My wife's name is Claire.

Several people have asked me why I decided to leave Glasgow. It wasn't the winters that drained the colour from my skin. Not that the sky stayed grey for months. I hadn't seen blue. Not Maryhill's architecture. Those buildings with their faded, burnt texture, hundreds of TO LET signs that are older than me, that will outlive me, that will outlive the buildings themselves. Not even that I was unemployed again and needed to move on. No. I left because of all the cities I've lived in, Glasgow is the worst for dating.

Even worse than London, where everyone is transient and bleeding out. Worse than Bristol. Hands down, it is Glasgow. You can learn to accept the grey, the cold, the unemployment. But how do you learn to accept killing your desire to feel loved in this world? Isn't that what we're looking for? To feel like you don't have to survive this alone. That someone can join in on the madness. The tenderness of a hug. The weight of another body against yours.

Everyone knows modern dating is hard. In fact, you're boring for even mentioning it. That the apps don't work. Of course they don't work. They were never meant to work.

When you download Hinge, you feel a rush of possibility. But when you're swiping, you're dreaming. Pictures of people float past. Responses to prompts that could be complete gibberish and you'd still send them a 'rose'. You'd still write a witty opener, convinced this time they'll respond.

Even if you did get a date off the app, they're not really real. You just don't realise they're still pixels. They talk in that same prompt-response way: 'Yeah, I'm such a yapper.' They never ask you questions. You're not even sure what they do. You go in to kiss them, your lips meet not warmth but the void. The infinite, vast void. You then realise why everyone around is looking at you.

But there is an antidote. Go back out into the world. For the price of £20, you can date people in the real world. The actual physical world that you can touch.

Every Thursday night, all the single people of Glasgow meet at a bar. Every single, single person in one confined space. There's no room to breathe. The lights are dim, swallowing the details from people's faces, leaving smooth, indistinct ovals. The music is loud. I can barely hear anyone. My ear is bleeding. A warm trickle down.

Most of the women are in groups. No one comes alone. And you can see why: there's Dracula! A slender, tall, pale man who lurks. He's right next to my ear, uncomfortably close. He sees the blood. He prowls around, shoulders up, staring at one group. Stares a bit too long. One of the women notices and her face twists in disgust.

Dracula needs backup. He befriends Henry, a slightly overweight middle-aged man who's visibly sweating. To be fair, it's suffocating in here, all the single people in Glasgow sucking the air out of the space. But he isn't just sweating; he's shaking. Terrified, as if someone has a knife pointed at him. His armpit stains are visible and his trousers are soaking wet. He's pissed himself. Even in this dim bar, the stains are obvious. Together, they approach another group of women.

I can't just stand here. I spot someone to my left: a woman with nice hair and a white top. I'm not attracted to her, but I need to burn off this nervous energy. The usual small talk unfolds. I wish I could ask her, 'So what do you think about AI?' But instead: 'What's your name? What do you do? Are you a cat or dog person?' Her name is Trisha. She's a makeup artist. A dog person. Trisha isn't here to go on dates with anyone; she's here to find clients. She hands me her business card. On it there's a child painted as a clown. She does makeup for children. Does she think anyone here has kids?

I bin the card and move on. I spot a group of three women. It is always three. Two is too few. Four is too many. One of them is drop-dead gorgeous. Out of my league gorgeous. Brunette hair, violet eyes. I have to talk to her.

As I start to walk towards them, I feel a bit giddy. Sick. She notices me. I could puke. My ear hasn't stopped bleeding. She looks over to her friends, smiles, and then looks back at me with those violet eyes.

No, I don't want to meet your friends. I want to talk to you.

I don't say Gaurav. Nobody knows how to pronounce it. Not even me. So I go by 'G.' But even that confuses people. How often do you meet someone whose name is a single letter? I should have called myself Henry.

I shake her hand. It's tiny and cold. She'd been holding her drink in the hand I was shaking. I am shaking. Maybe I am Henry.

I don't remember their names. I didn't care about them. I cared about her.

'Claire, will you marry me?' I want to ask her this. She's beautiful. I want to say it so badly. But I don't. I wish they brought back real old-school dating, where men could propose to women they'd just met and it wouldn't be insane.

Then why are you doing all the talking? Wait, what does she mean those two are single?

Broken wide open. I'm going to cry. The giddiness won't stop. I excuse myself to go puke in the toilet. I dab my ear with a paper towel. White turns to red.

My wife. Claire, we could have been something. In our fifteen seconds together, I built a life for us. Top-floor tenement flat in the West End, where the sun would spill through the window and warm your skin. I would have felt your thin arms wrap around me. And there, together, we would watch this world die.

As I walk out of the toilet, I'm intercepted by Dracula. He has a name, it turns out: Jake.

He points towards the women I just fled from. The place I buried my heart.

There's a bit of sick on my shoe.

Jake doesn't want me, not really. He ditched Henry, and he'll ditch me too. He has crippling approach anxiety, and I'm his shield, his wingman. I've paid twenty pounds to be a wingman.

But I play along. I've given up on finding anyone at this event anyways. Three women are sitting in a booth, and we slide in across from them. They all fit the stereotype of Scottish beauty. Glossy and perfect. They've put in serious effort to look this good, and we're the first people to talk to them. Pity.

Jake launches into his life story. He's an investment analyst for some derivatives hedge fund. Paid well, apparently, with a top-floor tenement flat in the West End. I can't tell if he's lying, but if not, then by all the standards of this good modern society, the man is a catch.

But the women don't care. In fact, right in front of him, they take out their phones. Maybe I was too harsh on Jake. I almost want to cry again. How fucking dare they just ignore him like that?

He is like everyone else here, defeated. I mutter something about needing fresh air. I step outside the bar and puke again. This time, however, it feels good. Proper chunder. Cathartic. Freeing.

The cold air hits me, wakes me up. The real world comes back. The JP Morgan tower flooding the streets with light. Below it, the homeless slumped in doorways, the crackheads and drunks. One of them nods at me. From a nearby bar, someone's singing 'Mr. Brightside'. It's so bright. It's 11 PM and I have to squint. It's the brightest Glasgow has ever been.