Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

ALERT! ALERT! DO NOT EVEN OPEN WINE WITHOUT WRAPPING PHONE UP IN NOTE SAYING ‘NO TEXTING’ AND PUTTING ON HIGH SHELF

9.45 p.m. Much better now. Will put music on. Maybe Queen’s ‘Play the Game’. Gay perspective is always good, esp. in musical form. Mmmm. Leatherjacketman. Wish he would text me then we could see each other and have sensual . . .

10 p.m. Maybe tiny nother glass of wine.

ALERT! ALERT!

10.05 p.m. Love Queen.

10.20 p.m. Mmm. Dancing . . .

‘This is your life!. . . Don’t play hard to get . . .’

10.20 p.m. You see, s true. ‘Love runs . . . pumping through my veeeeiiiiins!’ Love Letherjackiema. You an’t go ound getting bogged in defensiveness. Love is loike a stream.

DO NOT USE WORDS OF POP SONGS TO GUIDE BEHAVIOUR, ESPECIALLY WHEN DRUNK

10.21 p.m. Youse? Dfon’t polay hard to get. So why shunni text him . . .?

GAAAH! You see, this is the trouble with the modern world. If it was the days of letter-writing, I would never have even started to find a pen, a piece of paper, an envelope, a stamp, and Leatherjacketman’s home address and gone outside at 11.30 p.m. with two children asleep in the house to find a postbox. A text is gone at the brush of a fingertip, like a nuclear bomb or Exocet missile.

10.35 p.m. Just pressssd d SEND. Issfineisn’ tit.

DO NOT TEXT WHEN DRUNK

CONTINUING DATING INCOMPETENCE

Sunday 16 September 2012

133lb (stuffing feelings).

‘No!’ said Talitha, sitting in my living room with Tom, me and Jude. ‘It is not “fine”.’

‘Why?’ I said, staring eerily at my text.

Tom read it out then snorted.

‘Well, number one, you’re clearly drunk,’ said Jude, looking up briefly from OkCupid.

‘Number two, it’s eleven thirty at night,’ said Tom. ‘Number three, you’ve already told him you’d like to see him again, so you’re sounding desperate.’

‘Number four, you used an exclamation mark,’ said Jude crisply.

‘And it’s emotionally inauthentic,’ said Tom. ‘It has the gushing, fraudulently breezy tone of a schoolgirl who’s persuaded the netball captain to sit next to her at lunch, and is trying to force her to be friends, whilst attempting to sound casual about it.’

‘And he didn’t reply,’ added Jude.

‘Have I ruined everything?’

‘Just leave it as the naivety of a newborn bunny amidst a pack of ravenous coyotes,’ said Tom.

Almost immediately the text pinged.

I looked at them with the expression of an anti-Iraq War demonstrator hearing that there were no weapons of mass destruction. Then I floated up onto a cloud – non-biochemical – of excitement.

‘“How’s your babysitting schedule?”’ I said, dancing around. ‘He’s so CONSIDERATE.’

‘He’s trying to get into your knickers,’ said Jude.

‘Don’t just stand there,’ said Tom excitedly. ‘Answer the text!’

I thought a bit, then texted:

came straight back.

‘He’s funny,’ said Tom. ‘And there’s just a hint of S&M. Which is nice.’

We all looked at each other happily. A triumph for one was a triumph for all.

‘Let’s open another bottle,’ said Jude, padding over to the fridge in her baggy onesie and big fluffy socks. She stopped to kiss me on the head on the way. ‘Well done, everyone, well done.’

ESCALATING DATING INCOMPETENCE

ON THE FIRST DATE – JUST GO ALONG WITH WHAT HE SUGGESTS

Wednesday 19 September 2012

134lb, pounds gained 1, dating rules broken 2.

9.15 p.m. Chloe can’t do Saturday night, and instead of putting my energy into finding someone else, have obsessed and fantasized so much about the dinner, and what am going to wear, and the way he will look up at me when I appear in the navy silk dress, that have not organized anything else. Gaah! Text from Leatherjacketman!

9.17 p.m.Argo? Argo? A movie is not a PROPER DATE! Argo is a guy movie! The navy silk dress would be overdressed at a movie. And anyway Chloe can’t do Saturday and . . .

9.20 p.m. Just sent:

DON’T MAKE IT ALL ABOUT THE BABYSITTER

9.21 p.m. Me:

10 p.m. Oh God, oh God. Leatherjacketman has not replied. Maybe he is out? With another woman?

11 p.m. Leatherjacketman: