Chapter 5

• Perhaps Robert is mistaken. As I sit back down on the couch a few minutes later, I think. Paulie will call, and we will go out again, and everything will be fine. Perhaps it will be a date about which we will laugh for the rest of our lives ('I was so nervous!', 'No, I was nervous!'). He had to like me enough to ask me out, so why wouldn't he like me enough to ask me out again? I don't—
• 'Don't think about it anymore,' Robert says to the television. Is he speaking to me?
• 'Huh?'
• He says, 'You're very easy to read,' without looking at me. 'It happened one night. Simply learn from your mistakes and move on. Singledom is torturous. You must also be brutal.'
• 'What did you learn? I'm not sure what I did wrong...' 'If I did anything wrong, if you're even right about it being a bad date, which you might not be,' I say quickly. I like him... 'I might like him,' I warn. Is Paulie appealing to me? I have no idea. I was too preoccupied with keeping the conversation going to notice. 'The last thing I asked was, "Will you call me?" He said, "Yes."
• 'Never ask a guy to call you,' Robert says as he cracks open another beer.
• 'Then I'll call him,' I say sarcastically.
• 'I wouldn't advise it.'
• 'I identify as a feminist. 'I can call a man,' I'm now defensive. 'Or I'll just text you.' Robert slowly shakes his head. Maybe I should flatshare with some girls. Thank you for including a little more compassion in my pep talks. 'Or send an email. I've got his email address. Alternatively, I'll casually Facebook him.'
• 'I'm a feminist, too,' he says with a sigh. 'But no. After the first date, no. Keep your distance. And Facebook is anything but casual.'
• 'I just don't understand why you think it went so wrong,' I say once more.
• 'The questions thing gave it away,' he says more gently.
• 'If you ask too many personal questions, it becomes an interview.'
• 'That's exactly how it felt!' Perhaps he knows what he's talking about. 'This is great. Please elaborate. I need to take baby steps.'
• He smiles at me. 'Keep your cool. You must remain objective in the face of the situation. It's the only option.'
• 'Wait!' I grab my notebook. I'm never without it: it's the repository of my to-do lists and the only way I keep track of everything.
• 'Give me a second,' I squint, close one eye, take up my pen, and begin writing. What did he just say again? Oh, yes.
• Keep your cool.
• Maintain your distance.
• That appears to be straightforward.
• 'That doesn't mean you should remain silent. It's critical to make him laugh.'
• 'Do I have to be funny as well?' I express my dismay. This appears to amuse Robert. 'What qualifies you as an expert? Have you got a girlfriend?'
• 'Not quite. 'I'm just very good at being single.'
• A player, I see. On cue, his phone buzzes with a text from a girl, which I can tell by the disinterested way he reads it, raises his eyebrows slightly, and then taps out a response.
• 'Cool, detached...' I think as I watch him. 'Do I have to do this for the rest of my life? I hope to fall in love again someday, and then I won't have to think about this... Right? Do I have to think about acting cool and detached on my wedding day, for example?'
• His phone rings once more. Yet another text. He reads it, raises an eyebrow, and then looks up at me, calculating my last statement.
• 'Don't even consider falling in love. Don't even mention it. Dating has nothing to do with love. Don't even think about your wedding day.
• 'Never,' he says as he retrieves his wallet and keys from the coffee table. He tosses the remote control my way, and I catch it perfectly. Yes! Two out of two is a good score. 'I 'm off. 'I'm going to see a friend.'
• 'I figured,' I explain. 'Does this mean my up-to-date tutorial is finished?'
• 'Dating is just something to do for a few hours.' Robert takes his coat from the hallway closet. 'It's not a big deal, so don't make it into something bigger in your head.'
• 'But what if I'm not detached? 'Or is it cool?'
• As he approaches the door, Robert pauses, looks over at me, and smiles. 'Make it up.'
• _________
• As I walk into work the next morning, I realize Robert was correct. I'm sure you've already concluded the same thing: it was a bad date. I'm trying to attribute it to experience rather than my so-I'll-end-up-alone-and-lonely theory.
• My office is located directly behind Blackfriars. I work for an investment bank as a financial analyst. Basically, I need to know everything there is to know about the retail industry in order to assist our traders and clients in making money.
• I used to enjoy my job when I first started working. I enjoyed leaking information that no one else had. I felt like a truffle pig sniffing for treasure. Then came the recession, and with no gems to snuffle, it was difficult to get excited, or even care, about anything. And then I realized - rather late, as tends to happen to me a lot - that my job wasn't about research, but about helping rich people get richer. That doesn't exactly cook my burger. Perhaps work isn't supposed to be fun, you know?
• To be completely honest, I only joined this company because its booth was right next to the bar at my university's careers fair.
• I'm not joking. I was nearing the end of a difficult and ultimately pointless degree in medieval French. The university career fair was both stressful and strangely humiliating. Plum and I discovered the bar during happy hour, and the two investment guys at the company stand noticed us and came over for a chat after our second bottle of half-price wine.
• I didn't know what else I wanted to do with my life, and the salary sounded good, so I applied for the grad scheme, got in, earned a couple of qualifications, and now I'm an associate analyst. I'm stuck halfway up a job ladder I had no idea existed until I got there.
• On the sixth floor, I sit in a quiet corner of a large, grey open-plan office. Suzanne, my boss, is a managing director with her own office (with a glass front so she can keep an eye on us). I work in a small team with two other analysts, Alistair and Charlotte, specializing in luxury retail. The other teams are seated around us: pharmaceutical, automotive, banking, construction, and so on.
• Today, at 6.40 a.m., I am the first member of my team to arrive. For research analysts, the day begins very early. This is just one of the many things I dislike about my job.