‘Come on!’ I give his arm a gentle tug. He groans as we head down the side road.
Milano’s is the opposite of Wall Street’s sleek pretentious bars. Every surface behind the bars is covered with flags, beer mats and stickers for everything from workers’ unions to biker associations. The place seems to have a total aversion to leaving any inch of wall uncovered. In the seating area, the walls are plastered with blurry pictures taken of punters over the years, photographed by other drinkers who weren’t able to keep a steady hand. Everyone’s smiling in the pictures and looks relaxed, if a little wasted. The Rolling Stones are playing on a jukebox and a TV flickers on the wall in the background. A few solitary drinkers perch at the bar nursing pints, chatting to one another. They look like they’re probably regulars. Gabe raises an eyebrow and I can tell it’s not quite his kind of establishment.
‘Oh, come on. Drinks on me!’ I suggest.
‘Fine,’ Gabe sighs as I order two pints. The barmaid sings along to the song on the jukebox as she pours each one. She’s totally un-self-conscious and I’m already liking the laid-back vibe of the bar. I pay her, tipping generously even though I can’t really afford to. I hand Gabe a pint and we head to one of the tables in the corner. We take off our coats and sit down.
‘So, how’s office life?’ Gabe asks as he sips his pint.
‘Weird,’ I admit, filling him in on my meeting with Olly. I whinged to him last night about having to be a mystery shopper while I selected my terrible outfit. Naturally, Gabe didn’t approve. He already thinks my job is a bit dodgy and the fact that I was being asked to go and spy on a rival business was just another level of shadiness that he wasn’t on board with.
I tell him about Olly, from his impressive offices and effortless charm to his weirdly clinical approach to dating.
‘It felt so prescriptive and formulaic, he had a checklist for everything – height, income, diet – and then he ticked a load of boxes for the criteria that apply to my ideal man,’ I tell Gabe, taking a sip of my pint. ‘It was just so heartless and unromantic.’
Gabe shrugs. ‘Relationships aren’t all fireworks. Sometimes those kinds of things do matter.’
I wrinkle my nose. ‘When you met Adam, you weren’t like, “And how much do you earn? Would you describe yourself as a social drinker or regular drinker? And are you a night owl or an early bird?” No! You just felt a connection. You had a spark!’
‘Well, yeah…’ Gabe’s eyes go momentarily wistful and I expect he’s thinking back to how he and Adam met – they bumped into each other in Starbucks. Literally bumped into each other. Gabe was looking down at his phone and accidentally walked straight into Adam, who was also distracted, causing Adam’s green matcha latte to spill all over Gabe’s shirt. After Adam flirtatiously helped him clean himself up in the bathroom, they ended up having lunch together and swapping numbers. Gabe was so excited when he got back that evening. He didn’t just have a spark with Adam, he had fireworks. I’d seen him have crushes on guys before, but I’d never seen him quite as into anyone as he was with Adam.
‘You just followed your heart. You didn’t reduce Adam to a set of criteria,’ I say.
‘No,’ Gabe admits, taking a sip of his drink, ‘but criteria are important, and the reason Adam and I work is because he does tick a lot of boxes too. If he’d just been gorgeous, but didn’t happen to have a good job, a similar lifestyle and whatever else, then perhaps we wouldn’t have lasted as long as we have. These check boxes are important when it comes to long-term relationships and not just flings. That’s your problem, Polly, you just want the cute exhilarating moment when your eyes lock with someone across a crowded room. You want electricity and excitement. But attraction fades. You need someone who’s actually compatible or otherwise things will keep fizzling out after a few weeks.’ Gabe finishes his drink. ‘Want another?’ he suggests.
I look down at my glass, which is two thirds empty. ‘Sure.’
Gabe gets up and heads over to the bar, leaving me to mull over his words. Although he’s being a bit unfair when he says my relationships only last weeks (one lasted three months!), he is kind of right. I do tend to focus on romantic sparks, probably at the expense of compatibility. I like the magic of fancying someone, when you first meet someone new and they just seem like the best person in the world. I love flirting, going on dates and building up to the first kiss. I adore the thrill of getting intimate with someone I’m really drawn to – the chemistry of not being able to keep your hands off each other. I love it when everything’s sparkly and new. In fact, Gabe’s right, I’m a honeymoon-phase addict. I’m pretty good at finding people I fancy, but things always do go downhill when I realise that the person I found utterly gorgeous and charming actually has intolerable flaws. Like my last sort-of boyfriend, Aaron. We were together for two months, the sex was amazing and we’d have these awesome cosy nights cooking for each other and going for walks holding hands through the city. It was so romantic until one day, we were walking hand-in-hand through Central Park when a cute little dog ran up to us. I was about to kneel down to pet him when Aaron kicked him away, like he was a pest. I couldn’t believe it! All this time, I’d been dating a guy who thought it was acceptable to kick dogs. I never saw him again after that.
Then there was Luke – an Australian chef – who seemed like a great catch. He was tall, attractive and smart, and we got along great until he made a few passing comments that just didn’t sit right. He got sick and ended up needing his appendix removed. He forked out for a senior surgeon. I assumed it was for the extra expertise, but he admitted that he ‘felt more comfortable in the hands of a man’. I told him to go find the hands of a man because this woman was done.
Actually, maybe Gabe’s right. Maybe successful relationships do only work if you’ve got a mental checklist of criteria and instead of being blinded by butterflies in your stomach and raw physical attraction, you start off by assessing your partner’s compatibility, rather than focusing on how pretty the city looks at night as you stroll hand-in-hand trying to pretend life is like a Hollywood movie.
‘What’s up?’ Gabe arrives back at the table holding a tray with a few more drinks and a couple of shots.
‘I was just thinking about what you said.’ I sigh as I pick up a drink, muttering thanks. ‘I suck at relationships.’
‘Well, your track record isn’t the best,’ Gabe agrees, as he places the tray down on the table. ‘But who am I to judge. After all, you’re the matchmaker, not me!’ He winks as he sits down.
‘Me, a matchmaker,’ I tut. It’s like you trying to be a…’ I look at Gabe’s skinny effete frame. ‘A bodybuilder.’
Gabe smiles. ‘Bit harsh, but true Or you, trying to be a chartered surveyor!’ Gabe jokes. ‘By the way, did Olly buy it?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I admit as I reach for a shot.
We clink our shot glasses together and then down them in one, before wincing.
‘Yuck!’ I comment.
‘Bleughh!’ Gabe pulls a face.
His phone buzzes and he picks it up off the table.
‘Sanjay,’ he explains, opening a message. Sanjay was our boss, although he feels more like a pal, from The Eagle. Gabe sends a few messages while I sip my drink, trying to get rid of the taste of the shot.
‘Sanjay’s with Jim, shall I invite them?’ Gabe suggests. Jim’s another one of our old workmates.
‘Yeah, why not?’ I shrug as I take another sip of my drink.
I haven’t seen Sanjay and Jim for a couple of months and it would be good to catch up. Jim works behind the bar. He’s been working at The Eagle for years, while freelancing as a web designer. He likes to go on about coding and programming languages but he’s a sweet mild-mannered guy with old-school gentlemanly values. Whenever we used to work together, he’d always serve the rowdy customers, sparing me the aggro when