Why worry? Superficiality is only skin-deep

The Trader; A lot of these City boys like their women a bit neurotic. It makes them feel better about themselves

JAAP SIGHS heavily. "Look," he says. "I think you may be getting this a little out of proportion." We're having dinner in one of my favourite local restaurants, and we have reached the stage where people wonder whether they have room for pudding - but have someone bring them the menu anyway, just for interest.

"After all," he goes on. "The world isn't going to end just because you have pudding. Anyway, they've got sorbet; you could have that." Silly man, I tell him, when was the last time you saw anyone normal order the healthy option when there were chocolate hazelnut parcels to be had? And if I have those, I'll get fat, then you'll leave me for one of those leggy girls in short skirts who prop themselves nonchalantly against your desk all day at work.

Jaap looks bemused. "I know it's fashionable to be neurotic," he says patiently, as if he's talking to a child. "But, amazingly enough, I'm not planning to run off with anyone else just because you have chocolate hazelnut parcels this evening. You do have a lovely exterior, but it's what's below the surface that counts for me."

This is, I admit, a novel concept. Having worked in the City for nearly four years, I'd pretty much come to the conclusion that superficiality is the norm. How else to explain colleagues who thought I would date them because they had a flashy car - a belief they'd plainly tested with at least some success on other girls? And what else could account for the obsession with designer labels?

"I thought that was more of an Eighties thing?" my mother says after I confide my thoughts and worries to her the next day. "You know, everything twice as big as it needed to be and interlocking initials all over."

In a way she's right, of course. The modern obsession is for small, and away with the brazen logo. Mobiles should be sleek and tiny, but packed with gizmos; briefcases should have just a discreet maker's mark on them; clothes should be free of initials of any kind.

"Ah, I see what you're getting at," my mother says. "You mean, only people in the know should be able to tell that something is incredibly expensive. A bit of a clubby thing, in fact. Impresses the people you want to impress and makes it harder for muggers to tell who's worth robbing and who isn't."

And where's the harm in that, after all? Rory had his watch ripped from his arm as he sat in traffic lights with the car roof down, and it took an entire bottle of vodka to steady his nerves. In fact, he cheered up only when he found he could buy a very subtle timepiece that was even more expensive than the one he'd had swiped.

But I'm still on the phone with my mother and from the tone of her voice I can tell she has some Very Important Advice to give me.

"Darling," she says carefully. "I hope you don't mind my saying this, but you won't overdo the worrying with Jaap, will you? If you keep on telling him he's going to run off with someone else, you might end up convincing him it's a good idea. I know a lot of these City boys like their women a bit neurotic. After all, it makes them feel better about themselves - but don't overdo it."

I want to protest and tell her she's wrong, that she hasn't been on a date for years and doesn't know what she's talking about, that the City is the shallowest place on Earth.

But then I realise what I should have seen all along: all this superficiality is only skin-deep. Underneath, we're just like everyone else.

thetrader@hotmail.com