Always Finding Mr Wrong

Chapter 7 - Dating Again

My careers now on track, my life is moving forward and I’m order to stop Mark continuing to affect my life, I’ve decided it’s time to jump back on the dating wagon. But I haven’t practiced any self love since that night and my waistline shows it.

My love-life will never get off the ground unless I endeavour to become thinner. Scott looks at me as if I am certifiably insane when I share this conclusion with him. I then explain that there is some logic behind the theory and I am not simply some Hello magazine-reading i***t who is obsessed with the size of her thighs, at which he points out that I love Hello magazine and spend more time contemplating the circumference of my legs than most people do inhaling oxygen.

My argument is this: first, had I the bum of a seventeen-year-old gymnast champion and a washboard stomach that made Kate Hudson look like a pork-pie addict, I would radiate a level of self-assurance that would be irresistibly attractive.

Secondly, were I possessed of such qualities, I would simply be irresistibly attractive. Scott snorts at these suggestions in a manner I don’t appreciate, and I tell him as much, before dusting off my old Slimfast welcome pack and ‘Syn’ point calculator.

Worse, he’s now looking at me with an air of amused disbelief as I walk around the supermarket calculating the Slimfast ‘Syn’ value of our foodstuff before it goes into the trolley. We currently have one celery (0syns), a large bag of bean-shoots (same), a box of ice cream (5 per serving – I’ve got to have a treat occasionally), a piece of Brie (5, ditto), two bottles of Pinot Grigio (24 syns in total – I have a stressful job), and a tub of margarine (1 per teaspoon – to be used sparingly).

Scott looks at his watch “Emma, we’ve been here an hour and there are seven items in our trolley. At this rate it’ll take until two weeks on Tuesday to buy enough ingredients for a stir-fry.”

“Eight items,” I correct him with a smug smile on my face. “The marg came with a free fridge magnet.”

“You told me you hated Slimfast.”

“I did not,” I protest.

“You called the leader Chewbacca.”

“Only because she had excess hair everywhere. And, okay, she was a bit of a bully, but it doesn’t matter because I’m not going to the classes anyway. I’ve got enough willpower to do it by myself. I’m just following the diet, which I know from experience works a treat.”

“If it works a treat, why are you having to do it again?” he asks. I tut, hiding the fact that I’m stumped for an answer. “Is this allowed?” he asks, picking up a family-sized chocolate cake that could keep an elephant going through the winter months.

“Jesus, no!” I leap back in horror. “There must be . . . let me calculate this . . . SEVENTEEN syns per portion.”

“I don’t know what seventeen syns means, but from your reaction I’m guessing it’s potentially fatal.”

“It might as well be,” I tell him in a frustrated tone. “It’s out of bounds.”

“You don’t have to have it,” he says innocently. “I can hide it in the fridge drawer for myself.” I glare at him.

“You’re seriously going to keep a chocolate cake the size of a football pitch in our fridge – next to my measly bag of bean-shoots?”

“Come on, Emma, you’re not going to inflict this nonsense on me, are you?”

Scott is one of those people who never gives a second thought to his diet. He can happily buy a mammoth chocolate cake without a smidge of guilt and, worse, can eat as much as he likes without putting on an ounce. I, on the other hand, can’t even look at a chocolate cake – nay, think about one – without disintegrating into a car crash of complex body and food issues, of greed, lust and frustration. The difference is knowledge.

This is the only example I can think of in which mine exceeds Scott’s. My expertise in the field of calories, fat and, latterly, GI is so pre-eminent that if I went on Mastermind I’d make televisual history. Despite this, it hasn’t done me a great deal of good over the years, and I’ve almost come to the conclusion that I’d be better off living in ignorance.

Look at previous generations: my gran had a twenty-four-inch waist until she was in her late fifties. She was a skinny little thing and, like Scott, was as familiar with what constituted a kilo-calorie as a talking monkey. She’d think nothing about whipping up dinner for four using a pound of lard, a few cups of dripping and several ambiguous hunks of solid red meat. Yet she stayed the size of a malnourished sparrow. I can only put this down to the fact that – unlike my generation – she did not obsess about every item she put in her mouth for sixteen hours a day.

Clearly, I’m not going to let Scott know this. “It is not nonsense,” I tell him, “but if you want to be unsupportive, then fine. I thought you were more sensitive than that.”

“Emma, as ever, I’m prepared to bow to your every need. But I’m not prepared to live on bean-shoots for the week.” I scowl at him. “Besides,” he says, putting the trifle in the trolley, “This will test your strength of character.”

“I don’t want strength of character, I want a pert bum,” I protest. For the sake of time, I agree to use a less rigid method of determining the syn value, i.e. instead of using the special Syn Calculator, I simply guess. I conclude that a tin of baked beans and sausages will be okay (approx one syn per tin, I’d say), as will a jar of pesto sauce (half a syn per serving) and some pro-biotic drink things in titchy plastic bottles (zero syns, surely?). I graciously allow Scott to throw in a big bag of gourmet crisps because they’re olive oil flavour, which everyone knows is good for you.

When we get to the till, Scott pauses and picks up the trifle. “Okay, you win. I feel bad. I’m taking this back.”

“Don’t be daft,” I laugh.

“You’re right. It’s my diet, not yours. Leave it in.”

“Honestly, I don’t mind,” he insists.

“Neither do I.”

“No really, I….”

“Scot!!” I snap, like an armed response officer. “Put– the – cake– back – in – the – trolley.”

“But…”

“I might want a bit after dinner,” I mumble.

“But what about your diet?”

“Everything in moderation is acceptable,” I tell him, thinking back to what Chewbacca used to say. “I can have a modest, tablespoon-sized taste. That couldn’t have more than half a syn or so, I’m sure.”

“Okay, good,” he smiles.

“Fab.” A weird thing happens at the till, as I pack away our food and Scott takes out his wallet. The checkout girl smiles at him. Really smiles at him.

She’s not exactly a stunner – more Susan Sarandon than Susan Boyle – but she’s got a nice enough face and a cleavage I’d kill for. “Oh, they’re lovely, them chocolate cakes,” she sighs, carefully putting it in a bag and looking up at Scott. “Me and me sister had one the other night with loads of that squirty cream all over it. God, it was gorgeous!”

If this were any other red-blooded male, being chatted to by an attractive young woman – particularly about her sister and squirty cream – would be a positive thing.

An opportunity to engage in a friendly, potentially flirtatious conversation. If Scott sees it thus, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he mutters something under his breath, shoves his debit card into his wallet and, with his head bowed, scuttles away with the trolley.

The poor girl must wonder whether she’s got halitosis. I almost challenge this behaviour in the car park, but stop myself. I know what it’s about and torturing Scott by bringing it up will only make things worse. When it comes to women, he’s desperately, dysfunctionally shy – and always will be.

So, when we get into the car, I don’t say anything. Nothing at all. Instead, I calculate the syn value of the crisps which, it emerges to my disbelief, will put me over my weekly quota in one go.