Is She Really Going Out with Him?

by Sophie Cousens

“Noah? Ha! Noah has the social skills of a spoon.”

“Will Havers is a serial dater who objectifies women. I know for a fact he only dates girls under thirty-three and over five foot eight. He wears shirts monogrammed with his initials, thinks he’s God’s gift to journalism, can’t pass a mirror without checking himself out, and he mansplains in meetings.”

When I was eight years old, I rode my bike into a wall. I was going down a steep hill and I couldn’t brake fast enough. I flew over the handlebars straight into the side of a house and banged up my face, chipped a tooth, and dislocated my collarbone. So, when people tell me something is “just like riding a bike,” I get wary.

Is it worth telling him that I hate being called Annie? Probably not. There’s a window of opportunity where you can correct someone who calls you the wrong name; after that, you have to either never see them again or just be that new name forever.

With Sylvie Says it’s more of an internal game I’m playing with myself, where I must resist the urge to shout, “I don’t give a flying fuck what Sylvie thinks,” but instead smile and nod agreeably.

“Hen, this is a colleague of mine at Bath Living, Anna Appleby. Anna, Henrietta Stone, editor of the City Book Review.” “Hi.” I raise my hand in a little wave. She looks me up and down, then says, “Anna Appleby, well, isn’t that a name for journalism.” “Yes, or porn,” I say with a laugh, but as soon as it’s out of my mouth I see I’ve misjudged the tone of the conversation. Why did I say that? Of all the words not to be saying in the first thirty seconds of meeting someone, “porn” would be up there.

He will juggle his shifts. This is too humiliating; the sexually ambiguous postman is agreeing to take me on a sympathy date.

“You really don’t have a phone, Loretta?” I ask her. “Goodness no. If people need me, here I am.”

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“Come on, let me do a zhuzh.”

Mitch, a boxer with cauliflower ears, wants to know what my resting heart rate is. When I tell him I don’t know, he reaches for my wrist to find my pulse, then starts heavy breathing in a way that makes me uncomfortable.

“All’s well that ends well,” I tell her, my hands around her shoulders. “No. It’s only the end when you’re dead, darling,” she says, and then she pulls up her sleeve to show me the ampersand tattoo she got to match mine.