Meet Me In Manhattan

‘… But the thing is, everyone knows it’s been statistically proven that guys are more attracted to women who can bake. I’ve been online dating for a scarily long time now and I know that much at least is true – so why not?’

‘… In fact, just for the laugh, I’d love you to show me where we keep our springform baking tin. And if you can tell me the difference between that and a Kugelhopf tin, then I’ll gladly hand you a tenner right now. Mother of God, you’ve even lied about your height! “Tall and slender?” Holly, you’re five foot three! You think you’re not going to get caught out in that one pretty quick? Suppose you ever meet up with this guy? What are you going to do, sprout an extra nine inches in the meantime?’

Thing was, I’d made the cardinal error of physically showing Joy all the backwards and forward messaging that went on between myself and Andy McCoy ever since that very first night and now she was reading it off my iPad and guffawing.

‘Oh and so now you’re a skydiver as well?’ she said dryly. ‘You, that has to take a Xanax and knock back a gin and tonic before you’ll even get on a Ryanair flight? And you also go mountaineering? Can this be the same Holly Johnson who gets vertigo even sitting on the top deck of a bus?’

‘And what’s so wrong about coming across as being an active type?’ I asked her in a small voice, flushing to my roots and wishing to God there was some other way to get off this deeply mortifying subject.

‘Nothing wrong with it, if it’s the truth,’ she said crisply, tossing geometrically sharp, jet-black bobbed hair over her shoulder. ‘But let’s face it, your idea of being active is to join a gym, pay a year’s subscription, then drop out after the first month.’

I was silenced here, mainly because this would be a fairly accurate assessment, but Joy still wasn’t done.

‘Come on, love,’ she said, waving her fork around with a lump of penne pasta wobbling dangerously on the edge of it, for added emphasis. ‘You’ve got to wise up a bit here. After all, you’re lying through your teeth here so how can you be certain that this Andy guy, whoever he is, isn’t doing exactly the same thing right back at you? And supposing he is? What’s your master plan then?’

‘Excuse me, for a start I’m always super-careful online,’ I told her stoutly, ‘and over time you just learn to develop an instinct for these things. OK, so maybe Andy is tweaking the odd minor detail about himself; so what? Everyone sexes their lives up a bit online, we’re all guilty of it. But it’s the big stuff that counts, and if Andy were lying through his teeth to me on that score, I’d know; I’d just feel it in the pit of my stomach.’

‘Oh you would, would you?’

‘Absolutely,’ I told her firmly. ‘And another thing; can I point out that he’s actually a widower with a little boy? So therefore, he’s been married before and isn’t afraid of commitment.’

‘Ha! Don’t make me laugh. There isn’t a man on this planet who isn’t afraid of commitment. And you can take that one to the bank.’

‘He’s a family man and that’s good enough for me,’ I told her, a bit primly. ‘After all, everyone knows that men who’ve committed before are by a mile the most likely to commit again. Plus, may I remind you he’s actually Captain Andy McCoy? Senior airline pilot with Delta, if you don’t mind. Now come on, even you have to admit; the job description alone is a serious turn-on.’

Then I drifted off a bit, just imagining what Andy looked like in that sexy uniform pilots wear, with the cap and the epaulets and the calm, authoritative voice saying, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking’. And of course, immediately blurring the image with that famous production still of Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can, all gussied up as a Pan Am pilot.

Thing is, by then things had got pretty intense between Andy and me. There was a genuine connection between us that was actually starting to feel pretty special. And it wasn’t just superficial crap about liking the same movies and TV shows and music; it was so much deeper. It was almost like he and I just seemed to think exactly the same way about things.

Day and night at that stage, he was sending me the most gorgeous, heart-warming messages and what else could I say? Having spent so long on my own, he’d started to win me over scarily fast. This was intoxicating stuff. Addictive. Impossible to let go of.

‘Yeah but just remember, you’ve only got his word for everything he’s telling you,’ Joy cautioned, tearing off a big lump of ciabatta bread and soaking up the dregs of arrabbiata sauce from round the edge of her pasta bowl.

‘And in the meantime, here’s you sitting in front of a screen painting a ridiculous fantasy portrait of yourself to a complete and utter stranger, who could have served time in Guantanamo Bay for all you know.’

‘He’s not in Guantanamo Bay …’

‘He could be on death row …’

‘He’s not on death row.’

‘Or he could be a woman. Jesus, he could turn out to be a woman on death row.’

‘He’s a pilot, not a jailbird!’

‘Only according to himself,’ she said just a bit too triumphantly for my liking.

‘Look,’ I tell her placatingly, ‘I’ve met my fair share of idiots online and trust me, by now I’ve learned to filter out all the liars and chancers from the genuine article. Plus the big advantage of online dating is that at least this way I get to meet fellas from the comfort of home, with no make-up on and three-day-old manky hair, if I feel like it. Which you have to admit is a fairly major bonus.’

But then Joy and I had been over this ground many, many times before and she knew exactly where I stood on this particular issue. Problem is, as I’d spelled out to her time and again, work was so all encompassing and time-consuming that at the end of another long day, I was too exhausted, not to mention stoney broke, to shoehorn myself into an LBD, lash on the Mac Bronzer and start trawling the town on the lookout for someone available, thinking maybemaybemaybe.

I had the energy for all that in my twenties thanks very much, but I’m at the grand old age of thirty-one now and whether Joy liked it or not, the fact remains that internet dating sites are to our generation what a Saturday night dance hall was to our grannies, circa 1960.

‘All I’m saying,’ I said firmly, ‘is that I’ve spent so long on these sites, I could practically teach a course in what to look out for, and equally what to run a mile from.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You absolutely certain about that?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Like you did with that git Steve last summer?’

Shit. I’m temporarily silenced here, and what’s more, Joy knows it. Steve, you see, was a guy I met online who described himself as a ‘special needs teacher, hugely committed to his work’. A major turn-on, I figured, and all was progressing very nicely thanks until he told me he was ‘available to meet weekdays only, between nine and five’.

And the reason? Because of his loyal and long-suffering wife back home who, he explained, he had to get back to, ‘so he could help out with the kids’. I’ll spare you the rest.

Seems Joy’s not done with me though.

‘And let’s not forget that theatre director bloke, what’s-his-face …’

‘Elliot,’ I say crisply, finishing the sentence for her. Quicker by far, I reckon, to let her just get the bloody lecture over and done with.

‘Elliot, that’s the one. Who blatantly told you who he was single, whereas—’

I sigh here, knowing right well what’s coming next.

‘—He was simultaneously dating five other women at the same time,’ she says. ‘I distinctly remember you saying he made you feel like …’

‘Like I was almost auditioning for the part of his girlfriend,’ I finish the sentence for her. It’s the sad truth too. In fact, when I finally confronted him, the eejit actually said to me, ‘But you should be flattered! Just think of it like this: I’m looking for a partner, and you’ve made it to the callback stage’.

Sweet suffering Jaysus, I only wish that were an exaggeration. But then that’s the one thing about having had a rough past romance-wise, I figure. It teaches you for the future. And with every mistake, you learn. You may well be humiliated, your heart might have been trampled on, but believe me, you learn.

‘So have you taken absolutely nothing from all this?’ said Joy, interrupting my thoughts.

‘OK, so you’ve made your point,’ I told her hotly, ‘but you’re wasting your time being so cynical right now, because this guy really does sound like the genuine article.’

I couldn’t quite catch her response, as it was mumbled between mouthfuls of ciabatta, but it sounded a lot like, ‘worse gobshite, you.’

‘And have you forgotten that this “Andy” lives in the States?’ she added, changing tack with her mouth still stuffed. ‘So what are you going to do? Hop on a plane and fly transatlantic every time you’re going out on a date with him? Oh yeah, ’cos I can really see that one working out, alright.’

‘So the fact that we live on different continents is certainly an obstacle, I’ll grant you that much. But then you read his messages; he commutes back and forth to Ireland all the time! Besides, I’ve spent my whole life dating guys who lived within a one hundred mile radius of here and where has it got me? Alone on a Friday night and with no plans for the weekend, that’s where.’

‘Well call me old-fashioned, but I think telling downright porkers to someone you’ve just met isn’t exactly getting off on the right foot, now is it?’ she muttered darkly into her glass of wine.

‘I mean, look at the whoppers you’ve fed the poor eejit about yourself for a start. All that shite about being an investigative reporter on telly who loves her job …’

‘I do love my job …’ I trail off, a bit weakly. Or rather, to be perfectly truthful, I used to.

‘You work as a freelance researcher on an afternoon radio show. And of course, it goes without saying that you’re bloody good at what you do and you work round the clock for them. But come on, half the time, that crowd at News FM don’t even pay you.’

I couldn’t even answer her back, mainly because it’s actually true. The radio show where I work, or more correctly that I used to work on full-time as a researcher, had kept me ticking over nicely and all was well until last summer when, because of drastic cutbacks at News FM, my hours got radically slashed back to just a handful a week. So just to make bloody sure I still cling tight to those, I’ve essentially been doing exactly what I always did; turning up at work same as ever and energetically pitching stories to my producer, except for approximately half of the salary I used to be on.

Now I’ve actively looked around for other full-time, better-paid research gigs – my ultimate dream is to work as a researcher on hard news stories, which is actually what I’m trained to do – current affairs is my passion; day and night, I’m on the Irish Times website, devouring the news. But sadly this just isn’t a good economic climate to be a freelance researcher in.

I didn’t mention this bit to Joy, though, but being online most of the day at least gave me a great opportunity to catch up on all my dating websites. Every cloud, and all that.

‘Just listen to me for a minute, love,’ said Joy, shoving her plate away, leaning back on the kitchen chair and rubbing her tummy like she just ate two Christmas dinners back-to-back. ‘Because I seriously think you need to wise up a bit. Stop jumping in feet first with guys you meet online and who you know absolutely nothing about.’

‘Ah come on Joy, you have to understand I’m just enjoying all the messaging and flirting with Andy so much! I think I really like him and come on, when is the last time you heard me say that about any guy? And December is around the corner. You of all people know just how tough that month always is for me, even though it’s been all of two years now. Is it so wrong that I don’t exactly relish the thoughts of facing into it all alone, same as I seem to do every other year?’

And for the first time all evening there’s silence.

But then I’d just played my trump card. The Christmas card. I know it and so does Joy. Long story and trust me, you don’t really want to know.

‘Oh hon, you’re not alone and you never will be,’ she eventually says, softening now. ‘Of course I know how rough December is for you. All I’m saying is … well, just look at you. You’re a gorgeous girl and a wonderful person and a fabulous friend. So why do you feel the need to embellish that and tell all these out-and-out lies about yourself? And all for what, to impress some stranger? Why can’t you just be yourself online? Trust me, any fella would be delighted to be with the real you, not this online façade called Holly Johnson.’

Anxious for a subject change, I leaned back against my chair, then segued off into an only-slightly-too-exaggerated yawn.

‘You know what, hon?’ I told her, sounding just a tad too high-pitched. ‘It’s been a long day at the end of a very long week. OK if we leave the washing up till tomorrow? I think I fancy an early night.’

‘You’re going to bed?’

‘Emm … yeah.’

‘What? Now? Before Graham Norton? You never miss Graham Norton on a Friday night.’

‘Ermm, well … is that a problem?’

‘Not if you’re telling me the truth, it’s not,’ she said, black kohl-rimmed eyes narrowed down to two suspicious slits.

‘Course I am!’ I insisted, hopping to my feet and even throwing in a few eye rubs for good measure.

‘And you’re categorically not going into your room to log on to your iPad right now? So you can check whether or not Captain Fantastic has got back to you?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

Ahem. But approximately two minutes later, I was back online. And checking. And boy was it worth the wait.

Dear God, I distinctly remember thinking. Was it actually possible to feel like you’d finally met someone with serious potential after such a relatively short space of time? For all of half a second, I debated rushing back out to our living room to waft his latest emails right under Joy’s cynical nose, then realized it mightn’t go down particularly well. And instead, I got straight back to messaging Andy McCoy (Captain).

Chapter Five

Just a few days after that, I was back in work at the first 8 a.m. pitching session of the week; a fun, intense two hours which basically involves the entire Afternoon Delight team sitting around News FM’s bright, airy boardroom, lobbing ideas back and forth at each other and hoping against hope that your story would somehow be the one that would turn into a grenade and catch fire.

It’s always one giant buzzing adrenaline rush and is by far my favourite part of the whole week. But then, as I’d learned from all my long years working there, there’s a sort of alchemy to a daytime phone-in show like ours. Often we’ll brainstorm an idea to death and leave the meeting convinced this would be a major talking point for the show, something that would really get the whole nation fired up, only for it to flop right on its ear and just fizzle away to nothing. Generally any topic that came under the banner headlines Anglo Irish shares, bank CEO’s inflated pensions, the Tea Party, or absolutely anything involving Angela Merkel.

And yet other times, one of us will chance on an improbably daft story buried deep in a tiny corner of page seventeen in the Chronicle; usually something gross, like how drinking your own wee can add on years to your life. So we often toss it into the show more as a gag item than anything else, and you can be bloody sure that’s the story that would have the phone lines hopping for the afternoon and eventually end up trending on Twitter. And if you ever manage to score a Twitter trend, it’s considered major brownie points for you round here, where your impact level on social media is seen as something of a barometer of success.

Anyway, that particular morning, there were seven of us all sitting round the giant oval table of News FM’s boardroom, surrounded by a picnic of Starbucks cups, muffins and half-eaten cheese bagels. A stunningly impressive boardroom by the way, with a panoramic view right over Grand Canal Quay, where a weak, wintry sun was making the water sparkle and dance in the early morning light.

‘So, anyone want to start the ball rolling?’ said Aggie, executive producer of the show and my direct boss, kicking off her high heels like she always does before settling down to business. She’s fabulous, Aggie; takes no nonsense and doesn’t sugarcoat things. One of those straight talking, ‘lean in’ women of the Sheryl Sandberg school, utterly unafraid to make tough calls and not in the least bothered about what other people think of her. For God’s sake, this is a woman who’s let her hair go completely white/grey. Voluntarily. Yet every one of us sitting round that table would think of her less as a boss and more of a friend, if that makes any sense. A boss-friend, if you will.

‘Oh you know what? I read a really juicy one over the weekend,’ Dermot piped up from right beside me. Dermot’s my best buddy round here; he’s about my own age, and like me was recently cut back from being a full-time researcher to just part-time. So he and I are in exactly the same boat and both of us continue to gamely pitch up to work on days we’re effectively not getting paid for. Except in Dermot’s case he really drives the point home by turning up on his freebie days in arse-clinging lycra and tight spandex gym tops. Subliminal message; ‘Just so you all know, I had to drag myself away from a treadmill for this.’

‘Go on,’ said Aggie, tapping a biro off the notepad in front of her.

‘Ok, so it’s about a new epidemic of false widow spiders that’s sweeping parts of the country,’ said Dermot, swinging back in his chair, arms folded, almost with a thought balloon coming out of his head saying, ‘Bloody well pay me for being here and I’ll fill you in some more.’

‘False widow spiders?’ said Aggie, to a few disgusted ‘eughhhs!’ from around the table.

‘Yeah, well apparently there was a women in Cork who had to be hospitalized because she was bitten by one,’ Dermot went on, undeterred. ‘So her doctors told her this was one of several cases that had presented over the last few days … and you know, the false widow uses humans as a host to hatch their eggs in, so it’s all pretty Alien when you think about it, really …’

‘Nah, forget it,’ said Aggie, cutting him off mid-sentence. ‘Sorry, but several cases does not an epidemic make.’

Another chorus of voices all clamoring to be heard while Sally, our red-haired, red-faced assistant producer almost banged the table for attention with her usual righteous ferocity.

‘Heart disease in women!’ she’s saying in her strident Belfast accent, but then Sally’s personal bugbear is any topic related to health, with particular reference to the general crappiness of the public health service down here in the Republic.

‘This new report shows that women are now thirty percent more likely to have a heart attack then men!’ she half growled, waving a piece of paper threateningly the way she always does, no matter what the story. We’re just all well used to her round here by now.

‘I’m sure you all read it over the weekend?’

‘Oh yeah, right. Glued to it, I was,’ said Dermot flatly. ‘Made for an unforgettable Saturday night in. My, my Sally, what an exciting life you must lead.’

‘And yet most women still remain more focused on their partner’s health than their own,’ Sally insisted, ignoring him, getting redder and hotter in the face and with a vein bulging out of her forehead that looks almost ready to replicate life. ‘This is the kind of story that a show like ours should be covering. Urgently!’

‘And we will, don’t you worry,’ said Aggie placatingly, but then she’d seen overheated performances like this countless times before and knew exactly how they should be handled. ‘It’s just that I’d like to kick-start the week with … let’s just say, something a little lighter, to hook in our listeners. So what else have we got, people?’

A chorus of ‘well, Christmas is just a few weeks away, what about …?’ and ‘Oh no, I’ve a gem right here … straight from the National Enquirer!’ followed, with everyone battling for the star prize of Aggie’s attention. But none of the pitches really hooked her, so when there was a moment of calm she took a glug out of the Starbucks mug in front of her and said ‘Holly? You’ve gone unusually quiet on me this morning. So come on, what have you brought to the table?’

Suddenly all eyes were focused my way and I was on.

I took a half a beat just to formulate my thoughts. And then decided feck it, might as well go for it. After all, this was the sole thought that had utterly consumed me over the past week so why not make the most of it?

‘Well …’ I began tentatively, addressing the room.

‘Shoot,’ said Aggie, pen poised on the pad in front of her.

‘Ok, so here’s what I was thinking,’ I said eyeballing her directly. ‘Given that the stigma which used to be attached to internet dating has now all but entirely worn off, how about we run a segment about …’

‘Oops! Can I just say something here?’ interrupted Maia, or as she’s known around here, Maia Mars Bars. Reason? Because as Dermot put it, ‘that one is just a bit too sweet to be wholesome’. One of those women who’s just a degree too over-charming to your face, but then you’ll hear it on good authority that she’s been bitching about you behind your back to other people on the team. She’s done it so often, and to so many of us, that we’re all well wise to her by now.

‘I’m so sorry to interrupt you mid-flow, Holly,’ she smiled angelically across the boardroom table at me, all shiny chestnut hair that I’d swear she adjusts entirely in accordance with how Kate Middleton is wearing hers this weather. ‘But we’ve done it already. Internet dating, that is. We ran with it only last October, in fact. I remember it distinctly because it was actually me who pitched it. So sorry, Holly.’

‘If you’d just let me finish?’ I smiled sweetly back at her. ‘I was about to say that this wouldn’t just be about hooking up with someone online. It’s more than that. Given that anyone can now access these dating sites and get chatting, messaging or even taking things to the next level …’

‘The next level?’ Dermot teased. ‘Ha! You should try Grindr. Where there is no “next level”.’

Dermot, like myself you see, would be a great advocate for online dating. Except in his case, the sites he’d be on would be more like Gaydar, Hotmen and the like. Which, according to him, are all about sex and instant hook-ups rather than long-term relationships, and all the better for it. I gave him a pretend-y slap on the wrist, but kept on going anyway, undeterred.

‘… Well what if you do meet The One, but he lives on the other side of the world? What then? OK, so you’ve got Skype and email and you can Snapchat all you like, but my question is … how easy or difficult is it to sustain a long-distance relationship with someone who you’ve only ever met virtually? After all, this kind of thing is changing our whole dating scene quite dramatically and I’m certain there must be plenty of couples out there who’ve been in that position and yet who’ve made it work, in spite of everything.’

‘Hmm,’ Aggie nodded thoughtfully. ‘It’s certainly a new take on the whole dating thing, alright. Long-distance online relationships; pitfalls and advantages of. Go on,’ she said, eyeballing me beadily. ‘Keep talking.’

‘We could get callers on to chat about how they’ve built up a relationship, even though they’re divided by continents,’ I went on, encouraged that she hadn’t shut me down mid-flow. Not yet, at least. ‘Couples who say they met their soulmate online and refused to be put off by the fact that they lived in different countries. After all, if you’re going to limit the people you date online to just anyone who lives geographically close to you, then let’s face it, you’re fishing in a pretty shallow pool, aren’t you?’