Dianne hadn’t been on a date since 1978. Satinder met his last partner in the mid-90s. What’s it like looking for love when so much has changed since you were last single?
One cold mid-March night, I walked up a stranger’s cobbled path and knocked on his door. I was wearing my gym kit; I hadn’t showered; in a spur-of-the-moment decision, I’d taken two tubes and a bus in the rain to get there. He looked apprehensive. We’d never met, but had chatted for a few weeks on Tinder. Neither of us was sufficiently interested to go on a proper first date, but one night after the gym, I had agreed to go over to his; I suppose you could call it a hookup.
In January, my 10-year relationship had ended. We had got together three months after my 18th birthday and love had felt like fresh-churned cement being poured inside my shell; it oozed into every nook and cranny, then set. For my whole adult life, that relationship fortified me from the inside out. Then we broke up. So that’s how I ended up knocking on a stranger’s door: “dating” for the first time in my adult life.
