I’ll have to pay someone to sleep with
me
. Did you read some of the
MailOnline
comments? “Lizzy Spellman – Bridezilla in waiting!” Or how about: “She looks like she smells of ham”?’
‘Stop thinking like a victim,’ Nic told her. ‘You need to capitalize on your situation. I bet you’d get loads of hot men giving you sympathy sex.’
‘So from now on all I get is sex with guys who feel sorry for me?’
Nic ignored her. ‘You need to move on from Justin’s penis. As long as he’s the last person you’ve had sex with, the penis thread will always be there.’
The penis thread was one of Nic’s many theories about relationships. It didn’t matter how much you thought you were over a man, or even if you were the one who’d done the dumping: until you slept with someone else there would always be that invisible link between you and your ex. The first rule of a break up: the penis thread had to be severed as quickly as possible, even if you didn’t fancy the bloke you had sex with. ‘Otherwise it will always be there, lurking there in the background,’ Nic would say in a sinister tone, ‘tying you together and stopping you from moving on.’
‘How about Internet dating again?’ Poppet suggested. ‘You got a good response last time.’
‘Yeah, from 67-year-old pensioners on mobility scooters!’
‘Why don’t you and Lizzy both sign up?’ Nic picked a mint leaf out of her drink. ‘I hate to break it to you, Pops, but Jason Bourne isn’t going to come swinging through those doors for you any time soon.’
‘I’m not sure Internet dating is for me. It’s all so contrived and unromantic.’ Poppet gazed out wistfully into the street. ‘Why can’t people meet how they used to, and leave it to fate?’
‘People haven’t got time to wait for fate these days, and online dating immediately sorts out the wheat from the chaff. If you get a dud you can tell him to jog on at the click of the button.’
‘I just want to meet someone the old-fashioned way, like they do in films. Come on, Nic! Don’t you dream about meeting “The One” in the pouring rain at a bus stop?’
Nic looked horrified. ‘I wouldn’t date a man who used
public transport
.’
While Poppet would happily live in a cardboard box under London Bridge if it meant being with her One True Love, Nic had a very different view of men. In her eyes they were there on a purely functional basis: i.e. procreation, syncing new iPhones, and someone to take things to the tip. She got everything else she needed from her work and her friends.
Poppet wanted a whole football team of kids, or as she put it, ‘a netball team of daughters’. Lizzy thought she might have one, but the having-children-thing freaked her out a bit, and knowing her luck, she’d probably fall pregnant first time round with sextuplets. Nic didn’t want a family. She adhered to the mantra of her heroine, the TV historian Dr Lucy Worsley, who had once famously said that she’d been ‘educated out of normal reproductive function’. Nic said it wasn’t exactly the same, in that Lucy Worsley was uber-posh and Nic had gone to the second roughest school in Nottingham, but the sentiment was there. Having kids simply wasn’t part of her plan.
Nic’s plan was actually very simple: concentrate on her career until forty, when she would join one of those dating agencies where people had to earn over six figures, and become one half of a significant new power couple. Until then she was happy to satisfy her sexual urges by occasionally shagging one of the green bibs from her British Military Fitness class because – she was fond of saying – at least she knew they had good stamina.
It was Lizzy’s turn to go to the bar. The HMQ was quite high tonight, she reflected as she waited to get served, at least a seven out of ten. In the aftermath of ‘Girl Who Gets Jilted …’ Lizzy hadn’t even allowed herself to harbour any thoughts about the opposite sex, but
me
. Did you read some of the
MailOnline
comments? “Lizzy Spellman – Bridezilla in waiting!” Or how about: “She looks like she smells of ham”?’
‘Stop thinking like a victim,’ Nic told her. ‘You need to capitalize on your situation. I bet you’d get loads of hot men giving you sympathy sex.’
‘So from now on all I get is sex with guys who feel sorry for me?’
Nic ignored her. ‘You need to move on from Justin’s penis. As long as he’s the last person you’ve had sex with, the penis thread will always be there.’
The penis thread was one of Nic’s many theories about relationships. It didn’t matter how much you thought you were over a man, or even if you were the one who’d done the dumping: until you slept with someone else there would always be that invisible link between you and your ex. The first rule of a break up: the penis thread had to be severed as quickly as possible, even if you didn’t fancy the bloke you had sex with. ‘Otherwise it will always be there, lurking there in the background,’ Nic would say in a sinister tone, ‘tying you together and stopping you from moving on.’
‘How about Internet dating again?’ Poppet suggested. ‘You got a good response last time.’
‘Yeah, from 67-year-old pensioners on mobility scooters!’
‘Why don’t you and Lizzy both sign up?’ Nic picked a mint leaf out of her drink. ‘I hate to break it to you, Pops, but Jason Bourne isn’t going to come swinging through those doors for you any time soon.’
‘I’m not sure Internet dating is for me. It’s all so contrived and unromantic.’ Poppet gazed out wistfully into the street. ‘Why can’t people meet how they used to, and leave it to fate?’
‘People haven’t got time to wait for fate these days, and online dating immediately sorts out the wheat from the chaff. If you get a dud you can tell him to jog on at the click of the button.’
‘I just want to meet someone the old-fashioned way, like they do in films. Come on, Nic! Don’t you dream about meeting “The One” in the pouring rain at a bus stop?’
Nic looked horrified. ‘I wouldn’t date a man who used
public transport
.’
While Poppet would happily live in a cardboard box under London Bridge if it meant being with her One True Love, Nic had a very different view of men. In her eyes they were there on a purely functional basis: i.e. procreation, syncing new iPhones, and someone to take things to the tip. She got everything else she needed from her work and her friends.
Poppet wanted a whole football team of kids, or as she put it, ‘a netball team of daughters’. Lizzy thought she might have one, but the having-children-thing freaked her out a bit, and knowing her luck, she’d probably fall pregnant first time round with sextuplets. Nic didn’t want a family. She adhered to the mantra of her heroine, the TV historian Dr Lucy Worsley, who had once famously said that she’d been ‘educated out of normal reproductive function’. Nic said it wasn’t exactly the same, in that Lucy Worsley was uber-posh and Nic had gone to the second roughest school in Nottingham, but the sentiment was there. Having kids simply wasn’t part of her plan.
Nic’s plan was actually very simple: concentrate on her career until forty, when she would join one of those dating agencies where people had to earn over six figures, and become one half of a significant new power couple. Until then she was happy to satisfy her sexual urges by occasionally shagging one of the green bibs from her British Military Fitness class because – she was fond of saying – at least she knew they had good stamina.
It was Lizzy’s turn to go to the bar. The HMQ was quite high tonight, she reflected as she waited to get served, at least a seven out of ten. In the aftermath of ‘Girl Who Gets Jilted …’ Lizzy hadn’t even allowed herself to harbour any thoughts about the opposite sex, but
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