‘Ha. You have an extreme one-track mind this evening.’
‘Totally,’ I agree. ‘I need that woman to fall in love.’ Although not, in fact, with a good friend of mine, as I have just realised.
‘Yeah, I don’t think she’s going to fall in love with me. I think shelikedme.’ He’s almost certainly right; everyone likes him. ‘And I think we could maybe date a little. But I didn’t get any I-could-fall-hard-for-you vibes. And I feel like I’ve reached a stage in life where I don’t want to start anything that I know isn’t going anywhere.’
I blink. This is not the Minuk I’ve known for eighteen years. ‘Mate.’
‘Yep. I know. Apparently it comes to us all. Thirty-six is a serious age, though. Like, blink and we’ll be forty. I mean, obviously it’s four years away, but that isn’t long when you think about meeting someone, dating them for a while, then making a commitment, then having kids. If that’s what you want. So there we go. I don’t think I’m up any more for relationships that I know are going to be short term before I’ve even started them.’
‘Wow,’ I say.
‘I know. I’m an adult.’
‘Well, congratulations. And also, dammit.’ I’m not sure whether I really meandammit, because if Freya begins to date a good friend of mine I will obviously just be swapping one problem for another. I should probably actually be punching the air right now.
‘Yeah. Sorry. I mean, Freya’s a wonderful woman. Great company, beautiful. Just no spark.’
‘Okay. So.’ I’m still one-track. ‘Did you learn anything about her that would give me a clue about how to find the person she’s going to fall in love with?’
Minuk puts his elbow on the table and props his chin in his hand and spends a little time in a thinking pose.
Eventually, he comes up with: ‘Nope.’
‘Dammit,’ I say again.
‘Although… I’ve had an idea.’ He pauses for a moment and then nods. ‘Yep. I have it. You and she can’t stand each other.’
I nod.
‘So you need to find a man that you can’t stand and she’ll probably love them.’
‘That’s your idea? I find someone I really dislike and she’ll fall in love with them? That’s ridiculous. I mean, shereallyannoyed me but she isn’tweird. She isn’t going to like mass murderers or fascists, is she?’
‘You don’t know any mass murderers or fascists,’ Minuk points out, like we’re having an actual serious conversation.
‘And I don’t dislike any of my friends. No. This is stupid. I think I need to find someone who shares a lot of her tastes and set them up together. I’m thinking Tinder although I’d have to get her to agree to me putting her on there. Did you find out anything useful about her? Hobbies? Music tastes?’
‘She isnota massive Swiftie even though she does really like some of Taylor Swift’s songs and did go to one of her concerts with a friend and had a great time.’ He says it like it’s reallyunusual and not entirely normal for an affluent British woman in her thirties.
‘Thanks. Anything else?’
‘She likes good food. All global cuisines. She likes playing tennis but hates running. She enjoys going to the cinema. Likes holidays.’
As in, like a significant proportion of the population.
Yeah, this is not going to work. OfcourseI’m not going to find someone she’s going to fall in love with.
Sonja tells Freya and me the next day on ourLove ChallengeWhatsApp chat that she and the production teamadorethe fact we went to the same venue for both our dates, and that’s what we’ll be doing going forward, and we’ll be taking it in turns to choose.
Since Freya chose theIn The Darkvenue, I’ll be choosing the next one.
And it can’t be a restaurant.
But it’s got to berealbecause we are essentially a reality show, Sonja says.
So real that we’re being told what to do, I think, not really knowing what she means byreal.
Anyway.
