Meatspace. Nikesh Shukla

I said back.

      ‘No, mate. A bow tie. Imagine a bow tie tattoo. You would be so dapper, mate. Do you think anyone has ever had a bow tie tattoo on their neck?’

      We Googled it. Why not? We’re modern men. And what is the smartphone if not the thing that means conversations never have to descend into bullshit? We have every answer at our fingers. I’m only too happy to look up bow tie tattoos, because if there is one out there, that person is my new hero. All my heroes are either stupid or brave. I typed ‘bow tie tattoo’ into my phone’s search engine and tapped ‘GO’.

      I hit the image search and there, courtesy of the internet, were photos of a surprisingly diverse selection of people with bow tie tattoos. Some with bow ties on their breasts, some with bow ties on their forearms but only one where an actual bow tie would be.

      ‘That’s me,’ I said.

      I handed the phone to Kit. Fourth picture into the image list there was a thumbnail of a man who looked remarkably like Aziz. This guy was wearing sunglasses I might wear (aviators in a new rave hue), a black wife-beater, a wicked shit-eating smile, Chico Dusty chocolate skin and the same spiky hair that’s been poking up between girls legs round my way for the last 15 years. The same nose. The same wide-eared ‘YESSSS BLUUUUUD’ grin. And a red bow tie. Tattooed under his neck. Where a real red bow tie would be. I clicked on the thumbnail and it took us to a larger photo. Kit moved to sit next to me. We stared at the screen, dumbfounded looks on our faces.

      ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

      ‘No,’ Kit said.

      ‘I’m doing it. That’s me. I have to do it. I owe it to this me.’ I pointed at the phone. I pointed at the scar on my neck. ‘It’s time to cover this malarkey up.’

      ‘That’s not you,’ Kit said.

      ‘It could be me. From the future. Apparently they can do that now with the internets.’

      We examined the contours of the bow tie tattoo man’s face. The closer you look, you realise it isn’t me.

      ‘It’s bloody odd how similar we are,’ I said.

      ‘That’s the power of the internet,’ Kit said.

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘The more we’re allowed to Google search stuff, the more we realise we’re not special.’

      ‘Oh, shut up. There’s no one like Aziz. And I’m getting a bow tie tattoo.’

      What do you think?

      There are 8 comments for this blog:

      Muderation: DO IT

      Philo Savvy: Yes, cossssssign. DO IT.

      MichaelMcArthur: Seriously? WTF> You cray, Aziz.

      Decarp: Someone just tweeted this blog and it’s nuts. Wait – you’re gonna get a bow tie tattoo cos someone else who looks like you has one? Yes.

      Philo Savvy: Pics or STFU.

      AZIZWILLKILLYOU: I’ve been thinking, this is definitely happening people. Not only am I getting that tattoo, but I’m hunting that fuckface down.

      KITABWILLDESTROYYOU: Go to bed. Stop stalking people online.

      Decarp: Go Aziz!

      History:

       Tattoo disasters – Google Spying on people’s Facebooks – Google Best Asian author – Google Jhumpa Lahiri hot – Google

      It’s Friday night (my dad’s usual slot for me – Friday for the children and friends, Saturday for the ladies) and I’m sitting in our favourite Indian restaurant waiting for him to arrive. When Dad shows up, he is dressed in a silk pink shirt, a leather jacket that goes past his waist, and black trousers. The only thing missing is some crocodile shoes. Instead my dad is wearing the omnipresent black Nike Air knock-offs he’s been wearing for the last 20 years, which keep his now-mangled feet breezy and comfortable. I once bought him some proper Nike Airs but they’re boxfresh, unused – ‘unused to my feet’, Dad said. His feet are now moulded to the shape of the inside of these cheap versions. He is holding on to the remnants of his sparse, thin, silky silver hair by growing around the bald crown a fine mane as long as possible.

      ‘What’s new, kiddo?’

      ‘Rachel wants to be my friend on the Facebook.’

      ‘She wants to be back together? Good, I like that.’

      ‘No, just friends on Facebook.’

      ‘Why would she do that? Unless she wants to be back together?’

      I don’t reply. We both snap poppadoms.

      Dad spoons onion onto his shard and I stare at the bubbles on mine, before dipping it in the raita and crunching down, grimacing at the sugary yoghurt.

      ‘Thank you for shaving. You know? Your face looks fat. Why is your face so fat? I need to work on this beer belly so I can get more dates, eh kiddo?’

      When my mum died, when I was young, he went through a decade of wearing a fleece jumper and tracksuit bottoms, going to work in the same warehouse and coming home and eating the same food watching the same DVDs of the same Bollywood songs he and my mum listened to. It was a decade of mourning. Then he retired, and quickly realised how much of a social animal he is. He goes out 4 nights a week, wakes up in the early afternoons hung-over and watches old films till it’s time to go out again. He is basically me in my early 20s. Wednesday and Thursday nights, he props up the bar in his local Indian pub, watching cricket and counting masala peanuts (finely-chopped onions and chillies mixed in with dry roasted peanuts, drizzled in lemon juice and chilli powder) as dinner. Fridays and Saturdays are date-nights for him. He only ever has dinner with me or with a lady. And because he’s the type of guy who stands on old-fashioned ceremony, he will never let his child or a lady pay for dinner. We eat for free.

      ‘Son, I am happy to see you because you are my son, but going out with guys is no fun,’ he says to punctuate a silence.

      ‘What do you mean? You can talk to me about football, girls, whatever you want …’

      ‘I go out with people to have fun, not talk. I want to flirt, to dance, to eat with a knife and fork.’

      ‘You can do that with blokes. Why do you need to date girls?’

      ‘These are not dates. They are my friends. The girls are all my friends. Because I take them out, we eat good food, listen to the music, and dance. And they laugh at my jokes.’

      ‘Because you’re paying to take them out.’

      ‘Why must you make me feel like they are my prostitutes?’

      ‘Because you make it sound like you pay them to let you take them out.’

      ‘Well, kiddo … I’m old-fashioned.’

      ‘And it is the oldest profession,’ I say, spooning onions into my hand and throwing them into my mouth.

      I feel, as I always do at these dinners, the unsettling pressure to be my dad’s best friend as well as his son. Dad used to have 2 close friends whom he did everything with. They watched every sport going, from cricket to the World’s Strongest Man, drank together, played cards, even worked together. Now those guys have retired and moved to Dubai, leaving my dad to date and take me out for dinner. And be a barfly.

      He finds friends of friends, divorcees or widows who want to be taken out for dinner and a dance and he uses them for company. He pays to take them out and they give him company. He has rules for prospective partners. He’s trying to protect himself from history repeating. He doesn’t want to outlive another partner.