‘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