Say hello to Text Lucy, my evil alter ego

Plus how to enjoy being single at Christmas

These are the kinds of mugs Text Lucy would own. Photo by Madalyn Cox on Unsplash

When I worked for a lifestyle magazine I made two friends, C and J. It was a time when we commuted to central London five days a week and along with writing about things like the best Maldivian islands for your sex life and interviewing designer Kevin McCloud about ways to tart up your home without breaking the bank, we also spent time getting coffee that cost about the same as our monthly rent, gossiping at the nail salon after work and farting around at fashion launches with people like Twiggy.

While we worked together, C and J made up a name for my alter ego: Text Lucy.

Text Lucy was the version of me who appeared on WhatsApp as the person who speculated that if/when she got married, C and J might get invited to the evening do, given that they were only ‘work friends’ at the time (no wedding is on the horizon but when the time comes I’m sure I’ll upgrade them). Ouch.

Text Lucy was ‘sassy.’

I was working out how to find old WhatsApp messages about Text Lucy and thought that searching for ‘sassy’ might work. 

Sure enough, there are our group chats going back to 2016 where Text Lucy looks like a Halloween ghoul in a photo, with the caption: “Look, Text Lucy! Sassy.” from J as I glower darkly at the camera with a leather jacket and a raised eyebrow.

Text Lucy made spiky comments about colleagues that would never come out of her mouth IRL and was unselfconscious about her comedic prowess.

Text Lucy described chatting with a friend on a train where a man nearby was laughing as he overheard their conversation. Text Lucy turned to him and said: “It’s fine. I am hilarious,” J recounted.

(Text Lucy also seemed to be popular with men, and she was forever searching for a husband or bumping into former flings. “Anyone in town? Come to a Benefit makeup do” C wrote. “Can’t,” Text Lucy wrote back. “Am at a networking thing where I usually see exes and end up introducing them to each other and then they become best friends,” (true story).)

(Another exchange. J: “Are you still seeing the electrician? Any deep chat breakthrough?” (I was always complaining about constant surface chat on dates.) Text Lucy: “No, but I just got asked out by the man on the till at H&M when I was buying socks.”)

Snippets of Text Lucy were hinted at in my youth. Once I remember applying sun cream while lounging in a bikini at the lido aged about 17 with a (much sassier) friend.

“You missed a bit,” a bloke shouted. “Wanna rub it in for me?” was my spirited reply. “Ha,” he said, and walked off. Given that I was self conscious growing up (see my post about being so shy at my Saturday job I’d eat my lunch in the loo), this was out of character for me. 

But was it really out of character? Do we all have hidden bits of ourselves that only come out in some circumstances? I think we do.

Part of the appeal of Text Lucy is that she says what she’s really thinking and doesn’t censor herself (Text Lucy still exists. C and J confirmed this last Monday when we met to gossip and eat ramen).

Text Lucy feels attractive and is self-confident, with a deadpan sense of humour. She doesn’t care much about what other people think and knows her worth.

In real daily life, I am learning to be a little more Text Lucy, which is to say I am working out how to better say phrases like “I want,” “I won’t be able to,” and “No.”

I don’t mean that I’m saying these things in a rude or unkind way, it’s more about having an understanding of what I want/don’t want in my mind and behaving accordingly.

Is there a Text version of you? What is he, she or they like? Could you be more Text You?

Christmas as childfree me

I used to slightly dread the festive season, mainly because its yearly occurrence would invariably remind me that I was ‘still single,’ that nothing had changed, that no children were forthcoming and that yet again I would not be zooming up the motorway on Boxing Day for a romantic reunion with Mr Right or standing somewhere in the snow kissing a Mark Darcy-type like Bridget Jones.

One year I remember resentfully writing Christmas cards and being angry because I was signing them just ‘Lucy,’ and not ‘Lucy and…’.

(I think Text Lucy should have written those cards. Just imagine: “I hope you have a lovely time changing Tweedledum and Tweedledee’s nappies - and not too many rows with your husband Dopey. Lots of love!”)

One of the Christmas decorations I grew up with.

Another time I spent the whole period between Christmas and New Year feeling sick from a high temperature and a yearning for a text message from a man I was seeing who had gone to Scotland to see his mother without a gift for her because “I’m the present,” he said, of himself. No text came, yet that ‘relationship’ carried on until about February.

Now I am much more of a fan of Christmas.

I don’t have a magic wand I’m afraid, because the reason I’ve grown to let go of all this (and say, ugh, fuck no, to men like Mr Gift of Christmas) is age, maturity and self-acceptance.

Though dating him was a shitty experience, it taught me to never accept that kind of behaviour again. He was selfish, and I tolerated it, and Text Lucy never made an appearance with him. She definitely would now.

When I send Christmas cards, I now genuinely look forward to it, to choosing ones I think my friends will like and to sending love to them via a handwritten note.

I also think I’ve learned to properly appreciate what I do have at Christmas - and alongside my family, there are The Decorations.

My mother still lives in the home I moved to aged five, and every year hangs decorations I grew up with - and some that she grew up with too.

There are Sunday school-made cardboard baubles and a three-dimensional star where multicoloured fronds are stuck into a central ball, a nursery loo-roll Mary and a cotton wool snowman, and a couple of faded green glass baubles we hang on the tree with opened-out paperclips.

More recent additions include some realistic fake amaryllis stems, their bright red petals mixed in with foraged ivy and pine tree offcuts in a hallway arrangement, and a wooden nativity scene that a Father Christmas figurine sometimes gate crashes.

It’s a Christmas I really love. And Text Lucy does too.