Low Expectations (5 page)

No one likes a needy man, but as a general rule, I think it's rude to complain about how hard it is to juggle three boyfriends to someone who struggles to pin down one.

‘Poor Lucas. Oh well, clingy is never a good quality,' I finally say, impressing myself with my self-restraint, as I scrape my omelette onto a plate.

Sometimes, when Stacy isn't around, I simply take a fork and pick at the hot pan standing up, often burning my tongue in the process. It is one of the lazier customs I've developed
in an effort to minimize the washing up, but it leaves me with a feeling of contentment. I feel like a caveman by the fire, savouring my kill. It's probably for the best that I have a flatmate, if only to protect me from developing stranger behaviours. My father has a habit of trimming his toenails and then flushing them down the toilet, which never entirely works, so there are always a few yellowish shards stranded at the bottom of the bowl. At least I have a genetic deficiency to blame.

I would like to think Stacy is exaggerating about all these men, but they do fall prostrate before her. She has a complicated, high-maintenance-bitch thing that they find irresistible. Her vague manner translates into a certain mystique and she plays hard to get effortlessly, as her disinterest in the rest of humanity is quite genuine. It also doesn't hurt that she is whippet-thin, with caramel blonde locks down to here, legs up to there and penchant for going braless.

‘Clingy is the one character defect I cannot abide. Yet all the men I date turn into absolute octopuses. I encounter it all the time.' She sighs dramatically, inspecting her manicured nails. ‘I'm off to Bikram now. They also have a 5 p.m. if you care to sweat out those toxins later.'

Stacy sashays languorously off and I continue stuffing my face, a mustard trail running down my chin. You would think that living with someone so skinny would be a constant source of thinspiration. You would be wrong. If anything, looking at her makes me hungrier.

I do, however, resolve to start a protein diet. Tomorrow. Never start a diet on the first day of your period, or, for that matter, with a hangover. You are not only guaranteed to fail, you will do so with glorious abandon. No gluttony can compare with that of a woman who really believes that, starting tomorrow, she will never allow herself sugar again.

Protein diets are the only ones I've been able to follow for more than two days, as I love meat of all varieties and on those you can supposedly eat it in unlimited quantities. They are best started either before or after a relationship, as the resulting halitosis, constipation and pungent urine can be off-putting for even the most ardent of suitors. I mentally check my diary. Alone last month, alone today, alone for the foreseeable future. Perfect timing.

I am multitasking while at Sainsbury's, chatting to my mother on the phone. I like to tick her off my to-do list along with discount chicken fillets. The conversation, like all post-weekend run downs of the last few months, begins something like this:

‘So, have you met any interesting people recently?' she asks, by which she means men.

‘No, Mum, still no,' by which I also mean men. I had a great night dancing with some friends from university at a small bar with great disco that is a haven for queers. She will not be interested to hear that I've spent my weekend consorting with drag queens, however fabulous, rather than marriage prospects. In her eyes, if I don't have a rock by twenty-six
at the very latest, she will have failed me as a mother. That leaves me a year and a half to find and master-manipulate an appropriate victim into thinking I will make a good wife.

I have repeatedly attempted to explain to her that in this day and age many girls are encouraged in their career aspirations and that, furthermore, I don't know if I want to get married, but this is of no consequence to her. Having never really worked, she is convinced that it is a miserable state and if at all possible it is better to have a husband, an allowance and good friends in a similar position to spend it with.

Wandering aimlessly into the organic section, I subtly eye up a boy in his mid-twenties with a Roman nose, floppy blond hair and punkish army boots just the right side of white supremacist. His basket is demonstrably short of meat and dairy products, so I deduce he might be vegan, but I consider it something that we can work through. I rearrange a bag of onions over my hamburger patties.

‘But who knows, maybe I'll meet my future husband reaching for the same pepper in the next ten minutes,' I say, just before his cute, dreadlocked girlfriend catches him up, slipping her hand into his. They grin at each other, skin a-glow from love and all the vegetables and pulses they have doubtless consumed.

Mum snorts down the phone, this single noise conveying both the depth of her exasperation and her diminishing hopes of ever having grandchildren.

‘What sort of people will you meet at 2 p.m. on a Monday in Hackney? Stay-At-Home Dads and The Unemployed, that's who.' She enjoys answering her own questions.

‘That or an off-duty rock star. It's within the realm of possibility!'

And that's when I see him. A man who, indeed, looks very much like an off-duty rock star, political poet, fringe-theatre actor or similar.

Have I ever mentioned my weakness for older men with curly locks and facial hair? It could be due to my childhood obsession with Inigo ‘You killed my father. Prepare to Die!' Montoya. Or the result of the Pavlovian association: Santa Claus = bearded older man = cadeaux. Julian thinks I'll end up with a Captain Birdseye doppelgänger. I really do get weak at the knees for just about anyone sporting the requisite level of hirsuteness.

This one is wearing an expensively distressed leather jacket. Black curls swing just below his ears. His luscious beard protrudes a few inches from his face like shrubbery. This is my kryptonite. Beneath the beard, his face is quite handsome. He has chosen to disguise his chiselled features with the only thing marring this vision of absolute deliciousness: heinous plastic-rimmed aviator-style bifocal glasses favoured by rapists, paedophiles and hipsters.

If this is his fatal flaw, it's one I can overlook. The second our eyes meet I am overwhelmed with a heady mixture of
lust, insecurity and fear. It's that rare, sledgehammer-to-the-solar-plexus, desire-panic hybrid that has struck me only a few times before.

The last time I experienced it was a
Sliding Doors
-type moment with Elvis-With-An-Afro; an improbable-sounding combination but trust me, it worked. It was a few years ago on the Tube. Our eyes locked and we both involuntarily put out a hand towards each other as the doors closed. The train sped away from him, forever dashing any hope of true love accompanied by a life-affirming pageboy haircut. Which is just as well; I really do not have the jaw line for that.

Those three seconds were enough to make his beautiful face clearer in my mind than that of my most recent ex-lover, Joe, who I would struggle to pick out of a police line-up. But back to The Beard of Glory.

‘Mum, I'll bell you later, bye!'

I hang up quickly. He catches me staring at him and smirks. Was that a smirk or a smile? The difference seems vital. Ducking into the freezer aisle in embarrassment, I pretend to be torn over the fish fingers while surreptitiously inspecting my appearance in the glass.

My long wavy dark brown hair is unkempt as usual, raked into a loose bouffant bun. My eyes are very blue, my skin very pale, my lips rouged with NARS Red Square lip pencil. I look like Snow White if she entered her mid-twenties half a stone too heavy, having broken free of her indentured servitude and
escaped to the city. Which is as good as I ever look, really.

Thank God I haven't left the house without my face on since the age of fifteen, in case just such a moment should arrive. Though it is a waste of makeup, piling on the slap to go down the shop, at moments like this it's a definite boost to my ever-precarious self-worth.

Moments like what, you ask? Seeing an attractive man and promptly running away to feign an interest in frozen food? I should be bold, daring. I have never overtly hit on a man before, but faint heart never won fair Beardy. I glance around the empty aisle and re-adjust my tits for maximum impact before casually taking a tour back towards the fruit and veg. He's still there, holding a melon. I pretend to be fascinated by the aubergine selection.

The stalking has gone well thus far; if another world war breaks out, perhaps espionage will be in my future. I even have a leather trench coat with a Gestapo vibe that is chicer than it sounds. Say what you will about Fascism – ideological ugliness does not impede you from working dashing outerwear. Now, the more pressing matter is how to strike up a conversation. What would Mae do? Swagger up, eye-fuck him and drawl suggestively, ‘Is that a pistol in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?' I rack my brain for a classic film quote that isn't as desperate. ‘You should be kissed, and often – and by someone who knows how.' Bit rapey. ‘I am Dracula. I bid you welcome.' Obviously not. How do men do this?

I'm at the point of working up the courage to go down on one knee and break into a passionate rendition of ‘We Can Be Looveers!' – because what man doesn't dream of being publicly serenaded with the
Moulin Rouge
soundtrack? – when fate intervenes and he speaks to me.

‘Sorry, I'm having some trouble here. How do I tell if this is ripe?' The Beard asks with a lopsided grin. His eyes are disturbingly green. My nervously clenching stomach makes me worry I have trapped wind.

‘If you don't know that by your age, I'm not sure you deserve to,' I say flirtatiously. I fear my smile is more silly than sexy, but try to ignore this and concentrate on being as witty as one can on the topic of unripe fruit. ‘Word on the street is that you give it a good squeeze.'

Oh God, too much innuendo. Beardy smiles wolfishly.

‘You've done this before, haven't you? Could you show me your technique?'

‘My services are highly in demand. I don't take on novice fruit wranglers without remuneration … I don't know that you can afford me.' Novice fruit wranglers? What does that even mean? I've also implicated myself in some sort of weird produce-related prostitution. Fuck.

‘Is that so … What if I took you for a drink? Or would you prefer hard cash? I've got £4 on me. That should cover it.'

I giggle in response. Damn his beard, it unmans me.

‘That seems like a reasonable exchange. I'm Georgie.'

‘I'm Leo … What's your number?'

He takes out his iPhone. I appear to be the only person in London without one. I am fond of my archaic Nokia, even though there are impoverished children in Africa who would probably reject it. Duly giving him my details, I'm relieved that he doesn't miss-call me. If he never gets in contact, at least I will be saved the shame of ringing him in a fit of booze-inflicted overconfidence and leaving some appalling message. The advent of video recording apps have laid to rest any lingering hopes I had that I am charming and intelligent when drunk as a skunk. I would probably say something along the lines of ‘Uh … This is Georgie? The Ripe Melon girl? We should go out sometime! I'm free always. You can show me some other fruit you want to get to grips with. Bananas and cucumbers are my speciality. Bye! I love you!' Yikes.

‘Well, we'll discuss the finer points later then, Georgie.' He tosses the melon back on the pile, shifting as if to leave.

‘Don't you want to take it home and practise?'

I point to the abandoned fruit and toss my head back with what I hope is cocky flirtatiousness. I believe this is what is commonly known as fronting, as inside I am still buzzing with anxiety and the paranoid conviction that I might actually fart.

‘It's served its purpose,' he grins and saunters slowly to the checkout, not turning to look back.

‘“It's served its purpose”? Crikey. That's really hot, but don't you think it's veering towards douche-bag levels of self-confidence?' Rose asks at our usual Vietnamese on Kingsland Road, favoured due to its low prices and BYOB policy. Though we have plans to go out later, I have over-ordered to such an extent that I may only be capable of rolling like a rogue sausage-link on the dance floor.

‘That did occur to me. He's definitely a smooth operator, but I'm not in a position to be picky, to be honest. Plus, douche comes in all shapes and sizes; at least I fancy him. Nothing worse than dating someone because you mistake non-threatening for honourable and then find out he's been hitting on all your friends.'

This has happened to me several times.

‘Oh God, I've done that to Henry's mate Steve … not out-and-out propositioning him but flirting outrageously, talking about how we should have a threesome – jokingly. Last time I smelt his hair. Thank fuck Henry's taken it so well,' Sarah says in between bites of her giant spring roll.

Rose and I met Sarah four years ago at some god-awful club and we bonded in the loos over the usual clichés, makeup and bad men. We were all coked-up out of our minds. For reasons unknown, we actually kept in contact instead of waking up the next day wondering what the hell we were talking about with that random girl and why, having forked out £100 for a night out, we always spend it within a dirty cramped toilet.

‘Do you think he might want it to happen one day?' I can't help but ask.

I wonder how such an arrangement would work between friends. Would it be a one-time porno spit-roasting extravaganza or would it turn into a tragic love triangle in the style of Truffaut's
Jules et Jim
? It's interesting that it is mostly these extremes that are represented in our popular culture, when stories of men and their harems are so far ranging. Of course, the reality of managing a polyamorous relationship would be a hugely stressful emotional drain and require a tiresome amount of earnest conversations. Which is why I assume most
people stick to the tried-and-tested, traditional social mores of monogamy and lies.

‘Nah, it's not because of that – Henry's very laid back. He wouldn't want to share though; he thinks a threesome with two men is gay. Which is completely absurd!'

Sarah sloshes more white wine into our glasses, finishing off the first bottle. By the time we have drained the second our laughter will have turned into cackles better suited to an amateur production of
Macbeth
.

‘But, just hypothetically speaking, if the moment did arise, I'd go for it. Steve is fit. Obviously, I love Henry, but I have the forbidden-fruit lust thing going on for Steve. And he's just a bit more naughty. I mean, Henry and I have been together for eighteen months so it's normal, but sex with him … well, recently it's been third-person sex.'

I laugh knowingly. Rose looks confused.

‘Wait, what? I thought you said you hadn't had a threesome?'

‘No, not a threesome. Third-person sex. Having sex in the third person. Like, he's pounding away, my body is lying there making appropriate noises and my mind is floating over in the corner watching telly, composing emails and occasionally critiquing his technique.'

‘Oh God. Is that normal, do you think? I only ever had first-person sex with Scrotum Mark.' Rose looks anxious and fiddles with her long Pre-Raphaelite hair.

She has such a wide, innocent face that it is difficult to imagine how you could lie to her, let alone wreak the trail of psychological warfare that SM did. Towards the end, he had her convinced that she was a jealous paranoid who was lucky to have found a forgiving man willing to put up with her pathological insecurity. This was after giving her herpes, strenuously insisting that it must have been her who cheated on him. After she had shed enough tears, he magnanimously forgave her.

There is a thin line between being naive and incredibly stupid and some might think that at that point, she had crossed it. I had taken an immediate dislike to him from the night we first met. The four of us had gone to a Thai restaurant and in SM's opinion, we girls had lingered too long after dinner with our wine. His friends were already inside a club down the road and he became increasingly impatient with our ‘chitchat'. When snide comments about women and their poor time-keeping were ineffective in hurrying us up, he stood abruptly, grabbed the half-full bottle of vino and turned it on its head, decanting it all over the floor. When nothing remained, he set it down on the table and sneered, ‘Now can we go?'

We took this in with the same paralysed horror we would have shown had he hurled a sack of squirming kittens into the Thames. Needless to say, it was not the kind of behaviour you hope for from your boyfriend the first time he meets your
mates. It took us an hour to persuade a thoroughly humiliated Rose out of the toilets and into the club to confront him. SM seemed surprised to see us, quickly removing his arms from the shoulders of two blonde girls. The speech we had angrily but elegantly scripted for Rose on the walk over did not go as planned. Within half an hour, all was forgiven.

Rose ignored our misgivings, suspicions and advice. There was a lovable optimism to her blindness that, though frustrating, I could never totally disapprove of. Always wanting to see the best in him, it wasn't until she caught him shagging her cousin in a wardrobe at a family wedding that she came to her senses. The man wasn't even that good looking, though he had a certain hollow magnetism common to master-manipulators. It's shocking how a little charm and a dash of illusion can wrap a tight spell around the mind of an otherwise rational woman.

‘Uh, SM, don't mention him! Don't worry, doll, it's not because he was the best you'll ever have, it's because you were always either fighting or fucking. I've been there – it heightens all the senses. You can't sustain it very long before it turns into an out-and-out feud but in those few months before you full-on despise them, God it's good.'

Sarah sighs and looks wistfully into the distance, twiddling with the ends of her curly bob, her big brown eyes softening. After a pause, she says with halting nostalgia:

‘One time, in the middle of an argument, my ex ripped
out my tampon, threw it at the wall and just started fucking me. I know it sounds disgusting but it was the sexiest thing ever.'

Rose makes a face. I raise my eyebrows but nod. Women as a whole are far more up for dirty sexual antics than most men have been led to believe, they just need the right person to release their inhibitions. You can be an entirely changed person from one day to the next in bed with different people, depending on how they make you feel.

It is hard to find someone with whom you are free to be yourself, sexually and emotionally. Furthermore, we act as our own harshest critics. Encouraged from birth to modify ourselves to the company we keep, we chip off bits of our noses, our true opinions and our sense of humour. It is a confusing time in which to grow up, in terms of what constitutes inner strength and what constitutes emasculation, what will empower you and what will demean you, what is real and what is fake. It is all largely dependent upon our insecurities of image, manner and presentation, around which a huge industry feeds. An industry I intend on joining; there is nothing so soothing to one's inner doubts as the satisfaction of knowing one's outer shell disguises them completely.

That is why it's liberating to have close female friends with whom we can be unashamed of the moral ambiguity that informs most of our decisions as we stumble confusedly into adulthood. No topic is off limits with us and brutal honesty
is the conversational goal, the more grotesque the better. Granted, this honesty is often limited to a supremely superficial range of topics, but who wants to discuss Darfur on a Friday night? To which end, back to ripping out tampons.

‘Yeah, I can see what you mean. Extreme passion and that feeling that they have to have you now is such a turn on. If someone asks if they can kiss you or something it just feels so … anaemic,' I say, Rose nodding in sage agreement beside me.

‘God I hate that! Kiss me or don't but for fuck's sake don't wait on my permission, I'm not your mother!' Sarah shouts, banging the table angrily for emphasis.

Sarah works in advertising and has to assert herself in a largely male team, which is the excuse she gives to anyone who tells her off for being brash; a rare occurrence, as to the untrained eye, she is scary. A sensibly dressed couple in their early thirties have been looking over at us askance, but say nothing. The woman is cross and the man looks house trained. They are definitely having third-person sex.

Rose, ever the voice of reason, interjects calmly.

‘Yeah, but men can't really win, can they? For every guy who hasn't kissed me when I want him to, there are ten more who try it on when I think it's perfectly clear I'm not interested. If I don't fancy someone, I'll still be polite. They assume I must like them and then lunge at my mouth. When you prise them off, there's always that ten percent who get
even more persistent. There is a complete disconnect between what I want and what they want but they delude themselves that if they want something, I must want it too.'

‘Yes, but women also need to be brought up to say no! My mother taught me never to be afraid to say “No”. I love it. Say it all the damn time and it never fails to gladden my heart.' Sarah's mother is the sort of resilient Afro-Caribbean woman who brooks no shit. She once chased a burglar out of her flat armed only with a frying pan.

‘So true! We are taught to be malleable and play nice. Then when we don't speak up somehow we are the ones at fault. I have had to say, “Take your hand off my breast, don't touch me, don't follow me, don't speak to me,” over and over. Do they want it in writing?' I wonder.

When I was fourteen, a man started wanking off next to me on an empty bus in broad daylight. I was too scared to do anything but leap over him and get off at the next stop. I called the police afterwards, but they said it was unlikely they would ever find him and then patronizingly started asking the details of my attire.

Gradually you develop armour. You cease to hear catcalls and are only afraid alone late at night. There is always a moment when your heart jumps into your throat, though. When you don't know if increasing your pace will deliver you from a sticky situation or antagonize the man into pursuing you. ‘Ah, look – you're scared! It's so cute that you're scared!
What's your name?' For the record, if in hitting on someone you need to mention their obvious terror in your presence, it is probably not the moment to strike.

‘Well, perverts are perverts, that's a lost cause. It's the coming generation of as-yet-unformed perverts that concerns me. Kids are practically brought up by porn and misogynistic music videos. They should teach them how to read and respect body language at school, there are a million ways to say no without ever opening your mouth,' Rose says firmly.

‘Add to that, lessons in how to actually touch a woman. Half the time when you finally get the golden ticket of a guy you like, who likes you, the sex is still mystifyingly terrible,' I sigh, thinking of Joe. He thought the G spot was located near the cervix. I left his house feeling like I had just had a smear test.

I have a ‘Three Strikes and You're Out' bad-sex policy. You can't expect miracles the first time but if by the third it is still regrettable, you either need to move on or gird your loins for what is bound to be a cringe-making conversation. No man takes ‘You're shit in bed' very well, however diplomatically you've managed to phrase it. How are you supposed to politely dilute ‘You use your penis like a very small saw' and still get your point across?
Cosmo
's Rent-A-Sex-Therapist approach seems to advise training up a man as if you were Siegfried or Roy, using illusionist mind games to guide them in the right direction, all the while trussed up in sequins, spandex or leather.

If clear but non-verbal communication is indeed the key, perhaps mimes make the best lovers. I make a mental note to investigate this untapped sexual resource.

‘My theory is that some men are unteachable,' Sarah opines, ‘you either have it or you don't. It's like academic intelligence – with tutoring you can improve but it all depends on the baseline you're born with. I've slept with super-experienced thirty-something guys who were unbelievably shit, but remember The Virgin?'

We nod. She had been seriously concerned about being his first but said he was ‘a revelation'.

‘Some men just have an affinity for pussy in the way that others are good at maths,' Sarah says loudly. ‘It's genetic.'

As our waiter arrives with a plate of spicy eels, he does a double take, as if afraid that he heard her correctly. She ignores him. My embarrassment threshold being a touch lower than Sarah's, I wait until he has left before chiming in.