The Man Diet: One woman’s quest to end bad romance. Zoe Strimpel

happened when they got back hadn’t been all that great; it was certainly not the intoxicating orgasm fest suggested in some representations of unfettered, big-city casual sex. Rather, it had been made plain how little regard they had for each other, and while Sarah enjoyed faking intimacy, the guy didn’t have the slightest inclination to do so. He banged her (two seconds before condom; 20 minutes post-condom), he came, he suggested anal, she said no, they napped for an hour, and then he said, ‘Shit, I have to go’, got his stuff and left, only just remembering on his way out to ask for her number. It was just a vague politeness reflex; anyone could see that.

      Now she felt horror – why did she always have that impulse to take someone home with her when drunk, even though she was too old for these completely unrewarding encounters? Why did she give herself to some random who couldn’t even pretend to be polite in bed? And, worst of all, what of those seconds of sex before the condom went on? Was she willing to even risk her health when drunk? And for what? Through the cloudy pain of these reflections, she haltingly pulled on her clothes and made it to the Tube without being sick. The day was not pretty.

      The regret had largely faded by night, though, and the next day she was ready to go again, the dark hole of the previous morning forgotten, and the sex of the night before already related to her friends as a highly amusing story.

      It was Saturday night, and Sarah and her flatmate Lynn had a birthday party to attend. They got ready to the sound of their favourite tune, also Lynn’s BlackBerry ring tone: Jamie Foxx featuring T-Pain’s ‘Blame It [on the Alcohol]’.

      Flash forward to midnight. Lynn’s snogging a good-looking guy. Sarah has drunk more than she should have, though less than the other night, and is now in guy-searching mode. Nobody bites, though, and she’s starting to feel like she has no vibe. When a cutie hoves into view and offers to get her another drink, she gratefully accepts, even though she doesn’t really feel like it. But in the presence of her potential ticket out of here tonight, she sucks the double Absolut through a straw and makes flirtatious conversation. She excuses herself to go to the bathroom, and when she comes back, the guy’s gone. She looks for him everywhere, but can’t find him. Now her buzz is gone, she’s drunk, and she’s got nobody. She starts talking to other guys, but it’s a no-go. Eventually she gets a cab home – it’s 3.30am and Lynn has gone off with that guy she’s been wrapped around for the last three hours.

      The next day’s hangover is both better and worse than the one before. It’s worse in that, when the pain of it dries up, she’s got nothing concrete to show for it. No hook-ups. She feels like a failure of a single girl; she’s meant to be able to hook up whenever she wants when out on the razz, and last night was a reminder that she clearly can’t. But the hangover’s better in that she’s woken up guilt- and loathing-free, hasn’t put herself at risk in the sack or given her body to someone undeserving. Oh, and crucially, she doesn’t have to go to work. Still, her body is in a bad way and the calories she consumed last night were ungodly. She’ll have to write off the day.

      So I say …

      Take a break from the booze. Giving your body a rest – and showing it some love – will give you a fresh perspective.

      The single woman and her tumultuous love affair with booze

      This is not an unusual or crazy snapshot in the life of a single, fun-loving woman. It’s not typical, perhaps, but it’s a scenario that most British women aged 18–35 will relate to. When researching this book, I asked women in their twenties and thirties if they drink more when single. Here’s what they said:

      ‘Defo, drank a hell of a lot more when I was single.’

       Naihala, 34

      ‘Yes, definitely – I got wasted all the time, it was the only way to get over my shyness with men. I lacked confidence and was massively body shy. So needed to be pretty out of it to disrobe.’

      Laura, 35

      ‘Definitely. And there’s a lot of alcohol consumption when you’ve just started seeing someone – you know, lots of going out, getting pissed, eating crap, staying out late.’

      Laura, 32

      Another woman, a good friend of mine called Mary, frequently blacks out when drunk. ‘I have missed lots from blacking out – I don’t remember meeting half the people I’ve dated; and sometimes I’ll wake up next to someone and not remember how we ended up in bed.’ She’s no basket case; Mary is a successful, grounded person who does not have an alcohol problem – it’s just that a few drinks, even as few as three, can make her forget what happens to her. But instead of being terrified by the experience and its implications, she just accepts that it happens on big nights out. Such is the single woman’s cross to bear.

      Rising alcohol consumption among women is a horn that is tooted with great insistence by the media, and rightly so: the numbers suggest that we’re the fastest growing demographic of boozers in the UK, with the image of the hard-partying single gal right up there. After all, women aged between 18 and 24 in the UK drink more than in any European country (Datamonitor, 2005). Across the pond, CBS news in the US did a shock-horror ‘Sex and the City syndrome’ story, inspired by a rise in DUI (driving under the influence) accidents among young women. They worried about the ‘girls’ nights out and those pink drinks’ SATC popularised. And well they should.

      Reality check: do we really need to give up the booze?

      This Man Diet rule is not about lecturing and tut-tutting; it’s about giving you a respite from habits that might be dragging you down. Alcohol is not a simple topic – i.e., ‘bad for you’ – and it plays an enormous, complex role in most of our lives. Kate Spicer, a journalist, wrote a courageous ‘life’s too short not to drink up’ piece for The Sunday Times. In it, she confessed to ticking a good handful of what the government might call ‘alcoholic’ boxes, but argued that when used appropriately, excess alcohol can be a source of pleasure and relaxation without necessary punishment. It’s not alcohol that creates a mess, she concludes; it’s people.

      Spicer’s view is appealing, and there’s no chance I’ll be giving up social drinking and occasional drunkenness for government-guideline-style imbibing any time soon. But when the single woman – under pressure to have more fun than everyone else (see NSA and No Talking chapters) – ends up in a run of alcohol-fuelled promiscuity followed by self-loathing hangovers, it’s time to take a breather. In the same Sunday Times feature, I felt that student Ruth Gilligan more accurately captured the mania of acquiring the experience, stories and gossip that alcohol often facilitates. She describes the experience of sitting in her college room, whilst next door, thumping music starts up, heralding the arrival of the girls invited over by the lads in the house. She listens as the word ‘stawpedo’ is bellowed en masse, then sighs with relief when the music stops – the group have headed out into the night. It’s only Part One of the evening, though: she’s certain at least three of the girls will be back later and that a sizzling stew of gossip will be ripe for the stirring in the morning.

      Every woman has a pronounced relationship with alcohol. Some get trashed on weekends; others like a glass or a bottle of wine of an evening. Some use it as a massive social crutch, and morph from shy wallflowers into sexual predators on a few wines. Some women use it to show they’re as hard/good/fun/wild as their male peers. Others don’t get what the fuss is about – and get snippy when asked questions like, ‘Do you binge drink?’ Still others don’t drink at all and face relentless social pressure to do so. Many of us worry a huge deal that we drink too much but make little attempt to cut down.

      Clearly, women’s relationship with alcohol is more complex than the oft-alarm-bell-ringing Daily Mail would have it – yes we drink too much but we’re not all bingeing terrors of the night, constantly in hospital having our stomachs pumped. This complexity also applies to the connection between boozing and unwise sexual behaviour. As a Man Dieter, the concern is to minimise the psychological effects of uncomfortable run-ins with men – which chip away at self-esteem, as per Sarah’s really rough mornings described above. So when I advise laying off the booze for a bit, I’m hoping for a double-pronged attack on:

      a)low-quality sex with a low-quality