‘So, anyone want to start the ball rolling?’ said Aggie, executive producer of the show and my direct boss, kicking off her high heels like she always does before settling down to business. She’s fabulous, Aggie; takes no nonsense and doesn’t sugarcoat things. One of those straight talking, ‘lean in’ women of the Sheryl Sandberg school, utterly unafraid to make tough calls and not in the least bothered about what other people think of her. For God’s sake, this is a woman who’s let her hair go completely white/grey. Voluntarily. Yet every one of us sitting round that table would think of her less as a boss and more of a friend, if that makes any sense. A boss-friend, if you will.
‘Oh you know what? I read a really juicy one over the weekend,’ Dermot piped up from right beside me. Dermot’s my best buddy round here; he’s about my own age, and like me was recently cut back from being a full-time researcher to just part-time. So he and I are in exactly the same boat and both of us continue to gamely pitch up to work on days we’re effectively not getting paid for. Except in Dermot’s case he really drives the point home by turning up on his freebie days in arse-clinging lycra and tight spandex gym tops. Subliminal message; ‘Just so you all know, I had to drag myself away from a treadmill for this.’
‘Go on,’ said Aggie, tapping a biro off the notepad in front of her.
‘Ok, so it’s about a new epidemic of false widow spiders that’s sweeping parts of the country,’ said Dermot, swinging back in his chair, arms folded, almost with a thought balloon coming out of his head saying, ‘Bloody well pay me for being here and I’ll fill you in some more.’
‘False widow spiders?’ said Aggie, to a few disgusted ‘eughhhs!’ from around the table.
‘Yeah, well apparently there was a women in Cork who had to be hospitalized because she was bitten by one,’ Dermot went on, undeterred. ‘So her doctors told her this was one of several cases that had presented over the last few days … and you know, the false widow uses humans as a host to hatch their eggs in, so it’s all pretty Alien when you think about it, really …’
‘Nah, forget it,’ said Aggie, cutting him off mid-sentence. ‘Sorry, but several cases does not an epidemic make.’
Another chorus of voices all clamoring to be heard while Sally, our red-haired, red-faced assistant producer almost banged the table for attention with her usual righteous ferocity.
‘Heart disease in women!’ she’s saying in her strident Belfast accent, but then Sally’s personal bugbear is any topic related to health, with particular reference to the general crappiness of the public health service down here in the Republic.
‘This new report shows that women are now thirty percent more likely to have a heart attack then men!’ she half growled, waving a piece of paper threateningly the way she always does, no matter what the story. We’re just all well used to her round here by now.
‘I’m sure you all read it over the weekend?’
‘Oh yeah, right. Glued to it, I was,’ said Dermot flatly. ‘Made for an unforgettable Saturday night in. My, my Sally, what an exciting life you must lead.’
‘And yet most women still remain more focused on their partner’s health than their own,’ Sally insisted, ignoring him, getting redder and hotter in the face and with a vein bulging out of her forehead that looks almost ready to replicate life. ‘This is the kind of story that a show like ours should be covering. Urgently!’
‘And we will, don’t you worry,’ said Aggie placatingly, but then she’d seen overheated performances like this countless times before and knew exactly how they should be handled. ‘It’s just that I’d like to kick-start the week with … let’s just say, something a little lighter, to hook in our listeners. So what else have we got, people?’
A chorus of ‘well, Christmas is just a few weeks away, what about …?’ and ‘Oh no, I’ve a gem right here … straight from the National Enquirer!’ followed, with everyone battling for the star prize of Aggie’s attention. But none of the pitches really hooked her, so when there was a moment of calm she took a glug out of the Starbucks mug in front of her and said ‘Holly? You’ve gone unusually quiet on me this morning. So come on, what have you brought to the table?’
Suddenly all eyes were focused my way and I was on.
I took a half a beat just to formulate my thoughts. And then decided feck it, might as well go for it. After all, this was the sole thought that had utterly consumed me over the past week so why not make the most of it?
‘Well …’ I began tentatively, addressing the room.
‘Shoot,’ said Aggie, pen poised on the pad in front of her.
‘Ok, so here’s what I was thinking,’ I said eyeballing her directly. ‘Given that the stigma which used to be attached to internet dating has now all but entirely worn off, how about we run a segment about …’
‘Oops! Can I just say something here?’ interrupted Maia, or as she’s known around here, Maia Mars Bars. Reason? Because as Dermot put it, ‘that one is just a bit too sweet to be wholesome’. One of those women who’s just a degree too over-charming to your face, but then you’ll hear it on good authority that she’s been bitching about you behind your back to other people on the team. She’s done it so often, and to so many of us, that we’re all well wise to her by now.
‘I’m so sorry to interrupt you mid-flow, Holly,’ she smiled angelically across the boardroom table at me, all shiny chestnut hair that I’d swear she adjusts entirely in accordance with how Kate Middleton is wearing hers this weather. ‘But we’ve done it already. Internet dating, that is. We ran with it only last October, in fact. I remember it distinctly because it was actually me who pitched it. So sorry, Holly.’
‘If you’d just let me finish?’ I smiled sweetly back at her. ‘I was about to say that this wouldn’t just be about hooking up with someone online. It’s more than that. Given that anyone can now access these dating sites and get chatting, messaging or even taking things to the next level …’
‘The next level?’ Dermot teased. ‘Ha! You should try Grindr. Where there is no “next level”.’
Dermot, like myself you see, would be a great advocate for online dating. Except in his case, the sites he’d be on would be more like Gaydar, Hotmen and the like. Which, according to him, are all about sex and instant hook-ups rather than long-term relationships, and all the better for it. I gave him a pretend-y slap on the wrist, but kept on going anyway, undeterred.
‘… Well what if you do meet The One, but he lives on the other side of the world? What then? OK, so you’ve got Skype and email and you can Snapchat all you like, but my question is … how easy or difficult is it to sustain a long-distance relationship with someone who you’ve only ever met virtually? After all, this kind of thing is changing our whole dating scene quite dramatically and I’m certain there must be plenty of couples out there who’ve been in that position and yet who’ve made it work, in spite of everything.’
‘Hmm,’ Aggie nodded thoughtfully. ‘It’s certainly a new take on the whole dating thing, alright. Long-distance online relationships; pitfalls and advantages of. Go on,’ she said, eyeballing me beadily. ‘Keep talking.’
‘We could get callers on to chat about how they’ve built up a relationship, even though they’re divided by continents,’ I went on, encouraged that she hadn’t shut me down mid-flow. Not yet, at least. ‘Couples who say they met their soulmate online and refused to be put off by the fact that they lived in different countries. After all, if you’re going to limit the people you date online to just anyone who lives geographically close to you, then let’s face it, you’re fishing in a pretty shallow