'I'd felt more warmth from a vibrator.' Cathrine Mahoney on sex and dating after divorce.

Apart from conversations with someone lovely from my school days on the other side of the world, there were only tumbleweeds where my dating life should be. 

Nothing, zip, zero, zilch. I had been with my ex for 13 years. 13 whole years of not having to play dating games. I hadn’t needed to think about dating forever, or that’s how it felt. The smattering of guys I had dated before my husband had mainly crossed my path at work events or at a bar. I was so out of practice I wouldn’t have a clue how to attempt to pick someone up.

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The majority of my friends were happily married and all their friends were married too, so there was no chance of meeting someone through them. Work was a female affair, and most of the gang were a lot younger than me as well, so their friends weren’t necessarily 'age appropriate'. The apps felt dirty and desperate to me, but where else are you going to meet someone? I lived on the Northern Beaches. It was a beautiful place to grow up, or to move to as a family, but there weren’t loads of 'singles'. My options were break a family up (no thanks), or bang a 19-year-old apprentice who was still living at home – again, probably a no from me. 

And so, I finally bit the bullet and joined Tinder, the only option for a dating app back then. My previous statement about the Northern Beaches was proven true – in my 10km radius there were maybe only a handful of chaps (it seems they were all married or too young to have moved out of home in my catchment area) and none tickled my fancy. So, I extended my radius.

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Deciding what photos to share was tough, and I had no idea what to write. I didn’t want to become column fodder. My ex had moved on with a former Bond girl, did I really want to be outed by one of the gossip writers swiping right?! I was so worried about being spotted and outed on the app that for a long time I just shared one photo, my name and age and that was it. And as an over sharer I was desperate to write some funny gear in my profile section, but Cathrine age: 40 was as hilarious as my shtick could be. 

One night, home alone, glass of wine in hand, I started to 'swipe'. I connected with a guy who started to chat with me, and his opener was that he was a journalist who had just written a book about Tinder – I hurried to un-match. Christ on a bike, talk about gossip column manifesting! I swiped for 10 minutes and then turned Netflix on and started to watch a show I’d been too boozed to remember from the night before – I was starting to feel like Dory from Finding Nemo.

Then I matched with David, a tall and slightly arty looking architect from Liverpool in the UK. We spent the next two hours going back and forth with witty banter and swapping tales of uni life and our love of music, when he said his favourites were The Smiths and The Stone Roses – I was practically ready to say 'I do'! Wow. I couldn’t believe I had struck the Tinder Jackpot on my first night and only my second conversation.

We carried on back and forth a bit more and at almost midnight I said I had to call it and head to bed. David said he was getting into bed too. He asked what I was wearing, and I said Marks & Spencer pyjamas. He was wearing nothing. OK, I hadn’t asked but thanks for that, David.

Cathrine Mahoney. Image: Supplied. 

As I was turning the light off and getting my pillow person shaped up for another night in the sack, my phone beeped again. It was David, asking whether I wanted him to cum on my tits or my face? Un-match. 

I deleted and re-installed Tinder so many times over the coming weeks. I felt gross about the whole thing some days and then others I couldn’t wait to see what weird and wonderful people would pop up that night. While it still had a bit of shag-tag to it in Oz, Tinder had already become part of the dating landscape in the UK, and I knew loads of people who had met their perfect match on it (including my little sister Sarah who had met Adrian, her other half). So, I persevered. 

Moaning to a girlfriend about my lack of dating action she said, 'What you need is sex!' Apparently, I needed to 'break the drought' and have at least one shag between my ex and my next. We agreed over dinner that night that I just needed to 'put it out there'. I wanted a no-strings-attached rendezvous, instead of trying to find my next husband on the app. 

So now I was fishing where the fish were! 

For anyone who has used the apps you know that there are a plethora of men who want 'no-strings-attached'. I am sure there are an equal number of women using the apps who want the same, but I was only seeing the men out there in app world. I had started chatting to a cute English lad called Steve, who had been very upfront about what he wanted, and what he wanted didn’t involve multiple candlelit dinners or dates at the cinema or long walks or picnics in the country. Seemed I had found my circuit breaker. 

It had been almost 12 months since my last 'service', and I was due a grease and oil change – to put it nicely. But now that I was booked in and had a date, time, and location in the diary, the panic started to set in. I hotfooted it to David Jones after work to buy some new lingerie. My current underwear drawer offerings were diabolical – even I wouldn’t have sex with me in most of what lurked in there.

The carrot and wine (or tuna, cornichon and vodka) diet, combined with the stress of the marital breakdown, meant I was at an all-time low on the scales. If I was going to get naked with a stranger, now would be the time to do it, I thought. Sadly, though my bi-weekly 'Pilates on crack' classes had helped, nothing short of surgery could tighten my stomach area. My 'baby tummy' had resembled the Himalayas when I once looked down my Nike top as I was planking on the reformer. Hopefully, the lights would be dimmed at the 'service' or it would have to be a traditional missionary scenario. 

As my date lived in the Eastern Suburbs, I had arranged a sleepover with my mate and old flatmate Amanda, who now lived in Bondi. Amanda had been experiencing a few changes in life just like me – her relationship with her kids' father had come to an end. Amanda had also changed jobs like me, but her change was a bit more drastic than mine. Amanda was now Samantha X, a high-class escort who had written an incredible memoir about her change in career. Whatever her public persona, she was and always would be Amanda to me and she was the perfect person to sit and sip tea with before heading out on my date. I had my overnight bag in the hall, and she promised she would wait up for me – unless my sleepover location was to change, in which case I was to message her. I said I would. She gave me a big hug and shoved a handful of condoms into my handbag as I headed off into the night. 

My date was already at a table when I walked into the bar and he asked what I wanted to drink. A bottle of straight vodka and a slice of lemon? That’s what my nerves felt like they needed. But instead, I asked for a vodka and soda. As the chat and the drinks continued talk turned to Peaky Blinders; Steve said that a few people had told him he looked like one of the guys in it, Tom something? Oh my God yes! It may have been the three vodkas or the dark lighting, but yes – he did indeed have a look of Mr Hardy about him, and he had the London accent to back it up. 

We walked back to the apartment that Steve shared with a few mates. I felt like I was at uni again as I walked past a table tennis table in the kitchen and three lads on the sofa watching soccer on a massive TV. Steve’s room felt like a student bedroom too, although thankfully he had a double bed, not a single like in our Halls of Residence. He also had an ensuite, so I was able to duck in and check my teeth for bar snacks, apply lippy, and squirt some perfume around my lady bits. I didn’t need to worry about fishing out the condoms Amanda had given me – Steve had a drawer full. And just like that, job done. It felt very clinical. It was more 'Mr Brown’s biology class back at Porthcawl Comp' than 'SBS movie you stumble across where there is some passionate sex scene in a foreign language', but it was perfectly serviceable. Steve walked me back through the lounge and games room set up, a mini walk of shame past mini tennis racquets. He didn’t even walk me to the lift let alone out to find a cab. 

I think it was this and not the actual act that had me tearing up while I waited for the Uber. Is this where my life had landed? Someone who couldn’t even wait to see I was safely in the cab before he headed off to join his mates to watch the UK Premiership? I’d felt more warmth from a vibrator. 

Maybe 'casual' wasn’t my thing. Thank goodness for old mates and a cup of hot chocolate. Within a few minutes and a couple of tissues to wipe away my tears, Amanda had me in stitches again about our lives now and back in the day, and I knew everything was going to be OK in the end. 

I also knew that when Tom Hardy’s football fan doppelgänger messaged me the following weekend, I was happy to say 'thanks but no thanks' – my engine was running fine and I didn’t need anyone to tinker with what was under my bonnet again for a while, thank you.

This is an extract from Cathrine Mahoney's book Currently Between Husbands, published by Simon & Schuster, available now at all good bookshops.

Feature Image: Canva/Supplied.