Dan Taylor Is Giving Up On Women. Neal Doran
Читать онлайн книгу.
I’m done. I quit,’ I announced. ‘I’m giving up on women. I’ve had enough. I can’t do it so I’m not going to try. I’ll become a spinster. Some people have no ear for music; some people aren’t natural athletes. Some — down to some inborn absence of hand-eye coordination — can’t do things that come fairly naturally to everyone else, like riding a bike or driving a car. I’m clearly naturally deficient in the pheromones that make men attractive to women, so I’m just going to accept it, and move on.’
‘But, sport, you can’t do any of those other things either. What are you leaving yourself with?’ asked Rob.
I gave a small shrug. The idea of the romantic loner was fermenting in my head. Me in a big house, listening to Radio 4 all the time and arguing with an ethereal John Humphrys. Lots of couple friends coming over for elaborately prepared dinner parties. The neighbours admiring the slightly mysterious figure next door:
‘Never married, you say?’
‘Some say his fiancée died saving a child from a terrorist atrocity…’
‘You don’t think he’s actually, you know…?’
‘No, he just likes to look smart, and throws legendary Eurovision parties.’
‘OK, I’m not having this,’ Rob said, cutting in on my daydreaming. ‘Bollocks to this quitting talk. You’re a decent bloke, you’re kind and you care about people. Any day now your female peers are going to wake up and realise they need to stop chasing bastards, and find the kind of guy that’s going to get up to do three a.m. nappy changes and supply foot rubs on demand. And you’re going to be in your element. We know you’re a great guy, and it’s about time the rest of the world caught up. And frankly, if you do pursue a life of solitude it’s just going to mean you spend even more time at ours, which will get old very quickly.’
‘He’s got a point, you know,’ agreed Hannah, ‘not about being at ours — you’re more welcome than he is half the time — but it does sound a little drastic. And there are millions of women who’d be lucky to have you.’
‘And we’re going to find you one,’ Rob said with a finger click. ‘We’re taking control of your entire romantic life.’
‘Ooh!’ said Hannah, rapidly embracing the idea. ‘We could do that, couldn’t we?’
‘Absolutely, dollface. All decision-making taken out of your hands. All choices made by us.’
‘Oh! Oh! Oh! We can practise you doing chat-up lines and tell you what you have to wear!’
‘We handle the details. You just show up and be yourself.’
‘Yes! You’d have to come back and tell us absolutely everything!’
‘Like he doesn’t already. We’ll get you loads of dates. H’s address book must be loaded with single girls we can easily set you up with for starters.’
‘Oh.’ Hannah slammed on the brakes. ‘Well, I’m not sure how many of them are really on the lookout at the moment, or not already loved-up. But, anyway, we probably don’t want to just take the easy option, now, do we?’
To that point, my spirits had been rising again. I gave Hannah a look.
‘Don’t worry, it’ll be great!’ she continued, recovering her enthusiasm. ‘We can be Team Dan, and have a secret handshake and special T-shirts.’
The two of them started talking about how they could orchestrate a campaign that, from what I could gather, would turn me into one of London’s most eligible bachelors. And make them rich from having tumbled upon the next big reality TV transformation show.
‘I dunno, guys. I’m… I just said I’d had enough of the humiliation that goes with putting yourself out there on a limb only to be judged wanting by the opposite sex, and your plan is get out there and be humiliated more? But with you two at home taking notes to work up into a full report on the subject?’
‘That’s not it at all,’ said Hannah, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze. ‘It’s really hard to find someone, and we know it’s tough out there — Christ, you should try it as a woman — but we’d be right there to support you. Nobody’s being humiliated, here.’
‘Unless we do decide to send you out to try it as a woman. That might be quite humiliating,’ added Rob.
‘I do have the best legs at this table, though,’ I pointed out.
‘I know. Bastard,’ replied Hannah with eyes narrowed to slits. With a wink she gave me a gentle kick under the table.
‘Really, sport, it’ll be cool. It’s like a big dare. But look at the qualities that make you great. You worry about other people’s feelings, and all that nice stuff. But that’s what stopping you getting in there with women, and where the arseholes and wankers have an edge on you. And everybody is an arsehole or a wanker, so you’re coming in last. Who else do you think would’ve bottled shagging a pneumatic hottie because they were worried about a case of misrepresentation?’
‘Don’t listen to him for moral advice,’ warned Hannah. ‘He’d amputate his right leg and claim to be a bomb-disposal expert to get in your position. But I would say this. You’ve been trying the same thing for years and years, and seem surprised every time it’s proved to not work. We’re just going to help you try some things that are different. What we’re doing is putting you through dating boot camp.’
They really were beginning to think of this as a TV show.
At the first sign of actually having fun, a disapproving waiter descended upon us like a soot cloud. He asked in a barely perceptible French accent — and using only marginally more polite language — if there was anything else we wanted, or would we hop it and stop spoiling the carefully designed corporate ambience of doom? We ordered lattes all round, and pulled faces behind his back.
Taking advantage of the lull in conversation, Rob grabbed his fags and headed outside for a quick smoke before his coffee.
Hannah and I sat silently for a while. It wasn’t that we didn’t have anything to say to each other — we could talk on the phone and email happily about night-out plans or just general nonsense — it was just that when we’d all been hanging out together and there was a sudden absence of Rob, the atmosphere changed. I didn’t know quite how to describe it but the mood was calmer, somehow warmer.
‘Are you all right, really?’ Hannah asked as our glasses of coffee arrived.
‘Myeh.’ I shrugged.
‘You did the right thing, you know.’
‘Hn. Eventually…I let it slide for too long. Thought she might have been into me ‘cos of my sparkling badinage and her good old-fashioned New Year’s Eve drunkenness. But I guess she was thinking of a consolation bunk-up for a sweet old near-widower.’
‘Sounds to me like you were doing all right before the “fiancée” came up.’
‘Maybe. But there’s been enough times when I’ve been the lovely guy at the party who goes off to get the cute girl’s coat so she can go home with the cocky bastard who’s drunk all the decent booze and puked in the houseplants.’
‘Cor, I remember those guys.’
‘And then you married one.’
She smiled affectionately, with the slightest hint of a blush, as we remembered the first time the three of us met — a student party in Manchester. And I’d met Hannah first.
Then she got her sympathetic-advice face back on.
‘You know, we’ve watched you trying to get back out there these last few years, and I just wanted to say — there’s being nice, and there’s being a doormat. There’s waiting for signs and hints, and there’s clutching at straws with totally the