Miles’s smiling face popped up on another dating site this week, one he’d freshly joined, and so I sent him a message via their system, just saying hello. He’d said he wanted to be friends. He didn’t, though.
Back came the reply: “I’m sorry again that I disappeared on you. I felt overwhelmed. To be honest, all that stuff about wanting to be stitched into someone else’s life was kind of claustrophobic.”
It wasn’t that, Miles. It was my body – tell the truth, I said aloud to the screen, but didn’t write. So it wasn’t really my not conforming to his type. It was my neediness that damned me.
I asked what was wrong with wanting to be stitched into someone else’s life, if the stitching was mutual and contented. He said that living alone had taught him that he needs to be fundamentally independent. Shared meals, evenings, nights, should be a matter of choice: surely that was a truly liberated way of life? When I argued with this, he interpreted my scepticism as a proposition.
“I can’t offer what you want,” he wrote. “And nice though it is to hear from you, I can’t offer you a date either.”
I wasn’t looking for a date. “I’m not looking for a date, but thanks. Just saw your face pop up here and thought I’d say hello. All the best. Good luck.”
When I logged into another website that I’m registered on, there was a message from him. He’d joined the day before, found me and written to say he thought we should have that lunch at his house and see what happens. But that was before we’d had the conversation we’d just had. “I don’t imagine this invitation still stands,” I replied. He did not answer.
Then, there was an email from Lee, the Austrian, saying that he regretted we hadn’t met, in the end, and that we should have had the conversation about femininity face to face as it might have turned out differently. We would have smiled while we argued. We would have enjoyed the debate. Good relationships need friction, after all, he said. How about a drink? OK, I said. A drink. Why not. When, where? He didn’t reply. I wrote again. “Just name the day. Name the date.” Then I laughed a lot at my own joke.
The culmination of this series of blasts from the past was a dating site message from Peter. It was as if I’d conjured him up by thinking about him, my long-distance disappointment of February. Peter has my email address and mobile number, but opted for the formality of the site email system.
“Hello again. How’s it going for you?” he asked blandly. I told him it was going fine. He launched in to an account of his life since he’d kissed my head and got on a train and dumped me. He’d had a few short-term relationships. He’d thought he’d found “the one”, and then it turned out she wasn’t. They’d got on each other’s nerves. He’d realised that he needed to stop chasing the pretty girls and think about the intellectual fit. “And so – why are you contacting me again, Peter?” I asked him. “Have I been held in reserve until the wind changed?” There was no answer to that.
I put on some lipstick and a red frock and went to the pub to meet Lance. Lance is short and plain and bald; he’d written a funny message admitting to these failings and listing his good points. (One was that he couldn’t make up his mind about Marmite, and thus was an original thinker, which made me smile.)
At the pub, Lance was already ensconced in a corner and had bought a bottle of wine. We drank it. He was dressed as if he was about to go down into a ravine with Bear Grylls. We didn’t have much to talk about. Eventually he looked at his watch for the fourth time and said he had an early start, and should go home.
Outside, he kissed me on the cheek, and said, “Look, I’m not sure, I have to be honest.”
I said that was fine, and off we went in our different directions. That’s what most internet dates are like. That’s what most of mine are like. They are just not very interesting to read about.
Stella Grey is a pseudonym
