How Not to Die Alone

by Richard Roper

Jesus, man, it’s love we’re talking about, here, not pineapple on pizzas. You can’t just dismiss it.”

“No, no, I’m fine. I’m actually on a diet anyway. It’s the one where you eat an entire wheel of brie and then have a bit of a cry. You know the one?”

He’d have to hold the pint glass with both hands, like a toddler drinking milk from a bottle.

The change was instant. It was as if Spike had tinkered with a pressure valve somewhere and all her fury had been released.

And then there was all the competitive conversation about books and films: “Oh you simply must see it. It’s a Portuguese art-house epic about triplets who befriend a crow.” What a lot of nonsense.

(Andrew did take the occasional bit of enjoyment from hating things he’d never actually experienced.)

smelling like the Body Shop had vomited on him,

Someone had finished the milk and put the empty carton back in the fridge. Andrew wished that whoever it was (and let’s face it, it was Keith) would tread on an upturned plug in bare feet sometime soon.

The music that was playing from concealed speakers throughout the house was, Meredith cheerfully informed him, by someone called Michael Bublé. “It’s jazz!” she added, taking the wine from him. “Is it?” Andrew said, looking around for something hard and pointy to bash his face into.

yes, Keith and I are officially partners. As in lovers,” she added, in case anyone thought they were about to float a company on the stock market.

He was savvy enough to work out that philosophy was going to attract a certain type, but it was as if they’d all been grown in a lab somewhere purely to annoy him.

The boys all had wispy beards, smoked shitty little roll-ups and spent most of their time trying to impress girls by quoting the most obscure passages they knew from Descartes and Kierkegaard.

they shared a very specific sense of humor—dark, but never cruel.

his instincts—much like burgers bought from rest-stop vans and people who started sentences with “I’ll be honest with you”—were not to be trusted.

“Sorry, I’m not really with it today,” he said, wishing he didn’t sound quite so much like a flustered substitute teacher.

A man marched by them in an electric-blue suit, shouting incomprehensible business jargon down the phone,

like a peacock who’d managed to learn English by reading Richard Branson’s autobiography.

“All I want is to live in a converted train station on top of a mountain with sea views and Wi-Fi and easy access to central London, is that so much to ask?”