C is for Cyberwoman

In which The Author reaches the end of a friendship

It’s been a very odd weekend so far, and it’s still only Saturday evening. Yesterday I got captured by a couple of mates, and we embarked on what can only be described as a Silly Day. In fact, it was so silly that I woke up this morning convinced that it was Sunday. I looked at the clock, decided there was no point in getting up early, and went back to sleep for a couple of hours.

After having a bath I went to make some lunch, and switched the radio on. To my confusion, Radio 4 were broadcasting The News Quiz, at the time where I’d been expecting to hear The Food Programme. I thought maybe they’d re-jigged the schedule because of a breaking news item, and ate my lunch while the rest of the programme played out. After that, I listened to the weather forecast, and was totally baffled when the continuity announcer said, ‘After the news, we’ll join Jonathan Dimbleby for Any Questions…’

I checked the calendar on my phone. The bloody Weeping Angels must have struck when I was walking home last night, and thrown me back in time a full day. I decided to head to town and see if I had any money left in the bank. I did – all of 34p. I took it out in the Post Office, added it to my change, and headed to the pub for a quick can of Coke. I didn’t anticipate staying long, but Martin H. came in and bought me a pint while were chatting.

Big Ted stood me another one, so I decided to take my time and kill an hour or two. I had a potch on Facebook, looked at my emails, and checked out Fetlife and a couple of other kinky sites which you can’t access in the Library. Oh, yes – the Library. That reminds me…

On Thursday, coming from the Library, I spotted C— sitting on a bench nearby. The last time I’d heard from her was about a week earlier, when she texted me to say she was getting a new phone in a couple of days. I went over to say ‘hello’, and that was where it all went wrong. You see, a few months ago, I’d posted a joke on Facebook. It was just a little bit of silly wordplay, combining my own kinky interests with a bad pun:

Last night I took a girl home, who works part-time in Tesco. I took her into the bedroom and showed her my bondage equipment. To my surprise, she ran straight downstairs and out of the front door, shouting, ‘Unexpected item in shagging area!’

Anyway, C— said she didn’t like what I’d been saying about her on Facebook. I told her that it wasn’t about her.

She said, ‘How many friends have you got who work part-time in Tesco?’

I said, ‘More than one! Tell you what – give me a call once you’ve grown a sense of humour.’

And I left her to it.

This afternoon, I posted another silly status:

I think I might have solved the mystery of my sudden deafness. My suspicion is that I’ve got a Rice Crispy stuck in my left ear. That would explain why I can only hear snap, crackle and pop in it.

Shortly afterwards, C— commented on it:

steve delete me
i dont find u funny

I replied, ‘With pleasure!’ I unfriended and blocked her within the next minute or so.

The fact is that C— is just one of many pilled-up, fucked-up, tarted-up women whom I’ve met in the past five years or so. Martin H and I were talking about her this afternoon. He told me a couple of weeks ago that I was barking up the wrong tree. He was completely right.

We were never going to get together, much as I’d have liked the prospect. I think she was sort-of tempted by the prospect as well, now and again. Then some sunbed steroid chav with a pocketful of speed whispers the magic word Party in her ear, and she goes shooting off the rails again. (See Not Born Beautiful.) Oh yes, she plays the Mental Health card with the best of them, but her only real mental health issues are the ones she’s brought upon herself over nearly two decades of alcohol and drug abuse.

Rather than be let himself be deleted by the Cyberwoman, the Doctor took his Sonic Screwdriver in hand and deleted her instead. I can’t say I’ll miss her, to be honest. The only things she ever posted on Facebook were evangelical statements about how the Generator of Organic Diversity loves us all (in return for total subservience and unconditional worship, of course), alternating with weird statuses about her partying habit. I almost certainly pissed her right off the other night when I posted a link on her Timeline:

I don’t think about sex all the time.
Sometimes I think about you naked.

I never saw C— naked, of course. Apart from in films, magazines, and online, the last time I saw a naked woman was when Sam H. and I were still together. That’s over fifteen years ago. It doesn’t matter. In the words of the song, she’s just a girl I used to know. Now she’s history. The Second Law of Thermodynamics strikes again…

Advertisement