I do remember the first days of Mia and Mark. She kept complaining about his backpack.

I’ve never really reached that stage in a relationship where you can exist in peace alongside each other. Apart from my relationship with Sam, my whole dating history has been an amusing collection of short stories. Although I didn’t date at university, what with my lack of desire during the first two years post-heartbreak and then the lack of single men in the third, I did have quite an active dating life when I first moved to London. Active, but still fruitless. Fruitless, but still funny.

‘Maybe I’m being too optimistic, but I had hoped that I would have more luck on the dating scene this time around.’

‘What, as opposed to that OAP and the gym guy?’ Mia’s memory has always been impeccable. She’s referring to the only two men, since Sam, to have made it past a second date.

‘They weren’t that bad.’

‘They were.’

I met Philip (an OAP in all ways bar his actual age) at a time when Sunday became more than the day of rest and turned into the day to announce your engagement on social media, a depressing (and pressurizing) state of affairs that meant I gave him more time than I otherwise would have. A whole six months totally wasted. At first I thought he was shy, but actually he was really boring. Making marmalade was genuinely one of the more exciting things that he did.

And then there was Jimmy Gym, whom I started dating when personal training became quite the fashionable career choice. Rather depressingly, he was probably one of my longest relationships, at least according to my recollection. In my eyes we were dating for ten months. In his eyes, we weren’t dating at all. In his eyes, we were ‘casually seeing each other’, which meant he and his teeny tiny pencil penis were having a great time hanging out in many other pencil cases.

‘OK, maybe they were.’

Washing-up all done, I distract myself with a chilli chip. ‘Anyway, it’s fine. I think I might cave in and give up.’

She shakes her head. ‘You can’t do that. Give it some more time.’

As if time will make these men more appealing.

CHAPTER 7

But I do. Despite my reluctance, I take Mia’s advice and give dating some more time. I never really thought of myself as a (deluded) optimist until now.

I text her to keep her updated, and also to try and make her evening go more quickly. I know she’s working on a big boring case, and the one thing I can provide is some entertainment to distract her.

On my way to a date! I’m cautiously optimistic about this one! I’ll let you know how it goes! Don’t forget to eat dinner! xx

And I am cautiously optimistic. Toby, my date, seems just the right level of keen. In a turnaround of events, he was the one who asked me to go for a drink, and he even chose the bar and booked a table. From the outside the bar looks cute, and from the inside, which is where I now am, I’m delighted to see that they also offer a charcuterie board.