Hannah BETTS

Someone flirted with me last week. I say “with”, I really mean “at”. For, rather than reciprocate, I started, stared vacantly at my tall, dark, handsome interlocutor, then – literally – ran. Sophisticated it was not.

Time was, I was a fabulous flirt. If Team GB had recognised the sport of head cocking, arch dialogue, and playful arm touching, it would have been my Olympic sport. Flirting made the world go round, the Betts world at least. I saw it as a basic form of politeness making the universe a happier, altogether more beguiling place, indulging in roguish coquetry with man, woman and child. A teasing compliment here, a little lash fluttering there. Flirting was harmless, strategic, fun.

Only, in the wake of 16 months’ pandemic, the merest hint of frisson caused me to turn on my middle-aged heel and bolt, “like a startled fawn”, as Sylvie Krin was wont to have it. Pre-pox, one of my favourite modes was to muster full Joan Crawford guise and drawl: “This isn’t my first rodeo.” Only now it is – everything is – for all of us. The phrase I fall back on most of late is: “I’ve got nothing” – no brain, no mojo, no sense of volition whatsoever.

Relationship-wise, I can’t compute. I know I have a boyfriend – he’s a tall fellow I occasionally see about the place shedding a trail of dirt and cereal, but we don’t really interact, let alone interact. Thank God, we’re in a longterm relationship meaning we don’t have to have sex. A single friend recently confided that her virginity had “grown back”. To which I could only splutter: “What, you’ve still got genitalia? Ours have been replaced by flat, plastic decorousness à la Barbie and Ken.”

Still, why focus on the beast with two backs? Sex is merely one of the many skills we have lost. Eating meals – remember that? I think I used to do this. I liked it. Gave a certain rhythm to the day. Yesterday, I consumed a cup of decaffeinated Earl Grey and four almond Magnums at 4pm. That was it.

Occasionally, I forget to eat altogether, something I used to think was a euphemism for “anorexia nervosa”, but now realise translates as “lacks the impetus to stand”. The concept of actual meals boasts the kind of old-world functionality one encounters in 1970s’ reading books. “Peter and Jane had

I’ve got nothing - no brain, no mojo. I can talk to dogs, people not so much

dinner.” No, they didn’t. They spritzed Vitamin D spray on a Jaffa Cake like the rest of the quarantine-quashed masses.

Talking – great God, there used to be a lot of talk: deft, knowing, full of wit and nuance, plus cultural references and other things I can no longer cope with. And the speed of it! Ye gods, the speed! Not just small talk, but big talk – really vast – about issues and theories and philosophies and people and… things. These days I can talk to dogs, people not so much.

I had to be around strangers last week and I’d forgotten that, when asked a question, you answer, then ask a question back. This also became an issue during the first week of Love Island. (Obviously, I couldn’t get beyond the first week; it became too emotionally complicated.) One of the women was complaining that a Geordie had “no chat” because he didn’t reply to polite inquiries with inquiries of his own. Once I would have responded: “I’m with you, sister, a patriarchal system lasting millennia has made men see women as geishas.” Now I thought: “Mate, I get it. I don’t know how to speak either. Who is this lacerating b----? We’re all just doing the best we can.”

In short, we have forgotten how to be human. There was a lot of convincingly human stuff going on, but then we stayed at home all the time, and isolation sapped the spirit out of us, and now that ship has sailed.

Can I pull rank here? I’m a depressive, meaning I forget how to be human a lot. Other than putting Citalopram in the tap water, what we’re going to have to do is make a list. Not a collective list, that would be ridiculous. No, I’m talking about lots of little lists on scraps of paper, of the sort that I secrete about my person when I know I’ll be seeing a friend with whom I have stuff to talk about, but a mind that is blank. Verbal prompts, if you will. And, then, in those moments when nothingness strikes – behold – you have a plan.

One day we will be able to be spontaneous again: bump into people, go with the flow, amble, potter, bask. But, for now, this state of aimlessness will be too overwhelming. That’s OK. It’s all going to be perfectly OK. Just stuff your list in your pocket and pretend.