Cow girl, my first encounter on the dating website, said she wanted to see me again, so the next weekend we met at the same hotel for another portion of the same. During the week she sent an email saying she couldn’t eat, and I’d assumed she was joking. But when she sprang out of her VW Golf to greet me she was visibly thinner, which was surprising, as she hadn’t had an ounce of fat on her to speak of to start with. She’d lost 5lbs, she said. Even more surprising was the admission that she’d been off her grub because she’d been in an emotional turmoil over the future of our relationship.
The email about her not eating also included a link to a YouTube comedy clip taken from the TV series Green Wing. A lady doctor was canvassing male colleagues about the top five attributes they look for in a woman. Nice male doctor number one said, ‘lovely eyes’, ‘emotionally intelligent’ — that kind of stuff. But horrid doctor number two, speaking on behalf of unrepentant Neanderthals the world over, revoltingly itemised his top five as, ‘Bendy, shaved, about 5 per cent lesbian, slightly anorexic and fragrant downstairs.’ She sent it primarily to amuse me. But also, I think, because she knows that she racks up an effortless 5/5 on the horrid doctor’s wish list.
Around nine o’clock in the evening, having consumed nothing since breakfast apart from three glasses of Chilean red and a Snickers bar from the vending machine in the lobby, and panting like a coursing greyhound outrun by a strong hare, I cautiously raised the subject of eating. We’ve got to eat something, I said. She agreed to try to do something about her hair, put some clothes on and come with me down to the restaurant.
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