Shaky Start

I was on a date, nervous, but trying to mask it.

A woman pointed out my hands were shaking.

“Are you nervous?” She said, unmasking me.

This was not a random woman. This was the same woman I was on the date with. My counterpart. My interlocutor. My scene partner in the shitshow that is my love life.

That’s the worst person to feel negatively judged by on a date.

Obviously, other people’s judgements on the date can deeply affect me too. They can also start a chain of events that either ends with suicidal ideation or a bulk order of whey protein. Sometimes both. I’ve been known to text people, “I’m really gonna do it this time,” while also fuelling my body with the building blocks required for sustained muscle growth.

If the bartender didn’t think I was a cool guy, that would also hurt. If on the way there, the bus driver pulled a face as I struggled to successfully tap the contactless card reader, I’d feel as worthless as my payment method. Contactless would be a reminder of my love life. If, at the entrance of the bar, someone witnessed me push a door labelled pull, then I might just turnaround and go home.

A date feels like an exam, and marks are gained and lost everywhere. But my judgement of her judgement of me is the big one. That’s the 40-mark essay question at the back of the paper.

Even if I got a message from a close family member that said, “I never have and never will be proud of you,” I still think within the date’s duration that would be less impactful to my mental health than the person opposite not fancying me.

The date was at Bacchus Bar in Birmingham. Almost every date I have is at Bacchus Bar in Birmingham. It’s a basement pub in the city centre that’s all old and Roman or some shit. I guess I like it, but I mainly go there because it’s where I’ve been before. If I’m meeting a stranger to pitch to them why I’m an ideal candidate to end their loneliness, I at least want to know in advance where my favourite table is.

And with this pitch it is all or nothing. It’s not like Dragon’s Den where they can invest in percentage of what you’re selling them; or split their partnership with you with guest Dragon Gary Neville. Maybe she can tbf. Maybe that’s what polyamory is. I don’t really understand modern dating.

I like repetition. I like familiarity. I like to go to the same places and do the same things over and over again in my life.

Every day I do my writing in the same place: Costa Coffee. I order the same drink: a medium latte. If I’m away gigging in another town, someone might excitedly suggest an independent café that they swear serves the best coffee they’ve ever tasted. Cool beans, guess where I’m going? Costa. Nothing tastes better than familiarity feels.

Even my work is the same. I write comedy about being sad and lonely and depressed, perform it on stage, or post it as a blog, then I start again. I have a lane and I stick to it.

I think it’s good to specialise. If you keep doing the same things, you get better at doing them. You can become a master. And if there’s one thing I want to master, it’s having failed dates at Bacchus Bar in Birmingham.

We matched on the dating app Bumble. It could have been any dating app. I’m on all of them because I’m NotDyingAloneMaxxing at the moment. I’m sure you’re aware of how these apps work, unless you’ve been getting your cock sucked under a rock for the last decade. The idea is to reduce the most complex thing in the universe – a human being – into about five pictures, a bio, and a few witty responses to prompts.

You basically make a little ad campaign for what it would be like to be with you. You’ve gotta sell yourself. Dating is marketing – and one of the best strategies in marketing, especially in a saturated market, is to invent a problem and then sell the solution. Finding food both too tasty and too solid? Buy Huel. Feel calm and in control of your bowels? Drink coffee. Does the other side of your bed lack a highly neurotic autistic man? Date Eric Rushton.

When I first joined the app, the consumer base didn’t seem to be there. Possibly because I was categorising potential romantic partners as a consumer base. I also thought that maybe I’m a product ahead of its time, like VR gaming. Maybe people fear once they experience something so immersive and so dopamine inducing, they won’t be able to control their consumption, so they vow never to try it in the first place. Like VR porn.

A few tweaks to my profile courtesy of my marketing director (a female friend) and I started to get some matches.

And then I started getting some dates.

Problem is, each date has felt meh. Turns out there’s levels to this game, and, even when you go on dates, the probability that whatever’s wrong with you will connect with whatever’s wrong with them is pretty low.

It normally goes like this: we meet up; they tell me they’re training for a half-marathon; I say ah that’s cool and tell them about the weights I’ve been lifting at the gym, without mentioning that an increasingly manosphere-dominated algorithm has led me to doing so; they tell me about their job; I tell them about mine; then we go home never to speak again.

The dates have made me worry less about my usual superficial insecurities and more that there’s something fundamentally wrong with how I relate to other people.

There’s something different about my brain. And not autism or ADHD. I am patient zero of a new kind of neurodivergence previously unknown to man. The main symptom is that on dates you try to initiate contact with footsie and accidentally kick them really hard in the shin.

Before downloading Bumble, I was getting a lot of ads from them with the tagline: “Find someone unexpected on Bumble.” I always thought that was a weird tagline. Not that catchy. I guess it’s acknowledging the increasing apathy people feel towards online dating. It’s saying, no really, don’t give up, it is possible to sit across from someone that doesn’t feel like a simulation of a human being.

This latest woman I took to Bacchus Bar felt real and unexpected from the off. On Bumble, the woman has to message first, which takes the pressure off. I feel as one of Britain’s best sub-100 subscriber Substack creators, there’s a huge pressure on me to produce a killer opening line. She came into the chat without that baggage and started with something incredible.

She messaged: “Howdy”.

Woah.

It’s joked about that the worst message you can open with is “Hi.” It’s a sign of a boring person. It’s the minimum effort someone can put in and shows a lack of creativity. When it’s received it’s a reminder of how depressing these apps are. She was clearly making a comment on it. She was satirising it in the most efficient way possible. “Howdy” was Hemmingway-esque in its simplicity. Minimalist, yet layered. By saying “Howdy”, what she was really saying was, “I know we both know this is bullshit, and I know we’re both fed up of it.”

Just from that I knew we were looking at wife material. Her name was Izzy. Eric and Izzy – it had a ring to it, and that ring was going straight on her finger. I replied with, “Well, hello there cowboy,” both of us now clearly lampooning the shit out of modern romance.

The conversation went back and forth. Sometimes it went forth three times before it came back again, but triple texting is just yet more satire. Inside jokes started to build. Threads weaved. The conversation was so alive. It was like watching a time lapse of an organism developing from a few cells into a complex system. We developed in-jokes. Out-jokes. Jokes that were on the boundary of in and out. There were even out-jokes that became in-jokes because the circle of whatever we were was continuously expanding.

I asked her out.

Bacchus Bar.

She said yes.

I then gave her my number, so we could communicate on WhatsApp instead, an end-to-end encrypted messaging service that launched in 2009. That’s a big step in the dating game. We clearly had surpassed the Bumble phase, if we carried on, the electricity of our chat would drain the servers. I imagined someone observing our closeness on Bumble and going, “Hey you two should get a room. An end-to-end encrypted room.”

We chatted for longer on WhatsApp, arranging a day and time, but even chats of logistics weren’t safe from being blitzkrieged with more jokes. We agreed on 8pm, on Tuesday, Bacchus bar. I said, “I’ll be the guy in the Adidas jacket looking like your cousin John” (in-joke).

I was very nervous. It’s the hope that kills. I actually wanted this one to go well. I’m not supposed to really want connection and then get connection. That’s not my brand. It would shatter my narrative. I’m Eric Rushton, a funny, hapless comedy character who never quite gets what he wants and then spends his days musing about it at Costa Coffee.

Tuesday 8pm arrived and I was sat in Bacchus bar waiting for her. Maybe I should have got her a drink, but I didn’t know what to get her. I couldn’t text her because there was no signal and I didn’t want to sign up for the Wi-Fi. I’m not sure why? I was coming to Bacchus Bar a lot, so it was probably worth it. I can’t really claim it’s being worried about sharing my private details with a corporation as I’ve told chat GPT about every insecurity I’ve ever had. Did the fact I wasn’t signing up to the Wi-Fi indicate commitment issues?

She came in and I stood up and I went for a hug, and it was reciprocated. I then sat down and it was reciprocated. I then said, “It’s good to finally meet you,” and it was reciprocated. I asked if she wanted a drink. She looked at the bar and said, “Oh, do they do those here?” She was so funny. I laughed and she reciprocated. We were having some fun. I said I was probably gonna get the Jubel Mango Lager (it’s what I always got) and she said she would try that too. It was one of the most reciprocal first 5 minutes of a date I’d ever had.

She’s as pretty in three-dimensional space as she is on my phone, I thought.

When I came back with the drinks, she was texting on her phone, presumably to her friends about how reassuringly not mental in person I am. I asked her if she’d signed up to the Wi-Fi; she said no she was on 5g. I said no way, I’m not getting any signal. I was on Vodafone and she was on EE. Sometimes a simple change can unlock the connection needed in your life.

The chat about service providers was providing a more important service. The ice had been broken. In-jokes from our texting resurfaced and felt funnier and more alive in person. I didn’t think anything could be more beautiful than seeing laugh face emoji reactions to messages I’d sent her, but her in person laugh ran it a close second.

I finished my drink and she reciprocated by finishing hers. I felt emboldened and asked her if she wanted to get a drink somewhere else. I don’t even really like Bacchus Bar. My previous patterns didn’t define me; we could go anywhere. She said yes she would love that and we decided on a bar called the Head of Steam. The name felt apt. As we walked over, we linked arms. I’m not sure who linked arms with who – it kind of just happened.

I said to her, “I’m really enjoying this.” I think sometimes the best flirting on a date is to make them directly aware of the current emotional state you are experiencing. She said, “me too”, a contextually excellent moment for a woman to say that phrase.

She asked if she could ask me a question. I said sure thing. She said:

“Are you nervous?”

It caught me off guard. Why would she ask that? I thought.

I said, “A little bit… Hey, it’s not every day I get to hang out with a beautiful woman.”

I dunno if that was a good line. It felt alright. Flirtatious maybe? Or was it cringe? It felt like I was slipping back into the persona of me being the lucky fool and her being the prize. Something that devalued both of us. But then she said:

“Is that why your hands were shaking when we were talking at the bar?”

What? Is she negging me? Had she been lured into the manosphere? What’s going on here?

I didn’t know the jitters were perceptible. I thought I was hiding my nerves. I thought I was faking it and making it. I thought our connection was a cake and I was baking it.

This was my worst nightmare. If this date was an exam, I was failing, and worst of all I’d turned up emotionally naked.

I said, “Oh yeah, probably.” And laughed it off.

We arrived at Head of Steam. I was still shook at having been perceived to have been shaking. We found a table and I went to the bar to get the drinks. She didn’t offer, but that’s fine. It gave me an opportunity to process my emotions alone.

I felt a sense of injustice at the comment she made. I’d never point something like that out about someone else. In fact, I was on another date recently, with someone who was fidgety as fuck and I didn’t say a word. She was flipping over her beer mat and messing around with napkins, but I just let it be. I didn’t mockingly ask her if she was nervous. I didn’t publicly humiliate them in Birmingham city centre, the same city where their social media analytics tell them they have the most followers.

I honestly think I could go for dinner with someone with severe Parkinson’s disease and not even mention it. They might even ask for assistance cutting their food because of their tremor, and I’d say, “Oh, are you struggling with that? I didn’t even notice.” And they’d say, “Eric you’re one of my closest friends, I’ve told you about this condition several times.” And I’d say, “Yeah, that’s just the kinda guy I am, I don’t really see shaking.”

Where did this woman get off?

The worst part was that it confirmed my fears. I DO need to worry about all the flaws I think I have. People ARE noticing them. What else has she noticed? Is every blemish on my face noticeable? Does she realise the lipid layer on my tear film is of poor quality, meaning I have chronically dry eyes, a condition that would likely be passed onto our children should we have them? Did she know I was spiralling? Was there a way to hide that?

I arrived back with two pints of Jubel mango beer, on the verge of low-quality tears. She smiled at me. She looked at ease, like she was enjoying being out. Well, good for her. No one was ruthlessly mocking her vulnerability. Must be nice.

I was tempted to make up an excuse and leave. Then I could return home to the familiarity of my lonely evening sessions on Instagram reels. At least my all-seeing Instagram algorithm would, knowing I’ve had a bad date, likely serve up some relatable short-form content about this situation, preferably using football memes to illustrate the joke. Then I could send those reels to some equally hopeless friends and they will reply, “hahahahahaha”. I suppose that will make me feel slightly less alone for 0.8 seconds.

But lately, the reels haven’t been that funny. Gym advice keeps appearing. Stuff about looking better as a man. Gurus pop up with supposed knowledge of what women are really looking for. It was only a matter of time before Andrew Tate appeared on my phone. I could feel the Anti-Feminist Avengers beginning to assemble, Peterson and Trump waiting to pounce on my insecure brain. Fast forward a few weeks and I’ll be at a family meal uttering the words “Well in evolutionary terms, women are the gatekeepers of sex” before ordering steak and quoting fake stats about shifting population demographics to my 5-year-old niece.

I don’t wanna be that guy. I had to try rescue this. My head was gone, but just because I’d had a blip on one question, it didn’t mean I should throw away the whole exam. I didn’t know the grade boundaries; she might just be a tough paper.

When I sat down, she asked me if something was up. Instead of saying, “no I’m fine,” I did something radical, I followed my instincts: sometimes the best flirting on a date is to make them directly aware of the current emotional state you are experiencing.

So I told her the truth. I said:

“Actually, back then, when you said the thing about my hands shaking, it made me feel bad.”

“Oh,” She said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to.”

I looked her directly in the forehead as I told her the next bit:

“It’s just I wanted to appear confident on the date, and it shattered that, and now I’m finding it difficult to stop worrying about it.”

She said, “Oh no. you have nothing to worry about. Honestly.”

“Well, I appreciate you saying that,” I replied, now looking at her left earlobe. “But it’s hard to feel like that right now.”

“I found it endearing,” she said, smiling. “I was trying to flirt, obviously I’m far too neurodivergent to do that successfully.”

She laughed after she said this. I reciprocated.

“Ah okay, I’m sorry if I’ve overreacted there,” I said, “I probably have autism or ADHD or something that they haven’t even invented yet. I’m a bit mental.”

We both laughed again.

“I was quite nervous myself about tonight,” she said. “So don’t worry. Dating is scary.”

Get in. The emotions colouring her experience were also negative. That’s good. The mutual vulnerability eased the tension. It felt like it unlocked another level of bonding. That’s actually what it’s all about isn’t it. If you’re gonna really connect with someone, then you need to let your guard down. Being vulnerable is to be human. It’s what separates us from being AI. That and how thick we are by comparison.

Maybe this could be saved. Maybe the algorithmic Gods monitoring my existence would see this night as the start of something. Maybe when I got home, a lonely man’s problematic Instagram feed didn’t await me. Maybe Instagram would give me the stuff it gave people who actually had a life i.e. videos of cute animals that have been traumatised by abandonment.

The chat resumed and so did the jokes. At one point I noticed I was stroking my chin, and at the same time Izzy was stroking her chin. I think that’s what they call mirroring. I saw a reel on Instagram that said that’s a strong indication of her keenness.

I felt like what happened was good. By being honest and her reciprocating, we became closer than if the comment never happened in the first place. Wow. I am endearing, aren’t I? That perceived weakness I am sometimes tempted to cover up by eating protein or consuming 1000’s of reels about male supremecy is actually something that doesn’t need to be covered up at all. That’s my brand. That’s what I’m selling. Emotional openness. If you date Eric Rushton, the bullshit is gonna be cut through like butter and spread across the bread of emotional repression. And that bread will be toast when I’m done with it. Do you know what I’m saying?

I don’t really care if you know what I’m saying anymore. I’m being me. You get on my wavelength.

We talked for about an hour longer. We were at ease, enjoying being out together. Good for us. We had two more pints each. She got the next round, then I got the final one. So overall I got 3 rounds and she got 1, but who was counting?

It got to 10:30pm and she said she had work in the morning, so she explained it was best for her to get the bus. We walked over to the bus stop outside New Street station. She had to get the X22 and I was getting the 63. It was possible for me to also get the X22 and then do a 20-minute walk but that felt too mental to explain to her. Her bus arrived first.

“I really enjoyed tonight,” I said to her.

“Me too,” she said.

Time was up. We hugged goodbye.

I was left alone at the bus stop. I didn’t feel lonely, though; I felt giddy. I’d had a good date. Who knew that could be a thing?

My bus arrived. I hopped on, tapped the contactless card reader, nailing it first time, and sat down. I was pleased with myself. Genuinely pleased with myself. Pleased with the person I was.

I felt like I knew that person a bit more. It was more malleable than I previously thought. I didn’t have to be Eric Rushton, a funny, hapless comedy character who never quite gets what he wants and then spends his days musing about it at Costa Coffee.

I was Eric Rushton, an emotionally mature man, whose vulnerability and openness is a superpower that allows him to make meaningful connections with others.

And maybe tomorrow I’d go to Starbucks.

I think I did find someone unexpected on Bumble, and that person was me.