Oh, it’s a Matcher message from someone called Chad. I tune out from Oliver attempting to explain to my dad how the media pit Nicki Minaj and Cardi B against each other (my dad has no idea who either of these people are) and lose myself in my phone.
A few taps on my iPhone tell me that Chad was the person I matched with earlier, before I swiped away the last available man in my area. That makes Chad the last man standing. My last hope – well, my last chance to find someone in time for this wedding, at least, if I drop the melodramatics for a second.
‘I know the answer to your riddle,’ his message states simply.
OK, I know it makes me sound like a big nerd, having a riddle in my Matcher bio, but, well, I am a big nerd and it’s important to show people that right off the bat, right?
Hello
I begin my reply.
Go on…
Almost immediately those three little dots appear, to show me that Chad is typing.
The riddle at the end of my bio says:
Jake Gyllenhaal has a long one. Brad Pitt has a short one. Drake doesn’t have one. What is it?
Well, I love puzzles, and I thought that was kind of a fun question – and not an overly difficult one. People tend to ignore it, or just ask me what the answer is. No one has been all that impressed yet.
He types back:
The answer is… a surname haha. Cheeky though, I like it.
Oh, not only does he get it, but he thinks it’s funny too. He asks:
What’s a nice girl like you doing on an app like Matcher?
‘I knew you’d come around,’ my mum interrupts, pulling my eyes away from my phone for a second.
‘Huh?’ I reply, looking up just in time to see her placing a cheesecake on the table in front of us. A homemade passionfruit cheesecake, which is one of my favourite desserts. She really has brought out the big guns to try and offset the damage from the Lloyd crap bomb that’s been dropped on me.
‘You’re smiling,’ she tells me.
‘Oh, I’m just on Twitter,’ I insist.
I must be grinning like an idiot at my phone. I punch back to Chad:
A nice girl like me was just about to give up on Matcher for good. What’s a nice boy like you doing here?
He replies almost instantly.
Saving you.
Damn. What a charmer. He continues:
Sounds like I arrived just in time. Give me tonight to message you my A-game and, if you like what you read, let me take you on a date tomorrow evening. What do you say?
‘What are you looking at?’ my dad asks me suspiciously.
‘Me? Nothing,’ I insist.
‘Something on that phone has you grinning like the cat that got the cream,’ he replies.
I shrug my shoulders. I’m hardly going to tell my dad I’m flirting with someone on a dating app, am I?
‘Just memes,’ I say.
‘Not the foggiest what that means,’ he says, but I don’t think he cares.
My mum hands my dad a cup of tea, which he proceeds to put down on the dining table.
‘On the coaster, on the coaster,’ my mum insists.
‘Bloody women,’ my dad mutters under his breath – while doing as he is told, obviously.
Naturally, this statement triggers Oliver, who calls my dad out for his sexist statement.
My phone buzzes again.
Cara?
Chad prompts me.
Wow, a double message, he is keen. I reply:
Sounds like a plan
He replies:
Great. Let’s see if we can’t find you your happy-ever-after.
That’s a kind of cheesy thing to say but I allow myself a moment of optimism. I know that I haven’t exactly been winning the dating game recently but maybe it was all for a reason, all to get me to this point, so that the last man on Matcher could ask me on a date. Now I really do feel as if I’m in a romcom movie. And this little glimmer of hope couldn’t have come at a better time, could it? Desperately in need of a plus one and on the verge of giving up on men altogether. I don’t want to get ahead of myself but, for tonight, I will allow myself to have a little hope. The right man for me has to be out there somewhere. Maybe this is him?
4
Sometimes I feel like a shape-shifter.
To get ready for my date with Chad this Friday evening, I did a whole bunch of things to transform the way I look. I know what you’re probably thinking: how can you expect anyone to love you if you don’t love yourself? But I do love myself – I just love myself even more when I dress up a little.
The thing is, I really want tonight to go well, and if making an effort helps my cause, then great. I’m sure my brother would be horrified at me, saying that I’m changing my appearance for a man, but this isn’t a bad feminist manoeuvre. I would hold men to the same kind of standard – if you’re going on a date, you should make sure you look good. It’s an attractive quality in a person: having pride in your appearance. Not in a superficial ‘everyone should be a 10/10 babe’ kind of way, because Lord knows I’m not that, but I know that I look far more attractive in a long black dress, a pair of tights that smooth out my curves a little, with my hair straightened and my cheeks contoured – compared to a Victoria’s Secret tracksuit, a messy bun (that somehow never looks like the kind you see on Instagram) and a face with all the angles of a potato. I say all this but, don’t get me wrong, I am completely comfortable with the way I look. This is me and I don’t feel like I need to change my body for anything, not for a bloke or a for a bridesmaid dress, but I like to dress up a little when I can. I even enjoy the ritual of getting ready to go out. I find the step-by-step process almost puzzle-like.
I look myself up and down in the mirror on the back of the lift doors – although it’s too late to change anything now I’m at the bar. I wear a lot of black – I don’t know why, I just feel more comfortable in it. Tonight I’m wearing a floor-length black dress. Just a soft, strappy, summery dress I picked up in H&M. It looks dressy or casual, depending on what you wear it with. To dress it up a little, I gave my make-up more of a night-time vibe – well, that’s what the YouTube video tutorial told me to do. To be honest, I feel like I’ve just gone on a little too heavy with my contour. In the brightly lit lift, staring into the mirror, my cheek and nose shading especially seems really severe.
I grab a tissue from my bag and blot at my face, attempting to tone it down a bit. I should have stuck with what I knew: contouring for beginners – at least I knew it worked.
Despite being on top of an office building, the bar is only accessible via a glass lift, which runs up and down the side of the building.
When the doors open I step out into the long, dimly lit corridor that leads to Thin Aire, a super-cool bar in Leeds city centre. I’m not really one for wild nights out – well, I don’t really have any proper friends here in the city, and my old school friends back home have all sort of outgrown me. But, since I’ve been playing the dating game, I’ve been to a few different places for dates. I haven’t been here before though and I can’t quite help but feel as if I don't belong here which only adds to my nerves.