The Dating Detox: A laugh out loud book for anyone who’s ever had a disastrous date!. Gemma Burgess

       Chapter One

       This morning

      Well, I thought I’d discovered the secret to never getting dumped again. And then Posh Mark came over to see me last night. And now I’m back in the bearpit of the singles.

      Yet again.

      The whole thing is just horrific. Not as horrific as the Rick/Pink Lady night all those months ago, I grant you, but horrific for the fact that it is now my sixth—SIXTH!—break-up in a row, with me as the breakee, and now I have to go and do it all over again. No, not today, I know, but eventually.

      Oh God, the idea is so exhausting.

      These are not particularly positive thoughts to have before you’ve even opened your eyes on a Wednesday morning. I sit up in bed and survey the detritus of last night: used tissues strewn around my pillow in a halo, chocolate wrappers all over the bed, a fag pack spent and crushed on the floor. Mon dieu, quel cliché. I flop back down on the bed and close my eyes again. I want to cry, but I actually can’t be bothered.

      OK, I’d better tell you the background so you can get up to speed.

      Break-Up No.6: Posh Mark. We met a few months ago in January, at a theme party (‘80s Movies’). He was wearing a girlish flowery dress, a frizzy wig and carried a watermelon around all night. Wouldn’t you have given him your number? Exactly. (I was wearing khaki shorts, a white-fringed jacket and little white cowboy boots like Sloane Peterson. If you’re asking.)

      So I made eye contact, he came over, I did my flirty thing, and then he asked me out.

      Posh Mark was definitely not a bastardo. I realised that on our first date, at Eight Over Eight (sexy Far East vibe and delightful first date place, and my God do I know a lot of them). Posh Mark lived in Holland Park (expensive, leafy area of London, jam-packed with the sedate rich), was warm and affectionate (if a bit clingy with the hand-holding), liked to read (sports biographies, but whatever), didn’t work in any of the ‘arsehole’ industries (law, banking, medicine) and greeted everything I said with an open-mouthed, utterly delighted smile (rather like a Labrador, and I do love an appreciative audience).

      Crucially, he seemed to fit the criteria. Which was, basically, no bastardos. You see, after the Rick-shagging-a-Pink-Lady fiasco (Break-Up No.5)—and the weeks of utter, utter misery interspersed with binge-drinking that followed—the criteria for men I’d even consider dating changed slightly: they had to be too nice to dump me. Which—if anyone is taking notes—is not a reason to go out with someone. Posh Mark was also the opposite of Rick in every way he could be. Polite, easy-going, tall and very, very nice.

      We fell into a complacent co-dependency pretty fast. He called every night, texted every morning, discussed weekend plans by Wednesday, and was generally a Boy Scout of a boyfriend. My cup runnethed over. No, I didn’t want to be with him forever, but I decided not to think about that right now, thank you very much. And after the soul-destroying storm of Rick, he was a wonderful protective harbour.

      Brutal honesty: he was (whisper it) a tiny bit dull and, um, thick. But he’d worn the Nobody-Puts-Baby-In-The-Corner costume. He obviously had a funny, clever side somewhere. And hot damn, he was nice. As mentioned.

      And so we come to last night. He came over to see me unexpectedly. He said that he needed to talk. (Cue familiar stomach curl.) He said that when he met me, he was bowled over by how ‘rahlly sahriously lovely, basically’ I seemed. He said that I was ‘so fun to be with, rahlly, rahlly so…yah, so fun’ and his friends loved me, which was, obviously, gratifying to hear. Then he said ‘I just feel like you’re, ahhh, rather reserved.’

      Huh?

      ‘I just…After this much time one should know, you know, whether it’s going to work or not and…I don’t feel like we have rahlly gotten to know each other, Sass, and maybe, uh, it’s because you were only recently, uh, single…’

      Don’t you mean permanently single, I wanted to say. And it wasn’t that recent. The Rick thing ended almost six months before I met Posh Mark. Six ghastly months.

      ‘Annabel thinks perhaps, uh, you’re still in love with him. With your ex.’

      Annabel can blow me, I thought. Slightly chubby Sloane-ista with a pashmina so permanently attached to her jowls that I’ve nicknamed her Pashmina Face to myself. She probably wears it at the beach. She’s also one of Posh Mark’s best friends and, naturally, comes complete with a blatant agenda. And I’m not in love with fuckfeatures Rick.

      ‘So perhaps we should just, you know, be mates.’

      Mates? Oh God.

      ‘What do you think?’

      I didn’t think anything very much, actually. And I’m not great at talking about feelings. Not lately. In fact, I never said anything to Posh Mark about how I feel (or don’t feel). I thought he’d like it that way.

      ‘I’m…I’m…’ I’m not able to finish a sentence? I felt helpless. I didn’t want Posh Mark to go, but I couldn’t think of a reason why. Because I don’t want to start again? I wondered if I could say that. Probably not.

      Slumping down on the couch and burying my head in my hands seems a better option than speaking. Despite a tiny voice in my head saying ‘you’re not actually surprised, are you?’, a much louder voice told me he was a lovely non-bastardo who had made me feel happy(ish) post-Rick, when I thought nothing would, ever again. And now I have to start all over. So I cried.

      ‘I’ll miss you,’ I croaked through my hands. And I will. He stroked the inside of my arms for hours when we watched DVDs and had perfectly muscley arms just built for spooning on a Sunday morning. (Does that sound shallow?)

      ‘I’ll miss you too, Sass. Rahlly. I feel ah-paw-leng doing this to you. I’ve had such a bloody good time with you, sahriously.’

      I smiled into my hands. I love the way he pronounces appalling. So posh. And he pronounces my name with the longest-drawn-out ‘a’ sound you’ve ever heard. Saaaaarrrrhs.

      ‘Since the night we met. That hilarious pahty…Hugo made me take him out for a big night at Da Bouj, you know, in return for the outfit that you loved.’

      Pause. The way he abbreviates Boujis to Da Bouj is irritating, but—

      Outfit?

      ‘The 80s costume, you know. With the watermelon. From Girls Just Wanna Have Dancing, or whatever it was, yah? It was all his idea. Well, he saw someone else wear it at a party up in St Andrews once, basicallah. And you were dressed as The Breakfast Club.’

      Well, if I needed distracting from the idea that I’m being broken up with for the sixth time in a row, then voilà.

      For the rest of the night, through him saying goodbye, and me calling Bloomie and Kate to announce that dating someone who isn’t a bastardo won’t prevent you from being dumped, falling asleep in a haze of nicotine and mild hysteria, and waking every two hours for a self-pitying-but-not-really-heartbroken little weep, I thought about that sentence.

      Did I actually fall in love, no, sorry,