A series of seriously cute photographs, a flow of entertaining e-mails and a useful job earn the Therapist my phone number.
        I like the fact that his grandfather was Viennese.
        He likes the fact that my grandfather was Jewish – although he blames him for my identity crises.
        ‘What turns you on?’ is the last question he asks.
        ‘What do you mean?’ I ask back.
        ‘Do you have a four poster bed?’
        ‘Unfortunately not.’ I giggle.
        ‘Thanks.’
        ‘Thanks for what?’
        “Now I know what turns you on.”
        It says something about his qualities as a therapist that at that point in time I barely knew myself what turned me on.

The day of our date London is attacked by a vicious rainstorm. My brand new pink umbrella is of no use. My skin gets rough and red, as if I had been soaking in a hot tub. My shoes make slurping sounds. My hair sticks to my forehead. My make-up is smudged around my eyes. It is safe to say I don’t look my best when I meet the Therapist in front of Selfridges’s on Oxford Street.
        At the Starbucks across the street he gets us drinks and I rush to the toilet. Neither combing my hair with my fingers nor wiping the black rivers of mascara off my cheeks with wet toilet paper achieves a satisfying result.
        He has picked a chair in a corner. I sink into the sofa next to him. Suddenly I’m much smaller than he. I have nowhere to put my hands so use them to continue to sort out my hair. Cold from the rain I constantly glance down to check if my nipples show under my top. They don’t, but the way I sit, my tummy folds into unflattering rolls of compressed lard.
        Although he is about my age he seems older than I – or only more mature? While he sips his coke, looking just as attractive as his photographs, he tells me about his ten years in Tel Aviv. He doesn’t know in which country to settle but is sure it is time to settle – with wife and kids to give new meaning to his life.
        I’m stunned he mentions the idea of ‘wife and kids’ in a conversation with a stranger in a Starbucks café on a rainy Tuesday evening. Those are words I should want to hear but my inside goes hot and cold simultaneously. I try to say something meaningful, admit to being lonely in London and of missing my friends but I keep stopping in mid sentence, lost for words, scared to sound silly.
        Jokes usually save me in situations like this.
        ‘All the men I meet through work are either gay or mad,’ I say ‘Just like all the women you work with must be mad or madder.’
        He doesn’t smile.
        ‘They are not mad. And it would be unethical to use my position that way.’
        ‘Yeah, right. And of course you never tried.’
        ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’
        He looks me up and down as if I was an insect to be crushed between his thumb and middle finger.
        When I hold onto his eyes their lights go out.
        Feeling despised is a new experience for me and I quickly look away.
        ‘Have you finished your drink?’ he asks.
        I gulp down my still scorching hot tea and follow him outside biting my burned tongue.
        ‘Nice meeting you,’ he says and is gone.
        The night rain washes over me like buckets of ice. I crawl home through puddles of dirt water not bothering to open my umbrella.

I cannot get over the way I misjudged his sense of humour and call him a week later.
        ‘I need to speak to a therapist.’
        ‘What is the problem?’
        In his voice is the deepest disinterest ever expressed in London.
        ‘Just wondering,’ I say, ‘if you have a suggestion on how I can find out what is wrong with me. The men I had dates with and didn’t like, they all called. You are somebody I would have loved to see again and I knew you wouldn’t call. Why is that?’
        He sighs.
        ‘Because the dating game is tough. We all face the same odds. We all fight the same fights. Rejection is part of it. Why do you think everybody is looking? You are looking. I am looking. It is fucking hard. Deal with it.’
        And with this he hangs up.