A Girl Like You. Gemma Burgess

I didn’t have to make new friends, I just had a handful of old ones and shared his. If I couldn’t talk to anyone at a party, I talked to him. If I found a group intimidating, he would talk for me. And so on.

      So, the first time I found myself being chatted up by a moderately good-looking guy in a bar, I felt sweatily self-conscious and couldn’t wait to get away. (He seemed to feel the same way about me after about 45 seconds.)

      Confidence is a stupid word. It’s not like I think I’m worthless or anything. Sometimes I just have trouble thinking of something to say. And then, when I say things, I sometimes wonder if they sound a bit shit. I talk to myself a lot, in my head. But everyone does, right?

      Perhaps it’s not confidence, perhaps there’s simply a knack to being chatted up. I think I’m getting better at it. Maybe. I like bars and drinks and what do you know, so do men.

      And so here I am. On a date. High five to me.

      I wonder how Peter is. We broke up in July, he moved in with his brother Joe, took a sabbatical from work and went on a year-long backpacking trip. He said it was one of the things he felt he missed out on by being in a relationship with me for the whole of his 20s.

      I wonder what I missed out on.

      I guess I’m about to find out.

      Breaking up with him was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. There isn’t much in books or music or films that helps you leave someone who is very, very, nice but just not quite right. He’s not mean, you’re not miserable, no one cheats. It’s just a sad, slow process of ending it.

      Peter’s such a reasonable guy that he didn’t even disagree when I said, ‘I don’t think we’re right for each other, I think deep down you know it too. So I think we should break up.’ He just nodded. He would have gone on living with me for years, without questioning if we actually had a good relationship or just a functioning one. All Peter really wanted was an easy life. And – wait, why am I still thinking about my ex-fucking-boyfriend? I’m almost on a date. Stop it, Abigail.

      Gosh, my palms are clammy. Perhaps I’ll need Botox shots in them. They do that, you know. I wonder if my armpits are sweaty too. Fuck. I can’t tell. I’ll just have to keep my arms down all night.

      Oh, look, I’ve finished my drink. May as well have another.

      Thank hell I’m finally going on a date. For the six months before we broke up, the flip side to the thought ‘I’m not happy, I want to leave Peter,’ was the thought ‘but then I’ll be single, and I’ll have to meet new men, and go on dates, and I don’t know how.’

      For a while, that thought – that fear – was enough to keep me from leaving Peter. Fear of never having anyone think I was pretty, fear of never being asked out, fear of never falling in love again, in short: fear of getting Lonely Single Girl Syndrome, of never finding the right person and dying alone. Why take the risk?

      Pretty standard stuff, right?

      And yet, the last two months of singledom have been infinitely more fun than the last year (or three) of my relationship. After I dealt with the inevitable emotional fallout and guilt from ending my old life (my advice: move out as fast as you can, so your new surroundings match your new state of mind, and get a haircut, for the same reason) I immediately started structuring a new one. Work is the same, obviously, so the focus has been on my previously neglected social butterfly skills. Dinners and drinks and lunches and parties: you name it, I’m doing it. Other nights I rejoice in time alone, reading chicklit in the bath or going to sleep at 8 pm covered in fake tan and a hair mask.

      I love it.

      I love my new flatshare, too. It’s in the delightfully-monikered Primrose Hill. I’m renting a room from Robert, a friend of my sister’s fiancé. I haven’t seen him much since I moved in a month ago. When we do meet, in the kitchen or the hallway, we make polite small talk and that’s about it. Which suits me just fine.

      My bedroom is on the top floor of the house. It’s small and quiet and best of all, it’s mine, all mine. It’s not perfect, of course – the ensuite bathroom is poky, and the wardrobe is tiny, but my clothes have adjusted very well to the transition. They’re such troopers.

      I look down at my black peep-toes. Yes, you, I think. You’re a trooper.

      What, like you’ve never talked to your clothes.

      OK, it’s 7.50 pm. I can walk to Bam-Bou now. I’m sure Paulie will be early. Men are always early for dates, right? I don’t know! God. How did I end up being the only 27-year-old I know who’s never ever gone out on a date?

      Now I’m nervous again.

      Could I have a boyfriend called Paulie? It sounds like a budgeri gar. Right. Here we are. Bam-Bou. He said he’d meet me in the bar on the top floor.

      ‘Hi!’ I say, grinning nervously, when I finally reach the sexy, dark little bar. Paulie is sitting on a stool in the corner, wearing a very nice dark grey suit. He’s hot, though a bit jowlier than I remembered.

      ‘Ali,’ he says, putting down his BlackBerry and leaning over to give me a doublekiss hello. Cold cheeks. Sandalwoody aftershave.

      ‘Abi . . . gail,’ I correct him. ‘Abigail Wood.’ There’s nowhere for me to sit. Never mind. I’ll just lean. Oh God, I feel sick with nerves.

      ‘Right,’ he says, going back to his BlackBerry. ‘Pick a drink, I’ve just got a work thing to reply to . . .’

      I nod, and looking around, pick up a drinks menu and start reading it. What shall I pick? I’m puffed! How embarrassing to be panting this much. Why would you have the bar on the fourth floor of a building with no lift?

      I choose a martini, and as he orders it, I try to look composed, like I date all the time. Who me? I’m on a date. Who him? He’s my date.

      ‘So. How was your day?’ I ask, when Paulie returns. Is that a good question? I don’t know. My mum would ask it.

      ‘Scintillating,’ he replies crisply, leaning into me. Cripes, he is definitely hot. Very dashing eyebrows.

      ‘What do you do?’ I am trying to smile and look interested and nice and pretty, all at the same time.

      ‘I work for a branding agency,’ he says. ‘I’m head of account management.’

      ‘Oh, how interesting!’ I say. Wow. I really do sound like my mum. ‘Where is your office?’

      ‘Farringdon.’

      ‘How long have you been doing that?’ But I can’t seem to stop.

      ‘About seven years. I started my own company straight out of university, managing chalet bitches, as that was what I loved,’ he pauses, and grins to himself for a second. ‘You know. But that got tired after a couple of years, so here I am.’

      ‘Golly,’ I say brightly. ‘That does sound interesting.’ Why do I feel like I’m at a job interview?

      ‘It was,’ he nods, his smile faltering slightly.

      ‘Where was the chalet company based?’ Is this normal?

      ‘Verbier.’

      ‘Do you speak French?’ Stop asking questions.

      ‘I can hold my own.’

      ‘Are you from London originally?’ But what if there’s an awkward pause in conversation?

      ‘I am,’ he says. ‘Though I left when my parents split up. My mum moved to Devon and I moved with her. I haven’t seen my dad in twenty years.’

      ‘Oh, I’m . . . sorry . . .’ Shit.

      He smiles at me, slightly less enthusiastically than before. Perhaps talking about his mum and dad makes him sad. I’ll change the subject. Is it hot in here? My face feels so flushed.

      ‘So, have you eaten here before?’ I ask. I wonder