Page 10 of Is She Really Going Out with Him?
“So even if it tastes like Parma ham and it looks like Parma ham, if it’s not from Parma, then it’s not Parma ham, and you can’t label it as such,” Richard says, putting his pint down with a bang to punctuate his point. I scramble to pick up the threads of this conversation as I realize my mind has drifted to memories of cycling into a brick wall.
“So, you’re the ham police,” I say, trying to look enthusiastic.
“Technically, my title is ‘management and safeguarding of product regulation,’ ” he says proudly. “I work across the whole EU.”
“Have you ever busted into a warehouse waving a gun, shouting, ‘Come out with your hams up!’ Ha ha,” I laugh, pleased with my own joke, but Richard remains stony-faced.
“We’re not armed. It’s a desk job. We enforce the rules through legal channels. Correction: I did once do a warehouse certification course, but we were there to learn, not to arrest anyone.”
“Right, no, I was joking,” I say, attempting a self-deprecating eye roll. Then I worry the eye roll might be interpreted as petulance, so I tack on a maniacal grin.Why are facial expressions so hard to get right?Subtly checking my watch, I calculate that I’ve been on this date for seventeen minutes.Is that all?Kelly tells me that an hour and a half is the absolute minimum you need to stay if you don’t want to appear rude. But I’ve already been on two other dates this week and I’m physically and mentally exhausted. On Wednesday I met Phil, thirty-four. He smelled of changing rooms and lectured me on nuclear fuel, though I couldn’t work out whether he was for or against. After an hour he said he had to go because he had a dog waiting for him at home. He didn’t suggest meeting again.
On Friday, I met David, forty-three, who “plays the saxophone, is a Gemini, likes monogamy and solo camping.” He told me I looked like “Mila Kunis on a bad day,” explained he was divorced—“no kids, thank God”—then started an inappropriate line of questioning about childbirth and how it had affected me “down there.” I left, telling him I had a dog waiting for me at home. I didn’t suggest we meet again.
Online dating is exactly what I feared it would be, and it’s made me feel a thousand times worse about being single. At home, alone on my sofa, I can delude myself into thinking that if Iwantedto meet someone, I could. Now I see that might not bethe case. Everyone normal is taken, online dating is horrible. I will die alone. I need to start contributing more to my pension. I should start weight training, so I can stay mobile well into my eighties.
Looking across at Richard, I try to evaluate whether this is a bad date, like the others, or whether I’m simply out of practice. Objectively, Richard is a good-looking human. He has a sharp blond hairstyle, tanned skin, and the kind of arms you only get from either being a professional woodsman or spending an unhealthy amount of time at the gym. But while he looks good, there’s something unnervingly cold about him. He’s like the villain’s henchman in a Bond movie, the guy who skis cross-country shooting at 007. He gets killed in the first five minutes, but no one really cares. He probably doesn’t even get credited with a name at the end, he’s just Henchman One, Richard from Bumble.
“So, remind me what you do, Anna?” Richard asks while signaling to the waiter for another round of drinks.Should I order a coffee to stop myself from yawning?
“I sell counterfeit Parma ham on the dark web,” I tell him, and Richard’s brow furrows. “No. Um, no. I am a journalist.” I pause. “Remember? We had a long conversation about it over text?”
Richard flushes. “Oh, right, yes, I’m online with a few people so it’s hard to keep track of people’s particulars.”
“Of course. Me too,” I say, reaching for my wine, even though I’ve just put it down.
In my urgent quest for a column, I replied to a handful of men who lived within a two-mile radius and were able to meet ASAP. David and Phil’s messages were fine, perfunctory, but I had higher hopes for Richard. His messages were excellent, his response time perfect. He asked me questions and gave thoughtful answers. We had a long back-and-forth about journalistic integrity. Honestly, given how good he was at messaging, I am surprised, even a little disappointed, to find how awkward thisevening has been. In person, there is none of the warmth and intelligence he conveyed online.
“We had that conversation about the role of the BBC, remember?” I say, hoping to prompt his memory.
“Oh, right, yeah.” Richard scratches his neck, avoiding my gaze. “The thing is—and I’m going to be honest now, Annie, because it’s good to start things on the right note, isn’t it?”
Is it worth telling him that I hate being called Annie? Probably not. There’s a window of opportunity where you can correct someone who calls you the wrong name; after that, you have to either never see them again or just be that new name forever. “Because I’m so busy, it’s hard for me to engage with online dating in the way I’d like to,” Richard explains. “My day starts at six a.m. and often doesn’t end until past eleven.”
“Oh, do you have kids too?” I ask.
“No, I have a training regime.” Richard flexes his arm muscle to illustrate. The prospect of talking to Richard about bench presses and dead lifts makes me hanker for the heady excitement of the Parma ham conversation. “And I don’t know if it’s the same for you, but as a man, you need to engage in a lot of back-and-forth before anything materializes into a real-life meetup. Of those, only a few will turn out to be viable candidates.”Viable candidates? Is he conducting a lab experiment?
“Right,” I say, nodding slowly.
“It’s a numbers game. You need to put the time in, and there’s never enough time.”
“Never.” I finish my wine with a wince. It tastes like mulled sawdust.
“Hence, I outsource some of the initial back-and-forth. You probably won’t believe this, but I used to have trouble securing that first meeting in the flesh.”
The way he says “flesh” makes me flinch. “What do you mean? A friend helps you?” I ask nervously.
“Kind of,” Richard mutters, eyes glued to his pint. “There’s this app that can field messages for you.” He pauses, a flash of embarrassment crossing his henchmanly face.
“What, like AI?” I ask, and he nods.
“I’m only telling you this because we’re getting on so well. Obviously, I won’t use the app to text you now that we’ve met in person.”
“Obviously.”
Right. So, the nice, inquisitive guy I’ve been chatting with for the last few days was a computer. Well, it’s a column. Even if it makes me feel so depressed I want to throw my phone in a blender, it’s a column.
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