I’d like to be in love but most of my dates tend to go like this

“I’m home now and thinking about the kiss, which in hindsight actually has made me feel alive and like maybe it was all worth it.”

This is an edited extract of the chapter, ‘I’d like to be in love, but I’m busy being here, on a date with you’ from Bel Hawkins and Lucy Blakiston’s new book, Make It Make Sense (Hachette Australia).

I’m thinking about whether I should text you what I’m wearing just in case you don’t recognise me and we have one of those awful who- the-hell-are-yous outside the restaurant. I’m thinking this as I’m walking to the low-stakes location I’ll definitely never go back to, thinking about all the other things I could be doing this evening. Like going to a ceramics class, or cooking dinner so I’ll have a Tupperware lunch tomorrow, or watching movie trailers on YouTube until 11.30pm, or lying on my best friend’s living room floor with black-head strips on, ignoring my notifications. I’m thinking I hope this spritz of my perfume is worth the expense of using it tonight. I estimate it to cost $0.75 per spray. I think about Return On Investment. We’re both sitting down now and I’m thinking, you’re alright.

Like, not incredible, but alright. All the advice says to keep going if you feel alright because we’ve mistaken romance for compatibility and that’s the 1990s’ fault, stop being so superficial. You get up to go to the bathroom, and I start thinking about my tax return and the pair of jeans I’ve left in my checkout cart online. My phone goes. It’s a message from you. I wonder if it’s delayed from before we met and entered the restaurant. I have nothing else to do with my eyes or hands so I open it. It’s not. It reads ‘ur cool’. I put my phone face down on the table and pretend I haven’t seen it.

You’re back and talking about someone you used to date who lived in ‘B’, which I assume stands for Berlin, Germany, but I don’t ask. You go into more depth about her love for fragrance design and how it completely changed your perspective on the world, look, here’s a photo of the counter of cologne you now keep at home. While you’re talking and showing me pictures on your phone, I’m thinking about why you decided to wear this very specific pair of shoes tonight. They’re slip-ons, but not any slip-ons – they’re like what my dad wore to mow the lawn in 1997. I’m wondering about the precise moment you walked out the door and thought, ‘I’ll just slip these on.’ I can hear them slipping on under the table. I need to shut up and open my mind if I ever want to fall in love. I smile and say, wow, she seems cool.

Dinner’s come and gone and I tried not to eat too much, too fast, or let the colours of the meal stain around my mouth, which is surprisingly easy as you haven’t asked me a question in about 17 minutes. Maybe it’s less. It could be less. It could be more like five, but it feels like a long time. I experiment with bringing up the subject of my job, which I quite like and would enjoy talking about in the same way I talk about everyone else’s ideas all day, but it seems to bore you, so we return to the intricate details of other areas in your life you’ve optimised. I nod and say that’s so interesting, tell me more. I wonder how I can find out whether or not you sleep on a mattress on the floor without having to explicitly ask you what your bedroom looks like.

It’s 8.57pm and I’m thinking about ordering another glass of wine because I’ve finished mine, but you haven’t finished yours. Is it tacky if I have another, or is that what a confident woman would do? I want to message my friends and ask, but that’s rude, and I don’t want you to know I’ve read the text you sent from the bathroom. Plus, I have to be totally in the moment here. I take another sip and we move onto the subject of a life-changing trip you once took to Brooklyn, New York. I decide on the additional wine and, while you’re talking, I’m thinking about how much work I have to do tomorrow and whether I should pick up a bottle of sparkling water and a block of Dairy Milk on the way home to offset my potential hangover and feeling of disillusionment. Dating is going to give me diabetes.

Now they’re clearing our plates, and I’m thinking about what other people are thinking when they see us at this fusion restaurant that promises midweek anonymity and inoffensive meals for less than $25, which I know I shouldn’t be thinking about. I should be thinking about you in some future potential state and whether I’d want to, say, leave you in the kitchen at a party, or trust you with my bank card in your inside jacket pocket, or post a slightly obscured photo of you in three months’ time with a caption that just says something like ‘Saturday’. Instead, I’m wondering how the couple next to us got together and whether she wishes she was me right now, seemingly on the precipice of some wild sex with a stranger in unfortunate shoes. Little does she know I’ll be in bed with a makeup wipe in 27 minutes if I can time this right.

Dinner’s over, and we’re outside doing that awkward thing where we can’t tell each other what either of us wants to do next. I’m wondering if I should deploy the elephant-in-the-room* approach and straight up ask you what you want. But before I can, you pick my chin up with your hand like you’ve seen it in a Hugh Grant film and kiss me unpassionately on the lips. A bit of teeth. Slight stabby sensation with your tongue. For the four seconds we’re kissing, I’m feeling a bit dead inside and wondering whether this affection is better than the stress relief I get from leaving the office to buy a second coffee. I mean, I don’t dislike you. But it doesn’t feel the way I’m pretty sure it should. But, then again, a friend of mine met a boring guy for a drink once and persisted with hanging out, and now they co-own a dog and their lives look pretty good. We stop kissing, or maybe I stop kissing you, and say cutely, yeah, yeah, let’s hang out again soon, hug, and walk away. It takes all my strength not to immediately pull out my phone and dramatically regale the story of the entire uneventful night to the group chat.

I’m home now and thinking about the kiss, which in hindsight actually has made me feel alive and like maybe it was all worth it. Although I’d quite happily never message you again and run into you at a fresh produce market in six months time, where you’ll have your arms around a girlfriend who suits you better than me. Although, maybe that would make me jealous and I should give you another chance. . . I’m thinking about all of this and what to do next, but I’m tired and a bit tipsy, so I set my phone down next to my bed. A notification pings in the app from someone I haven’t met in real life yet. ‘U up?’ I switch my phone to silent, put it face down on the table and pretend I haven’t seen the message.

*Elephant-in-the rooming: The practice of saying out loud what you know everyone is thinking, or what you’re worried or self-conscious about, in order to avoid an anxious spiral about what other people might be thinking. 

This is an edited extract from the creators of Shit You Should Care About, Bel Hawkins and Lucy Blakiston’s new book, Make It Make Sense (Hachette Australia), on sale Tuesday September 10. Find a copy here.