just because it's done outside, doesn't mean it's wild


When my college friend texted me to say that she’d come across our previously adored, recently divorced English teacher on a dating app, I blushed. My cheeks told me that my adoration wasn’t previous, it was very much enduring. Then I looked at his profile. Profile: (1) a sideways view of someone’s outline, (2) a relationship elevator pitch. No mention of his children. Hobbies included cuddling, Wim Hof, and wild swimming.

“Shall we go for a wild kebab? Spicy wrap al fresco?” Cry-laugh emoji.

It’s dangerous to teach young women about the Romantics while looking like Percy Bysshe Shelley. He told me one day that I looked like Audrey Hepburn. Another, like Uma Thurman - more precisely, Mia Wallace. How transparent I must have been in my adoration, how see-through my lack. How kind he was, entirely respectful of a child that was struggling. A good teacher.

“Please don’t leave,” said my husband, as I told him the funny parts. “We’ve only just got married.” I didn’t tell him about the friend and follow requests gone unanswered during the past decade and a bit.

There was so much juice left in this particular bounty, I shared it on, crushing every last segment in the gossip machine. What on earth was he putting down, who did he want to pick it up? Looking at it again and again, I finally saw his listed age. I did a double-take.

We crunched the numbers. He had to be lying. He had to be.