“Among the knowledge that he possesses: pi to 11 digits, the names of the current communist countries, at least 28 past U.S. presidents—including the first six and last six, who Larry David, Kofi Annan, Steven Soderbergh, Donovan McNabb, and Warren Buffett are, the significance of the Magna Carta, three mythic allusions, working use of literary devices, what CFC stands for, where Darfur is, the difference between Bach and Chopin, and four Impressionist painters…He gets along with different types of people. He is able to converse with anyone from the homeless person on the corner to a Hungarian immigrant to Method Man to the CFO of an oil company sitting next to the head of the Sierra Club.”   The Perfect Man (from Craigslist “Missed Encounters”)

She’s thirty-six but she still wants to be a beautiful bride in a frothy pearly white frock. Or maybe cream. It all depends. In her mind’s eye she can see the photos framed on the mantelpiece in the lounge of the large detached home: she is smiling in soft-glow focus, perhaps on a tropical beach. In this imaginary photo, she is blonder and most importantly she is thinner. The man (whose personality is not important) would be called Luke or Jake and would have his own PR firm and designer stubble and a crumpled white linen suit and he would take her for mini-breaks to New York. 

You’d think her fantasies and dreams were just lifted straight from Sex And The City  or the chick-lit novels which litter her flat like large, pastel lumps of confetti but that’s how she actually thinks. When she wakes up in the morning (just before she switches on the television to catch twenty minutes of the morning chat-and-gossip show, where celebrities come in to the studio and sit on a big sofa and talk about their health problems) she actually thinks: OK! Maybe today I’ll meet The One.

She dresses carefully and applies her signature scent (the magazines say you have to create your personal brand so people can remember you. Otherwise you’re instantly forgettable). 

She isn’t dating anyone right now. 

She hasn’t dated anyone for six months. 

She has high standards: you have to respect yourself. 

The last guy she dated was too fat. He wore jeans and watched football on telly and didn’t work in PR. And he was called Kevin, not Jake or Luke or Josh.

In moments of doubt she thinks: is there really someone for everyone, a The One, a knight in shining armour, a soulmate? If there is a The One for everyone then what about those people who marry and get divorced and meet someone else? Do they have two The Ones? 

(Last week she bumped into an old school-friend Beth in the supermarket.  Beth had a new haircut and a new husband called Geoffrey. She said the new husband Geoffrey was The One for her. Beth had said that about her old husband Martin too but then Martin turned out to like horse-racing a bit too much and lost a lot of money and then Beth met this Geoffrey in the office and she realised that he was The One. So Beth dumped the first The One (Martin) and when the divorce came through she married the second The One (Geoffrey). The first The One (Martin) was tall and blond and the second The One (Geoffrey) is tall and blond as well, so at least that’s consistent.)

 But how come Beth got to have two The Ones? And does that mean that someone else (i.e. her) might not have one The One at all? 

Or maybe one day she will just be walking down the street or shopping in Sainsbury’s or sitting in Starbucks having a skinny soya latte and The One will just walk in, walk into her life and sweep her off her feet and then (finally then) her life, her real life, will start.