A Girl's Guide to Fairy Tales

Chapter Two (part 2)

Our walk across the car park was a quiet one. Sophie had complained when we first arrived that I parked too far away from the gym itself. The first thing I pointed out was that we were here to get fit so the walking distance should not even come into question. Then I pointed out how many scratches and dents the cars near the entrance had.

I was very particular about my red Toyota Aygo, which was like a Coca-Cola can on wheels, but like the BMW, Mercedes and Audi drivers, I always parked at the back and adhered to the unspoken rule that you always left a space in between each other’s pride and joy – a bit like cinema goers or students in lecture halls.

The start of the drive home also proved to be rather wordless too but then, just as I was about to pull out of a junction, Sophie screamed.

I slammed on the breaks, much to the disgust of the driver of the blue Nissan Micra behind me. I saw his extended middle finger waving at me in my rear view mirror. His lips formed the ‘f’ consonant numerous times as well.

‘What is it Soph, are you okay?’ I panted.

‘I’ve had a brilliant idea!’

‘About what?’ I asked breathily, my limbs still quivering from the burst of adrenaline seconds earlier.

‘You need to sign up to an Internet dating site!’ Sophie continued paying little attention to our brush with death.

I carried on driving, petrified about the concept. ‘No way, not a chance in hell,’ I said curtly after mulling it over momentarily. ‘The last time I Googled relationship advice it came up with a site called relationshit.com and A Girl’s Guide to Pricks.’

‘So you’re not the only cynic out there then?’ Sophie smirked. ‘Look Care Bear, online dating is all the rage for people looking for their Mr Right, or in your case, Mr Just Right. There are a number of teachers at my school who have signed up. Our deputy head started chatting with this one man who caught her eye only to discover he was the new head at our sister school. Weird huh?’

‘I suppose, but –’

‘No buts please while I’m talking. You see they had a common interest...teaching! They chatted for weeks and got to know each other before meeting each other in the flesh. So the attraction wasn’t based on looks alone, which is obviously something that concerns you even though it shouldn’t.’

Again I felt my cheeks explode into heat.  ‘But –’

‘No buts,’ Sophie shouted again.

‘Okay...however,’ I added hastily. ‘She was one of the lucky ones. I’ve heard horror stories about guys on those types of sites who just say what they think women want to hear, or who pretend to be someone else in an attempt to lure in their prey.’

‘And there will be guys who genuinely want to find their soul mate too. But –’

‘Aha, you just said but!’

She silenced me with a single glance and I knew she was not in the mood to be challenged on this.  ‘Okay...however if you ceebs you will never find him.’

‘Ceebs?’ I asked completely baffled by yet another word I didn’t know. In the last few years I had become accustomed to her regular use of omg, omfg lol and wtf but this was completely new.

‘Yeah, ceebs. It means can’t be arsed,’ she said plainly. ‘It’s derived from the abbreviation CBA.’

‘Right,’ I nodded unconvinced.

‘Or you can say teebs ceebs which means to be honest I can’t be arsed, which I quite like.’ There was a short pause. ‘You’re just trying to change the subject Clare. When can we sign you up?’