🎧 AUDIO QUACK | Skip introduction 2:22 🎧
It was the day of the Grand National. A Saturday in London, where it actually felt like summer. The pub gardens were full, the shorts were on, and everyone felt top-notch. The first week of unexpected sun is the happiest you’ll ever see a Brit.
My friend Tommy and I met at Warwick Avenue. We were Oxford tour guides together. We both knew the founding date of the oldest college in Oxford, which is handy in every friendship. We are overthinkers and enjoy performative conversations.
We were walking along the canal to Camden when I made an announcement. “I don’t know how I would be with someone anymore.”
Tommy tilted his head, unconvinced. “Do you mean that, or are you being dramatic?”
I paused. “A bit dramatic. But the more the days go on, the more abstract the idea of a boyfriend becomes. Like, Hi, this is Bob. He’s my… boy…friend.”
“Bob?” Tommy repeated.
“You get what I mean. It’s been forever since I felt anything. I’m like that packet of crisps: empty.”
I pointed to the packet of Walkers Ready Salted crisps floating in the canal. Again, I was accused of being dramatic.
I’ve been single for a while, and there are a lot of reasons for that. When people ask, “How are you still single?” I’ll reply, “How much time do you have?” One of the reasons, though, is that I’m out of rhythm with the dating trends. I missed the cuffing season, which begins in October and ends in March. During that time, people are on the hunt for a partner to ‘cuff’, so they have someone through the winter months. It means you can lie together on a sofa, snuggle by pub fires, kiss on New Year’s Eve, and receive a card on Valentine’s Day, with some witty wordplay using our favourite millennial word – avocado.
You’re everything I avo wanted.
Let’s avocuddle.
Sorry I didn’t get you a gift, but at least you avocado.
But I was on a dating freeze during this period. (This is like a pay freeze but with love.) I had spent the first half of 2024 searching for my death-do-us-part man, and it hadn’t gone well.
On one date, I watched a man put up a shelf in his home. Bang! Bang! Bang!…went his hammer. And that’s not an innuendo.
Another time, I travelled 2 hours to meet for lunch, and the guy told me, as I ate spaghetti, that he was still hung up on his ex. Then we split the bill. I cried down the phone to my friend. “It could have been an email!”
And then there was that man who said Taylor Swift was overrated….
“If you can’t accept Taylor Swift’s success, there is a deep-rooted issue there, and I can’t be bothered to discover it when I’m 45.”
(I had just gone to the Eras concert, so I felt particularly passionate at the time.)
By autumn, I had hung up my LBD and stopped romanticising blokes. I didn’t need to cuff anyone – I had my pumpkin-spiced lattes to keep me warm.
Halloween, Bonfire Night, Christmas, New Year, and Valentine’s went by. Before I knew it, the daffodils were out again, and the Cadbury’s cream eggs were on the shelf. I had survived the winter solo, but by spring, I’d spent so many hours alone on my sofa that my toes now had personalities.
So, I dusted off my LBD, ready to get back out there again. The problem was everyone else was uncuffing and preparing for a hot single summer. It felt like I was at the back of a dance class, trying to keep up with the steps.
I will just have to wait until October to begin my search again.
Tommy and I had arrived at Camden and were sipping beer by the canal, watching the sunset. Behind us, a group was dancing to a song I did not know. A man was videoing himself as he smoked a joint; he breathed out a cloud and smiled proudly at the camera. A couple was lying near us, sharing a bottle of wine with plastic cups. She was using his chest as a pillow, pointing out the clouds in the sky. I wondered if she enjoyed being in a couple on this fine day or had the opposite problem as me, and didn’t know how to be single.
If she asked, I would give her these tips:
- Start with the basics – delete all of your dating apps. I know the success rate is poor. You’re more likely to spend your evening finding out about someone’s hobbies and siblings and then never seeing them again – but you can’t risk it. You might meet the love of your life.
- Don’t go to weddings – these are spider webs for finding love.
- Wear your headphones all the time, every day. Nobody can chat you up if you have tiny speakers stuffed into your ears.
- Cover your face with a book, phone, or iPad in all public areas.
- Don’t get tricked into being matchmade by your friends. They know you best, so they will probably get it right.
- Avoid eye contact with everyone at GAIL’S. They’re all single. (Apart from the ones who are clearly not.)
- Write a blog where you use your past dates for material.
- Walk really fast so nobody can catch you. I learnt this from Attenborough.
- Have sex with them. I find they stop laughing at your jokes once they’ve seen your nipples.
- Stay on your sofa. They can’t ask you out if they don’t know you exist.
- If you do accidentally go on a successful date, ask them what their weekend plans are before it’s Thursday. They will run for the hills. “AAAAAAAAH.”
- Be honest and open about what you’re looking for on your first encounter:
“I just want a committed man with a good sense of humor who rolls his sleeves up to his elbows. He has to like Christmas. He can talk about football but doesn’t watch it. He must also know that Taylor Swift is one of the most successful songwriters of all time and has to be okay with that. If he thinks he may like me, then it’s GO! GO! GO! We have no time to waste, as I’m 35 next year, so we have to pull the trigger on the whole commitment thing. How does that sound?
If you follow these rules, you will most likely stay single for summer, but I can’t promise absolute certainty. We can have all the rules we want, but love is not a wardrobe you can change seasonally. People are not roll necks that you stuff away until it’s cold. As the great Phil Collins once sang, You can’t hurry love. You can’t slow it down, either.
You can keep your head down in GAIL’S, listening to Americast, but someone may walk in with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and sit next to you. You have an avocado roll. He has an avocado roll. You lock eyes; he smiles, you smile.
Soon, you’re lying by the canal in Camden on the guy’s chest. The sun is beating down, and you’re pointing out shapes in the wispy clouds floating by.
“That one looks like an avocado,” you say.
And he squeezes you in and says, “I could avo-cuddle tonight.” Then, he laughs at his own joke.
Your eyes widen to the size of dinner plates. Your throat goes tight. WHAT HAPPENED TO MY HOT GIRL SUMMER?
And then you remember Rule 6 in that strange blog….Do not make eye contact with anyone in GAIL’S.
If anyone is in a happy relationship and has tips for not being single… please, for the love of god, do not share them with me.
THE QUACK 