Posy Bernstein’s Dating Diary

Don’t read this

My friend said that the nineties and noughties are still on trend … and dating columns are so nineties/noughties that I thought having one could really improve my brand …

 

“Posy, you don’t have a brand – no one knows who you are. In fact, you’re probably an invention by a group of middle-class white girls starved of attention, who think they have something important to say!”

Ha ha, OK, but actually I’m only one middle-class white girl and, also, I went to state school – all the way through. Not showing off. Just a fact.

 

“Posy, why are you still caught up about what school you went to? We’re in our twenties.”

Look, OK I’m just trying to talk about the huge concentration of privilege in journalism and like – God – privilege is quite a hard word to spell isn’t it ? … I always thought there was a “d” in “ledge”.

 

“Would we call this journalism, Pose? I mean, if this is journalism, aren’t we all journalists?”

No. Yes. You’re right. Sorry This is just, like, a pathetic little diary. Don’t read it.

 

Saturday 9 June

Let’s call him Will, because that was his name.

Lucy analysed his profile: “OK so I think he’s attractive and the conversation seems … nice. But there is one red flag, and it is a-BIG-RED-FLAG. In the first picture he is doing the Star Trek ‘live long and prosper’ sign’, if you’re putting that as the leading photo on thisapp, that’s a red flag to me.”

Obviously, I have no idea what the hell Star Trek is. I have refused to engage in Star Trek-Wars. (This is a special request to be mansplained the innumerable differences between these two comics (?)).

Lucy said that she “finds there to be a large crossover between Star Trek fans and serial killers”. I thought this was bizarre and slightly extreme and, because of my badass rebellious nature, I defied her advice and arranged drinks with Red-Flag-Will.

 

Date was awful

I’m not sure we can call it a date, really. Red-Flag-Will was on a pub crawl passing through where I live and asked if I wanted to meet up with him and his mate (scarlet-crimson-ruby-flag). First, people who go on pub crawls post-university should, perhaps, be banned. Second, bringing a friend?? You’d think this abundance of red flags would lead me to do something sensible like catch up on Question Time. But, instead, solution to abundance of red flags (mem. look up synonym for red-flag) was three for £2 G&T cans from Tesco (drunk en route to one-stop pub crawl).

Dragging my definitely-not-single flatmate, Ellie, to entertain date’s friend, (I figured that even if the date was terrible, the silver lining would be creating some drama between Ellie and boyfriend).

Ells and I looked great. We also looked cool – and popular, because we were, coincidentally, at the pub where she used to work.

Red-flag-Will was immediately dull. His friend was fit and northern and worked in TV. But Will was a nasal-voiced junior banker who looked like he was trying to be the next Dr. Who. He also had the condescending tone of a man who might tweet about how terrible it is that the new Dr. Who is a woman. He was from Ipswich so I tried to make small talk about Suffolk (I got an A* in GCSE geography). He said the fact that I’d been on holiday in Suffolk meant I was “extremely posh”, I laughed charmingly (pretending to be more posh than I am). They went for another drink, We agreed his friend was fit and Will was nauseating. They came back, (drinkless) and said they “had to run”. They ran.

“What the heck!”

“We are hot and charming and they just spoke about themselves boringly”.

“I mean – his friend was fit and had a nice voice, but those were redeeming features more than anything!”

We screamed “WHAAAAAT?!” all the way home and, as fate would have it, when I stumbled back into the land of WiFi – I had a message … I’ll tell you about it next time.

I mean I won’t, because no one’s reading this.

Love, Posy