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‘Okay, but if they are getting back together, then we need a plan for that, to break them up again, because we cannot let that happen.’
‘Don’t worry, I have something in mind, for a worst-case scenario,’ I tell her.
I just really hope it won’t come to that.
17
I think that perhaps, because the events we’re going to are so varied, and because there don’t seem to be any potential romantic couples in any of the groups I’ve been out in, it’s easy to forget that Matcher is in fact a dating app, and the whole point of all of this is achieve something on the spectrum between hooking up and finding love. I don’t suppose my motivation for joining the events helped either. Looking for any reason to avoid being in your own home, in the days before Christmas, when all your mates are on holiday probably wasn’t written on the white board when the team at Matcher were coming up with the Mingle All the Way initiative.
Rocco and I are here ‘together’ again but tonight couldn’t be more different from the things we’ve done so far because tonight we’re not on the same team at all, and tonight Rocco isn’t ‘all mine’ (in the very loose sense he has been so far, anyway – I know he’s not mine-mine, I’m not delusional). Tonight, we’re speed dating.
Is it weird that I feel weird? Is it tragic, that I’m having feelings for my wingman? It is, isn’t it? What is wrong with me? I should be at home in my pyjamas eating cheese and not even thinking about men. I complain about my mum seeming suspiciously close with my dad, and my sister running around with the boy next door, but I’m just as bad.
Anyway, we’re at speed dating, an event where we won’t spend any real time together, apart from our allocated minute, of course. We did say we would debrief, afterwards, if neither of us hit it off with someone – the implication being one of us might pull, and I honestly don’t know if I led us to that conclusion or Rocco did. I suppose, given that Matcher is a dating app, Rocco must have been on there looking for someone, even if he is only in town for the holidays. My own intentions, the whole reason I’m at these events, was never about romance or anything close to it. I’m not sure I’m ready to even think about meeting someone yet – least of all via speed dating.
I’ve never actually been speed dating before. Unsurprisingly, it’s never appealed. Well, while some might argue that I’m best enjoyed in short bursts, I think I’m what they call a ‘grower’ – actually, that’s something else, but you know what I mean. I’m an acquired taste. To know me is to love me, or something like that. My point is that it takes me a little while to open up, to show my true self – let’s not beat about the bush – to be likeable. So, yeah, I don’t think speed dating is going to be for me, although women do get to sit still, and men have to do the moving around which I quite like, mostly just because it means I don’t have to get up.
My heels aren’t helping. I suppose, maybe on some level, knowing that tonight was a ‘romantic’ event (for a lack of a better term), I probably have tried a little harder to dress up. My heels are high, my black dress is on the shorter side, and I learned how to do my eye make-up from someone on TikTok who was maybe fifteen years younger than me, so hopefully I’m looking like someone you would want to spend a minute talking to – until the bell rings, at least.
So far this evening, my communications with Rocco have been strictly text based. We’ve been messaging all day, actually, and I suppose it’s been strange, making plans to go speed dating together, but there you are.
I’m at the River Bar – somewhere I’ve been before, but the last time I was here I was probably with Declan. It wasn’t as nice then; it must have been renovated since. It looks like we’ve both gone for an ‘out with the old’ kind of vibe, although I imagine their ugly old chairs didn’t up and leave them while they were working and then send a follow-up text to explain their actions after the fact.
I need to cut that out, right now. My man-free Christmas might be over, but my Declan-free life is something I feel very strongly about. The last thing I need is him in my head tonight – where he’s still trying to live rent free – making me wonder what’s wrong with me, why he couldn’t stand to stay with me in the home we were planning on making together.
‘Wow, Billie, look at you,’ Rocco says as he greets me with a kiss on the cheek. Ooh, perhaps the outfit is working? He’s never kissed me on the cheek before. We have been through a lot together, though. Last night felt like it crammed years of friendship into one really intense mess of an evening.
‘Look at me, look at you,’ I reply. ‘Looking very sharp.’
‘I’m wearing the same coat as last night – hastily cleaned in my hotel bathroom, so it probably stinks,’ he says. ‘But you, you look different, you look like you’re about to make speed dating your bitch.’
‘Tables, ladies,’ a voice calls out.
‘Oh, I guess it’s starting,’ Rocco says. ‘I suppose I’ll see you at some point but, until then, have a good evening, here’s hoping it all goes better than last night.’
I raise my glass.
‘To not ending the night covered in cream,’ I say, instantly regretting my words.
Rocco flashes me that cheeky smile of his.
‘I’ll drink to that,’ he replies. ‘As soon as I get a drink.’
The speed dating event is something put on by the bar, not organised by one of the Matcher lot, so as such there are lots of other people here. Leila is here, obviously, and Tobias. I recognise a few other people but otherwise it’s mostly new people and with new people comes the potential for new romantic connections. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
I shuffle over to the speed dating tables and find myself naturally ushered towards a particular one. The second my bum touches the seat, I regret it.
‘Hello,’ the blonde girl on the table next to me says.
In hindsight, it was a dumb move on my part, to take a seat next to the prettiest girl in the room – if not the whole of Kent. Worse than her being Instagram filter levels of attractive, though, is that fact that we’re a similar type (in the loosest sense, obviously). She’s a blonde in what I’d guess is her early thirties, wearing a black dress, with the exact same fruity gin cocktail on the table in front of her. We look like a before and after picture. But if a ten is sitting next to a seven (if I borrow her surplus points, that is) at speed dating then there can’t be any shame in it.
‘Hi,’ I reply. ‘Have you done this before?’
‘Oh, God, no!’ she quickly insists. ‘One of my friends wanted to come. I’m just here for moral support. You?’
‘First time too,’ I reply.
‘Here’s hoping it’s over quickly,’ she says with a smile.
