Life in London is tough. Especially if, like me, you’re single, foreign, queer, not exactly affluent. It’s tough. That’s why you need a secret weapon. A secret weapon to fall back on, just to make it through one exhausting week after another, year after disappointing year. No, it’s not drugs (although those help.) It’s your best friend.
My best friend for years now has been Aoife. Aoife is fabulous. She can start a conversation with anyone, blag her way past any bouncer, knows an unlimited number of London life hacks, cheers me up when I’m down but knows when to tell me to shape up and stop the pity party. When I first saw her, she was slumped down drunk at a warehouse rave, with some skeezy guy trying to put his arm around her, despite her tired attempts to ward him off. I went over to them and asked if everything was all right, and she pulled me down beside her and said, pointedly, ‘this is my boyfriend’, which sent the other guy on his way. When I asked her if she was okay, she said no. Her friends had all gone and this place was full of fucking gobshites. I agreed, and joked that at least the gobshites had no gaydar; that must have been the first time in my life I’d passed for straight. I helped her get her coat from the cloakroom and order an Uber. While we waited outside by the queue, I kept up a mindless patter, thinking it might help her to sober up, listening to me there in the cool night air. I told her about my life, how I’d recently started doing stand-up, how it scared me shitless, but also felt great to tell my stupid jokes about ‘I don’t know, the misery of gay life or something.’ She was intrigued, said she loved comedy and told me to add her on Instagram and send her the details. I obliged, but didn’t think I would ever see her again after I’d sent her off in the car.
And yet, on the following Sunday at Mike’s Open Mic, there she was, laughing the loudest out of anyone in the room, buying me a drink afterwards and thanking me for my help at the rave. ‘I swear I’m not always a mess like that,’ she said, to which I replied: ‘Oh, babe, it’s fine, I’m a mess ninety-nine percent of the time.’ We toasted to that, and suddenly it felt like I’d known her forever.
Since then, we’ve supported each other through countless crises. She was there when I took that weird legal high at Lovebox and needed to be escorted home, convinced there were demons following me. I was there when Beth broke up with her, and she needed to be held while she cried, and told that she would find someone, someone who truly loved her for who she was. By the end of the first two years we’d known each other, we both needed to move, were both tired of living with strangers, and found it made sense to rent a place together in Hackney Wick — a Dane and an Irishwoman, lost in London, sounding like the set-up for a bad joke.
Whenever I’d had a shitty experience, I would vent to Aoife.
And so that’s exactly what I did, after my Tinder date ditched me to go for a Grindr hook-up.
‘What a bastard.’ Aoife shook her head slowly in disgust. She was wearing flannel pajama bottoms and an oversized Velvet Underground t-shirt, hair wrapped in a towel. She’d just showered after one of her long runs in Victoria Park. Late afternoon sun reflected off the offices opposite our building, making me squint. ‘What an absolute, manky gobshite. Mal, that is unbelievable.’
I shrugged, slumped on my end of the sofa with a mug of tea. ‘I mean, it’s fairly believable. I’m used to this kind of stuff.’
‘But you shouldn’t be! You deserve better.’ She pointed a finger at me. ‘We need to find you a nice guy. It must be possible.’
‘I don’t know. Feels like the nice guys always get snapped up by… someone better right around the corner. I mean, this guy literally found someone better… right around… the corner… ’
‘What if you tried something different? Get on some other apps or something. There’s loads of them now! I can’t keep up.’
‘Well, you don’t need to keep up. Because you’ve got Theo.’
Theo was Aoife’s partner of three years, who she’d met soon after the break-up with Beth. They were lovely.
‘True.’
‘Are they coming to the show tonight?’
Aoife nodded. ‘They said they’ll meet us there.’
‘Oh, great.’ I smiled. Some stand-up comics feel embarrassed having friends in the audience. I love it. Makes me feel safer up there. Supported.
‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘the guys on the apps are all basically the same. I’m starting to feel it’s hopeless… ’
‘Wait, how long have you been single now?’
‘Er… ‘ I counted the years since Rupert, the posh boy who’d messed me about for six months when I was twenty-eight. ‘Four years.’
Aoife gave a look of stunned bewilderment. ‘How is that possible? Why is someone like you still single?’
‘I don’t know. Because my mind does this incredible thing where it only ever falls for guys who… aren’t particularly bothered about me.’
Aoife gave a look as if to say ‘well, that’s a choice.’
‘I don’t know!’ I groaned, drawing my legs up. ‘If I’m totally honest, maybe I don’t even want a boyfriend. I think I just get… horny and lonely sometimes. But that’s not the same as genuinely wanting a relationship, is it?’
Aoife shrugged. ‘Maybe not.’
‘Because if I really wanted one, then… probably it would have happened! And when I look around at all the other gays, I kind of just think… God, you’re all terrible.’
‘Don’t you think they’re probably thinking the same thing?’
‘Probably.’
‘You guys are weird. I give up.’ Aoife got up. She went to the kitchen and started rummaging through a cupboard. ‘No, but I think what it is, is we need to, like, find someone who shares your sense of humour. Why don’t you date another stand-up comedian?’
‘Oh —’ I nearly choked on my tea. ‘No, no, no. Stand-up comedians are the most toxic, self-obsessed people in the world. Myself included.’
Aoife snorted. ‘You are not toxic.’
‘I’m serious! We are the worst. I mean, we’re lovely, but we’re the worst.’ I joined her in the kitchen space, where she’d started chopping onions with the least dodgy of our knives. I leaned back on the small, round dining table, still sipping my tea. The feeling of melancholy hadn’t entirely lifted. ‘I just sometimes think that — you know, I arrived in the UK all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when I was, like, twenty-four… ’
Aoife chuckled.
‘What?’ I frowned. ‘That is the expression, right?’
‘No, that’s right. I just find it funny. Continue!’
‘Well, I arrived and it was all fun — the clubs, and the one-night-stands, and meeting people from all over the world… But now, like, I’m in my thirties, and the one-night-stands haven’t lead to anything, and I’ve never had a proper boyfriend, and I’m still just a junior designer, and it’s like, where is this even going? Is it even going anywhere? Because if not, then maybe I should just… re-think everything. And move back to Denmark… ’
‘You’ve got the stand-up,’ said Aoife brightly, setting a pot on the gas hob and switching it on. ‘That might take off.’
‘Might. It might.’ I shook my head. ‘I’m sick of living my life on mights. And also, this country is crazy! They voted for Brexit. They don’t even want Europeans here.’
‘What are you talking about? London wants Europeans. London is Europeans.’
‘True. Also, I guess if I moved back to Denmark, at this point, I’d feel more out-of-place there than I do here… ‘
‘Yeah, I could never move back to Ireland.’
‘And also, maybe there is no place that’s really better than anywhere else. When the whole world is just burning. And it’s all just turning to shit.’
‘Jesus, you’re in high spirits.’
‘Sorry.’
She drizzled olive oil in the pot, diagnosing me with typical nonchalance: ‘To be honest, I think you just haven’t had sex in a while and that’s what’s getting you down.’
‘Yeah,’ I immediately agreed. ‘Been ages. It’s all cobwebs and bats down there.’
Aoife gave an exaggerated shudder, but I glimpsed a smile on her face, which pleased me. ‘By the way, what time should we leave?’
‘Uh, like half past eight?’
‘Great. Want some wine? I think that’s the other thing you need.’ I smiled. ‘As always, you are completely right.’
