Louise O’Neill - ‘Full Recovery Is Possible’

0:00From the age of 14 to 32, so nearly 20 years and all of my adult life, I went between anorexia and bulimia. For that entire year, every time I woke up, the one sentence that kept going around my brain was, I'm going to die soon. And then the therapist said, she was really firm on this, she said, oh no. She said, people make full recoveries. Like my failure to recover and then the subsequent, almost like I said, rewiring of my neural pathways has actually led me to be an adult that I think has a lot more freedom. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with me, Elizabeth Day. This is the podcast where each week I ask a guest about what failure has taught them.

0:44It's sometimes surprising, sometimes funny, sometimes moving, but it's almost always uplifting. Before we get started on this conversation, please do remember to like, follow, and subscribe so that you never miss a single episode.

1:20create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at chatgpt.com by selecting work mode available on plus and pro plans.

1:50try at midmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required, $15 per month equivalent, taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. Louise O 'Neill is a best-selling, award-winning Irish author and former journalist whose writing has been a shaping force in modern feminism. Her fiction is taught on the Irish curriculum. Paul Mescal starred in a highly acclaimed stage adaptation of her work. Her debut novel, Only Ever Yours, won multiple awards, but it was her second Asking For It, published in 2015, that catapulted her into the public eye.

2:30It told the story of Emma, who wakes up the morning after a party on her front porch with no memory of how she got there. It's only when she sees photos on social media that she realises she's been assaulted. The book caused a national discussion in O 'Neill's home country, raising issues of consent and sexual violence. Her subsequent work has tackled similarly crucial topics, coercive control, female shame, toxic masculinity, and the dark sides of fame and social media. Now, with her new book, she has ventured for the first time into memoir. A Bigger Life turns this unflinching lens on O 'Neill's decision after the collapse of a long-term relationship in her late 30s to set herself the challenge of dating a different man each night in three different cities, Paris, London, and New York.

3:25The experience taught her more about herself than she could have ever anticipated, and it was inspired by something her father, Michael, said to her. My life at 38 looked nothing like the one I had envisioned for myself, O 'Neill recalls. I felt like I had failed in every possible way and I had no idea how to fix it. He listened to me and then he said, Louise, if you want a bigger life, you're going to have to take bigger risks. Louise O 'Neill, welcome to How to Fail. It is so surreal listening to you because I've been a fan of the podcast for such a long time. To actually hear me getting the How to Fail introduction.

4:09I'm just like, this is insane. This is very surreal. I can't believe this is happening. Well, I had an additional pressure because you are one of my favourite people and we are really good friends and I didn't want to get a single thing wrong. Is this your eighth book? Yes. I don't know why you say that. And I'm like, I'm actually not sure. Is it my eighth? Yes. I have written seven novels and then this is my first memoir. How did you find it turning to nonfiction? Oh my God. It is so hard. I really struggled at the beginning to get the voice right, which is so funny because it's my voice. But there was a part of me, I think, with fiction, you're so used to writing in the character's voice that I was really concerned at the beginning.

4:49Does this feel too chatty? Does this feel too informal? Because it was very much coming from me. And then the second part is just how incredibly exposing it is. And I mean, you know this because, you know, you have written nonfiction, but also have been so incredibly generous with your life experience and with everything that you've gone through. And I'm always really impressed by how you managed to do that, because even with just writing the memoir, I feel very vulnerable in a way that I think you can kind of hide with fiction. Yes. So if you have any tips, Elizabeth, please give it to me. For me, that goes to the root of something that you examine so brilliantly in A Bigger Life, which, of course, I loved.

5:32And I think you're such a phenomenal writer. But it goes to the core of this idea of womanhood being conditioned to please others. And that's something that we have to fight against every single day. And in a way, your anxiety or any fear of exposure is a sign that you're doing it right. Yeah. Oh, OK. Well, then given the level of anxiety that I must be really, really doing it right. Yeah. Let's talk about your dad. He's a butcher in Conor Kilty in Westport. It's a butcher that's been in the family since 1919. Yes, it's a very long standing family tradition sort of passed on from Michael Joseph O 'Neill, the first to the second and now the third.

6:15And then he had two daughters, neither of whom are that interested in becoming butchers. So I'm not sure what's going to happen once he retires. But yeah, it has been in our family for a very long time. There's something really interesting about growing up in such a small town. Like I grew up in Clannacilty in West Cork and having like those kind of roots that like go so deep. And in a way, I think I found it very stifling, actually, as a young person, because it felt as if my future or let's say the expectations that other people had for me were really like set in stone according to who I was and who my family was.

6:52And I think I had such, I don't know, such hopes and such like huge dreams and such ambition. and I mean I was lucky I suppose that my family particularly my parents were like incredibly supportive of that which I think if you've read A Bigger Life like you'll see that but I definitely think that I needed to move away in order to I don't know come into my own or find myself and then I was able to come back I think once I had done that once I had sort of grounded myself properly and this is who I am as a person outside of like the fact that my father or my father's family have owned this butcher shop on the main street of Clannacilty for generations.

7:35Do you think that butchery has taught you anything about the art of writing? Well, I don't know if, I think the way my dad approaches things and I think it's the, he's very meticulous and he's a real perfectionist and like has very high standards for himself which I think have been really helpful and that kind of willpower, you know, I think that as a writer you need that because so much of it is, you know, like there's no one looking over your shoulder, like checking your work. You have to be very self-motivated. So I think having a parent who sort of set that example, you know, for all, I think the example that he set, I think constitutionally, I was just someone I think who really, I think it probably was stemming from a fear of not being good enough.

8:21So then anytime I made a mistake, anytime I failed in any way, like this incredibly strong instinct kicked in of like, well, this is more proof. Like you're not good enough. And then so then failure began to feel like terrifying. Like it felt like a death. And, you know, at the start of a bigger life, like, you know, my five year relationship has broken down. I'm about to turn 38. all of a sudden I'm like okay you know marriage, children, like these things might not happen for me, we had just bought a house six months previously the shame that I felt around that failing was so intense because again it was are people going to look at me and think why can't she sort of make a relationship work?

9:13Yeah I think the shame was almost corrosive really we're going to get into that more because of your first failure but before we kick off with that I want to talk a little bit more about a bigger life because yes it is about this dating experiment but it's about more than that too it is about women and what it means to be a woman right now and one of the things that I really appreciated about it was your radical optimism because you go through these really tough times and that causes you to explore in this sort of questing curious way that you have and the dates that you go on by and large you point out that they were good experiences they they taught you something necessary and you also examine everything from kind of Botox to consent.

10:09And there's always underneath it all, I feel this drumbeat of sisterhood that I loved and is quite rare to read. How aware were you when you were writing this book that you wanted it to be that radically optimistic? Do you know, it's interesting when the breakup happened, one of my first instincts was, I don't want to get stuck here. And, you know, I talk about this in the book that like when I was 14 my uncle died and he was 30 and you know we had because my parents were so young having us like I spent a lot of my sister and I spent a lot of time with my maternal grandparents and two of my uncles were still living at home so they were all really more like big brothers than anything else and I remember when that happened you know my grandmother was obviously so devastated.

11:03But what I thought was really striking, because this happened in 1999, and for an Irish woman of that generation, she was so determined not to let it define her. She went to group therapy sessions again. This would not have been, you know. And I think she said that she had seen other people who had gone through something terrible and how it had sort of like, they had been crystallized in the grief and became, I suppose, difficult to be around. When someone is that sad for that long, that she said she didn't want to become isolated and she didn't want to be left alone because all she had was her grief.

11:41And I think watching someone really make an effort to sort of move through that, to feel her feelings, but also to heal from it, from the worst loss that you can possibly have. So I think that was kind of in the back of my mind with the breakup. And I just was like, I don't want to allow this to define me. I don't want to become bitter. I don't want to become resentful. And I also don't want to carry this with me. So like I did so much work in 2023 in order to heal because, and I suppose I kind of figured that out by the end of the journey was that that is what life is about, is that we fall apart.

12:19Life falls apart around us and then we have to rebuild. And actually the trick is is keeping your heart soft. And I think that, you know, people talk about the dating scene and how terrible it is and how dehumanising it is. But actually, I think a really big problem is that most people who are dating have been really hurt. You know, they've been through a breakup, they've been through a divorce, they've had their heart broken and they're kind of going back into this with like their defences up and kind of really like on alert for danger. and very quick, I think, to take offense if, you know, someone says something or does something that they see as that danger.

13:00And then it's really hard to connect. And I suppose I just wanted to do my best to heal so that when I started dating again, or even if I didn't, that I would just be open and, as you said, optimistic. And every time, like, you know, I went on a lot of dates and every time something went wrong and every time, you know, I went on like a date that, you know wasn't great or you know there you know there's one I talk about in the book where you know he frightened me you know there was a man in Central Park and he grabbed I said something and then he answered and I didn't quite hear what he said and he grabbed me by the face and he said I was talking to you and I remember just like instantly kind of going into that like fight or flight I left blocked him and then was like I'm going to shake that off and like went out on another date that night and that date was wonderful and I decided to allow that be what it defined that date and I'm not again I'm not saying this is easy like I've you know been through my own trauma and like my own grief and like you know all of those things and I know how easy it is to be triggered in those situations but I think I suppose I just wanted to feel like that I was setting the narrative and that if I was setting the narrative I wanted to be it to be hopeful What an answer Yeah That was amazing.

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15:22And we're back. Streaming on Peacock. May I present to you the award-winning staff of the Toledo Truth Teller. Slap me. Let's draw something loose. Ay, yes! I like that. The certified fresh series returns. Your boss. You always like this? Or is this just an act? Oh no, this is mad. Oysters, everybody! Has it happened? There is a certain satisfaction when you work with someone. Maybe we could be a family. You sadistic pig! The Paper. New season streaming September 9th, only on Peacock. This show gives me a reason to live. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast.

15:58Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at chatgpt.com by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro plans. Okay, let's get onto your failures. Your first failure, as you put it, failure to have a marriage like my parents. So when did they meet and marry and have children? Okay, so my parents, this is so funny because my mother went to boarding school in Tannacilty, where I'm from, and she really didn't like it.

16:40and I think was a home bird and didn't, you know, so did not want to be at that boarding school, which funnily enough turned out to be the school that my sister and I both attended. So when she left, she said, I'm never going back to Clannochilty. And then she met my father at a football match. Of course, everything centres around GA. And I mean, the way, this is how they tell it. She was like, he had a sandwich with him and she was like, oh my God, would he not buy a sandwich out? you know that kind of way and then he said she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen and he was instantly absolutely obsessed with her so I think that was 17 and I think they maybe broke up for a little bit when they were maybe 19 but they were married by 21 Wow Yeah and then had my older sister when they were 23 and then they had me when they were 25 I don't know there's just something about watching people go through their entire lives together like you know they have known each other as I said since they were teenagers and I think constantly meeting these new iterations of each other and learning how to love this new version of that person and I think just this really like it's just been this kind of master class really in unconditional love and I think I've been really lucky to sort of have that I mean which is kind of funny given that like, you know, that I had really struggled to, I suppose, emulate that.

18:09But I don't know, there's a certain loss in knowing that, you know, I will never be a young bride, like I will never be a young parent and I will never have this sort of relationship. I mean, they've been together for 40, married for 45 years together, you know, 50. I remember turning 40 and feeling that it was such a big deal because I could remember my parents turning 40. I was cognizant enough as an individual, I was grown up enough to vividly remember that. And it highlighted the fact that, just as you're saying, I didn't have those children who would ever remember me turning 40. And that's a strange thing when you come to terms with the idea that there are versions of your life that will be forever unlived.

18:56Yes, exactly. And I think, you know, I'm 41 now. And like to think of them at 41, because again, I have, I mean, I was 16 when they were 41. they had a 16 and an 18 year old and they had a house a business all day home in Spain I'm like what am I doing I understand that let's say you know things are different now and I do think that's part of the millennial curse nearly is that inability to tick off those markers of adulthood that I think our parents were able to do well it seemed like effortlessly but there's I don't know like sometimes like still if I have like I don't know if something if I have a stain and I can't get the stain out.

19:35I will go to my mother. Like I'll go into the house and I'm like, how do I get rid of this? And I said to her one day, I said, when you were 41, or what was that? Oh no, I asked her, would she help me with my car insurance? Then I said to her, I said, when you were 41, were you asking your mother to do this? And she looked at me and she was like, absolutely not. Like dead in the eye. Like, of course not, you absolute loser. I was a proper adult. One of the things that you write about so brilliantly in A Bigger Life is the tweakments that you have. And I've always appreciated this about you. And we've exchanged lengthy voice notes on the topic because you make no bones about the fact that as a car-carrying feminist, you understand that it is also an inherent contradiction, as do I, to pursue the desire to look the best that you can at any given age.

20:28But will you tell us where you are with that? Yeah, I mean, it's funny because I think, you know, and I write about this in the book, my relationship with my appearance has always been a difficult one. Like, you know, I developed anorexia and then bulimia when I was 14 and really struggled with that. You know, there was periods of maybe like six months here or like five months there where I might be almost what I would consider like a dry drunk, where that I wasn't properly healed, but the symptoms weren't there. So I, from the age of like, yeah, 14 to 32, so nearly 20 years and all of my adult life I went between kind of anorexia and bulimia and like it was a it was a really like it was very you know of course any eating disorder is serious but like this was a huge part of my life I was very very very unwell and I think when I recovered so much of that was almost trying to be neutral about my appearance do you know like trying not to think about it too much but that it was always a little bit tricky like you know I say that it's like a broken bone like you know it'll mend but it never quite feels the same like you know it aches in cold weather that kind of thing I don't know I suppose then that kind of wanting you know particularly in this job like I feel like most of the time I barely think about it but I don't know how you do this where you're on camera all the time and like just that awareness of like that aspect of yourself I just don't know if we're meant to be looking at ourselves and I think everyone actually not even just a job like this anyone who is on zoom or anyone who like you know takes photos of themselves or like you know for social media whatever you'll have that understanding of we're almost looking at ourselves too much and I think it can be really easy to become very obsessive with that um and I often say that like the fear of aging I nearly feel like is replacing diet culture because I think like a lot of millennials have sort of have done a lot of worked on picked diet culture and now the fear of aging has has kicked in and like I did spend all of my 20s hating my body and I don't want to spend all of my 40s hating my face so I'm really trying my best to kind of heal that relationship as well but I suppose also you know like wanting to look my best like you know and it's I don't know and I mean I think you know people will listen and or listening will I think definitely have like such different opinions on this because it is I think quite a contentious topic of conversation and you know I do Botox maybe like once every eight months to a year like I've had Sculptra and microneedling and like you know all of these things I think that when the breakup happened I was just about to turn 38 and Elizabeth I thought my life was over and I know you've listened I know and I remember because you sent me the most amazing voice message talking about this breakup that you'd been through was it 38 or 39?

23:32Exactly the same age but I was just about to turn 39 it was three weeks before I turned 39 Yes and I remember that and I still remember I was walking on the beach and you'd sent me a voice message and I was listening to it and I held on to that like so tightly just this sense of like okay because I think that sometimes you know we talk about the hope like you need that hope like to just kind of pull you through I was like okay if it can happen to Elizabeth maybe it can happen to me you know and I think as well and loads of women I think listening to this will understand that there's so much pressure put on you particularly I think in your like mid to late 30s around fertility and making decisions and this idea of time running out which I mean again we could talk about that for a very long time about like what those are really a lot of that is based on very outdated scientific information but and again and also I think that rhetoric that if you're over 35 the dating apps are hell if you're over 35 no one is going to be interested in you if you're over 35 you may as well be dead and that was not my experience and actually I think those ideas are so harmful because I think they're keeping women trapped in relationships that they do not want to be in for longer than they should because they are afraid that there are no other options they are afraid that this is the best that they can do they're afraid that they go out onto the dating app that it's just going to be a hellscape.

24:55And, you know, a friend of my mother's whose husband died a few years ago just, you know, fell in love with this amazing man. She's 66. She told me about a friend of hers whose mother has just gotten a new boyfriend. The mother is 83. So, like, do you know what I mean? I'm like, I just feel like we have to. So, actually, by the end of the book, I think I was so much less afraid of ageing. And at 41, I feel so much younger than I did at 38. Does that make sense? It makes complete and utter sense. And I utterly agree with you. Yes, everything that you just said. Thank you. I know a number of friends who, because I'm of that age now where a lot of my contemporaries are getting divorced, and they've had enormous healthy success on the apps because they're looking for something different than what I was looking for when I was 39 and on the apps.

25:50and I did still want children and I did feel this sort of undercurrent of my own desperation. Whereas my friends have had their kids if they wanted them. They've got divorced. They're looking for something that is companionship without too much responsibility. Yeah. And actually that's such a... They're looking for good sex as well. Yes, they're looking for great sex. Companionship. I was like, why don't we all look at Jane Austen novels? I'm 47 Louise and that's my language. We just want companionship. I'm sorry, yes, sorry. Over the age of 45, you're not allowed to have sex anymore. I forgot about that.

26:22Actually, some of them have ended up with friends who started out as romantic prospects, but because they're going through something similar, whether it be co-parenting or aging, they've ended up as friends. But it's such an attractive prospect, actually, that kind of person. So I think it's really important to put that narrative out there. Looking back on this failure, this failure to have a marriage like your parents you have said to me that you had a series of unhealthy relationships what do you think the root cause of that dysfunction was yeah I know because when you're saying when when I've had this like wonderful example and actually I think and I talk about that in a bigger life because that was such a huge part of the journey um because I remember when I came back from Paris and I was telling you about all these really hot men.

27:11My God, the French men loved you. Oh, the French men. They're just incredible. And you said to me, you know, you said, what did you learn about yourself? Elizabeth, like, ever the interviewer. Do you know that? Ever, let's get deep. And one of the things that I, I suppose I really did learn about myself was that I could sort of see looking back that I had this pattern of either going for like emotionally unavailable men who, you know, really would not have had the capacity to have the relationship that I claimed I wanted. And then I became like almost obsessive about like trying to win their approval, trying to like make them love me because I suppose a part of me felt, well, if this person who clearly has no interest, if I can make them love me, then maybe I can believe that I actually am lovable.

28:00And then kind of flip-flopping then to like another type of man who, profess to love me so deeply and that I perhaps didn't love them as much but that I felt safe in it because I thought they love me more therefore they will never leave me therefore they will never hurt me and even if they do leave me I'm not going to get hurt because I'm not fully sort of emotionally invested in this anyway and actually I suppose what I was able to sort of trace it back to which again was in the process of of writing this because, you know, I talk about at the end of the book, you know, that I met someone and my friend, one of my best friends said to me, you know, you must be so relieved not to have to date anymore.

28:47And when she said it, I got this like real shock because my instinct was, no, the dating is easier because the dating I can go, it's one date, I can be dazzling. Like I can just be this perfect woman and I will never let them close enough to hurt me and I'll never be close enough to disappoint them, whereas actually, you know, I think being vulnerable in that way felt really terrifying, the idea of true intimacy. And, you know, I do think that, you know, it stems, and again, I, you know, I mentioned this in the book where like when I was 14, my uncle died. And, you know, I think it is that experience of like your entire life changing in a phone call where, you know, we were, it was my aunt was getting married and my sister and I were going to the bridesmaids.

29:35So we're in the department store and we have, you know, we're trying on the bridesmaids outfits and I can hear my mother's mobile ring and she answers the phone and then all I hear is her saying, is he dead? And I turn around because I thought maybe she was talking about dad and, you know, just that terror. And she was like, we have to go and, you know, you're tearing off the dresses and getting into the car and like driving over home. sorry that's what I call my grandparents house and opening the door and I could just hear this screaming and you know he was engaged to be married to this really lovely woman who was only like 25 you know she was only a baby herself and I think witnessing that level of grief I just the message that I internalised was this is what happens when you love someone and this is what happens when you lose them and I just thought I'm never going to let that happen to me and I think sometimes when that happens at such a young age you almost forget and then you don't understand in adulthood why you know this pattern is kind of playing out and why all of these things are happening until you I think have that moment and go because I was like I can't let this I'm about to turn 40 and I've never allowed myself to be vulnerable enough to truly be in love.

31:02And I was like, I can't live the rest of my life like this. You know, I mean, there talk about failure. I mean, that is a big failure to be looking down the barrel at 40 and think, I've never had that. Have you opened your heart to it now? Yeah. Okay. I'm so sorry you went through that devastating loss when you were 14. What was your uncle's name? His name was Michael as well. Listen, listen, Irish people have a certain generation. They all, they've about five names. Michael, Mary, you know, there's just, there's a few. John, Anne. Yeah, he was wonderful, you know, and just too young. I just wanted the chance to say his name and to remember him.

31:45And thank you for sharing that. And also, can I just, sorry, just to say, because I think, you know, when we talk about the fear of ageing, I think a part of me almost felt ashamed around being afraid of aging. Do you know, like of even with getting the Botox and like getting these things, because I know that what the alternative is. Yeah. Do you know? Like I know what that like aging is a privilege. And even, you know, I when my grandmother died, like I sat with her, I was alone with her. You know, we were taking shifts and she just I was there with her when she died. and you know I was singing Be Not Afraid to her and you know she passed and I remember just looking at her and you know it's this it was this incredibly profound moment because I had this realisation someday I'll do this with my own mother and I looked at her face and every wrinkle on it and I could see what my face would look like you know in 50 years time and it's just there is as I said that feeling of like a tiny bit of shame around like what's the goal to kind of look 35 forever to not see my mother's face appear on mine in the mirror to not see my grandmother's face appear too because of the incredible facelift the incredible facelift I'm going to get no I'm joking please buy the book in order this is basically a GoFundMe for my inevitable facelift I think I think there's I want to release you from that oh thank you granule of shame because Because for me, it's also about health and your skin is an organ and it's about keeping it healthy in the same way that we go to the dentist.

33:27And if we are lucky enough to be able to invest in that, then I find that to be valid. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that. Final question on this particular failure. When someone dies before their time in a shocking way, when a relationship ends brutally in a manner you hadn't anticipated, one of the things that often happens is that you lose faith. You lose faith in your own judgment. Yes. And you lose faith in the reliability of the world around you. Is that something that happened to you after this relationship ended when you were 38, that you lost faith in your judgment? Oh, yeah. I mean, I think that was probably the hardest thing.

34:10I mean, I was blindsided by the end of the relationship. But I had had an instinct, you know, that like we weren't right for each other. And I hadn't listened to it. And I think a lot of that was because in recovery, you know, I started recovering at 32 and I got into this relationship at 33. And I think a part of me in recovery wanted everything to look right. Yes. You know, because I think anyone who's anyone who has experienced addiction or who has dealt with like something like an eating disorder, it really sort of stunts you emotionally. so in a lot of ways you know I did start it when I was 14 and then I recovered at 32 and I kind of looked up and looked around and thought I am so behind like you know my friends who have been sort of having these normal developmental stages are getting married and having children and buying houses and I am really like for all intents and purposes like a teenager and I think then all of a sudden I was like I just want things to be orderly and everything had gotten so chaotic in the sort of the death throes of the eating disorder which again I think anyone dealing with an addiction will understand that like how out of control everything had become that I wanted things to be orderly I wanted things to be neat I was like yes you know here I am I have a savings account and I have you know this man who's perfect on paper and you know we've just bought our first house together and you know tick tick tick I'm okay and then I suppose was any of it what I actually wanted you know and I think that was the thing was that I didn't give myself enough space to think about that and I didn't trust my own instincts and then when it fell apart actually that was probably the hardest bit was being so angry with myself because I thought I should have left when I was 34 if I had left at 34 or 35 I felt like those extra couple of years, particularly, you know, because of all of the, I suppose, the fear mongering that we hear around fertility, that that would have given me a little bit more of a cushion.

36:23And then it was, you know, I can't trust myself. I can't trust my judgment. And like, again, so much of this journey was me figuring out how to trust myself again. and like I think you really see that you know let's say you know in the book I talk about like you know I meet this man who is incredibly wealthy do you know like wealth I know I know I know Louise O 'Neill could go on the dating apps and get a multi-millionaire to fly from the States to come and see her on the first date I know I know it's funny though because two men drove from Dublin which is an eight hour round trip for a first date as well and my mother said one of them was the Easter weekend and she said he's not driving down for a first date is he?