There Is Now Less Of Me

And so my personal Be Less Fat juggernaut rumbles on, with 9st 11lbs daubed along the side.* Yes: to my delight, in the past week, I've lost over two pounds! Thanks to the advice of a very kind man called Dave (@tartovski if you're on Twitter), I have changed my diet so that I'm eating little and often, rather than filling the hole in my face thrice daily, and voila! I am looking progressively less like a food-addicted hippo.

*NB I had to Photoshop a bit out of the middle of the photo as you could see my, ahem, unclad reflection - but the display is correct.

But never fear - this blog isn't going to be solely about my dwindling frame. Two weeks ago I asked you to critique the first chapter of my book; most of you were very kind, but you had a few questions, one of which was "What on earth is so wrong with James? So what if he smells like banana?"

To which I reply: James's banana smell is not the only unappealing thing about him. So below, I've posted another extract from later in the book, detailing how Anna and James met.

My question is: from this extract, (a) can you see why Anna went out with him, and (b) can you see why she might not want to be with him? (It's a tricky one, so I'd really appreciate your thoughts. Thanks in advance.)



CHAPTER 4


James and I met at Zifex, back when he worked in the IT department. I had never noticed him before he shambled up to my desk one day and asked in a strong Northern accent, “Would you like a cup of tea?”

I quickly closed down Facebook’s “Which West Wing character are YOU?” quiz, just in case he was someone with influence over my salary, and blurted, “Er, yeah, that’d be nice.”

When he returned with the tea, I decided he probably wasn’t one of the bosses, not least because he was wearing a stained black t-shirt featuring the slogan:


WHILE YOU ARE READING THIS I AM STARING AT YOUR TITS


I had always wondered what kind of person wore anti-social t-shirts. Now I’m going out with them.

“Nice t-shirt,” I said.

“Thanks,” he replied earnestly, my sarcasm whooshing over his head.

Then, just in case I might want one, he added, “I got it down Camden Market.”

After that momentous conversation, James would bring me a cup of tea each day and loiter by my desk. Over this period, he wore the t-shirts:


I’VE LOST MY VIRGINITY, CAN I HAVE YOURS?


and


YOU’RE NOT DRUNK, I REALLY AM THIS GOOD LOOKING


James isn’t bad-looking, just nondescript. He’d make a great criminal, because no one would ever be able to pick him out in an identity parade. You can picture a policeman’s spirits dropping as he took down James’s description: “The suspect was a white male, five foot nine inches tall, early thirties with brown hair and grey eyes, no distinguishing features.” Even I have trouble spotting him from a distance.

Luckily for the police force, James could never be a criminal. He doesn’t need a life of vice and subterfuge to be happy, just a cup of tea and a t-shirt emblazoned with MY BODY IS NOT A TEMPLE, IT’S AN AMUSEMENT PARK. When I first met him, I found it endearing­, the way he let the world turn and didn’t ask much from it. Two and a half years on, I’m not entirely sure where that feeling went.

Soon after his tea-making courtship ritual began, James informed me that he was leaving Zifex to work at Omigron, another ISP. I remember feeling a twinge of sadness, though that could have been because he made really good tea. As I teased him about being a traitor, he asked suddenly, “Will you go out for a drink with me?”

“What, to say goodbye?” I asked, surprised.

“No,” he replied softly, “because I think you’re amazing.”

No one had ever said anything like that to me before. The idea that someone might think I was amazing was unfathomable, and also thrilling. I knew it might have been a chat-up line, but James sounded sincere, and had also gone bright red. I was 28, had been single for ages, and was lonely.

“Okay,” I agreed.

He took me to Wetherspoon’s, which admittedly isn’t the kind of place you take someone you think is amazing – I wouldn’t take Nelson Mandela there – but it was nearby, and James probably didn’t realise that it wasn’t the ideal first date venue.

As I recall, his t-shirt that day said:


THIS SHIRT WOULD LOOK GREAT ON YOUR BEDROOM FLOOR


We sat at a slightly wet table full of beer mats, and talked about work.

“Did you always want to be a computer programmer?” I asked James.

“Dunno,” he shrugged. “I always liked computers, and it came easy to me. Did you always want to work in customer services?”

I shook my head. “Advertising. I wanted to write catchy lines which stick in your head. Hopefully they’ll let me do that soon.”

James looked as doubtful as I felt.

Then he said, “I’d rather reassure people than write ‘Have a great Zifexperience’. ‘Cos that’s what you’re doing all day – being nice to people.”

I’d never thought of it that way before. And haven’t since, come to think of it. James’s lack of cynicism was refreshing, but I couldn’t quite let go of my own.

“Really, I’m trying to stop them from suing us or going elsewhere,” I pointed out. “If I had their interests at heart, I’d write, ‘Why not switch to Omigron?’”

James frowned. “But then you’d get sacked.”

I slurped my vodka and orange, and thought how ironic it was, two ISP employees having no connection. “Well, that’s why I don’t.”

We sat in awkward silence, while I briefly wondered what the shortest length of time I could stay there was. Would it be rude to leave after half an hour? Forty-five minutes? Maybe I could go to the toilet, text Lucy and get her to call me so I could use the old “my Grandma’s sick, I have to rush to her bedside” chestnut?

Then I remembered there was nothing for me to go home to, except some manky plates in the sink and an old West Wing DVD. I decided to make more of an effort.

“So is this new job the start of world domination for you?” I asked.

“Oh no no, nothing like that,” James said hastily, taking me seriously as usual and looking faintly embarrassed. “It just means working on more interesting projects. Do you want world domination then?”

No, just an interesting conversation. “I’d settle for England,” I said.

“I can’t give you that,” he replied, “but I can buy you dinner if you’d like?”

I couldn’t think of a good enough reason not to. “That would be lovely,” I answered.

And James obligingly shoved across a Wetherspoon’s menu.


*


That’s how it started. Maybe that’s how it should have ended, too, but [my best friend] Lucy was adamant I’d be making a mistake.

“You’re always telling me blokes don’t ask you out,” she pointed out, “and now one has, you’re rejecting him. Why not give him a chance?”

And so I did.