LOCKDOWN PART 2: BACK IN THE HABIT

So it turns out a new species of male has emerged onto the dating scene in 2020. I like to call it, “Hot COVID Dad”.

Hot COVID Dad typically has at least two offspring, and tends to be either (a) still living with ex-partner (b) living in the office or (c) living in a caravan. He most likely broke up with ex-partner during NZ Lockdown #1, and has subsequently joined a choir, taken up jive, and decided this is the year to run a half marathon, despite his propensity for shin splints.

Guys, this phenomenon is not isolated to New Zealand. In the UK, divorce enquiries are reported to be up 42% since lockdown hit. The media are running articles on “how to avoid becoming a coronavirus divorce statistic”. Single ladies, our time is now!

I’m back on the dating scene after having a bit of a prolonged break since my enthusiastic start to 2019 “I’m going to ask someone out every month”. I had been inspired by that stupid TED Talk of the dude who decided to face his fears of rejection by undertaking 100 days of rejection ie doing something every single day where he could be rejected. My commitment to this lasted three months, before I completely lost interest in being rejected by someone every month and decided to focus my energy on something else. Obviously I can’t remember what it was now – it may have involved watching copious amounts of Below Deck: Mediterranean Series 2 – but regardless, let’s just say I went into hibernation.

Anyway, straight outta lockdown (part 1) and apparently NOT moving to America anytime soon (thanks COVID) I decided to try out the dating app Hinge, which is a bit like Instagram with swiping. My first dating encounter was… fine. We went for coffee. As soon as I saw him I thought, “no”. He had a very high voice, a slightly discoloured tooth and children ranging from the ages of 21 down to 3. When I got into the car after the date I realised that I had a “little friend” protruding from my right nostril. Feeling slightly hysterical with despair, I drove straight to the Warehouse where I purchased a onesie in the shape of a donkey, a pink fluffy blanket and a pink hot water bottle with a picture of a rainbow on it and the slogan “Today I am a unicorn”. I spent the rest of the afternoon lying wearing said onesie, collapsed on pink fluffy blanket, drinking hot chocolate and reading “The Unexpected Joy of Being Single”. What a great day that was.

The second Hot COVID Dad was an Irish bloke who seemed super keen, took me on 5 dates in the space of two weeks, texted every day before suddenly messaging to say that I was beautiful, funny and kind and that he had a lot of respect for me but that he had been on a second date with someone else and wanted to try things with them. What The actual Fuck. Note to Hot COVID Dads out there – if you’re keen on someone, give them a fair go which means not multiple dating and keeping your options open. If you’re not sure, don’t act like you are. It just messes people around. Capiche?

Onto to Hot COVID Dad #3. As we are now back in lockdown, we had a “socially distanced” video date, which can now go onto the Bucket List as the thing I never knew I wanted to do. The first 25 minutes of the date were spent trying to figure out how to set up a Zoom link, and the rest were spent with the video variously freezing and delaying. It’s also REALLY hard to work out if there’s a connection over video link. His daughters also joined the call at the end to ask him to hurry up. Another novel experience of a first date.

Here’s my other discovery of dating in your late thirties – everyone wants to discuss children very early on. In the last 2 weeks I have explained to three different guys why I haven’t had children (standard line: never met anyone I wanted to have them with; it’s something I’d be open to in the future). On one of my first dates Hot COVID Dad explained that he’d had the snip but “don’t worry, everything still works”. To be honest I didn’t actually think I’d be having conversations like this for at least another 10 years but there you go, vasectomies and why you’re childless are now apparently first date conversation when you’re (ahem) almost 40.

The final other new experience out of all of this has been sober dating. I have obviously been on sober dates before, but I’ve never exclusively sober dated. I quite like it. For one, I remember everything they said (and I said) and I can drive to every location. And also, there’s absolutely no Beer Goggles or 2 O’Clock Zone going on. They do not look any better (or worse) three hours later. They look – exactly the same.

Did I mention that I’ve now been sober for almost 8 months? I’ve almost been sober for 8 months! I actually quite like it. I will leave you with my top discoveries of being sober so far:

1. I’m addicted to the feeling of being clear headed. Even when I’m sad and I want to guzzle down a bottle of wine, it’s still better to know that nothing chemical is distorting my emotions.
2. The days get way longer. When you are sober ALL the time, there are no magic hours that get lost in being a bit tipsy.
3. Being at parties where everyone else is drunk is pretty damn dull.
4. I have read more books than I have in years. And I remember and enjoy them more.
5. My skin has got better. So much so that the checkout chick in Pak’N’Save recently commented on it.
6. I haven’t lost the weight I thought I would. But that might be because I replaced wine with Sweet As caramel popcorn.

So there you go. Hot COVID Dad and sober dating. 2020, what else you got in store?

THE SOBER LIFE

I have to a confession to make. When I made my decision on January 1^st to give up alcohol for 2020, I had no idea that 2 weeks later I would be made redundant or that a deadly virus would sweep the globe causing the entire world to go into lockdown for an indefinite period of time.

To be honest, had I known then what I know now, I might have thought twice about giving up my Friday night The Botanist with Fever Tree (Elderflower).

But here we are. Newly Freelance. In Lockdown. In the midst of a Global Pandemic. Completely Sober (102 days – but who’s counting?).

In a way, getting sober in January prepared me for lockdown because I suddenly realised how much more time you have when you’re sober, plus you get way more bored. I have read many blogs and listened to many podcasts now on the sober life and here’s a real fact about not drinking: you will be way more bored than you ever imagined possible, because you now have more time to fill and you are stone cold sober for every single second of it. Hence my newfound ability to cut my own fringe and make my own mayonnaise and blue cheese ranch dressing. As, no doubt, you will have just observed - the important things in life.

But you know what has really saved me from going completely insane in sobriety and self-isolation? Apart from Tiger King (obvs)? Drum roll please… MAFS: Australia.

For the uninitiated, MAFS is Married At First Sight. The premise is that a couple are set up by The Experts, they meet for the first timeS at the altar in front of their friends and family, and are then “fast tracked” through married life over a period of 8 weeks, at which point they then decide if that want to renew their vows. It’s manipulative, it’s formulaic, it’s painful to watch, it’s car-crash reality TV at its best. In short, it’s brilliant and everyone needs to get on board with it because at over an hour duration each episode - and 30+ episodes available – it will help you to survive lockdown (with or without wine). Even better is that fact that everyone has Australian accents. Despite having now lived in the Southern Hemisphere for almost 8 years, I still find the Aussie accent completely entertaining. Must be the Neighbours effect (which, did you know, is still going? Who the hell is still watching it? Add to lockdown list: must find out who standard Neighbours watcher is).

The best part is genuinely the parents-in-law. I have a sneaking suspicion that the producers actually cast the wives and grooms based on how batsh*t crazy their mothers are – there is nothing like watching a personal trainer groom (Seb) get grilled by a mother (Lizzie’s) who looks like she belongs in an episode of Secret Hoarders. You might think that coming from the BBC I would be a snob for “real British drama” but you, my naïve friend, would be wrong. This is genuinely the best drama I’ve seen in years. You can keep your Bodyguard and Apple Tree Yard, I’ll take Steve freaking out over Mishel trying to get him to kayak in 10cm of water any day.

I would like to leave you with my own personal experience of lockdown in New Zealand. I know that for many of you, you are in lockdown with your husbands or wives and trying to homeschool your children, but how would you feel about being in lockdown with a complete stranger, who literally moved in on the first day of lockdown?

Picture the scene: it’s Monday night. 8pm. The country has just been told it’s about to go into lockdown for 28 days and I have somehow locked myself out of my phone. I’m already in a heightened state of panic because who knows if I can get my goddamn phone fixed tomorrow before all of the shops close for 4 weeks? Plus I spent the afternoon wandering around the supermarket in a complete daze, stocking up on fettucine, toilet roll and cannellini beans and wondering if $180 is too much to shell out for a milk frother because can I cope without an almond latte for 28 days?... So I’m trying to calm myself down with a lovely escapist episode of MAFS (see above) when there is a knock at the door. I open it, and recognise the guy – he comes to my GRIT class and he’s also a friend of the owner. So I say, Oh hey, are you here to see Glen? And the reply is, No, I’m moving in! Did he not tell you?

No. He didn’t.

For all of my instructor friends out there – you know those members who come to your class every week and you really should know their name but you don’t know their name and now it’s waaaaaaaay too late to ask and normally it wouldn’t matter because you only see them for 30 minutes once a week which means you can totally get away with calling them “mate”?

Yeah. That member just moved in with you. And they are totally expecting you to know their name.

I was on the brink of picking a name and just saying it with confidence and hoping that if it wasn’t right he would correct me (my Dad’s tried and tested formula with many a forgotten acquaintance) but luckily after three days he mentioned it in a sentence.

NICK.

Luckily, I was sober enough to remember it.

VIEW FROM THE DESERT

Guys, I’m on Day 18 of not drinking. And I’m not gonna lie, this whole no drinking thing is no walk in the park.

Alcohol and I have never really got along, as anyone who has been to a BBC “Doctors” wrap party with me will know. Our first altercation occurred back in 1995, when I discovered just how lethal Archer’s Peach Schnapps could really be. Similar arguments followed: In 1998 Matt James’ sister taught me how to stick my fingers down my throat to make myself vomit, after I had downed a pint (yes – from an actual pint glass) of Merlot somewhere in the deepest darkest depths of Solihull. In 1999, whilst on our post-A Levels holiday to Tenerife, I spent our first night throwing up Red Square vodka into the chalet fridge vegetable bin – and never even made it down to The Strip.

And then of course came my pièce de résistance – being stretchered into an ambulance at exactly the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve 1999. That’s right – I started the new millennium, decade and my 19^th birthday (New Year’s Day – yes, you missed it but I am still accepting presents) being given oxygen in a hospital bed before suffering the ignominious exit of being delivered to my parents’ car in a wheelchair. I know it was exactly midnight because Douglas Heard captured an image of me on the stretcher on his Nokia 3310, with “0:00” emblazoned helpfully across the photograph.

You might suspect that it would be at this stage that I would just give up. Accept that alcohol and I were doomed not to be friends and retire to a life of soft drinks, peppermint tea, and the occasional Big Night Out with a Baileys Coffee. But no! Little Sair is no quitter! I persisted with Jager Bombs, Dirty Martinis, Caipirinhas, Petron, Harden The Fuck Up (yes really – it was a shot at a bar in Darwin)…  all in an attempt find a drink that would suit me and hence why we are in the predicament we find ourselves today.

Because, while alcohol in excess has never suited me, I persevered with the very English-Middle-Class-Waitrose-Shopper habit of having a civilized wine in the evening and somehow found that, in my 39^th year, this habit has become one that that is very hard to break.

This is slightly niche, but did you ever see that episode of “Frasier” where Bebe explains why it’s so hard for her to quit smoking? In case you’ve forgotten – I’ll refresh your memory:

Frasier: Oh now, Bebe, tell me.  What is so wonderful about smoking?

Bebe: Everything. I like the way a fresh firm pack

         feels in my hand.  I like peeling away that little piece of

         cellophane and seeing it twinkle in the light.  I like coaxing

         that first sweet cylinder out of its hiding place and bringing

         it slowly up to my lips. Striking a match, watching it burst into 

         a perfect little flame and knowing that soon that flame will

         be inside me. I love the first puff, pulling

         it into my lungs.  Little fingers of smoking filling me,

         caressing me, feeling that warmth penetrate deeper and deeper,

         until I think I'm going to burst!  Then - whoosh! - watching

         it flow out of me in a lovely, sinuous cloud, no two ever

         quite the same.

Now take all of the emotions that Bebe feels towards cigarettes and imagine them with wine. I don’t want to sound like some kind of midget Brummy alco, but let’s face it: there’s nothing quite like pouring yourself a massive glass of Pinot at the end of a crummy day to make the world seem… a little more gentle than it did a few hours ago.

But anyway, I decided on the first of January (my birthday, do keep up) that I had had enough of (a) feeling that little bit extra tired in the morning (b) spending money that I don’t have on alcohol and (c) feeling depressed after drinking. Because, let’s face it, alcohol is a depressant, and it’s probably something my mental health could do without.

So yeah, Day 18. I can now tell you exactly which celebrities don’t drink (Kim Kardashian, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lopez, Matthew Perry and, allegedly, Donald Trump?!! Which means he is making all of those decisions completely sober. Which is, in itself, a sobering thought). I have replaced alcohol with popcorn so any dreams I might have had of losing weight because I am no longer consuming so-called “empty calories” have been completely quashed by the reality of consuming my own body-weight in sweet ‘n’ salted. I now have a Herbal Tea Drawer, and I have realised that there are three spiders living in the corners of my ceiling.

I am doing Dry January but I would actually love to manage to do the whole of 2020 sober. Which right now seems like quite the feat but then a few years ago we never imagined that Colleen Rooney would turn out to be Miss Marple in 2019 – so there you go.

18 days down, 347 to go. If you need me, I’ll be at T2.