Countdown Susie: I can’t even think about dating after my marriage split – and I’d NEVER use Tinder
AS everyone’s favourite lexicographer, Countdown star Susie Dent can pick the perfect word for any occasion – but ‘dating’ isn’t in her new dictionary.
After last year’s split from her teacher husband, Paul Atkins, following 20 years of marriage, the 57-year-old star says romance is ‘absolutely not on my radar’. ‘I’m not looking for anyone at all. I’ve always lived in my own head. I’ve always liked my own company.’
The wordsmith adds that she is not interested in looking for love via online services such as Tinder, saying: ‘I wouldn’t, for a second, think of putting myself on a dating app.’
Instead, it has fallen to friends to try to set her up with a new partner, most recently an Eton housemaster. But the Oxford graduate, who speaks fluent French and German, admits that, as she gets older, she feels ‘totally invisible’.
‘I think that comes with age. It’s sort of positive and not so positive. I’m not that sexualised at all. There is liberty within that. But there’s also a slight regret at leaving that behind,’ she says. ‘I feel totally invisible. I feel like I’m out of that [dating] sphere at the moment. I just would not class myself as a dateable entity… I quite like that the pressure is off. I don’t need to prove anything. I don’t really feel like I need someone.’
Susie reveals she was initially reluctant to join Countdown when first approached 30 years ago while studying at Princeton. ‘It’s not like I wanted to be on the telly,’ she says.
But she joined the cult teatime show in 1992 and has worked alongside close friend and confidante Rachel Riley for the last 13 years. ‘Rachel is incredibly loyal and supportive,’ she admits.
Alongside her Countdown career, Susie is a prolific author. She recently published her 13th book, An Emotional Dictionary, which explores words to describe every feeling and emotion.
For now, however, the mum of two is focused on her children, Lucy, 22, and 14-year-old Thea. ‘My daughters are my life,’ she says. ‘When you have kids, you give so much of yourself to them that – rightly, I think – you lose the person you were before.
‘In some ways that’s absolutely lovely and in another way, at the end of raising your kids, you need to revisit it and redefine yourself a bit. That time will come and I’m certainly not there yet.’