Dating in your mid 30s

Who's left?

This is part I of a III part essay.

Stuart

The first sentiment that hits me when I exit the left hand side of Euston station and see Stuart standing in front of M&S, our designated meeting place, is one of great sympathy because if his pictures on the dating app are anything to go by, he has aged 2 decades in the last week. 

Before my brain has caught up with the truth of what’s happened, I want to reach out to him and commiserate in his loss. 

‘Oh my God, what’s happened to you in the last week? You look dreadful!’

Up close, it’s even worse. 

His wrinkles are as deep as rivers, and there’s a few skin blemishes that weren’t there in the pictures of his youth. 

It’s as if he’s participated in a medical experiment of catastrophic proportions but in his case the experiment in question is nothing more or less than life itself. Ah, the tragedy. 

It would be easy enough to deal with Stuart’s aging if I didn’t see myself reflected in his every line. My gray hair, the wrinkles on my forehead. It’s all right there. 

I smile at him with great sympathy, and he smiles back at me. The fool. I have to push down an urge to break out in misery. 

‘What are you smiling for? Can’t you see what time has done to us? Can you believe how fast time goes? I just don’t understand how fast it goes!’ 

Naturally, this seems a bit too on the nose for a first greeting so I settle for ‘Oh hello’. 

Stuart responds in that English gentleman’s way of bending forward and looking at the ground whilst addressing me at the same time. 

‘Sorry, what was that?’ Stuart asks. 

Great, he’s also got hearing problems. 

I might as well chuck him into a care facility. 

‘I just said, “Oh hello”. You’re Stuart, aren’t you?’

‘I am indeed.’ 

Stuart has big square glasses, pointy elbows and an overly keen left eye which travels to study me when he thinks I’m not looking. 

We have agreed to have a coffee in Waterstones on Gower street and during the 20 minute walk from Euston, we talk about books, specifically history books, which is all that Stuart seems to be reading. 

‘Why?’ I ask because this is my standard question when someone enjoys something I don’t. 

‘Because it teaches us a lot about the state of the world today, and why things are as they are. Why the borders are where they are, why the geopolitical climate is as it is. Why…’

I zone out for a while whilst thinking about whether Waterstones will have any brownies left at this time. 

They usually have two brownies on offer, one is an ordinary brownie and the other one is a Orange chocolate brownie which tends to sell out faster and is the one I am in pursuit of.

‘Then you can look at all the development stages, the feudal system, the industrial revolution. Take the changes incurred by the move to colonialism-’, Stuart goes on. 

Brownie, or no brownie. That is the question. 

Dark chocolate, orange zest, almond flour. Mm, mm, mm. 

‘So the entire colonialism of India actually started with the quest of a private trading company.’ 

I’ve resurfaced because this actually sounds interesting. 

‘What?’

On second thought, Stuart would be a great person to have as an acquaintance in your life. Someone to grace your brain cells with a bit of contextual culture. 

I would happily cast him in the role of a local neighbor. 

Someone you could get an interesting fact or book recommendation out of but also someone you could easily remove yourself from by taking free avail of the clicking or shutting of a door. 

Stuart doesn’t seem to have the self-awareness to realise when his monologues have made the cross over from interesting into unbearable so the opportunity of escape would be crucial.

Once we get to Waterstones cafe, things get complicated. 

I pick out my favourite seat, two stools by the window facing the street outside but Stuart says that he prefers the two chairs in the corner facing each other. 

I tell him that I have a severe dry eye condition and so prefer a spot where I can comfortably look out into the distance rather than solely focusing on his face, and he says that he has a bad back and prefers chairs with a back rest, and not stools. 

Then we both fall silent. 

A silence that seems too long for me. 

Stuart doesn’t look at me when he speaks again. 

‘Alright well, I suppose the stools will be fine.’, he says. 

‘Are you sure?’ I ask with great falsity. 

After that we both join the queue to order, and Stuart asks me what kind of books I like reading. 

‘Oh for fucks sake!’ I burst out, ‘I can’t believe this, the brownies are sold out. They’re gone’ 

Stuart seems startled by my outburst and as I expected, has nothing comforting to say. 

I tell him to get himself a drink as ‘I’m certainly not going to waste £3.5 on a cup of tea’ and I leave the queue and help myself to the giant fountain of tap water by the wall. 

Then, sipping my tap water from a paper cup and watching Stuart’s skinny outline, I start feeling bad that I dismissed his bad back, and after a short wander around the cafe, I find that a table has just become available with two proper chairs by the entrance. 

I wave at Stuart from the queue to pinpoint our new location but as soon as I sit down, I notice that a huge aircon unit above the door is blowing air straight down onto our seats. 

Bad back, back chat. Who gives a sack? 

I walk back to the stools by the window. 

If Stuart has a bad back, he’s just going to have to do some exercise. 

‘Sorry, it’s going to have to be stools after all’, I say when Stuart returns with his bottle of a £6 ale. 

‘What’s wrong with your back anyway?’ I ask. 

‘I have arthritis.’, Stuart says. 

He’s got me clenched between the tentacles of a nut cracker with this one but I’m not going to give. 

Under no circumstances am I going to sit under an aircon unit. 

‘Gosh, I’m sorry. That sounds difficult.’

‘It’s not that bad actually. I do some climbing and that helps. I just have to get into a routine of doing some Pilates or getting myself to the gym but I tend to find that sort of thing very tedious.’

Not as tedious as his monologues about history, surely. 

‘Well, don’t worry, this date won’t be very long so we’ll get you out of that stool soon enough.’, I say. 

Stuart’s brow strains and he stares at me blankly for a few seconds. 

He has the most extraordinary ability of making me feel as if he’s the most reasonable man on earth, and I’m a clown of some sort. 

I ask him if he’s read any other interesting books, and he talks at length about a book covering the IRA’s assassination attempt of Thatcher during a conference in Brighton. 

Stuart teaches me more about the IRA and the bombs that would detonate months after they were set up, one of the specialities of the IRA apparently. 

I find myself enjoying the chat with Stuart. The man is a walking interesting facts guide. It’s only a shame I don’t fancy him. The pointy elbows, the wandering left eye, nevermind about all the arguments we’ll have about chairs and stools. Arguments that could last a whole lifetime. 

When I tell Stuart that I unfortunately have to dash off early for a show, his eyes set in on me and there’s a twitch around the left corner of his mouth as if he knows I’m lying. 

I almost feel sorry for him. There’s something about Stuart’s skinny contents and his ability to conjure up a sequence of historically irrelevant facts that makes you want to help him out, to set him up with a history-reading lady and take him to the nearest Boots for some emergency moisturiser. 

‘Well, I better be off if I want to make it to my show in time.’, I repeat.

Stuart does that soft oscillation of the left corner of his lip then takes a sip of his ale and shifts around in his stool. He isn't looking at me anymore. 

I wonder why he has to make things so awkward. 

The date had to end sometime, didn’t it?

The silence drags on, and I get the distinct sense that it is my responsibility to say something to distract his mind, to offer comfort. 

‘You do know they have a history section here, right?’ I say. 

Stuart doesn’t look at me but puts on his jacket. 

‘Yes, I might as well have a look now that I’m here’, he says in his matter of fact way. 

Once we have risen from our stools, said our goodbyes and parted, I am taken by the sudden inclination to turn around and check up on him and find to my surprise that he is shaking his head. 

It is difficult to say whether he is shaking his head on account of something I said or the early finish to our date or, come to think of it, the fact that he spent the last hour sitting on a stool when he has arthritis. 

Who can tell with these things? 

As I make my way out through the bookshop and step onto Gower street, I stop wondering about Stuart and his shaking head.

This is the wonderful thing about dating some men. 

Men you don’t fancy, as opposed to men you do fancy, are instantly and spectacularly forgettable.