23 Attempts at Love

Chapter 5: Small-Man Syndrome

I thought long and hard about each (fake) name in this book: something to reflect their personality, to represent who they really are. My first instinct was Adolf: a world-renowned prick who, similar to my subject in this chapter, apparently suffered from small-man syndrome. I can't say he has any genocidal tendencies, though.

Fun fact: if you google search "names for evil boys" (imaginative, I know), amongst the suggestion of Diabolos, Orpheus, Jilaiya (an Indian demon, apparently), you'll find that 7th on the list is Seth. I don't know which particular Seth pissed off the author of that website, but Seth it is.

I was now 18, about to turn 19, and had managed to avoid thinking about or texting Kieran since I moved away from home two months before to start a Psychology degree in Birmingham. I lived in grotty student accommodation I had immediately fallen in love with, with 9 other flatmates I insisted spend all their free time doing activities with me in the main common area: movie nights, lasagne parties, pre-drinks, post-drinks, hangover mornings, cocktail classes and corridor bowling using toilet rolls and a cricket ball. We went out every Wednesday for sports social nights, Fridays for a whole house activity and sometimes Saturdays and Thursdays too for good measure. I was told repeatedly by second and third-year students that I shouldn't take my first year seriously: nobody will care what your grades are as long as you get 40% to pass the course. If you manage that you can have as much fun as you like.

I called my parents every Sunday night after they'd had dinner to give them a run-down of the week and check up on my siblings: Sam was just about to start his own A-Levels and Katie had been begging Dad to drop out of school so she could focus on being a professional dancer. Mum had apparently told her that she would take to an audition for a ballet school in London which was apparently pretty prestigious and a big fucking deal (Katie's words) but my youngest sibling had taken this to mean that school would be cancelled immediately and she would soon be touring Russia performing the Nutcracker.

I made friends quickly and easily in my halls and on my course. I joined the swimming club which split training sessions into male and female, so I got to know a good group of girls who reminded me of May and Alice. I texted my old friends regular updates to let them know how I was getting on, and they did the same: May had stayed at home to train as a beautician, and Alice had gone to study International Business with Law in Manchester. I'd joked with her about bumping into Kieran and "doing a May".

If you'd asked me at the start of my first year what I thought of online dating, I probably would have told you that I thought they were for people who couldn't find anyone else to date, for old people, and that they were all-round a bit sad.

I was out one Wednesday evening playing "pub golf" in the pubs of Birmingham, not too far away from my accommodation so I could stagger home afterwards (or at least get close enough to figure out where to go – the city was still new to me), but all the girls were sitting on their phones.

"Have you got Tinder?" Bridget – a tall, Australian girl with a confident smile – asked me. I had no idea what she was talking about.

"What's that? Is that what everyone's looking at tonight?"

"Oh my god, you have to get it. It's like a dating app but way better. It shows you people near to you and you can swipe on them if you think they're hot or not, and then if they do the same then you match and you can talk to them! It's a right laugh," she said, showing me the online profile of a guy who was sat almost directly opposite us in the pub. I giggled.

"He looks better in his photos!" I said, clicking the "x" button on her screen to get rid of him. "Aren't dating apps a bit weird, though?"

"No definitely not! It's the new thing at the moment. It's like modern dating but god, nobody takes it seriously."