Dan Taylor Is Giving Up on Women by Neal Doran

you in some decent shoes.’
    Despite my efforts to slow the inevitable by suggesting getting a big Starbucks and a bun, within ten minutes we were nursing buckets of coffee and sitting on an island of overstuffed shiny leather stools while an effortlessly aloof teen went to collect the size tens Hannah had picked out for me.
    ‘Did you see the headgear he was wearing?’ I asked. ‘It looked more like something you’d get working for the CIA, not the Sunday boy in a shoe shop.’
    ‘Can’t escape from technology these days. I think he was playing it up a bit when he started talking into his sleeve and asking if codename oystercatcher came in half-sizes,’ observed Hannah.
    ‘I’m still not sure why we’re in here. I only bought these shoes three years ago.’
    ‘They’re round, Dan. A man’s feet should not be round. They make you look like a flat-footed pony.’
    ‘But these ones I’ve got to try are a bit showy, aren’t they? With the unnecessary zips and funny stitching?’
    ‘They’ll look good on with the rest of your new look. And if you’re meeting a lot of women they’ll be the first thing that they’ll pick up that shows you’re making a bit of an effort. You don’t want to look like you still get taken shoe shopping by your mum.’
    I tried to think back to the last time I’d been accompanied by anyone when shopping for shoes. I couldn’t remember doing it with my ex, Kate, and my head instead filled with glimpses of being a kid, the vinyl-covered stools with sloping rubberised foot rests and metallic measuring devices with bits of tape measure across them. I developed a nostalgia for Velcro, and remembered blushing as I sat with Mum having my big toe prodded by thepretty sixth-former Saturday girl.
    ‘I hope these socks haven’t got holes in them,’ I said.
    ‘I’m just popping over to have a look at those boots in the sale while we wait,’ said Hannah.
    Hannah returned at the same time as the special agent assigned to my feet, and requested that he get the twin of the heeled boot she was unevenly standing in. I wrestled with the elaborate lacing of a pair of distinctly continental-looking shoes while Hannah tried to imagine how the boots she was wearing would look with a skirt, rather than jeans rolled up as if she were planning on going for a paddle.
    ‘How do you mean I’ll be meeting lots of women?’ I asked.
    ‘It’s all part of the plan and you’ll find out soon enough. We’re just thinking maybe if you get a bit more practice you’ll get a bit more comfortable with the whole thing.’
    ‘Friday that much of a disaster, was it?’
    ‘You know it couldn’t exactly be described as a roaring success…’
    ‘If only Rob hadn’t felt me up I might not have nearly choked.’
    Hannah paused for a minute in front of a mirror and looked thoughtful as she rotated a booted foot on its heel.
    ‘There’s not many times emergency first aid helps the atmosphere on a date, but by then I think it was already too late,’ she said.
    ‘Do you think so? I had a bad start, but I thought I was really making up for it by the time we were eating.’
    ‘By the time we were eating the game was over, sweetheart.’
    Staring at the unfamiliar shiny brown boots on my feet, I was unexpectedly winded by the announcement.
    ‘She’d decided I wasn’t her type already?’ I asked as I walked gingerly to the mirror and back, before slumping squeakily onto a seat.
    ‘Whose type do you think you came across as?’ Hannah asked, sitting down next to me, and leaning her shoulder onto mine. ‘That sounds mean, but what I’m trying to say is…if there was a problem with choking, it happened long before you got caught out with the starter. As soon as you came through the door you were acting so hyper, and when Niamh arrived you spent so much time going back and forth from pale and sickly to having hot flushes I thought you were going through the menopause. It just wasn’t…’
    ‘It wasn’t