A.L. Kennedy
Novelist
I dislike dates. It’s either a yes, or a no. Why date? Sadly, I am both bad at reading the signals which indicate the outbreak of a date and attractive to people who are bad at signals. This means that I end up — often in coffee shops — with a variety of men who suddenly exhibit enthusiasms I cannot return. Among these gentlemen would be the portly chap in Day-Glo cycle shorts, the man who brought an ugly plant with him, the man who cried, the man who talked unendingly about the rows he used to have with his last girlfriend, the man who sat next to me, miserably unable to speak at all, and the man who got crawling-drunk and then confessed something, mumbly, before hiding in his hotel room for a day. And then there was the man who gave a brief — but not brief enough — summary of the actions involved in coitus before suggesting we try it. I can only repeat: we weren’t on a date. It was just coffee. I was honoured by your attentions, but did not require them. When I do require attentions, I say so. Really. Thank you, but no.
Jeremy Clarke
Low life columnist
I had been catastrophically and unceremoniously chucked by a woman with whom I was insanely in love. My love for her had been like a psychotic illness, and when she ended it, I sat at the kitchen table for two days, immobile with grief, listening to Moby singing ‘Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?’ on repeat. Then her mum came round to the house to give me a stiff talking-to and a haircut. ‘It’s no good sitting there moping,’ she said, snipping at my head. There are plenty more fish in the sea. I wasn’t so bad-looking. Tell you what, she said. She had a friend: 40, plenty of money, vineyard. Why didn’t she fix us up with a date? I must wear my nice green shirt and try to be confident. Confidence, she said, is three quarters of attractiveness. So the next day, wearing my nice green shirt, I pushed open the door of this trendy café and looked around for a woman wearing blue glasses. There she was, at a table, deep in conversation with this bloke in a green shirt whom she’d obviously just met and mistaken for me. They clearly fancied the pants off each other. Lacking even a shred of confidence, I turned around and returned to my kitchen table, to Moby, and to my bottomless grief.
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