In an age of online dating, where everyone’s laying (nearly) all their cards on the table, and you can while away happy hours window shopping for a mate via the Guardian, Match or whichever other virtual shopping mall you’re frequenting, I’m still no clearer on the etiquette of Being Asked Out.
Friends of mine who’re internet dating face a daunting array of winks, pokes, prods, the vaguest of emails saying, ‘Hi’ or, if unlucky, really basic propositioning. Which is pretty shit – if someone just winked at you in a bar, and then left it at that, you’d ignore them. Why do men online think this approach is going to net them a different result? I know it’s a numbers game, and god knows, numbers games are exhausting (especially for anyone as numerically challenged as I am – if given a £5 note and asked for change based on the fact the item cost £4.50, I can just about manage), but really, wouldn’t it be easier all round if you just put in some initial effort? Like, send an actual email – something along the lines of, ‘you seem nice/interesting/there, would you like to go for a drink?’ Because this is the other thing that my friends have said happens a lot – you email for a while, and they still don’t actually ask you out. Which is surely the point of all this – I doubt anyone’s going into it to get a virtual pen-friend. Emails are exchanged, to the point where eventually, someone says, ‘so, shall we meet up?’ Then it becomes a lengthy back and forth of saying, ‘yes, that would be nice’ and then seemingly it’s a huge effort to get them to actually say, ‘Thursday is good for me’. And then, of course, there’s the supplementary, ‘Where shall we go?’ discussion.
I keep telling one friend to just suggest a date and a venue, because a lot of men seem too shit to get it together on either front. Given the numbers game element, and the likelihood there will be little to no ‘spark’ (or one or other of you has lied about your weight, height, degree of hair loss or actual face in the photos, rendering even a second date pointless), I’d imagine it’s best to set up a date asap, just so that you can move onto the next one all the faster. If you’re on a dating website, the aim is clear: find someone to go out with. So why this endless hesitation and procrastination? It’s mystifying. You’re all there wanting to be asked out. So ask people out. Given that men seem to be so backward in coming forward, is it thus OK if us girls effectively do all the asking? If they’re not acting on their hunter/gatherer impulses and pursuing you, then does that mean generations of conditioning viz women not being ‘forward’ and sitting around like Jane Austen spinsters waiting to have their dance cards filled has also disappeared?
It’s a quandary for the modern laydee. We’re used to being pro-active in most spheres, even if we don’t necessarily get what we want all the time (I’m thinking in particular of pay rises, which are notoriously difficult to achieve, ironically, in the female-dominated arts and media business in which I ply my trade). But when it comes to being asked out, I’m still really, really old fashioned. I have read The Rules (I read it for work; I laughed at it; I couldn’t help still thinking that some elements of it were probably true). I’ve also read He’s Just Not That Into You, which is terrible, and how it became a book is anyone’s guess, when it’s a 5 minute section of dialogue in one episode of Sex and the City. (Don't get me onto the film, which I have inexplicably seen about three times now, and which is even worse.) But, I do think the premise that, if someone’s into you, then they’ll call/email/text you is sound. But how long does one wait to be called/emailed/texted, before you think, ‘sod it, I might as well call/email/text them’? And is it worse to beat yourself up for being spineless and waiting, or beat yourself up for being ‘a bit full on’ and getting in contact with them first?
Generally speaking, this isn’t a problem for me. I very rarely get chatted up, other than by cabbies, who, the minute they establish you’re single (the last one I had went through, ‘So, are you married? Kids? Boyfriend? Girlfriend?’ – the whole gamut) declare merrily, ‘Oh, but you get chatted up all the time, right?’ Umm, what alternative London do you live in? Just because you talk to people all day, doesn’t mean that anyone else does. If there’s one thing that London’s famed for, it’s the fact that no-one here talks to each other. But recently, there have been a couple of instances where I’ve had to decide whether or not to break my own (daft, old fashioned) rules.
So, first off, I have finally moved out of The House of Tiny Tearaways and back into my old spinster pad up the road. I was actually a bit sad about it, as I was, despite all assumptions to the contrary, really enjoying living with a bunch of people I didn’t know, several of whom were men. Men who were all modern, and did things like cooking and ironing. (Things that, by the way, I very rarely do; I became famed for my adherence to only cooking omelettes). They were chatty, they were nice, one of them was endearingly weird. It felt as though I almost had some friends who were blokes. (Well, I went out to a party and a club with three of them, once – that counts, right?)
A few months before I moved out, a new chap moved in. Every time there was a new chap moving in, all my single friends would be nudging me in the ribs and going, ‘Hey, what if your new house mate is HOT, eh? HAHAHAHAHA’. I would think, ‘Well, it’d seem even more like I was living in a Channel 4 sitcom. Or a chick fic book in which I fancied him desperately and he didn’t really know I existed, other than when we ran out of milk and I offered to go to the corner shop to get more.’ The New Chap looked about 22, so let us refer to him henceforth as The Youngster (he is actually 31). He was super smiley. We had Chats in the kitchen. It was all very nice. It came to the day I was moving out, and he came up to my room, to say goodbye, as he was going out for the day. I was, as per usual, being awkward (I hate goodbyes anyway, plus I was feeling in a bit of a fragile state – moving always makes me burst into floods of tears. I think it’s to do with things ending). The Youngster suddenly surprised me by saying that we must, ‘definitely, definitely, definitely stay in touch’. Really? THREE ‘definitelys’? I was so thrown that I idiotically replied that I ‘definitely, definitely, definitely’ would. We made noises about meeting up ‘for coffee’ when I got back from holiday in a few weeks’ time.
Ah, but who would initiate this coffee? And what did it mean, I pondered at length with my two friends, as we wandered around New York, undergoing the kind of heatwave in June that one would more normally expect in Athens in August (ie mentally as well as physically discombobulating). I decided I would send him a message via Facebook (this is as modern as I get; also, I didn’t have either his phone number or his email, either of which would’ve been preferable), as it was his birthday while I was away, and I knew they were having a house party. Much debate over the wording of a ‘breezy’ message. I’m sure men have no idea that you can spend an hour and a half composing a three-line message. (‘Do I start with ‘Hi’, or ‘Hey’ – which is more casual-sounding? Is that too casual?’, Do I put a kiss on it?’ etc).
We then messaged backwards and forwards for a bit. I was still mulling over the ‘definitelys’. Is that just how young people express themselves (over-emphatically), or was it possible he fancied me? I thought it seemed unlikely, given that most of the times we’d chatted, I was red faced and wild-haired, having just come back from the gym, and dressed in jeans and trainers. Eventually, I suggested meeting up for a drink, and spent three days debating whether or not it was a date, with anyone who’d listen. ‘No need to put a label on it,’ advised one friend, ‘it’s not a flipping Excel sheet’. Geezerboy at the gym, who I felt sure would see things in admirably black or white terms, (he’s a geezer, after all), asked me a lot of questions about what had happened when we were living together (‘Nothing! Just chatting in the kitchen, and he smiled a lot – then all these ‘definitelys!’) before professing himself mystified as to The Youngster’s intentions. It is weird, going out on a potential date with someone you’ve lived with for three months. What on earth does one wear, for a start? Especially when you don’t know if it’s actually a date or not.
We went out (to a bar I’d suggested - following my own advice). We drank a bottle of wine and had dinner. It was nice. We walked home together. He invited me in for a cup of tea, which I accepted, as I needed to pick up some post (I am, indeed, the Last Great Seductress, no?) We drank tea. I headed home about midnight, with both of us agreeing that we’d had a ‘really really [really] nice time’ and should do it again. So, it seemed like we’d been on a date (drink, dinner, um… tea?), but I was no further forward as to whether or not this was a ‘just good friends’ scenario.
On the next outing, I upped the ante. We went out on a Saturday (surely a date?) We went to a pop-up bar on the South Bank (totally the setting for a Richard Curtis film). We walked a long way trying to get into two different branches of Wahaca, before ending up in Polpo (grown up yet fashionable dining – plus more wine). We came back home and had another drink in a bar round the corner from both of our abodes. I invited him back to mine, based on a super-spurious excuse. We sat on opposite ends of the sofa, drinking more effing tea (I don’t even drink tea usually) until 1.40am, at which point he said he ought to go home. Friendly peck on the cheek, and off he went, into the night.
The next week, he offered to come round and cook me dinner. I mean, really, I’ve had someone cook me dinner about four times in my entire life. I got all paranoid as I was putting my flat on the market (whole other story) and had bought a white tablecloth to try to minimize my rather gigantic and ugly dining room table. So we ate our dinner with the plates resting on pieces of newspaper, in case of spillages. We then went to the cinema (could this be any more of a date?) We walked home afterwards. I ended up back at my old house. Can you guess what happened? Yes, we drank tea – sitting on opposite sofas. (I sat down first – the fact we weren’t even sitting on the same sofa was not my doing, so surely I can’t be blamed for ‘giving off the wrong signals’, viz-a-viz any romantic desires).
Subsequent to that, I didn’t really hear anything from him for a month (having previously received quite a few texts asking me how my day had been, etc) – he went away to a wedding in Italy, I had various things on. At which point I thought, ‘Dammit, I like hanging out with him – I don’t really care about this whole non-snogging thing. At this point, it’s going to take a team of sherpas with crampons to excavate us from the Friend Zone, so let’s be friends. I don’t have enough male friends to let one disappear’. So I texted and suggested a drink. We went out on a Tuesday and got pretty hammered (the bar we were in has terrible food, so I refused to order anything more than hummus and halloumi with pitta bread). By the end of it, he sounded a bit surprised about what a nice time he’d had (perhaps he had forgotten just how great I am, having not seen me for a month?!) It felt like there was A Moment. But because I’d suggested that we meet up in a bar which is literally two minutes from either of our houses, and because I also didn’t want to go the full Jane Austen and suggest he ‘walk me home’ (as I couldn’t face any more hot beverage action), there we were, right outside the bar, at the traffic lights where I cross the road and go right and he goes left. We both went our separate ways. If this carries on, I’ll at least be able to claim that I have a Platonic Boyfriend. Or perhaps that I am now a Semi-Spinster.
Anyway, after all this near-miss stuff, I then got ver’ ver’ drunk in a trashy bar in Clapham with some mates on Friday. It is a place we go to expressly to get drunk, dance to terrible 80s music and cop off with unsuitable men. I somehow managed to cop off with someone who seemed – whilst drunk and in a very dimly lit arena – to be quite tall, dark and handsome. He was also 31. Everyone is 31 – ‘Six Degrees of Separation Angus’? 31. The Youngster? 31. Thirty one is clearly the new 28 (which was the age of men I generally used to attract. Not that I’m complaining – it’s better than getting blokes who are 51). So, it came to pass that he suggested that we ‘exchange numbers’. Which is another really annoying modern thing – can’t men just say, ‘you seem nice – do you want to go out for a drink sometime?’ What is this ‘exchanging numbers’ thing – you might as well give someone your business card and suggest ‘meeting up at a networking event’.
So, then you’re twiddling your thumbs, hating waiting on a text in the same way that you waited by the phone when you were 16. (Well, you did if anyone was asking for your number at 16; personally, they absolutely weren’t. I had the social skills of the bag of potatoes that I so acutely resembled). ‘Do blokes still do the 3-day rule?’ I thought. ‘If so, why? All communication moves at a lightning speed these days, it’s stupid to leave it that long out of some sense of being cool’. But then, could I text him? Half of me thought, if he doesn’t text, then he doesn’t want to see you. The other half thought, oh, be proactive, what’ve you got to lose? Mainly, I wanted him to text me because I wasn’t entirely sure what his name was. Well, it’d been noisy and I was, as we’ve established, not altogether compos mentis.
By Tuesday, I decided to go for it, spent half an hour composing another ‘breezy’ text, (it’s exhausting, this necessity for breeziness), sent it, then spent the rest of the afternoon chiding myself for being a dick and wishing I hadn’t. However, he replied, and we are going out tonight. As he lives in Clapham and I live in Streatham, I suggested meeting up in Clapham, Balham or Brixton. He picked Brixton. I have still ended up suggesting the actual meeting point. Oh, and turns out, he’s one of those people who doesn’t sign his name at the end of texts, which could be somewhat awkward...
