and she suggested ways to handle it, but I’m just not able to tackle things like she does. (I believe the technical term is ‘head on’.) ‘It’s nothing, it’s not worth even discussing. I should just quit my job. I’m so bad at it. I’m a failure! At everything!’ Oh, there goes the drama queen again. Sashaying away.
‘Hey. Come on. You’re great at your job,’ she says loyally, reaching a tipsy hand out for my shoulder. ‘Though I wish you’d be as ballsy with them as you are with us.’
I raise a doubtful eyebrow at her. ‘Being ballsy with my best friends isn’t exactly hard. It’s the rest of the world that’s difficult.’
‘I had a bad day too,’ says Bloomie supportively. ‘You know, this is the first time I’ve left work before 8 pm in a month. I hate it.’
She so doesn’t hate working late, but I’ll leave that. ‘Really? Are you OK? What’s happening?’ I take a sip of my drink. I’m hungry, but the drinks here are expensive, and dinner will have to wait till I get home.
‘Don’t you read the papers, darling?’ she says, laughing. I notice, for the first time, the bags beneath her eyes, and that her nails are uncharacteristically bitten. ‘It’s more that nothing good is happening…I just need to keep my head down and not lose my job.’
‘Oh, um…yes,’ I say, stirring my drink. When it comes to the world of finance, I’m clueless. Have the banks started collapsing again? I always picture them tumbling down piece by piece. ‘I’m sure you won’t lose your job, Blooms.’
‘Yeah, yeah, it’ll be fine,’ Bloomie says, making a batting-away motion with her hand. ‘And The Dork is an excellent distraction. That’s what you need. You need a Dork to distract you.’
‘No,’ I say, and sigh deeply. ‘I can’t make the right choices no matter what I do…It will never work out for me. Never. And I don’t want to try anymore.’
‘I know you,’ says Bloomie, laughing. ‘You say that now, but tomorrow you’ll see some hot dude in a bar and think, yes, please.’
‘Exactly! I even walked in here tonight checking the guys out and wondering which of them might ask me out. I really do think like that, and I’ve been single for less than 24 hours. What the hell is wrong with me? I’m in a vicious circle where my life revolves around dating, but dating is bad for my life. It’s called an addiction!’
‘No, it’s not. It’s called being a single in your 20s.’
‘Well, I’m over it,’ I say. ‘I’m sick and tired and fed up with the whole fucking thing. As God is my witness, I am not dating anymore.’
‘You’re not religious, Scarlett O’Hara,’ says Bloomie, poking her ice with her straw. ‘You’re not even christened.’
‘OK then, as Bloomie is my witness…’ I pause for a second, and slam both my hands down on the table so hard that the bartenders look over in alarm. ‘Yes! Yes! I will officially cease and desist from dating and everything to do with it from this moment forth. No more dating, no more dumpings. Officially. For real.’
‘No men?’
‘No men.’
‘No sex?’
‘No sex.’
‘No flirting?’
I pause for a second. ‘No obvious flirting. But I can still talk to guys…’
‘You need to draw up a no-dating contract, then.’
‘Do it,’ I say, taking out a cigarette and perching it in my mouth expectantly. ‘I’m cleansing my life of men. It’s a total testosterone detox. A dating detox. Shall we call it Dating Rehab?’
Bloomie snorts with laughter. ‘No let’s make it happier than that. We’ll call it the Love Holiday!’ says Bloomie happily, looking through her bag for a pen.
‘Love Holiday? That sounds like a Cliff Richard movie. No, it’s a…it’s a Sabbatical. A Dating Sabbatical.’
‘What if you meet the man o’ your dreams?’
I roll my eyes. ‘Come on. What are the odds of that?’
Bloomie cackles with laughter. ‘When will you know it’s over?’
‘Six months. That’s the average Sabbatical, right?’
‘Dude, seriously. That’s a long time to ignore real life, even for you.’
‘That’s the point…OK, three months,’ I grin.
‘Right, I need some paper. I’ll ask the bartender. Another drink?’
As Bloomie heads towards the bar, I gaze around, looking in delight at all the men I won’t be dating. I feel deeply relieved to have the whole issue taken away. I can’t believe I never thought of this before! I am brilliant! High-fives to me!
The next morning I wake up with a predictably dry and foul-tasting mouth. I open one eye, noting thoughtfully the crusty-eyelash sensation that means I demaquillaged imperfectly, and discover a piece of paper on my right breast. Naturally, dear reader, you’re one step ahead of me—I’d expect nothing less—and you know already that this piece of paper will be the list that I remember reading (with one eye shut, due to mild vodka-induced double-vision) as I went to sleep last night.
THE DATING SABBATICAL RULES
1 No accepting dates.
2 No asking men out on dates.
3 Obvious flirting is not allowed.
4 Avoid talking about the Sabbatical.
5 Talking about the Sabbatical is permitted in response to being asked out on a date. Until then it would just intrigue them and be another form of flirting and in fact be taken as a challenge.
6 No accidental dating, ie, pretending you didn’t arrange to meet them just for a movie or something when you blatantly did.
7 No new man friends. It is just as confusing. And it would open up opportunities for non-date-dates, ie, new-friend-dates, which are just the same as dates, when you get down to it.
8 Kissing is forbidden. Except under extreme circumstances, ie, male model slash comic genius is about to ship off to sea to save the world and as you say goodbye he starts to cry and says he never knew true love’s kiss.
9 Actually, if you meet a male model slash comic genius who is about to save the world, you can sleep with him. Otherwise keep your ladygarden free of visitors as it will complicate matters. None. At all.
10 No bastardos.
I signed it and Bloomie signed it. Our signatures have, unsurprisingly, slightly more flair than usual. In fact, I’ve added an ‘Esq’ to
