More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
We shifted from overfamiliarity to inquisitiveness from sentence to sentence; alternating from feeling like old friends to strangers. We gave too much information about ourselves, then we pulled back. We got a kick out of the novelty of each other, heightening ourselves for the other one’s enjoyment (she, the fauxhemian corporate West London girl; me, the scruffy comedian who never had enough bog roll in the flat). We made too much comedy of our differences and placed too much meaning on our similarities. It was flirting to a Premiership standard. Any time someone came over to talk, it felt
...more
This is exactly where I want to be—in the warm, cosy cocoon of nostalgia. Where I can be in the company of my teenage self and he can remind me of something about hope and youth and what it is to know you have things ahead of you that are new.
Bon Iver released a new single two days ago. I’ve been storing it up for my train journey back to London for maximum wallowing. I booked myself a window seat especially so I can listen to it on repeat while I stare out of the window, having flashbacks and realizations.
“Break-ups can be a good thing,” Jane says. “They can teach us about who we really are.” “Yeah, maybe, like, break-up number one or two,” I sigh. “But break-ups have depreciating gains. I’m thirty-five now. I know who I am. I am already sick of myself.”
There are so many hidden miniature break-ups within a big break-up. There are so many ahead of me that I haven’t even thought of yet.
“Climbing, maybe.” “Yeah, maybe.” “I just think, if you’re being honest with yourself, the last time you were single, you could still run around after girls in Soho on a Saturday night. But you don’t want to be doing that, not now.” “Stop talking like I’m some elderly flasher in the park. I’m thirty-five.” “Thirty-five is old.” “Thirty-five is the youth of middle age,” I say. “We’re at the first stage of something new rather than being at the last stage of being young. I felt relieved when I turned thirty-five. It was like turning eighteen again.”
Something’s changed since I was last single. When me and my last ex broke up, a mere handful of years ago, I remember it releasing a burst of energy in the group. Everyone was excited for me. There was a sense that I’d returned to the club, that my membership was going to be renewed. But I don’t feel that now—I feel like my singleness may end up being a bit of an inconvenience for everyone. Then I realize: half of them were single four and a half years ago. None of them are now. Closer to fifty than twenty.
“In my experience, being single is a lot of awkwardness and insecurity. And bad nights out. And disappointments. And then you have, like, one incredible Saturday night once every three years that could only happen if you’re single.” “Like that night we met those two unbelievable girls in Edinburgh.” “Outrageous,” he says. “And we went up to Arthur’s Seat at dawn and took pingers. And you got a handjob and I got a hug.”
We’re the first to arrive at the pub. I’m pleasantly surprised when I discover that Avi has rung ahead and booked a table, which, translated into female terms, is the same as organizing a hammam treatment and a forest walk.
And then: something extraordinary happens. For the next three hours, we sit around the table, we drink. And no one mentions my break-up. Not once. In fact, it’s almost as if we’re playing a game where we have to name as many random topics as possible to avoid talking about the one I thought we had all gathered in aid of.
I imagine Jen and her best friends in fluffy white robes, lounging in a large suite, drinking wine, talking in that way I’d sometimes overhear Jen and her friends talking to each other when they came round to our flat. Each taking turns to present an emotion they’ve felt and all of them putting it under the microscope for inspection, as if it were a gem with a billion faces.
I list items in my head and put them into the categories of my new food plan. Bread—forbidden. Potatoes—only sweet. Alcohol must be clear in colour and occasional in consumption. Salmon—unlimited. Fat is your friend. Sugar is your enemy. Carbohydrates want to take away all your dreams of happiness and love. Potatoes and pasta are plotting against you. But it’s time to fight back. It’s nice to obsess over something other than Jen.
I want to talk to her about how I feel, but it’s not even interesting to me any more. And I don’t know how to choose the right words to correctly represent all the thoughts and the feelings that are piling up inside me. Women think we don’t want to talk to them about our emotions because we’re embarrassed of being vulnerable. It’s more that we’re embarrassed of seeming stupid. Every time I hear Jane and Jen or Mum and one of her friends talk about something emotional, it’s like listening to an orchestra perform. Often with no warm-up, they launch effortlessly into the chosen symphony of
...more
And then we met and fell in love and we introduced each other to all of it, like children showing each other their favourite toys. That instinct never goes—look at my fire engine, look at my vinyl collection. Look at all these things I’ve chosen to represent who I am. It was fun to find out about each other’s self-made cultures and make our own hybrid in the years of eating, watching, reading, listening, sleeping and living together.
“ANDY,” he suddenly shouts. “WAKE UP.” He taps the temple of my head twice. “Of course you’re obsessed with him sexually. You think that because you have a New York Times subscription and occasionally remember to drink kombucha that you’re above mammalian impulses? You’re not above mammalian impulses. It’s DISGUSTING. But it’s who we are. Why do you think ‘Mr. Brightside’ is the anthem of our generation for men?” “The guitar riff.” “WRONG,” he shouts, putting the cigarette in his mouth. He stands up and walks outside as I follow him. “Jealousy,” he barks over his shoulder to me. “Turning
...more
“Whoa whoa whoa,” I laugh. “Peter Pan bullshit?” “Yeah, all middle-aged men are Peter Pans,” she shrugs. “Firstly—I am not middle-aged. I am in the first year of early middle age, which basically makes me more of a teenager than you are, when you think about it.” She gives me another lips-shut-tight smile. “And secondly—how do you know what middle-aged men are like?” “Because I can’t stop dating them.” “Really?!” I say in dismay. “Yeah, my ex was, like, way older than you.” “Huh,” I say in response, while I silently take this as my permission to fancy her.
“I’m pretty old-fashioned. I just like fucking one man at a time.” Again, I examine her face to see evidence of sarcasm, but find none. “Very old-fashioned,” I say, lighting my cigarette. “Just like the black-and-white movies, real Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly stuff.” “It is!” she says. “Everyone fucks everyone these days.” “Sounds stressful,” I say. “Does it not appeal to you?” she says, leaning against the wall. “Being open?” “Not at all. Does it appeal to you?” “Yeah,” she says. “I like the idea of keeping a long relationship exciting with non-monogamy. Why cut yourself off from the
...more
he’s in bed with Yoko and the journalist is interviewing him about ‘Jealous Guy.’ She asks him if the future of relationships will move away from this idea of belonging to each other. And he says that, while you can intellectually believe in that, when you are actually in love with somebody, you want to possess each other.” She moves closer towards me, letting her cigarette burn in her fingers. “That’s how I feel, I think. Like, I’d like to be more progressive and detach monogamy from love. But I can’t. I find mutual possession hot. I want someone to be mine and I hope they’d want me to be
...more
When I get into my Uber a few minutes later, I see the time on my phone: 3:17 a.m. I look out of the window on to the dark streets dotted with drunks—shouting and crying and tripping over and calling people they shouldn’t call and eating greasy food. Every good night out hinges on discontent.
All her rules and her wisdom and her progressive ideas about sex and her terrifyingly clear communication skills. That goes some distance to re-addressing the power imbalance of our age gap and the fact I’m a man. And I know I have power in the world just by being a man, I know that, but I also don’t really have any—I’m a balding, failed comedian with no savings who lodges with a seventy-eight-year-old tinned soup collector. So all in all, when you tot it up—add a few years for my thirty-something maleness, shave off a few years for her advanced emotional maturity, plus a few points for “Get
...more
“Here’s my theory: Gen Z saw how we used social media, as the first young people who used it, which was way too earnestly and with too much personal sharing, and they found it extremely cringe—” “Well, I find THEM cringe,” Avi bellows. “But of course they still want attention because they’re young and stupid like we were, but they do it in this style where they give less of themselves. They’re showing off and trying to be funny and asking everyone to fancy them, but in this sort of enigmatic way.”
I can’t believe I get a stream of these photos. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve them. It’s a relief—no more dark nights of the soul battling with myself about whether it’s okay to wank over Jen’s soft-core latter-relationship nudes of her trying on a bra in a changing room.
power. Because the person who is in charge in a relationship is the one who loves the least.
Everyone’s taking their turn to complain about something. I can’t remember what we used to talk about before we started the complaining portion of life.
And I want to say: We can just talk about being sad, if you like. You don’t have to make the sad thing funny for me. There will be no conversational tokens system in place here. Because I am starting to think that talking about the sadness might be the same thing as processing the sadness. And if we’re not doing that, then we only have our thoughts for company, and our thoughts are unreliable and they invent things and they lie to us and give bad advice. Not talking about the sadness is what leads us into The Madness.
We toast the success of the party, the Nerf guns, wizard lizards, the new baby, living in the suburbs, pebble-dash semi-detacheds. We toast everything unremarkable because the length of time we’ve all known each other makes the simple laws of time so very remarkable.
And when Jane asked her why she didn’t do the sensible thing of running away, her answer was: she couldn’t. How could she run away from the person who knew her better than anyone? Why would she run away from her family?
I have that stomach churn I get when I know that someone is going to instigate a conversation about feelings. “I want to tell you something, Andy,” she says. Here we go. “Okay,” I say. “What is it?” “Getting dumped is never really about getting dumped.” “What is it about, then?” I ask. “It’s about every rejection you’ve ever experienced in your entire life. It’s about the kids at school who called you names. And the parent who never came back. And the girls who wouldn’t dance with you at the disco. And the school girlfriend who wanted to be single when she went to uni. And any criticism at
...more
I pour myself one more drink and go outside for one more cigarette. I wonder where she is now—I imagine her doing her long night-time skincare routine or getting a taxi home or doing an impassioned rant in a pub somewhere with her third glass of wine in her hand. And then I say goodbye to her. I wash up the glasses and remember the ongoing dispute we had about how to stack things on the drying rack. I say goodbye. I go upstairs to bed and I remember when she first came to stay here, how strange it was to wake up next to her in my childhood bedroom. I say goodbye. And it feels okay. I say all
...more
I’m sorry that I loved you so much more than I liked myself, that must have been a lot to carry. I’m sorry I didn’t take care of you the way you took care of me. And I’m sorry I didn’t take care of myself, either. I need to work on it. I’m pleased that our break-up taught me that. I’m sorry I went so mental. I love you. I always will. I’m glad we met. Andy
when I turned thirty, it all changed. My lack of long-term relationship could no longer be seen as an accident and instead became a problem. Everyone wanted to talk to me about my “attachment style,” each of them asking if I’d read the book or done the quiz like they were the first person to suggest it. “I just don’t understand it,” my mum would say, every time she said goodbye to me. “You’re such a fabulous girl—so clever, so attractive. I don’t understand why they’re not lining up.” I don’t know what made me decide I wanted to be in a relationship. I don’t know whether it was something I
...more
Or was it that I thought that being in a relationship might prove something? That I wasn’t unfeminine or unlovable or incapable of being a grown-up? That I was, in fact, perfectly normal like everyone else.
I remained very happy for a while. It was my first serious relationship and I’d chosen a pro—I felt like Andy was teaching me how to do long-term monogamy. None of the changing phases of it bothered him. He didn’t get freaked out when we went for a fortnight without sex, our first big row didn’t make him think we were going to break up. When we stopped going out on drunken all-night dates and instead ordered food in and went to bed early, he didn’t worry that the fun had gone. I followed his lead. The light-headed, dizzying feeling of our first year left me and something brand new came in its
...more
there I was, with the right person. He wasn’t perfect, but I was in love with him and he was in love with me. And yet I could never really understand whether I was in a good relationship or not. I couldn’t measure what the reality of long-term love was; what was settling for something when I should be asking for more. For every chatty Friday-night dinner, there was a meal where it felt like we had nothing to say to each other. For every fun pub session, there was a drunken argument. For every night we had sex, there were five nights where we lay in bed on our phones not speaking.
As the weeks went by and I tried to keep thoughts of fertility and babies out of my mind, I became increasingly resentful that this was not something Andy had to think about. We were both in a potentially life-changing moment of our careers, and he could completely focus on the challenge, whereas I was distracted. Our respective absorption in our own worries made us, for the first time, incompatible as flatmates. I didn’t feel like we were teammates any more.
In a delayed reaction, I stood up and went to her side of the table to hug her, unable to find words of congratulations. I asked what had made her change her mind and she spoke in vagaries about it “just being the right time” and wouldn’t elaborate any further and give me an answer. And I needed an answer. I needed an answer more than anything that night. I needed to know whether she’d had a realization that I hadn’t and, if so, I wanted to know how to get
I was sharing a room with Jane, which we hadn’t done in years, and as we giggled our way to sleep in the dark delirium of lights-out, I was reassured to know that the cosy sleepover feeling of this kind of friendship never disappears. Not even when one of you is a mother-of-two advertising executive and the other is a senior partner of an insurance company.
I once heard a theory about the first relationship that occurs after a big relationship ends. It’s called the 90/10 rule. The theory goes: whatever the crucial 10 per cent is that was missing from your partner who was otherwise totally right for you is the thing you look for in the following person. That missing 10 per cent becomes such a fixation that, when you do find someone who has it, you ignore the fact they don’t have the other 90 per cent that the previous partner had.
