Can’t be bothered to read? Let me read for you. Skip intro 2:00
“Good morning, Mare! Happy Birthday!” a voice said. I peeled one eye open and then the other. An outline of a human was standing over me. Everything came into focus. A smiling man, holding a Starbucks coffee, blinked behind his glasses. That’s right, I thought in my haze, I have a boyfriend now.
29, 30, 31… I happily blew out my candles alone. At 32, I had a wobble. I was worried that people were noticing my singleness, so I forced my ¼ of a boyfriend to a birthday lunch. He was a Canadian doing an MBA. His LinkedIn profile was filled with business lingo and rankings. He told me he couldn’t do any contact sports because he had to protect his intelligent brain. I told him I had no excuse not to play a contact sport – I was just lazy. He didn’t laugh. It was a struggle to find things in common. And neither of us cared that much. We were friends with benefits, without the friendship.
His mum’s long-anticipated visit clashed with my birthday lunch. Disaster. I suggested he invite his mum along; that way, I could have a fake boyfriend, and he could see his mum. I assumed the 37-year-old man wouldn’t want his mum to be at his fling’s birthday lunch and instead ditch her for me. Cut to my birthday. I am sitting at a table in the Grazing Goat in Marylebone; my friends are to my right, and my family is to my left. Directly opposite me was my ¼ of a boyfriend’s mum, who seemed confused as to why she was there. I wasn’t the girl for her boy. I knew that, and she knew that. It was excruciating. I had never hated my big mouth more.
By my 33rd birthday, I had learned my lesson: A boyfriend is for life, not just your birthday. So, I was back to blowing out the candles alone. And I was happy. I spent it with my friends, and there was no energy spent on trying to impress a bloke’s mother.
This year, though, I woke up on my 34th birthday with a proper boyfriend. His name is Roman. * (After a lengthy discussion over Thai green curry, we agreed that I should call him by his actual name on The Quack, instead of giving him a nickname like Bacon).
The story of finding Roman will be told on another Quack. For now, all you need to know is that I have a boyfriend and we share things in common. We spent the summer in exhibitions, pretending to know art, and in wine bars, pretending to know wine. We bonded over films and our shared love of punctuality. We’re that annoying couple who will arrive bang on time to a party.
“Roman! Mary! Sorry didn’t expect you this soon!”
“Well, Stephen, you said 19:00, so we’re here at 19:00. Or, 18:58, to be exact! Chuckle. Chuckle. Chuckle.”
We also realised that we both got a thrill from ticking things off a to-do list. It didn’t take long for us to start a co-list on my phone’s notepad. It was called:
‘Things we would like to do now we’re not single.’
It included:
- Be that couple in Paris
- Watch a film in an outdoor cinema under a blanket.
- Bake an apple pie.
(Yes, girls, I know we can do all these things single, but sometimes you just want to bake a pie with a bloke.)
Roman added ‘go to a spa’ to the list. I had been to plenty of spas in my time; some might call me an expert, but Roman’s only experience of a massage was the ones he had received from his barber. I couldn’t believe it. How does one reach 35 without having a stranger rub their body? I wanted to be the one to open doors to a better life for my new boyfriend. Stick with me, son, and you’ll never have tense shoulders. We all do it in new relationships. We like the kudos of exposing the best sushi in town or giving them access to Soho House. I call it the ‘Aladdin effect.’ “I can show you the world…”
So, on my 34th birthday, Roman and I went to a spa.
“You’re going to love it!” I told him. (This was more of an instruction than encouragement.)
It was near Covent Garden. We were escorted down brick stairs that were lit by candles. Roman looked uneasy, as if I had taken him to a cult. After all, it was still early enough in our relationship for such a twist to happen. Surprise, I’m a psychopath. After a slight panic in the changing rooms (Roman didn’t know where to put his clothes), we were taken deeper underground to a cave area with various pools: a hot pool, a bubbly pool, a pool where you could swim, a pool filled with red wine, an ice-cold pool, and a salt pool.
The spa man said in an airy voice, “Be free to dip in and out of our pools, and we’ll collect you when it’s time for your couple’s massage. Enjoy.” The man disappeared into the darkness. Roman stood in his gown, tightly tied around him.
“This is weird,” he said.
“No, it’s luxurious relaxation,” I said. “Come!” I took his hand and headed to the hot pool. We hung up our dressing gowns on the pegs and got in. “See, relaxing,” I said as I leaned my head back on the edge of the pool.
Moments later, we had company: a larger man with white fur covering his skin. He was the type you would see holding a fat cigar in a bar. With him was a woman with a killer body dressed in a black thong swimsuit. They sat on one side of the pool, and we sat on the other. It was awkward like the tube ride, except we were semi-naked.
They didn’t stay for long. After a short, hushed conversation, they got out. It was only when we got out a few minutes later that we realised they had mistakenly taken our dressing gowns instead of theirs. I could just about bear it, but Roman had his eyes tightly shut in despair as he slid his arms through the gown.
“This is so disgusting. Oh god. oh god. Oh god.”
It was time for our massage, which was good because Roman was pretty tense at the thought of wearing the giant hairy man’s dressing gown. We were taken into a dimly lit room with two beds, puffed up in fluffy towels. The masseuses explained what was going to happen, and then they left the room so we could prepare ourselves. Roman stood like a deer in headlights.
“What do I do?” he asked. I was already taking off my bikini top.
“We get into bed and put our face in the hole,” I said.
“What are these?”
He was holding the paper underwear.
“You can wear those instead of your swim stuff, so you don’t get cold.”
“Are you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
I sighed impatiently. “Because I won’t get cold.” I got onto the bed and put my face into the hole. Meanwhile, Roman took his sweet time, inspecting the paper pants, stretching them out and grimacing. The masseuses knocked on the door. “Two minutes,” I called out from the hole. Roman hadn’t quite grasped that there was a countdown. “Just put them on,” I told him.
“Oh. Erm. Gosh. Ah. Fuck it.” Roman said, then put them on. He made his way to bed and looked at it as if it were a puzzle. “Do I go on the towel or -” There was another knock.
“One minute,” I called out again. I turned back to Roman. “Get under the towel!” He peeled the towel back slowly and popped himself under the towel. The door opened. I hoped that Roman knew that from now on, he wasn’t allowed to talk..
Thankfully, we didn’t speak again until after our massages were done and the masseuses had left the room.
“You can get up now,” I told him.
Roman stretched with a smile on his face. Apart from wearing another man’s dressing gown, he was happy with the experience. And I was happy because I had my first successful non-single birthday in years. And we were both very happy because we had ticked something off our list, ‘Things we would like to do now we’re not single.’
THE QUACK 