11.02 a.m. Actually had better just send a tweet to let everyone know what’s going on.
<@JoneseyBJ *Trills smugly, annoyingly, full-of-joys-of-spring-and I’ve-got-a-date-with-mysterious-stranger-off-Twitter* Morneeeeeing, everyone!>
11.05 a.m. OMG, have lost two followers. Why? Why? Was there something in the tone? Had better send another one.
<@JoneseyBJ Sorry, have clearly turned off several followers with early-morning smugness. Obviously date will all go wrong and will be stood up.>
11.15 a.m. Great, have lost three more followers. Must remember not to overtweet in the morning. Or maybe at all since seem to get more followers when do not tweet than when do tweet.
Roxster has tweeted! You see, this is my reward for epic self-control.
<@_Roxster @JoneseyBJ *Insulted, appalled* Stand you up, Jonesey??>
<@JoneseyBJ @_Roxster Roxster! You’re back!>
<@JoneseyBJ @_Roxster Was just trying to counteract boasty tone of previous tweet which had alienated followers. So you’re still on?>
<@_Roxster @JoneseyBJ Jonesey, I may be a youth but I am not a callow one, nor a charlatan.>
Then another: <@_Roxster @JoneseyBJ OK. How about I meet you outside Leicester Sq. tube @7.30? Then we could go to Nando’s. Or fish and chips?>
9.45 p.m. Immediately went into meltdown. Leicester Sq. tube?? Leicester Sq. tube?? But it’s freezing. Then remembered the key dating rules.
JUST GO ALONG WITH WHATEVER HE SUGGESTS
<@JoneseyBJ @_Roxster *Purrs* Why, that would be delightful!>
<@_Roxster @JoneseyBJ *Growls* See you there, baby.>
You see? You see? So much better than trying to manipulate the situation.
9.50 p.m. Suddenly in panic re meeting stranger off Twitter at Leicester Square tube when am single mother.
9.51 p.m. Just called Tom, who is going to pop round.
10.50 p.m Unfortunately, had to wait for opinion as Tom was having meltdown of his own about a Hungarian architect called Arkis. He insisted on showing all the texts and pictures and Arkis’s messages on the Scruff app on his iPhone. ‘Scruff is so much better than Grindr. It used to be Beardy but now it’s got more Fashion Beardy, small clothes and big glasses, but not in a George Michael sense.’
‘So what’s the problem?’ I said, in a crisp professional manner, as if I were the psychotherapist and not Tom.
‘I think Arkis might be all text and no trousers. He just keeps sending really flirty, sexual texts late at night but nothing else.’
‘I see. Have you suggested meeting?’ I enquired.
‘I said I’d like to get to know him better but I sent it at 1 a.m. because I was looking for validation and I just got the opposite of validation because Arkis didn’t reply for two days, then didn’t mention it and just started talking about my Scruff pictures again, and now I’m wandering around with this horrible pain below my ribcage because I think he thinks—’
‘I know, I know,’ I said eagerly. ‘It was exactly like that with Leatherjacketman. It’s like the love interest assumes this huge power – like a giant standing over you in judgement, possessed of all the rules of dating competence, and about to mark you down as a desperate stalker.’
‘I know,’ he said sadly. ‘But he did say he wanted to see Zero Dark Thirty.’
‘So? Suggest you go! Durr!’ I said loftily. ‘Otherwise it’s like a staring competition of who’ll blink first.’
Once Tom appeared satisfied with the psychological underpinnings of the plan, I moved smoothly onto my own worry, at which he said crisply: