How to Lose Yourself

On a cold February night, somewhere along the A406 motorway, returning from a singles party that seemed to be a ratio of 25:1 female to male, Nadine will declare that she’s done with black men. You’ll sigh and for a moment the breath that escapes will linger in front of you, a puff of white, like an empty thought-bubble, which you’re too tired and too out of ideas to fill with a useful comeback. You will grip the steering wheel tighter, the cold plastic of the wheel abrading your callused palms, and your gaze will linger too long on the rearview mirror before returning to the dark road ahead.

It will begin when you are not looking. You’ll be busy with grad school and opportunities to work abroad and student loan repayments and worrying how you’ll ever get onto the property ladder anywhere in London. You’ll be ashamed to still be living at home in your childhood bedroom and still eating dinners made by your mum and still playing out the same conflicts about washing up and cleanliness that you had age twelve. You’ll still be consumed with what your Twenties are supposed to be like. You’ll go to house parties with acquaintances and spend the night standing with your back against a wall, wondering why you’re not growing loose-limbed with ease. You’ll go to these drink-ups assuming that somewhere on the tube between home and the party, somehow your personality will have been transplanted, that you’ll arrive at your destination transformed. Book Girl to Party Girl. Time and time again you’ll be disappointed in yourself.

Facebook will start and Living Your Best Life will become a competitive sport. You’ll book holidays to Havana and Stockholm and Marrakech and post pictures of yourself with the girls, looking carefree. You’ll spend hours scrutinizing your Facebook page to make sure that it is just right. All the while this thing is tick, tick, ticking away in the background. And then one day it’ll slam into you like a punch thrown by Mike Tyson. It’ll remind you of a sucker punch you once saw your father throw at a fight in a McDonald’s drive-in car-park over a disputed space. Suddenly, you’ll see, really see, that you’re alone. You and Nadine and Michelle. Because all of your friends and theirs too, have been plucked up, coupled up, married off.

You will trudge London on foot, in areas that you never dreamed you’d want to live in and a helpful estate agent—an older woman with a flame of red hair, eyebrows that don’t quite match, and a Lilac suit that looks jauntily out of place on a winter morning—will tell you how tough the market is, especially on a single income. “Wait till you’ve got a fella,” she’ll say and you’ll look away and play a tune with your fingers though what they’re really itching to do is poke her eyes out.

New Years will take on even greater significance. You’ll start each year launched into a frenzy of activity. You will become obsessed with your appearance. Get a weave they’ll say. So you’ll get a weave. Get contact lenses they’ll say and eventually you will. You will start to say Yes to everything. You’ll go to events on the Southbank, cooking classes, Italian lessons, speed dating. You’ll go to smoke-filled bars, where your glasses mist up and your eyes itch. You will suffer drunken whispers and fat fingers tracing the hem of your dress. You’ll think about all the books that are going unread as you stand in the hot, sweaty club, the fabric of your dress sticking to you. You’ll watch women who throw their hands up above their heads and close their eyes and dance with abandon. You’ll wonder if they really love it that much or if they’re simply much better actresses than you.

You’ll continue...