on having someone kind. I’d met so many, uh…bastardos. Remember Dick the Prick? And The Missing Link?’

I start laughing. Dick the Prick was a guy she met when she first moved to London, but he cheated on her and she dumped him. The Missing Link wasn’t awful, but he wasn’t particularly nice either. He was thick and pretty.

‘So after all your bastardos you decided to proactively find a clever non-bastardo?’

‘Uh…yes.’

‘That’s just like me and…’ I pause for a second to remember his name ‘…Posh Mark! He was kind!’

And thick, I add silently. Fuck me, I’m callous.

‘Yes, but I’m not sure how well suited you and Posh Mark ever were. Tray and I have a lot in common. I enjoy his company. He’s very intelligent,’ she adds. Again.

Hmm. She sounds a little Stepford Wife-y and she’s not meeting my eye, but I decide to agree with her.

‘You’re right. Lucky you, darling. So important to have someone kind and intelligent.’

There might be something wrong here, but I’m not going to push it. Kate doesn’t talk about her feelings unless she wants to. She has that nice reserved thing going on; not in a cold way—she’d do anything for any of us. I think it’s shyness. You never know if she’s really great or utterly miserable until she wants you to. I wish I wasn’t such an open book. My mother can read my mood by how many rings it takes me to answer the phone.

‘How are you feeling about Posh Mark, anyway, Sass?’ says Kate. I rang her on Tuesday night and bawled, embarrassingly.

‘Oh, fine,’ I say truthfully. ‘He was, you know, a life raft. Better than drowning in a sea of self-pity and vodka.’

‘Nicely put,’ grins Kate. ‘So where’s off the list now?’

‘Eight Over Eight, because that was our first date place,’ I say, taking a thoughtful bite of my burger. ‘And Julie’s, because we used to go there for brunch when we stayed at his place.’

‘Are there any brunch places near your place that aren’t tainted by ex-boyfriends by now?’ Kate says, laughing. She professes to not understand why I refuse to go back somewhere that reminds me of someone who dumped me. Especially as the list is getting slightly ridiculous.

‘None,’ I reply honestly. ‘Pimlico is one big no-go zone for me these days. I may have to move.’

We move on to gossiping about people we know, and talk about the party at Mitch’s place tomorrow night. The guestlist seems to be snowballing, with lots of people I haven’t seen in ages. Yay. I siphon off the back part of my brain and leave it to go through my wardrobe and plan an outfit. We finish our burgers, pay the bill and decide to go outside to finish our beers with a fag.

‘God, I miss smoking,’ sighs Kate.

‘Mwhy mdya qvit?’ I say, talking with my cigarette in my mouth as I light hers. So classy.

She takes a drag and exhales happily. ‘Tray hates it, and he IS right. It does kill you.’

‘Yes, he is right. It does.’

There seems nothing more to say. See? Even saying his name halts conversation.

‘How’s the world of accounting?’ I ask.

‘Scintillating,’ says Kate crisply. ‘At least I’ll never be out of a job, no matter what happens to the economy.’

‘Why?’

‘Accountants are always needed. We’re like prostitutes. One of the world’s oldest professions.’

This, from Kate, is outrageous. She’s in a funny mood tonight. Funny odd, not funny haha.

‘Oh well, that’s good,’ I say, starting to laugh. ‘What are you doing on Sunday? I’ve probably got the flat to myself all weekend as usual, so we could have an all-day movie fest. We’ll start with
Sixteen Candles
, then
Overboard’
—did I mention I have a thing for Goldie Hawn? I totally do—‘then
Dirty Dancing
, then
Pretty Woman
, then
13 Going On 30.
Holy shit, that film makes me cry.’

‘
13 Going on 30
makes you CRY?’

‘Yes. Whenever Jennifer Garner cries I lose it. I don’t know what it is. I saw her cry on
Alias
once, and I had only just flicked over from another channel, so I had no idea what was going on, and I cried my arse off…though we could sub in
Old School
and end on a high. Marvellous film.’

‘Marvellous,’ agrees Kate happily. ‘Don’t you feel, though, that chick flicks are all the same?’

I splutter in mock outrage.

‘The SAME?’

‘Yah, you know…the same. They all kind of suck.’

‘So? Christmas kind of sucks and is always the same, too. Do you hate Christmas?’

Kate starts to laugh. ‘No…’

‘Actually, chick flicks DON’T suck. In fact, Katiepoo, the chick flick is a formula designed to satisfy, but always with small subtle variations. The girl is somehow identifiable. The guy is somehow unattainable.’ I start to warm to my argument. ‘There is fashion. There is a dancing scene. There is some kind of klutzy friend, though sometimes the heroine is a klutz too. Then somewhere along the line, there is a fear that he’s messed up forever and has to prove himself to her to win her love.’

Kate nods. ‘Yah. I picked the plot up. When I was six.’

‘In fact, forget Christmas. Chick flicks are like all my favourite things in life—burgers! Really high heels! Weekends in New York! Sexual encounters! Every single one is different, but has the same essential components and is—hopefully—equally pleasing!’