Megan pulls me into her so tight that I can smell her Chanel Coco Mademoiselle. Only Megan would still wear perfume on a lazy Saturday. ‘Of course you’re not unlovable! You’re so lovable, I love you!’
‘You have to say that because you’re my friend.’
‘No. Because it’s true.’
‘I’m too damaged for love. Ryan fucked me up beyond repair and men can sense that. They want someone perfect; they want a Gretel.’
‘Everyone’s damaged, hon,’ she reassures. ‘And men are the most damaged of all. It’s nothing to do with you. You know it. Deep down, you know it. And, how many times do I need to tell you? Gretel ISN’T REAL.’
I hear her words and I know they are right but I still don’t believe them. I remember the look on Simon’s face when I revealed a tiny part of myself that wasn’t easy-going. It’s the face I’ve seen time and time again, over the years and the heartbreaks. So many different men, with different features, temperaments, eye colours and bone structure – yet all with the same drawing up of the eyebrows, the lowering of their chin, the face they pull when they realise you are too much and they’re not sure they want you after all (though they’ll still be willing to sleep with you and hide all of this until you catch on).
I can’t do it any more.
I can’t see that face on a man again. Especially as so many of those men weren’t even all that. It’s exhausting feeling so permanently powerless.
What does it say when a man you’re willing to compromise on isn’t willing to compromise on you?
‘Are you OK?’ Megan leans forward, her face the picture of concern and love and understanding. The sort of face it would be amazing to see on just one boyfriend, just one. If men could love women the way women love each other, everything would be terribly easier.
‘I’m such a reluctant heterosexual,’ I admit.
Megan squeezes my knee. ‘I know, honey. Aren’t we bloody all?’
Things I’ve tried, to make it work with men
Being truly authentic and open and myself
The result?
‘I’ve never had to have this many conversations about my feelings before. It’s all a bit too much.’
Backing off and playing it cool
The result?
‘There’s something missing, you know?’
Just allowing it to happen naturally: ‘The right guy comes along when you’re not looking for him’
The result?
I did not have sex for a year and a half.
Being ‘less picky’
The result?
I ended up ruining my life for two years with Ryan and all the things he did to me.
Being ‘more picky’
The result?
Literally no matches. At all. On any dating service. But then I was so traumatised after Ryan, I only liked about one in two hundred.
Going for someone older and more mature
The result?
‘I like you, April. But I’m not sure I like you enough to introduce you to my children.’
Going for someone younger with less baggage
The result?
‘You’re not, like, one of those crazy 30-something women who are desperate for babies, are you? Oh my God, you are, aren’t you!’
Being open and brave, and never losing hope: ‘Just keep putting yourself out there’
The result?
Simon.
I lose the rest of my Saturday in a wretched spiral of loathing and self-doubt. I hate myself for how hard I’m taking this. I hate myself for how un-normal I seem to be. So it was six dates, so he didn’t like me, so he’s actually a dick, so he’s not The One after all. So what? I know that’s what I’m supposed to be thinking. I’m supposed to shimmy like Beyoncé and know my worth. I’m supposed to go out and get hammered and show him what he’s missing, and, in doing so, not think about him once. Then Simon will subconsciously realise I’ve moved on and it will prompt him into realising what a huge catch I am and, unable to believe he’s lost me, he’ll turn up and make a heartfelt plea. But it will be too late. I’ll tell him to go home. I will be too full of healthy levels of self-esteem for a shit like Simon. He will torture himself every day for the rest of his life about what he missed out on. I will never think about him ever again.
This is what would happen to Gretel.
I’m not Gretel though. I am April.
And instead April goes through every single message we sent, focusing particularly on any nice ones, to further prompt her heartache. April loses her whole day in a Google hole, reading psychology blogposts about different attachment styles, and occasionally stumbling with her laptop into Megan’s room whenever she has a breakthrough.
‘Simon is an avoidant attacher,’ I announce, eyes wide with the revelation, like I’ve just started speaking in tongues. ‘He told me his parents moved him around loads in the first two years of his life. Look! Look here! It’s just his attachment style. If I can convince him to go to intense psychotherapy, in about two years we’ll be perfect for each other.’
Megan doesn’t look up from her Times Style supplement. ‘I’m disconnecting the router.’
‘I still get 4G.’
‘I’m confiscating your phone.’
My mum rings for her weekend phone call to hammer home the existential crisis.
‘How’s it going with the new fella?’ she asks, ripping open the wound and tipping some gangrene into it. I don’t even have to reply. ‘Oh dear. Already? Again? I wish you’d listen to me and stop doing this to yourself.’ I lift my head upwards and focus very hard on the crack in my bedroom ceiling, the one that makes it look like its hatching. Mum sighs down the line. ‘What happened this time?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I thought it was going well?’
‘SO DID I!’
I shout so loud Megan runs into the room to check I’m OK, Sudocrem decorating her face in little splodges. I point to my phone and mouth ‘my mum’ and she nods in understanding and retreats.
‘I didn’t mean to upset you, darling, I was just asking.’ She’s all sniffy and snippy and acting like she’s the victim. Oh yes, this is how phone calls with Mum go. It’s like paint by numbers, but you replace the numbers with emotions like ‘guilt’ and ‘exasperation’ and ‘shame’.
‘I know, I know. I’m just upset.’
‘So he dumped you?’
‘Well, we weren’t technically going out.’
‘Did you sleep with him?’
‘Mum!’
‘You did, didn’t you? How many times do I need to tell you?’
I close my eyes and try to take yogic breaths. ‘Mum, please.’
She isn’t listening; she never listens. Instead she goes off into the same old nonsense I’ve heard since I was a teenager. How you can’t trust any of them and I’m crazy for even trying. How, if I’m so determined to try, I shouldn’t sleep with them too soon. How you should make them have to wait for it. How they will not commit to you if you’re already giving them what they want. How you should only expect the worst anyway. I’ve never told her about what happened with Ryan, as I honestly can’t handle her thinking maybe I deserved it for being such a naive wench. Since Dad left when I was 3, I don’t think she’s even spoken to a man other than Jeremy (Jezzer) the postman. She fills the void with Bridge Club and Book Club and Church Club – swimming in pools with all the other divorced, embittered women who can never recover from the hurt of being left thirty years ago.