Radhika Sanghani - Not That Easy

Lara fidgeted on the sofa. ‘Oh, I don’t know, I guess just because most people who use dating sites are old, so I was a bit nervous you’d all think I was desperate or that it was a bit weird. But it just makes so much sense to date online,’ she said. ‘Like, you don’t have to bother with the cringeness of going to a bar and hoping you meet someone, then being depressed if you don’t. Or the pathetic hope that every cute guy on a park bench will come and ask you out.’

I nodded in support, trying to prove that I was exactly the sort of person she could have told all of this to earlier. ‘Totally. This is definitely the way I’m going to find my next shag as well. I don’t even have to leave my sofa or dressing gown to find a man. This site was made for me.’

‘So you really only want one-night stands and not a boyfriend?’ asked Emma.

‘Yeah, I think so. It took me so long to lose my virginity that now I just feel like I have all this lost time to make up for. I want to get out there and have amazing sex with different people. I like sex—well, the little I’ve had of it. But it wasn’t particularly fun, and I’m so ready for that. I feel like it’s God’s gift to us, to get orgasms and have a bit of fun while global warming is tearing the planet apart.’ The girls looked baffled. ‘I just want to have my slutty phase already.’

‘Slutty phase?’ asked Lara with a raised eyebrow. ‘You know how I feel about the word “slut”, Ellie. It shows the double standards society has for men and women. He’s a player, she’s a slut, etc. You know how it goes. Can’t you find a different word?’

‘No,’ cried Emma. ‘It’s all about reclaiming the word “slut”. Like, it essentially means someone who has sex a lot, so why is that a bad thing? It shouldn’t be gendered, obviously, but we can just use it for men and women. If we call ourselves sluts, it loses its negative meaning. We need to re-appropriate it so it’s a positive word for someone embracing their sexuality and their, like, libido.’

‘Um, I’m lost,’ I said.

‘OK, like, if I start saying “Ah, that girl is so slutty” with admiration instead of judgement, it gets rid of all the connotations the word has. And even better if we start calling guys sluts too.’

Lara looked impressed. ‘I had no idea you were so passionate about this, Em.’

She grinned. ‘Well, as a former slut, it’s a topic that’s pretty close to my heart. I heard enough guys calling me a slut growing up, and each time I let it hurt me, before I realised I could just make that word mean whatever I want. When I decided slut meant “hot, sexually confident, empowered woman”, it didn’t hurt as much.’

I nodded enthusiastically. ‘I did the exact same thing with “virgin”. Like, it used to make me feel frigid and ugly and left out. Until I had sex and then I realised it didn’t have to mean that. It could just be a factual word for not ever having been penetrated.’

‘Um, I think that’s how most people already use it, Ellie,’ said Lara.

‘No, what about “you look like a friendless virgin”?’ I asked. ‘Or “oh my God, you virgin weirdo”. Those are insults. It’s the same as “slut”. Emma’s so right, we should totally redefine it.’

‘Yeah,’ cried Emma. ‘Being a slut doesn’t have to make you feel any of that patriarchal bollocks where you’re cheap and dirty. It can make you feel powerful, carefree and in control. Fuck it, Ellie, go be a slut.’

‘Oh, I fully intend to. I want to meet up with these OKC dates and start shagging my way across central London.’

Emma cried out, ‘Ah, you’re making me so nostalgic for my single past. I miss the days of waking up and trying to figure out how to get back home from whatever bit of London I was in. I used to love the crazy stories. Did I tell you I once got a tattoo during a one-nighter?’

Lara and I exchanged shocked glances. ‘Um. No?’

‘I met him in a club.’ She grinned. ‘Just some random guy, but his flatmate was a tattoo artist. We biked back to Dalston—I sat on the handlebars. We were so fucked on MDMA that when we got back to his and his flatmate offered to give me a tattoo, I agreed.’

‘Well, where is it?!’ I demanded, trying to ignore the twinge of discomfort I felt whenever my friends discussed drugs. It was the one thing I would never try—along with anal because there’s another perfectly good hole millimetres away—and it always made me feel distant from my drug-taking friends. Thank God Lara was as uncool as me and didn’t take MDMA either.

‘So, it was a tiny star that I got on the sole of my foot,’ she said. ‘But that bit of your skin is really rough, so it doesn’t really work for tattoos and they disappear over time. If you squint you can kind of see the outline though.’ She thrust her bare left foot in our faces.

‘Oh yeah,’ said Lara. ‘Holy shit, that’s crazy.’

Emma nodded wistfully. ‘Isn’t it? Those days were fun. Not that I don’t love being with Sergio, obviously. He’s great and I love him.’

Lara and I nodded along with her, still transfixed by her surprise tattoo. ‘Anyway,’ continued Emma. ‘Lara, you’re not getting out of sharing your dating stories.’

‘OK, but I’m going to need more wine to relive these,’ she said.

Emma filled up our glasses and I closed the laptop screen. ‘Spill,’ I said.

‘OK, so it started with SafariLover,’ she said. ‘And, no, I don’t mean he liked animals. He was actually called Jake, but he worked for Apple doing some techie stuff. We went for drinks in Farringdon on our first date but he spent the whole time discussing fucking bitcoins. On a plus note, he was as attractive as his pictures and at least six foot, but it was just the bitcoins …’ We nodded sympathetically and she continued. ‘Obviously I still snogged him, but then I didn’t reply to any of his texts after that. Then I moved on to date two. He was Juanderful.’

‘Wonderful?’ asked Emma.

‘Nope. JUAN-derful. That was his OKC username. He was Spanish, thirty-five and very, very attractive. Unfortunately he lacked brain cells and was basically just there to improve his English. So that didn’t work. We had an amazing goodbye kiss though—I was seriously tempted to go back to his but couldn’t handle doing dirty talk in another language.’

‘I can’t even do it in English,’ I said.

‘You just need the practice,’ said Emma reassuringly. ‘So, what about date three?’

‘Averagecupid56.’ She grinned.

‘There are fifty-five other average cupids?’ I asked with a raised eyebrow.

‘Can’t imagine any of them being like Mr 56 though. He turned up on a bicycle for starters.’

‘Wow, guess he wasn’t planning on getting lucky,’ I said.

‘That didn’t stop my tattoo guy.’ Emma grinned.

‘It wasn’t so much the bike that bothered me, it was more the fact that he was sitting in the corner of the pub waiting for me with a copy of the Guardian .’ We groaned. ‘Oh no, it gets worse. He took me to a restaurant where he ordered quinoa and then spent the entire time discussing his gap yah and dream to volunteer for that Médecins Sans Frontières thing. He was definitely the fittest of the three and clearly intelligent but he was the biggest stereotype ever. It was kind of off-putting, but—’

‘But you still snogged him?’ I interrupted.

She gave me a withering look. ‘What do you take me for? I shagged him.’

ELK123 22, London

My self-summary:

I live in East London and work in the media but am not the typical stereotype—I promise. I don’t wear plastic glasses, I hardly ever wear vintage, and I’d much rather be travelling around the world with a backpack. OK, maybe I am the stereotype …