Zoe May - Perfect Match

It’s not like I didn’t do my homework. I’m not a fool. I stopped going on dates without googling in advance a loooong time ago. I typed random combinations of words gleaned from our text conversations into the search bar (Chris, Senior Sales Manager, Durham University, Cloud Computing) until I hit the jackpot: his LinkedIn profile. He was legit! In fact, he was better than legit. I discovered a few extra details he hadn’t divulged that made me like him even more. Not only did he have a good job, but he’d been promoted every year and he was head of his company’s charity fundraising committee. And not only did he have a degree in Classical Civilisation from Durham University, but he’d got a first! And he looked exactly the same in his LinkedIn photo as he did on his dating profile – tall, slim and with lovely blue eyes! I really did believe my luck might finally be changing. Seventy-first time lucky! But no, hah! As if. Chris, the seemingly great catch, is now sitting across from me in a dingy Chinatown restaurant droning on about the precise differences between ho fun, udon and ramen noodles, while slurping said noodles and splashing soy sauce all over his shirt.

‘You see, ho fun noodles are interesting, because while you may think that noodles, like pasta, are made from wheat, ho fun are actually made from rice flour!’ Chris enthuses.

‘Mm-hmm…’ I murmur, downing the dregs of my white wine. I place the empty glass back down with despair.

‘Udon and ramen, on the other hand, are wheat noodles – a bit more commonplace, but while they may both be wheat-based, the differences in the way they’re prepared affects their taste to a surprising degree. You see, udon are made using a technique of…’

I peer over Chris’s shoulder while he drones on, hoping to catch the waitress’s eye to order another glass of wine, but she’s running around the restaurant tending to other customers. It occurs to me that perhaps I ought to start bringing a hip flask on dates for this kind of emergency: when a man is so boring that only alcohol-induced merriment can make him remotely tolerable. I wonder how much hip flasks cost. It might be quite cool and edgy to carry one around in my handbag. Maybe I’ll start a trend. It’ll become the next ironic fashion, like the wheeled shopping trolleys hipsters pull around in Hackney.

Chris loudly slurps another noodle, tearing me out of my reverie, while leaving yet another streak of soy sauce on his once-white shirt. He looks like he’s been standing behind a truck that’s been attempting to reverse out of a muddy ditch. He carries on talking. He appears to have changed the subject to hobbies. Or, more precisely, to weird nerdy games I thought were meant for children. I smile awkwardly and shovel my sweet and sour stir-fry into my mouth, as if by eating quicker, I can speed up the passage of time.

‘We meet up every Saturday morning. We used to get together at the gaming shop, but the atmosphere there got a bit too competitive so we meet in a pub now. We all bring along our army figurines and we battle for hours! Right into the evening sometimes. It’s great, although there’s this one guy who keeps beating me. It’s so annoying, but I’ve got a new addition to my army now – Grand Lord Thor – one of the toughest figures in the game. So, he’s in for a treat!’ Chris says with a loud cackle.

Other diners are looking over at us, but Chris is oblivious. I smile tightly, shrinking into my seat.

‘You know, some women are a bit put off when I tell them I play battle games, but I don’t really see what’s so bad about it. It’s just a game. It’s just guys hanging out, isn’t it?’

‘Sorry, what?’ I pipe up.

‘Battle games! We each have an army of figurines, hand painted,’ Chris adds with pride. ‘And then we play battle against each other’s army.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘Some men meet to play football, I play battle games!’ Chris says before slurping up his last noodle. It splatters triumphantly on his cheek, leaving a murky brown trail.

‘Whoops!’ he chuckles, reaching for a napkin to wipe it off.

I laugh. My first laugh of the evening. Chris smiles as if we’re having a moment. I don’t think he realises that my laughter is really just joyous relief emanating from deep within over the fact that he’s finished his meal and the date is almost over. I beckon the waitress over.

‘Dessert menu? Bill?’ she asks. Chris looks at me questioningly.

‘Bill!’ I yelp, a little too shrilly.

‘Okay…’ The waitress gives me a funny look before scurrying off to get the bill.

She brings it over and Chris plonks his wallet on the table, while I rummage in my bag for my wallet.

‘I’ll get it,’ Chris says.

‘No! Let’s go halves,’ I insist. ‘One sec.’ The last thing I need after the world’s most boring date is to feel like I owe this guy something just because he bought me dinner. Finally, I land upon my wallet amid a debris of stray receipts, blunted eye-liners and errant hair pins.

‘I’ve got this.’ Chris passes the waitress his card with a charming smile, as I flip my wallet open, pull mine out and thrust it towards her.

‘No! We’ll go fifty-fifty, please.’

‘Oh…’ The waitress looks to Chris, as if for permission.

‘That’s okay with you, isn’t it, Chris?’ I ask, giving him the most beaming smile I’ve delivered all night.

‘Err, okay,’ he relents.

‘Okay,’ the waitress echoes, taking another look at the bill and punching half the total into the card machine for Chris and then again for me. I try not to let my eyes bulge when I clock the figure – since when did Chinatown get so expensive? – and punch in my pin. Even though I’m a bit pissed off that I’ve had to pay an arm and a leg for the pleasure of listening to a lecture on noodle variations and battle games, I can feel my spirits begin to lift. The date is practically over! We leave the restaurant and start walking towards Leicester Square.

‘You know, it’s interesting…’ Chris muses, nodding to himself at some thought he’s had.

‘What’s interesting?’ I ask, immediately regretting the question.

‘Tube stations,’ he says. ‘People tend to think that they’re all roughly the same distance apart but they’re actually not. It’ll only take us a couple of minutes to walk to Leicester Square, but that’s because the tube stations around here are unusually close together. You’d be surprised to know that the distance between Leicester Square and Covent Garden is actually only a third of the distance between Victoria and Green Park.’

‘Mm-hmm…’ I quicken my pace. Maybe if we walk faster, we can get to Leicester Square in one minute, rather than two. Chris carries on talking about tube station geography as I pound the street with my heels. It feels like an hour has passed by the time we finally get there.

‘Thanks for a lovely evening,’ I mumble half-heartedly. It’s just one of those things you say, isn’t it?

‘I’ll text you,’ I add, edging towards the escalator.

Chris looks at me with an expression I can’t quite read. Surprise? Cynicism? Dread? Perhaps the date was as bad for him as it was for me.

‘Okay, take care,’ he replies.

He smiles politely and I smile politely and we politely go our separate ways.

Chapter Two

‘He can’t really have been that boring?’ Kate tops up my glass of wine.

‘Trust me, he was.’ I take a glug.

‘But he seemed so sweet, with all those photos of him and his Labrador. So cute,’ she says wistfully.

‘Yeah, well, apparently a love of dogs doesn’t necessarily guarantee a good date,’ I sigh, thinking back to all those misleading pictures of Chris smiling with his family’s pet.