Love equals loneliness over time

Love in six months?! Six bloody months?!?! That’s 26 weeks! And, er, loads of days! Mate, I’ve not got that sort of time. Couldn’t you, you know, speed it up a bit?

Speed, you say?

Research has suggested that we make our minds up about someone we date within the first three seconds of clapping our permanently bloodshot eyes on them. So, what we may as well do is go to evenings where we simply sit in an armchair, feeling slightly smutty, and view hundreds of scantily-clad members of the opposite sex from behind a two-way mirror as they zip past on a conveyor belt, like that bit at the end of the Generation Game. And, just like that bit at the end of the Generation Game, you can have all the ones you can remember. And afterwards, once you’ve stashed all your winnings in the boot of your car, you can go for a drink in the bar with Jim Davidson, where you’ll spend the evening pretending to be appalled by his jokes whilst secretly champing at the bit to get to work on Monday morning so you can tell Phil in marketing the one about the Taiwanese female rugby league team (an intimate knowledge of the six tackle rule is necessary).

Merrily for me, people do organise evenings like this. I went to one. They call it ‘speed dating’. And they are nothing like what I have described above. Except the bit about feeling slightly smutty.

Ah yeah ah yeah ah yeah. Yeah yeah yeah. Mnhaaaa mnhaaaa. I KNOW it’s not Match.com but leave me the hell alone. When I was asked if I wanted to go to this event I was not talking to Match.com. It was right in my bad books. At this particular moment in time I was fed up with Match.com and ready to cheat on it with an alternative dating method. I felt as if Match.com was a huge vat of human excrement that I had voluntarily dived head first into, on the promise that at the bottom of the vat lay a tiny key and a tiny box and that inside the tiny box lay the only thing that could save my withering heart from plopping down into my guts and being crapped out. It’s a bit like Saw. That’s it, Match.com is a bit like being one of the victims in the Saw franchise. Except it’s real. And the pain never stops. And everyone is uglier. Yep. So, after thrashing about, getting myself covered in shit, and discovering the key doesn’t fit the fucking lock, someone dangled a little ladder made of flowers for me. THAT’S what the offer of speed dating felt like, so screw you and your judging eyes. I’ll jump back in the vat next week. Apparently I just picked up the wrong key. Ah, life (oh life).

So, off I went, climbing my lovely ladder of flowers, to the speed dating, secretly hoping one of the girls would be Zia from Spotify.

FYI, most of the ladies on Match.com have stopped claiming the Time Traveller’s Wife is their favourite book and have, en masse, moved onto Shantaram. Richard and Judy have a lot to fucking answer for. And I'm not talking about the Book Club.


TENTH to TWENTY-FOURTH DATE REPORTS (kerchang!)- 30/08/09

There's a lot of dates here. Maybe you could read one a day, with your breakfast, over the next couple of weeks. That'll be nice for you. Think of it like the Little Book of Calm. Only less commercially viable.

So, speed dating, whaddyadoo? Naturally, having only five minutes to represent yourself and get to know the other person, you should be natural, be the real you, be honest to yourself. However, like everyone else there I said big fat bollocks to that and went along as a better-looking, better-dressed, nicer, happier, cleaner version of myself. If they wanted the real me they’d have to have it drip by drip over time, like Chinese water torture, like my ex-girlfriend did (Are you reading this? Remember how nice I was when you first met me? Remember how clean my clothes were? Don‘t beat yourself up, you weren‘t to know). I suppose you could compare dating me to the HBO series Lost. Seems like it’s going to be rubbish but after the first episode you’re pleasantly surprised and you're looking forward to what could happen next. The second episode is mysteriously exactly the same as the first but that’s ok, because it’ll definitely get better. The third episode is boring. The fourth is baffling. And by the fifth it’s just stopped trying and the whole thing seems to be falling apart (and lower budget than you first thought). And then, years later, you catch a trailer for the seventh series and you wonder how exactly it is still going and who the hell watches it.

Meh.

So. 15 dates. 5 minutes each. Let’s roll.

Oh, before I roll anywhere, I should give you a quick warning. My details of some of these mini-dates will be a little hazy as it's hard to recall the exact details of each date. This isn’t because time has withered memory. In fact, straight after the 15th date I went away and tried to make notes on all 15. It was all I could do to remember their names. To help my future self write this blog (my past self is a proper bastard) I wrote one or two words to jog my memory. I have included these notes. Some of them are just plain baffling.


DATE ONE
Note - ‘ginger’

The weird thing about this evening was that we spent about fifteen minutes in the bar, twiddling about before it started. Massive mistake. Before it had even begun everyone had already decided who they were going to fancy (No.8) and who they weren’t (everyone else). And very little, certainly not personality or conversation, was going to change it. So, I sat down in front of No.1, quite pleased that I could warm up on someone I didn’t find attractive. Bonus.

I had determined that I wouldn’t ask the triumvirate of evil questions. 1) So, what made you come to this? 2) Have you ever done it before? 3) What do you do for a living?

However. Within 30 seconds I ran out of conversation and had forced No.1 to answer all three against her will. Hah, take that, Gingernuts. Note to anyone thinking of going speed dating - answer these questions. Hell, ask them straight away. Every time, to everyone. Ask them as quickly as you can. Several of my dates refused to entertain these questions. And these people were the worst kind of people (mainly solicitors). The bottom line is, these are the only pieces of information we really care about. We need to know that you are 1) Not desperate, 2) Not desperate and 3) Not desperate. By clever cross-examination with these three questions, you can sort the wheat from the chaff. Swwwwwwooooooooosssssh, went my scythe. Plimp! went the chaff. Hahoo! went the wheat.

And we were off. No.1 was unremarkable. Oh and ginger.


DATE TWO
Note - ‘too bright’

Now. I know how this looks. And whilst I am genuinely intimidated by intelligent women (or, more accurately, women), the ‘bright’ in this sentence referred to her general being. Her personality, aura, clothes. She was like a giant walking pair of jazz hands.

To make matters worse she very quickly asked the three questions. ‘Wah!’ thought I, ‘She’s wheat/chaff-sorting me!’ I panicked. ‘What am I?! Am I wheat? I must be wheat. I’m quite wheaty. Dammit, I’m 100% wholegrain. I’m bloody Shredded Wheat. And you, YOU, young lady are Sugar Puffs. Hah! With full fat milk.


DATE THREE
Note - ‘no’

Nothing much to say about this one. Is there a more cutting one-word review of a date?


DATE FOUR
Note - ‘cunt’

Ah. Yes, there is


DATE FIVE
Note - ‘Bad Aussie’

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?


DATE SIX
Note - ‘clay pigeons’

I was merrily munching my way through the inevitable three questions, thinking it was going rather well, when No.6 stopped me in my tracks and, in the most patronising voice she could muster, politely asked me my age.

Reasoning that we were very similar in age, I was somewhat baffled. I attempted to make light of the situation and stated, ironically, that you should never ask a man his age. Clearly the legal world, dealing as they do in FACTS, has not yet got to grips with irony. ’No’ she said, poor lamb, with her brow furrowed so, ‘it’s women you don't ask’.

‘I know’ I said. Christ. Realising I had a live one I decided to press home the advantage. ‘How old are you, then?’ I peeped. Reminding me, in the tone of an exasperated mother explaining to a toddler why they can’t bury the hamster alive, that we had just ascertained that women should not be asked their age, she changed the subject. FACTS.

She spent the next three minutes telling me about how she sought ‘life experiences’ when other people are wasting their time in the pub or whatnot (and apparently clay pigeon shooting counts as a life experience, rather than, as I had previously thought, the hobby of twats). I spent the next three minutes wondering if she could fuck right off.


DATE SEVEN
Note - ‘AAAAAHHHH!’

Not my reaction to her, but rather the noise I imagine goes through No.7’s head at most turns. She too, god help me, was a solicitor. And, crikey, she really wanted me to know she was very, very successful. As she pressed home to me just how fucking brilliant she was I tried to imagine a day in the life of her poor brain.

‘AAAAHHH! The alarm clock! I’m getting up! AAAAH!!! Must go to the GYM! And make myself STRONG! AAAHHHH!!!!

On the train now. AAAHH!! I will get a seat and then people will know I am not a woman to be trifled with. AAHHH!!!! I CAN BE SUCCESSFUL TOO YOU KNOW. Mustn't think about trifle.

God, the people on this train are intimidated by me. God, I am brilliant. And they don’t even realise I resisted the pain au chocolat in the train station café. AAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AAAHH!!! Work! Here I am! Watch me purposefully stride to my desk! AAAH!! A man! Must make him realise I am his EQUAL. AAHH!! A woman! I must rub the bitch’s face in the fucking dirt. AAAAAAAAAA………..’

The bell rang at this point. Which was a shame as I was looking forward to imagining her thought process as she took a dump.


DATE EIGHT
Note - ‘fancy’

Hmm. In the fifteen minutes we had in the bar I, and every other man at the event, had decided I fancied a bit of No.8 and no one else really was going to get a look in. Three seconds, remember.

I mean she really was very attractive. So attractive that I assumed she was only here to mock people like me. Which, in hindsight, she may well have been. I won’t lie, I was intimidated and very nervous. I babbled like a moron. I even forgot to ask the three questions. The five minutes seemed last an eternity. I had five minutes to impress one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen in the flesh before, and I spent the whole time wishing it would end. Ah, yes, it’s the hope that kills you. You see, if I saw No.8 in a bar I would never talk to her. And I would never regret it. I would, rather fairly, assume I’d have no chance with someone like her. She’d surely want someone more charming, better looking, more successful. And taller, obviously. But here I was! With a chance! We were, for five achingly long minutes, equals. I couldn’t handle it. I didn’t want it. The pressure was too much. Let me go back to that ginger one, I thought, I could handle her. No.8’s sheer presence made me feel inadequate. Not only that, I was u,p against 14 other men. Chances are she’d prefer at least 14 of them over me.

You can’t aim for the stars on a trampoline.


DATE NINE
Note - ‘blonde/drunk’

Ah, now, this was far more my sort of girl. The evening had been going for about an hour and a half in all. No.9 had been hitting the bar pretty hard. But despite her wooziness, she was fun and a lot less uptight then most of the previous eight. We had a bit of nice banter but we never got past the fact that in the first instance I called her by No.8’s name. She didn’t like that. Not one bit. Women, eh?


DATE TEN
Note - ‘cock/racism’

Oh, No.10. What a treat. No.10 spent the first two minutes telling me that all the other men at this event were cocks. Total cocks, she called them. She had, she said, even told most of them to their face. I was not a cock, apparently. But then, hey, she didn’t know me. I could be a cock, I said. Who’s to say I’m not a cock?

Realising that I had said the word cock far more times than I am comfortable with in the first two minutes of a date, I decided to try out the three questions on this delightfully spiky character. I had barely got the words out of my mouth when she sighed loudly and slumped onto the table, signalling fairly clearly that she was pretty bored of those questions. Perhaps I was a cock, after all.

And, look, I have no idea how the conversation got round to the subject of race but it did. Oh yeah, I do remember. No.10 was very, very, very keen to bring it up. I imagine she did this with everyone. No.10 was not caucasian (I imagine she still isn‘t) like the rest of the room and it was something that she wanted to highlight. She also wanted me to know how tough her career was due to the fact she wasn’t a white man. But she had NO PROBLEM with this, right? It was FINE. She certainly had no chip on her shoulder. Cool about it, not a thing, why have you brought it up at all? She did, in fact, ask me why I had brought it up and insinuated perhaps I had a problem with her race.

It’s worth mentioning at this point that I hadn’t actually spoken for two minutes. She was merrily arguing away with herself. I could have watched her all night. Box. Office.


DATE ELEVEN
Note - ‘sex’

No.11 batted the three questions down right away. There’s only one thing she wanted to know. Had I found anyone I wanted to have sex with yet?

Now, when you’ve known someone for roughly 20 seconds, this is a difficult question to field. The safe bet is to say ‘no’ (which was clearly a lie). So I said no. ‘Wrong answer!’ she shrieked. ‘Oh’ I flapped, ‘Well, erm.’ I was, she explained, meant to say her. Ah. What she hadn’t done here, and let’s give her credit for having such self-confidence, was entertain the possibility that I may not want to have sex with her.

I suppose this was her idea of banter.

This, I soon discovered, was only her second gear. And she soon shifted up. If I hadn’t found anyone yet, then I wasn’t likely to. Fine, that’s probably true. And if I wasn’t having a wonderful evening... Ok, I’d had better. Then. Then? Then, she said, why don’t the two of us toddle off somewhere else?

To be fair, this caught me off guard. Why not, she said? Live a little.

Why not, indeed? I did find No.11 attractive and she was certainly more interesting than most people I meet. So. Why not, why not go? I flumphed and mimbled, doing a passable Hugh Grant impression, if Hugh Grant was himself doing an impression of Rainman. She pressed me. Ah! What to do?! Here was a free spirited, unusual young lady, offering me the chance of a far more exciting evening than the one I was currently having. It would make great reading for this blog thing too.

But I said no. Why did I say no? Let me tell you.

In the half-time break she pushed in front of me at the bar. On purpose. In full knowledge I was waiting. You may think this is petty. But our ability to queue is the only thing that keeps us apart from the French. And if we start rewarding this errant behaviour then the next step is anarchy. She had to learn. There are rules for a reason, you MANIAC.


DATE TWELVE
Note - n/a

No idea. Even fifteen minutes later I couldn’t recall her face or name. Sorry, dude.


DATE THIRTEEN
Note - ‘blah’

By this point everyone was a) suffering from date fatigue and b) a bit drunk. Social niceties were pretty much out the window (see Date 11). It was very clear that No.13 and I had no interest in each other. And, as such, we had a jolly nice chat.


DATE FOURTEEN
Note - ‘Gareth’

No.14 was alright but I was pretty fed up with the whole process by this point, as was everyone else. People were taking longer and longer to move from table to table. And no one but no one was making any effort whatsoever. Least of all me.

Anyway, No.14 spent the whole time talking about my friend Gareth who had come with me. The slut.


DATE FIFTEEN
Note - ‘…….’

No.15 had got so fed up with the whole thing that she had left by the time I got round to her. Gareth tells me she 'alright'.


And that’s that. The speed dating evening turned out to be a microcosm of the last 5-6 months. The initial excitement and enthusiasm soon makes way for the grinding reality that you’re no more likely to find the woman/man of your dreams in this way than you are via an arranged marriage. I could have saved myself months of misery, plus a lot of money, by just going speed dating. In one evening you have everything. All the thrills of dating. You have good dates and bad dates, you have laughs and you have awkward moments. You have lust, indifference, disappointment. You end up jaded, skint and with regrets. And single. Oh and a bit drunk.

Afterwards you tick yes, no or friends. I ticked yes three whole times.

Try and guess who they were.

And try and guess which one I went on a date with.

Report of which to come soon.

In hopefully less than a month. Alright, alright. What are you, my dad? Get off my BACK.