My brief encounter with online dating

One of my daughters and a few pals, thinking I need company, have been urging me to get Bumble, the online dating app where women make the first move. I’ve thought in the past month or so that I might like some sort of relationship, but contemplating the reality is scary. When someone you love passionately dies, love lives on but sometimes too much; both sweet and painful memories can be paralysing. ‘You can’t be on your own in the cave for ever,’ someone said recently.  Why not?

Friends Dave and Kate met on Bumble. He said: ‘You must remember, Catriona, there are lots of decent men out there who haven’t read The Waste Land. Don’t let it put you off.’ I told him I hadn’t read it all either, and had promised my daughters that if anyone ever so much as began quoting metaphysical poetry or T.S. Eliot I’d run a mile. The girls told me any prospective suitors should have their own house, a legal car and not be in dispute with HMRC. Unrealistically, I added still looks good in a T-shirt.  

But what about Jeremy and his words? I’m still in love with both. Last summer I was asked by a publisher if I’d like to write a book on coming to France. I sent a proposal and although I haven’t heard back I’ve kept going on from the sample first chapter. To that end I’ve been rereading old emails, journals and notebooks. Jeremy’s still here. Early lovelorn texts during long separations – he in Devon looking after his mother and grandsons, me taking refuge in Provence and struggling to find work. Our agreement was not to live together full-time, but he’d still message: ‘Marry me Treena!’ My reticence, which was only partly due to the fact that it took five years for me to get unmarried, upset him.