Stella Grey - The Heartfix - An Online Dating Diary

I wanted to have a good cry. I said I had to go and ended the call.

The next morning when I woke, I had a hangover and was ashamed. But I didn’t cancel the date. I was miserable about the prospect of meeting him but I was overriding this with pep talks to myself, of the people-pleasing kind. I told myself not to be so uptight. Why was I so uptight about something so harmless as Skype sex? Why was I such a square ? Why couldn’t I do as other women suggested and just have a good time, sleep around, enjoy being single, sow some wild oats, be adventurous with technology, without over-thinking it all? (Because I couldn’t. Because it wasn’t what I wanted.) In any case those weren’t the questions I should have asked. What I should have been asking was, why did you agree to that when you didn’t want to? Why did you pretend to think it was fun when you found it degrading? Why have you arranged to meet this man for a drink?

The following evening, Finn bombarded me with requests for another Skype call. I found myself having to be defensive. I had to be too busy. Were we in a Skype relationship now? Were there going to be expectations? I was the one who was going to look like a player if I backed out now; using a man for one cybersex episode and then dropping him like a brick; that wasn’t something I felt good about. On the other hand, I just didn’t want to do it again.

When we met in a large, dimly lit, vaguely trendy wine bar, I was already sure it was a mistake. I don’t know why I went. I had it vaguely in mind that it would be one drink and then I could send the liaison-ender, the text that explained that I didn’t want to meet again. How could I cancel a drink with a man I’d had sort-of Skype sex with? That would be horrifically shallow, wouldn’t it? (Wrong question, again.)

I got to the bar first and ordered a bottle of wine and two glasses, and drank a glass down. I felt quite sick with nerves. When Finn arrived, the first thing I noticed about him was that he had short legs, and was altogether not the five foot eleven advertised. He was Tom Cruise-sized, but had a megawatt smile, also à la Tom, and sat down heavily with a sigh saying he’d had a beast of a day and thank God for alcohol. I had a whole story prepared about a funny thing that’d happened to me that morning, and he listened, stroking his beard, laughing along. I noticed that he had really small hands, with short fingers, his nails bitten to the quick.

The hour that followed was pleasant enough, though it was devoted to the kind of biographical chat that you know is going to run out eventually. When we’d both tired of filling in the other person on what we’d done and places we’d been, the chat really did run completely dry, and the atmosphere grew strained. We both filled the gap by looking at our phones to see if there were urgent messages. There weren’t, not on my side anyway. He spent five or six minutes tapping away answering a work email while I gazed around at all the people who were a lot more relaxed than we were. When Finn had put his phone away he said, ‘Right – shall we go?’ We went out into the street, where people were standing smoking and groups of Friday night revellers were going by. Finn took hold of my lapels and drew me closer – I was in heels and he was quite a bit shorter than me – and said, ‘I know you’re unsure, but I have an idea of something that will make you a lot happier than you are right now.’

‘Oh yes,’ I said, ‘what’s that?’

He kissed me softly on the mouth and looked into my eyes, and kissed me again. He said that as it happened he was staying just over the road, at a friend’s flat, and did I want to come up for another glass of wine? I followed him across the street, and up narrow stairs to the second floor. I can’t tell you, convincingly, why it was that I agreed to this. It goes against every safety code, and I didn’t want to, but mysteriously I agreed nonetheless. I most certainly wasn’t going to have sex with him. I’d stick to one glass, and make my excuses and leave. I’d do that, and then later I’d send the text about not wanting to meet again. I’d use a kind lie of some sort. As soon as we’d had that drink.

The flat was small, a one-room studio, and it turned out that the friend wasn’t there; he’d given Finn the key. We were alone and it occurred to me that I might be in danger. I said I was just going to let a friend know where I was, because I hadn’t expected to be late, and then I went into the tiny bathroom and texted the address. When I came out he was sitting at the pull-out table by the bed – it was a studio so the bed was unavoidable – with soft music playing, the blinds down, the lighting dimmed. We had a drink and talked about jazz and then I said I ought to go, and he kissed me again. I didn’t want to kiss him, and the nylony strands of the moustache and beard didn’t add to the fun.

He began to remove my clothes, though for the first few moments I held on tight to the shirt that was being unbuttoned, because I didn’t want to have sex with him. Finn kissed me again and said, ‘Come on, let’s just have pleasure, and not worry about anything,’ and, more out of social embarrassment than anything, not wanting to be a square and no fun and a drag, I let him remove my clothes, and watched as rapidly he shed his own. I didn’t want to have sex with him, and yet I did. I already felt bad about it, and yet I let him continue. It had got to the point at which I didn’t seem able to say, ‘Stop, stop, I don’t want this.’ Of course I was able to say that, but I chose not to, and I know it’s lame to keep saying it was embarrassment that fuelled it, but that’s what it was. It was people-pleasing of an extreme kind. When I put my hands on his back, his skin felt alien and cold. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t know this man, and I didn’t want this, and now I just wanted it to be over. I remain ashamed of myself, every time I remember. I’m ashamed of myself and also angry.

After a few minutes of failing to get the angle right he said I should get up onto my knees and face the wall, and so I did what he asked of me, and there was sex, of a sort, a dry and unappetising sort from behind. I was full of self-loathing and disappointment and it was completely humiliating. ‘Look, I’m going to have to go,’ I said eventually. I reached for my clothes and got my underwear on and my shirt and went to the table where my tights and skirt were.

Finn came up behind me and pulled my knickers down and started at me again. ‘Don’t move, don’t move!’ he shrieked. I was leaning forward, over the desk, caught in mid-reach for my clothes. It took him ten seconds to finish (and yes, he was wearing a condom, thank God). He wasn’t interested in whether I might like to have any kind of a finish of my own.

I said, ‘I have to go now, really.’ I put the rest of my clothes on hurriedly, and grabbed my bag and ran down the stairs and onto the street, and ran to the end of it, and walked along the next one wiping tears from my face. A couple stopped and asked me if everything was all right. ‘Bad date,’ I told them. ‘Just a horrible date.’

‘Oh God, we’ve all been there,’ the woman said jovially.

Finn had texted me by the time I got back. ‘Incredible orgasm! What a night! Night night darling xx.’

What? Seriously? It wasn’t possible he was as stupid as this. I didn’t reply. I told a friend what’d happened, and she was shocked and said the situation sounded abusive to her. I couldn’t really argue that, as I’d consented to it all, and hadn’t been coerced at any stage, and had allowed it to happen. But I began to feel as if it had been intended to humiliate, in a sly sort of way. Part of the humiliation, perhaps, was this pretence that there was anything romantic about it.