Hey you! Yeah, you! Ever listened to a pop song?! Yeah! Pop songs! We all love pop songs! Sometimes we turn on the radio and listen to the radio! Don’t we?! We do! Yes! Songs!!!!
Heeeeee! Songs. Something you may have realised during all this radio-listening is that roughly 100% of all songs are about Love. True Love. Lost Love. Unrequited Love. First Love. One Love. Fast Love. Burning Love. Tainted Love. Yeah? Noticed that? YOU HAVE. Shut up.
Think of a song, any song. Got one? No, don’t tell me. It’s about Love isn’t it? YES IT IS, don’t lie. And don’t say something stupid like ‘The Birdie Song’. Because when Mike Rae recorded that touching ballad to his recently deceased wife, so overcome by emotion was he that he couldn’t even pronounce the words properly and was only able to emit little squeaks and honks. It wasn’t even called ‘The Birdie Song’, it was called ‘Oh God, dear God, I loved you so much, I think I may have to literally tear my still beating heart out of my chest using nothing more than the weight of my own grief’. But the record label insisted.
Now listen to me. I have become slightly suspicious that some or all of these songs are spouting dangerous nonsense. If you listen to the pop song then you will reason that it makes Beyonce crazy, Leona Lewis bleed and Bryan Adams a cunt.
Tootle tootle, sing the singers. Bumpity bump, go our hearts.
Only Love can break your heart, Love will tear you apart again, Love is the rhythm and you are the dancer.
This tyranny cannot continue.
‘I wanna know what love is‘, synthed Foreigner. And despite the fact we don’t all contain an internal Casio keyboard, we spootle a clammy and hopelessly sincere agreement to this pathetically facile statement.
Love. Most of us have never felt it, some of us don’t believe in it, but we all want to experience it. You know, just once. To see what it’s like. Like cocaine. Thing is. THING IS. I think it don’t exist. Ah yeah. I said it. It don’t exist. Ahahah! Pcchnnwwrara! (sound of your bubble bursting, BTW - short for ‘by the way’, by the way, Mum).
I refer to Love, not cocaine
But what is Love? If the great philosopher Haddaway didn’t know, then what hope for the rest of us? NONE. J Lo claimed that ‘Love don’t cost a thing’ but she’s a money-grabbing whore, so what are we to think? The Bee Gees enquired as to the depth of your Love, suggesting that it should be measured and monitored with a yardstick, like a river on a floodplain. Personally I’m glad one of them is dead.
And on it goes… These singers waffling sentiments of Love. The Power of Love (in horsepower?), The Caravan of Love (Love is not a gypsy), I’d Do Anything for Love but I Won’t Do That (I assume he means anal). There’s no escape. It’s like death by a thousand Love ballads. I can’t turn on the radio anymore thanks to the knowledge that my horrendous, single, loveless life is about to turned into song.
Ok. So. I’m drifting out towards 30 like an exhausted swimmer in a riptide, so maybe I’m not the best person to judge. After all, most of the music I’ve written would cause the modern under-25 to roll their eyes and say ‘oh my days’ or whatever else it is they do at the moment. So, let’s get modern, y’all. Woooo, whoooosh, we fly into the 21st Century. This is great, this. It’s like the Time Traveller’s Special Nephew.
So. I point you all in the direction of the modern Love song ‘I Wanna Love You’ by the modern rapper man Akon and his modern rapper friend Snoopy Dogg. It’s a touching ballad in which our hero, Akon, sees a young lady on a dance floor and instantly falls in Love with her. It’s like Romeo and Juliet! Only shit! Ok so, Akon really Loves this girl and… hold on, why don‘t I let Akon tell you himself. ‘Baby you got a phatty, the type I’d like to marry’. Aww, shucks, Akon, looks like you’re really smitten. His fascinating friend, Snoop Dogg, can only agree that Akon has found the woman he is going to settle down with - ‘Pussy is pussy and baby you’re pussy for life.’
Quick note to women - you can end men like this. You have the power. STOP HAVING SEX WITH THEM.
Oh, hold on. What’s that, Akon? You’ve got more to say? Ok… ‘I’m lovin’ the way you shake your ass, Bouncin’, got me tippin’ my glass, Normally don’t get caught up too fast.’
HEAR THAT, SWEETHEART? AKON DON’T USUALLY FALL IN LOVE SO QUICKLY BUT BECAUSE YOU’VE SHOOKEN YOUR ARSE IN HIS GENERAL DIRECTION HE THINKS HE MIGHT LOVE YOU! SERIOUSLY. YOU GOT A PHATTY! THE TYPE HE’D LIKE TO MARRY!!!! YOU!!!! WELL FUCKING DONE!!!!!! DO YOU KNOW THAT YOU HAVE THE VOTE?????!?!!?!??!!!!!!
Can I die now?
EIGHTH DATE REPORT - 04/08/09
Oh who the fuck cares anymore?
So I met Kimberley. You know, in a bar. And. Er. Even I’m bored now.
It weren’t a good ‘un. We met. She was a perfectly decent human being. We had a drink. And, er, talked and stuff.
Hmm.
No. That’s it.
We met quite late (for a school night) and I was knackered. I’d been preoccupied at work (like a real human person!) and the last thing I wanted to do was go on a date. So. I went into it with a fairly negative frame of mind.
No amount of Taurine based drinks were going to salvage this situation. Kimberley and I forced conversation for the evening but it was clear after about 77 seconds that a second date was as about likely as the Democratic Republic of Congo calling Brussels and laughing off the Belgian occupation. This isn’t likely, by the way. The Belgians committed all kinds of atrocities and…oh fuck off and read a book if you’re that bothered.
Kimberley. This is for you. I’m sorry. I am truly sorry. This was your first date on Match.com. And it wasn’t great. Was it? No. But I want you to know it won’t always be like this. You’ll meet people you’re compatible with. People who aren’t so exhausted that they fall into deep comas of silence every 4 minutes. People who’ll find you attractive.
I can’t tell you how guilty I felt knowing that this was Kim’s first Match.com date and that I was, single-handedly, destroying her belief in internet dating. Don’t worry, I wanted to say, it’s around the fifth date when you realise once and for all that the whole system is a sham. You’ve got ages.
To be a bad first date for someone is a genuinely unpleasant experience. You feel like the thorns on a rose, a trompe d‘oieul, a liar, an empty pop song.
Sorry, Kim. You deserve better. Don’t give up on the Match. It’s not you, it’s me. Me and You. It’s mainly you.
Ah, look, I give up on Love. You should all give up too. Why don’t we all give up? Together. What’s the worst that could happen? Ok, Foreigner (the band, not all people who aren’t British), you wanna know what Love is?
Here we go. It’s the one emotion we all crave despite the fact we’ve never felt it before. Despite the fact that our emotional base is developed between the ages of two and seven, we all believe that in our adult life we can shove another one, Romantic Love, into our greedy gullets.
Hey hey! And when we’ve done that we’ll look under the bed for the Holy Grail and check if Atlantis hasn’t fallen down the back of the sofa! Grow up. Mr Darcy had financial obligations to meet, Jane Eyre was a munter who wanted children and Romeo and Juliet were prepubescent. Financial reality, biological imperative or childish naivety. Take your pick. T’ain’t Love.
Most of us don’t believe in it, less of us have felt it and I personally see more genuine affection in Debbie Does Dallas than your average romcom. So. Let’s go to war against Love. Until we have the evidence, we won’t give in. We’ll be like Richard Dawkins! That’s right, smug and self-satisfied.
In the meantime, lovely singers, please stop writing songs about it. We’ve got enough. Write about something else. Something tangible. Something we can believe in, something we can all experience. Something that, actually, is all around us. Like cancer or gum disease.
So come on. Let’s celebrate our lack of romantic Love. Let’s embrace it.
People! I implore you! Turn the radio off. Be unLoving. Be unLoved. Be unashamed. Go! Now! Run out into the street and tell someone you don’t Love them. Don’t waste time, life‘s too short! Stop reading this ridiculous blog, pick up the phone, call someone you don’t Love, and tell them that you don’t Love them. Call everyone! If you are in a relationship with someone you don’t Love, find them and tell them you don’t Love them! Even if you’ve told them you Love them. No! Especially if you’ve told them you Love them. What have you got to lose?
Regain your honesty. Wipe the slate clean. And forget about it.
And know this - it’s ok. It really is. Most of us aren’t in Love. Most of us have never been in Love. And most of us never will be.
Seriously. It’s ok.
Say it LOUD.
Say it PROUD.
I don’t Love you.
Not yet.
Tuesday, 25 August 2009
Wednesday, 12 August 2009
We have lost the first of the ebb
SEVENTH DATE REPORT - 03/08/09
The husky, mid-shadows of the East End boozer, a place neatly straddling modern excess and faded decency, was as snug as any other place for our group. The landlord was an affable sort, if a little coarse, and we always found the other clientele too busy in their own business to notice ours.
Between us there was, as I have already said somewhere, the bond of sitting about in pubs. It held our hearts together and made us tolerant of each other’s yarns. Each fellow was good enough in his own way, even Romeo, though he had the habit affecting thoughtful poses (you know, like a prick).
‘And this also’ said Romeo suddenly, ‘has been one of the dark places of the earth.’ He was the only one of us who had ever ‘followed his heart’. The worst that could be said of him was that he was a short, whinging Welsh hedge-botherer. His comment, unremarkable to us, was met with silence. Not even a grunt. After all, we hadn’t the foggiest what he was biffling on about.
He continued without need for invitation. He does that.
‘I was thinking of the very old times, when man first went in search of Love. Man’s course to the centre of the heart, from the caveman’s club to it’s pinnacle, Kenneth Williams’ performance in Carry On up the Khyber, has been littered with casualties. But men still went, oh yes, though they fell like flies.’
We knew this would be the beginning of a great yarn, equally as long as it was impossible. How did we know this? It was his round. ‘I’ll get them in then’ sighed someone, sadly but not really as any one of us would have gladly taken a nail-gun to our perineum at that point to avoid hearing the torrent of bullshit that would soon be filling the pub, slowly but horrifyingly surely, until we were all mere sailboats bobbing about in a wild ocean of utter shit.
‘But these men were nothing but brutes, grabbing what they could, regardless of anyone else’s feelings. And we’ve done the same of course, of course! But what sets us apart from these philanderers is our honesty. Taking advantage of the weakness of others does not constitute strength. The conquest of others is not a pretty thing when you look at it. What redeems it is the idea only. Not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea - something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to…’
He broke off. Of course he did. His pint had arrived.
‘As a youth it captivated me. Mills & Boon, Blind Date, even the insufferable Chris Tarrant vehicle Man-O-Man. From those first stirrings of desire as I became irrationally and confusingly obsessed with Jet from Gladiators, to one failed relationship after another, I kept looking. But I never found it. The heart. The one place I longed to go, the one thing I longed to possess. As I mapped my life there was always one blank, one huge uncharted territory. But as I grew others filled in that blank, charted the maps, replaced my ignorance with scraps of knowledge and half-truths. I swore I’d never go, its reputation now sullied to me.’
‘But I found myself one day sitting in front of my computer, staring, yes staring! like a madman! at a website that had captivated me. I tried to fight against it but it all that desire came flooding back - Jet, late night soft porn on Channel 5, Khyber - and, dash it all!, I couldn’t help myself. The snake had charmed me.’
‘Forgive me, gentlemen, I was young, I still had dreams and, damnit, they promised me the earth; meeting new people, new experiences and excitement and, yes that one that I had so long craved yet fought against - Love. In six months. Yes, fellows, in just 6 months. I should have known it was doomed to failure, fated to be one galling blow after another. One particular incident happened just up the road from here.’
He took a pull on his lager and stared down the long expanse of the eastbound road, towards another over-priced fuckshack that calls itself a pub when it is, in actual fact, a meeting hall for cunts.
None of us looked with him. We had completely lost interest.
‘I met my companion for the journey not too far from here, a small young lady, named Nadine. She was somewhat younger than I but I had been assured that she had charted these waters before and would be a befitting attendant for my quest. Plus, she was quite fit. The road was long and straight and relatively tranquil but as we neared our destination I felt uneasy. It was a gradual change. I don’t know when I first noticed the trousers getting skinnier, or the haircuts becoming more and more asymmetric, but I suddenly found myself, with a jolt, an alien. They had warned me to expect this so I felt some comfort in a familiar sense of uncertainty.’
‘We chatted amiably but I couldn’t help thinking about the words of the website, nagging away. After all I was promised Love. We were a good match. I was to believe that I would find Love on this very journey. My companion, of course, did not know this. Whilst we were, in a sense, aiming for the same destination, we were taking very different routes. I had had my orders. Find Love. As soon as I saw the pub my hackles rose. All around it the natives sprawled, some sitting on the floor, yes!, even in the gutter. They seemed possessed by something entirely unearthly, something I did not, no, could not possess. They had a togetherness, a clan identity and mentality. It chilled me to my core. Most of them looked like Agyness Deyn. Even the men. In fact, especially the men. Love, I had been lead to believe, lay inside. I was to find it. I had gone on far enough, I had been promised, and I was to seek out Love here. Some of the natives had taken to worshipping it, coupling off into duos of androgynous terror, all hips and collars, unaware of the fact they were being tricked. You may be here now, I muttered, already embittered by my surroundings, but mark my words in five years time you’ll all be accountants or regional reps for a telecommunications company. Some of them lolled, eyes glazed with aching cool, others were simply twats.’
‘Yet, emboldened by my companion’s ability to fit in with these curiosities and her touching enthusiasm for the edifice, I strode through the door with renewed vigour. The sight I was greeted with will live with me until my dying day, gentlemen, until my very dying day. Once my eyes had adjusted to the repressive gloom, the room lit waveringly by only four Ikea tea lights, I realised the scene outside was nothing more than a precursor for the desolation and inhumanity that lay inside. The chairs were scattered at seemingly random angles (some were not chairs at all but bean bags - BEAN BAGS), carpets hung from the walls in some kind mockery of normal societal rules, things dangled from the ceiling, it was impossible to tell who was staff and who wasn’t. If this is what Love had done, I had to find it, and quick, before it’s terrible influence could be exerted on any more recent graduates.’
‘We sat at what I suppose was meant to be a table and I ventured, stepping over limbs and on fingers (teehee!), to the bar. Gentlemen, in our days together we have seen some torrid things. Things we shall never reveal to our wives and children. But this bar, seriously, took the fucking biscuit. There wasn’t a soul behind it. Three of the impossibly young ghouls hovered nearby, to one side, waiting, I assumed, for service, like souls stuck in purgatory - only in this case purgatory looked like the menu screen of a Mighty Boosh DVD. I inspected what was on offer. Oh these poor souls! Only one decent beer and selection of spirits that I suppose seemed funny at the time. I stood for what seemed like minutes but was only, I later realised, minutes. Eventually one of the small children in a cheque shirt enquired to my health. Extraordinarily, when I told him I was waiting for the bar staff to return he informed that he and the other two from Skins that had been desperately louching (yes, I’m using that as a verb) to one side of the bar, were, in fact, the bar staff. I responded in the only way that I’ve been trained to under these circumstances. Oh, I said, and ordered my drinks.’
‘If I was to find Love here, I understood, Love must be in a very bad way indeed. In fact, I soon became concerned for it’s welfare. Perhaps Love was not responsible for this debacle, perhaps it had been rode roughshod over, trampled into submission by winkle-pickers and limited edition Converse. I made conversation with my companion but I understood that she too was lost. She, like the rest of them, were in thrall to whatever captivated them. Whenever we made contact with one of the natives, she responded naturally and, occasionally, warmly. At one point I thought I may have incited a deadly riot when I asked if the lights could be turned up a little as I wasn’t sure whether I was actually dating anyone at all. Did Love crave this atmosphere? Did it demand the darkness, the half-light into which we were plunged? I decided to accept it, to let it smother me, let it take me away to another place, like a holiday in Geneva.’
‘I did as they do and tried to think as they think. I tried to imagine they were free-spirited, open-minded, unfettered by the usual conventions of society. Perhaps they had, with or without Love, found another way of being, a better way of living. Was it possible that I had been living in the dark all along and that these people, so strange to me, were actually right? As I embraced what their idea of life, of Love, might be, the closer I got to it. The barrier between my companion and I fell and, even though I couldn’t actually see her, a warmth, engendered by mutual understanding, developed. I had been wrong all along to judge her by her choice of surroundings, her possible choice of friends, the cover of her book. And, hey, maybe my jeans could be a little tighter.’
‘Feeling rather grand that I had opened my mind to new, younger, cooler avenues, I bounced off to the toilet, suspecting that Love did indeed live, and wield power, within these gloomy walls. I even began to think that the wearing of ironic NHS specs was not only acceptable but desirable. But as I weaved my merry way through the building I was grasped by a sudden realisation. Love was not in this public house, this once proud East End local. The new settlers, these invaders, had set up their own law. Not Love, no, but Youth. The New. The Future. This was their Idea. This is what they had set up, what they bowed down before and offered a sacrifice to. The belief in this idea was what redeemed them. Inside the toilet, just in my eye line in the mirror as I peed, someone had written two words on the wall, repeating them twice.’
‘The horror, the horror.’
‘No, seriously, they had. Do you think I started this pathetic pastiche for a laugh? The point being, this was not my place, my heart could never be found here. Love was found wanting, it couldn’t survive here. The excess of cool and studied indifference and mass-produced individualism had made any level playing field for Love impossible. It was a status battle which I could never win. This was her place, not mine. It wasn’t Nadine’s fault. It wasn’t mine either. We went on a completely impossible journey together, the surroundings simply serving to further highlight the gulf between us. The pub was, in fact, a handy architectural marker for how badly suited we were. My efforts to cross this chasm had merely allowed me to look down into it; and as I did the chasm seemed to me to lead to an immense heart of darkness.’
And with that Romeo said his goodbyes, taking his weak, overlong and, frankly, unworkable literary allegory with him.
As we made a start for home later that evening I looked back down the road towards the place that Romeo had spoken of. And it struck me that he was right all along. It is a shit pub.
The husky, mid-shadows of the East End boozer, a place neatly straddling modern excess and faded decency, was as snug as any other place for our group. The landlord was an affable sort, if a little coarse, and we always found the other clientele too busy in their own business to notice ours.
Between us there was, as I have already said somewhere, the bond of sitting about in pubs. It held our hearts together and made us tolerant of each other’s yarns. Each fellow was good enough in his own way, even Romeo, though he had the habit affecting thoughtful poses (you know, like a prick).
‘And this also’ said Romeo suddenly, ‘has been one of the dark places of the earth.’ He was the only one of us who had ever ‘followed his heart’. The worst that could be said of him was that he was a short, whinging Welsh hedge-botherer. His comment, unremarkable to us, was met with silence. Not even a grunt. After all, we hadn’t the foggiest what he was biffling on about.
He continued without need for invitation. He does that.
‘I was thinking of the very old times, when man first went in search of Love. Man’s course to the centre of the heart, from the caveman’s club to it’s pinnacle, Kenneth Williams’ performance in Carry On up the Khyber, has been littered with casualties. But men still went, oh yes, though they fell like flies.’
We knew this would be the beginning of a great yarn, equally as long as it was impossible. How did we know this? It was his round. ‘I’ll get them in then’ sighed someone, sadly but not really as any one of us would have gladly taken a nail-gun to our perineum at that point to avoid hearing the torrent of bullshit that would soon be filling the pub, slowly but horrifyingly surely, until we were all mere sailboats bobbing about in a wild ocean of utter shit.
‘But these men were nothing but brutes, grabbing what they could, regardless of anyone else’s feelings. And we’ve done the same of course, of course! But what sets us apart from these philanderers is our honesty. Taking advantage of the weakness of others does not constitute strength. The conquest of others is not a pretty thing when you look at it. What redeems it is the idea only. Not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea - something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to…’
He broke off. Of course he did. His pint had arrived.
‘As a youth it captivated me. Mills & Boon, Blind Date, even the insufferable Chris Tarrant vehicle Man-O-Man. From those first stirrings of desire as I became irrationally and confusingly obsessed with Jet from Gladiators, to one failed relationship after another, I kept looking. But I never found it. The heart. The one place I longed to go, the one thing I longed to possess. As I mapped my life there was always one blank, one huge uncharted territory. But as I grew others filled in that blank, charted the maps, replaced my ignorance with scraps of knowledge and half-truths. I swore I’d never go, its reputation now sullied to me.’
‘But I found myself one day sitting in front of my computer, staring, yes staring! like a madman! at a website that had captivated me. I tried to fight against it but it all that desire came flooding back - Jet, late night soft porn on Channel 5, Khyber - and, dash it all!, I couldn’t help myself. The snake had charmed me.’
‘Forgive me, gentlemen, I was young, I still had dreams and, damnit, they promised me the earth; meeting new people, new experiences and excitement and, yes that one that I had so long craved yet fought against - Love. In six months. Yes, fellows, in just 6 months. I should have known it was doomed to failure, fated to be one galling blow after another. One particular incident happened just up the road from here.’
He took a pull on his lager and stared down the long expanse of the eastbound road, towards another over-priced fuckshack that calls itself a pub when it is, in actual fact, a meeting hall for cunts.
None of us looked with him. We had completely lost interest.
‘I met my companion for the journey not too far from here, a small young lady, named Nadine. She was somewhat younger than I but I had been assured that she had charted these waters before and would be a befitting attendant for my quest. Plus, she was quite fit. The road was long and straight and relatively tranquil but as we neared our destination I felt uneasy. It was a gradual change. I don’t know when I first noticed the trousers getting skinnier, or the haircuts becoming more and more asymmetric, but I suddenly found myself, with a jolt, an alien. They had warned me to expect this so I felt some comfort in a familiar sense of uncertainty.’
‘We chatted amiably but I couldn’t help thinking about the words of the website, nagging away. After all I was promised Love. We were a good match. I was to believe that I would find Love on this very journey. My companion, of course, did not know this. Whilst we were, in a sense, aiming for the same destination, we were taking very different routes. I had had my orders. Find Love. As soon as I saw the pub my hackles rose. All around it the natives sprawled, some sitting on the floor, yes!, even in the gutter. They seemed possessed by something entirely unearthly, something I did not, no, could not possess. They had a togetherness, a clan identity and mentality. It chilled me to my core. Most of them looked like Agyness Deyn. Even the men. In fact, especially the men. Love, I had been lead to believe, lay inside. I was to find it. I had gone on far enough, I had been promised, and I was to seek out Love here. Some of the natives had taken to worshipping it, coupling off into duos of androgynous terror, all hips and collars, unaware of the fact they were being tricked. You may be here now, I muttered, already embittered by my surroundings, but mark my words in five years time you’ll all be accountants or regional reps for a telecommunications company. Some of them lolled, eyes glazed with aching cool, others were simply twats.’
‘Yet, emboldened by my companion’s ability to fit in with these curiosities and her touching enthusiasm for the edifice, I strode through the door with renewed vigour. The sight I was greeted with will live with me until my dying day, gentlemen, until my very dying day. Once my eyes had adjusted to the repressive gloom, the room lit waveringly by only four Ikea tea lights, I realised the scene outside was nothing more than a precursor for the desolation and inhumanity that lay inside. The chairs were scattered at seemingly random angles (some were not chairs at all but bean bags - BEAN BAGS), carpets hung from the walls in some kind mockery of normal societal rules, things dangled from the ceiling, it was impossible to tell who was staff and who wasn’t. If this is what Love had done, I had to find it, and quick, before it’s terrible influence could be exerted on any more recent graduates.’
‘We sat at what I suppose was meant to be a table and I ventured, stepping over limbs and on fingers (teehee!), to the bar. Gentlemen, in our days together we have seen some torrid things. Things we shall never reveal to our wives and children. But this bar, seriously, took the fucking biscuit. There wasn’t a soul behind it. Three of the impossibly young ghouls hovered nearby, to one side, waiting, I assumed, for service, like souls stuck in purgatory - only in this case purgatory looked like the menu screen of a Mighty Boosh DVD. I inspected what was on offer. Oh these poor souls! Only one decent beer and selection of spirits that I suppose seemed funny at the time. I stood for what seemed like minutes but was only, I later realised, minutes. Eventually one of the small children in a cheque shirt enquired to my health. Extraordinarily, when I told him I was waiting for the bar staff to return he informed that he and the other two from Skins that had been desperately louching (yes, I’m using that as a verb) to one side of the bar, were, in fact, the bar staff. I responded in the only way that I’ve been trained to under these circumstances. Oh, I said, and ordered my drinks.’
‘If I was to find Love here, I understood, Love must be in a very bad way indeed. In fact, I soon became concerned for it’s welfare. Perhaps Love was not responsible for this debacle, perhaps it had been rode roughshod over, trampled into submission by winkle-pickers and limited edition Converse. I made conversation with my companion but I understood that she too was lost. She, like the rest of them, were in thrall to whatever captivated them. Whenever we made contact with one of the natives, she responded naturally and, occasionally, warmly. At one point I thought I may have incited a deadly riot when I asked if the lights could be turned up a little as I wasn’t sure whether I was actually dating anyone at all. Did Love crave this atmosphere? Did it demand the darkness, the half-light into which we were plunged? I decided to accept it, to let it smother me, let it take me away to another place, like a holiday in Geneva.’
‘I did as they do and tried to think as they think. I tried to imagine they were free-spirited, open-minded, unfettered by the usual conventions of society. Perhaps they had, with or without Love, found another way of being, a better way of living. Was it possible that I had been living in the dark all along and that these people, so strange to me, were actually right? As I embraced what their idea of life, of Love, might be, the closer I got to it. The barrier between my companion and I fell and, even though I couldn’t actually see her, a warmth, engendered by mutual understanding, developed. I had been wrong all along to judge her by her choice of surroundings, her possible choice of friends, the cover of her book. And, hey, maybe my jeans could be a little tighter.’
‘Feeling rather grand that I had opened my mind to new, younger, cooler avenues, I bounced off to the toilet, suspecting that Love did indeed live, and wield power, within these gloomy walls. I even began to think that the wearing of ironic NHS specs was not only acceptable but desirable. But as I weaved my merry way through the building I was grasped by a sudden realisation. Love was not in this public house, this once proud East End local. The new settlers, these invaders, had set up their own law. Not Love, no, but Youth. The New. The Future. This was their Idea. This is what they had set up, what they bowed down before and offered a sacrifice to. The belief in this idea was what redeemed them. Inside the toilet, just in my eye line in the mirror as I peed, someone had written two words on the wall, repeating them twice.’
‘The horror, the horror.’
‘No, seriously, they had. Do you think I started this pathetic pastiche for a laugh? The point being, this was not my place, my heart could never be found here. Love was found wanting, it couldn’t survive here. The excess of cool and studied indifference and mass-produced individualism had made any level playing field for Love impossible. It was a status battle which I could never win. This was her place, not mine. It wasn’t Nadine’s fault. It wasn’t mine either. We went on a completely impossible journey together, the surroundings simply serving to further highlight the gulf between us. The pub was, in fact, a handy architectural marker for how badly suited we were. My efforts to cross this chasm had merely allowed me to look down into it; and as I did the chasm seemed to me to lead to an immense heart of darkness.’
And with that Romeo said his goodbyes, taking his weak, overlong and, frankly, unworkable literary allegory with him.
As we made a start for home later that evening I looked back down the road towards the place that Romeo had spoken of. And it struck me that he was right all along. It is a shit pub.
Sunday, 2 August 2009
Romeo is Bleeding (whinging again)
I have written an open letter to Match.com to help fill you in on how I’m feeling, nearly midway through my quest to find Love. A quest, incidentally, I am beginning to realise is a little bit like trying to stroke a moth’s wings. However, having read it back I realise this letter is nothing more than the fist you bite to choke back the sobs.
Dear Match.com,
Please don’t take this the wrong way but I suspect you may be ruining my life.
Like the depressed commuter who feels most alone on the packed rush hour tube, I am suffering something of an allergic reaction to that which I crave. This dating business is not only making me believe that Love is a club I’m not allowed to join but it’s also grinding my confidence down into a fine powder to be sold on the Chinese black market as a cure for children with ADHD. Every date (even the good ones) is like a cannonball to the flimsy bow of my ego.
Rejecting someone is nearly as depressing as being rejected (though the frightening psychological scars fade euphorically quickly) and that’s what Match.com is. One long marathon (as opposed to, you know, those short marathons) of rejection. If it’s not you then it’s them, rejecting away bafflingly like a hungry baby who's bored of chewing. When you walk down the street you can be fairly certain that 99% of the people trundling about would have no romantic interest in you but you are saved the indignity of having to have this confirmed. Well, thanks to you, Mr and Mrs Match, this nightmare can become the bucket of cold water that greets you each and every day.
It’s starting to affect my everyday life. I admit that I always thought the chances of finding Love using your services were slim. But I still held out a belief that Love and I would bump into one and other at some point in my turgid life. But. No more. You’ve kicked me to such a low ebb that I’m fairly certain that I will spend the rest of my life with no romantic interludes or physical affection at all. Not even a drunken fumble in a dark disco.
To put it another way - being involved in Match.com is similar to being intravenously fed a Richard Curtis film 24 hours a day. Look! It shrieks. Look at all this Love! Look at all this happiness. Look at all these people who are happy because they have found Love. Love exists! It’s real, you can touch it, you can taste it. Gnam. You can have it. And for a while this is an experience of giddy joy and elation. But the longer it goes on the louder that nagging voice at the back of your head gets. ‘Hmm’ it twitches, ‘It seems Love really is all around us. And. Yet. Here. You. Are’
And yet.
In a country overflowing with Love, in a city filled with millions of lonely hearts, in a world of quickening pulses, of furtive glances, of stolen kisses, I remain unwillingly, intractably and sickeningly unloved and unloving.
The worst part about this is meeting someone outside of your website who I am interested in. Having to think about dating people you’re not that interested in all the time, meeting someone you (naturally, organically, healthily) are attracted to pulls the rug from under your feet. I am now so confused by it all I can’t make sense of real people anymore. I’ve been rejected on your website so many times that I now automatically assume that all women find me faintly repulsive.
I am tired. Can I have my Love now please? I can’t take three more months of this.
Yours, as ever
Romeo
Chin up. You’ve got three new dates in the next few days.
Ah yeah.
Settle down, you lot. I’ll get funny again next week.
Dear Match.com,
Please don’t take this the wrong way but I suspect you may be ruining my life.
Like the depressed commuter who feels most alone on the packed rush hour tube, I am suffering something of an allergic reaction to that which I crave. This dating business is not only making me believe that Love is a club I’m not allowed to join but it’s also grinding my confidence down into a fine powder to be sold on the Chinese black market as a cure for children with ADHD. Every date (even the good ones) is like a cannonball to the flimsy bow of my ego.
Rejecting someone is nearly as depressing as being rejected (though the frightening psychological scars fade euphorically quickly) and that’s what Match.com is. One long marathon (as opposed to, you know, those short marathons) of rejection. If it’s not you then it’s them, rejecting away bafflingly like a hungry baby who's bored of chewing. When you walk down the street you can be fairly certain that 99% of the people trundling about would have no romantic interest in you but you are saved the indignity of having to have this confirmed. Well, thanks to you, Mr and Mrs Match, this nightmare can become the bucket of cold water that greets you each and every day.
It’s starting to affect my everyday life. I admit that I always thought the chances of finding Love using your services were slim. But I still held out a belief that Love and I would bump into one and other at some point in my turgid life. But. No more. You’ve kicked me to such a low ebb that I’m fairly certain that I will spend the rest of my life with no romantic interludes or physical affection at all. Not even a drunken fumble in a dark disco.
To put it another way - being involved in Match.com is similar to being intravenously fed a Richard Curtis film 24 hours a day. Look! It shrieks. Look at all this Love! Look at all this happiness. Look at all these people who are happy because they have found Love. Love exists! It’s real, you can touch it, you can taste it. Gnam. You can have it. And for a while this is an experience of giddy joy and elation. But the longer it goes on the louder that nagging voice at the back of your head gets. ‘Hmm’ it twitches, ‘It seems Love really is all around us. And. Yet. Here. You. Are’
And yet.
In a country overflowing with Love, in a city filled with millions of lonely hearts, in a world of quickening pulses, of furtive glances, of stolen kisses, I remain unwillingly, intractably and sickeningly unloved and unloving.
The worst part about this is meeting someone outside of your website who I am interested in. Having to think about dating people you’re not that interested in all the time, meeting someone you (naturally, organically, healthily) are attracted to pulls the rug from under your feet. I am now so confused by it all I can’t make sense of real people anymore. I’ve been rejected on your website so many times that I now automatically assume that all women find me faintly repulsive.
I am tired. Can I have my Love now please? I can’t take three more months of this.
Yours, as ever
Romeo
Chin up. You’ve got three new dates in the next few days.
Ah yeah.
Settle down, you lot. I’ll get funny again next week.
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
Rumbled
It was always going to happen at some point.
Rumbled.
Was the subject line of an email I received last night. I didn't need to open it to understand its contents.
So. Date report No.6 has not been written by me. Oh no. No no no.
The least I could do for the unmasker of the phantom Match.com dater is give her the privilege of thundering me a great dose of my own unpleasant medicine. And I must having the tables turned is not a nice experience. But hey ho.
I haven't changed a word of her report, I haven't omitted a single thing, I haven't added or embellished. I have split it up into nice, bitesize paragraphs though. Sorry.
And, for I wish not to muddy the waters, all I will say in response to the following is this - my rudeboy accent was in no way exaggerated. It was awesome. Aiight?
SIXTH DATE REPORT - 19/07/09
'Match.com. It attempts to help you sort the wheat from the chaffing chaff. Makes for more auspicious dating. You find people with similar interests. I, for example, have a love for the theatre and will look twice at a 'wink' or an email if they too share this as an interest. But beware, dum dum duuuuuuuuuuuum! (dramatic music), just you beware potential dating bloggers that the next person you meet might, let's say, share a mutual friend on the theatre scene. They might know someone who knows someone who MIGHT just rumble you and your blog.
Yes avid readers, this has been the fate of young 'Romeo'. I was said date and 'Romeo' has humbly allowed me to write this entry for him....I think he's a little scared. I think he thinks I'm going to mention the fact that he talked in an exaggerated rudeboy accent for at LEAST two thirds of the date. I won't.
So, we met at Latitude Festival and here is my account.
In our brief email prelude whence we discovered that we were to spend the weekend in a the same field in Southwold, 'Romeo' had suggested we;
"could meet late on in the weekend (to keep awkward bumping-into incidents to a minimum if it all goes horrifically wrong)."
'Ok', I thought, 'possibly a tad cynical but I'll forget the pressure of it for a while and I will have plenty of really great stuff to talk about then'. Friends there are suggesting it would have been better to meet earlier on because, lets face it, I will look and smell better. I think it's pretty brave to go on a date having not showered for 3 days. Yep.
Or stupid. But it's happening.
We meet on the Sunday. I feel like a pig shat in my head, by all accounts he does too. He asks how he will recognise me. I assure him that he will not be able to miss me then proceed to sit timidly on a log, in the woods, pretending to watch some theatre that I've dragged my friends to in the rain. We eventually work out where the other sodden person is and I proceed to look passable in a kagool. Hmmm.
He brings a friend. Lets call him Mercutio. Mercutio works out he has seen me on stage in London in a play. We talk about this and discover we've a mutual friend. (The mutual friend is the little birdie that later told me about this blog). All get on extremely well with soggy beer cups and even soggier grey matter. This is great! But, I'm nervous and my friends do a lot of the talking....Now, although I'm an actress this does, contrary to most of the general population's belief, allow me to be shy in certain circumstances, especially upon meeting strangers in the woods! I'm fine with this. Romeo is talkative and confident. I try hard to feel comfortable and conversationally on fire! despite the fact that I am on a date having not showered for some time, supporting an excruciating hangover, with four friends, in a gale. He has a contagious laugh. The presence of my friends and his adds to my need to impress. The need to impress suppresses me. I remember a lesson at drama school - the more you try to be interesting and funny, the less you will be.
But this is not a performance, this is me trying to be me. I wish we had met alone. But for the rest of the evening we hung out as new group of festival friends. It got drunker, we laughed a lot and I genuinely had a great time. I will aim to continue this friendship as I'm finding this all pretty darn amusing. My first blog - see what rich experiences online dating can help you stumble into....you bugger!
The End'
Rumbled.
Was the subject line of an email I received last night. I didn't need to open it to understand its contents.
So. Date report No.6 has not been written by me. Oh no. No no no.
The least I could do for the unmasker of the phantom Match.com dater is give her the privilege of thundering me a great dose of my own unpleasant medicine. And I must having the tables turned is not a nice experience. But hey ho.
I haven't changed a word of her report, I haven't omitted a single thing, I haven't added or embellished. I have split it up into nice, bitesize paragraphs though. Sorry.
And, for I wish not to muddy the waters, all I will say in response to the following is this - my rudeboy accent was in no way exaggerated. It was awesome. Aiight?
SIXTH DATE REPORT - 19/07/09
'Match.com. It attempts to help you sort the wheat from the chaffing chaff. Makes for more auspicious dating. You find people with similar interests. I, for example, have a love for the theatre and will look twice at a 'wink' or an email if they too share this as an interest. But beware, dum dum duuuuuuuuuuuum! (dramatic music), just you beware potential dating bloggers that the next person you meet might, let's say, share a mutual friend on the theatre scene. They might know someone who knows someone who MIGHT just rumble you and your blog.
Yes avid readers, this has been the fate of young 'Romeo'. I was said date and 'Romeo' has humbly allowed me to write this entry for him....I think he's a little scared. I think he thinks I'm going to mention the fact that he talked in an exaggerated rudeboy accent for at LEAST two thirds of the date. I won't.
So, we met at Latitude Festival and here is my account.
In our brief email prelude whence we discovered that we were to spend the weekend in a the same field in Southwold, 'Romeo' had suggested we;
"could meet late on in the weekend (to keep awkward bumping-into incidents to a minimum if it all goes horrifically wrong)."
'Ok', I thought, 'possibly a tad cynical but I'll forget the pressure of it for a while and I will have plenty of really great stuff to talk about then'. Friends there are suggesting it would have been better to meet earlier on because, lets face it, I will look and smell better. I think it's pretty brave to go on a date having not showered for 3 days. Yep.
Or stupid. But it's happening.
We meet on the Sunday. I feel like a pig shat in my head, by all accounts he does too. He asks how he will recognise me. I assure him that he will not be able to miss me then proceed to sit timidly on a log, in the woods, pretending to watch some theatre that I've dragged my friends to in the rain. We eventually work out where the other sodden person is and I proceed to look passable in a kagool. Hmmm.
He brings a friend. Lets call him Mercutio. Mercutio works out he has seen me on stage in London in a play. We talk about this and discover we've a mutual friend. (The mutual friend is the little birdie that later told me about this blog). All get on extremely well with soggy beer cups and even soggier grey matter. This is great! But, I'm nervous and my friends do a lot of the talking....Now, although I'm an actress this does, contrary to most of the general population's belief, allow me to be shy in certain circumstances, especially upon meeting strangers in the woods! I'm fine with this. Romeo is talkative and confident. I try hard to feel comfortable and conversationally on fire! despite the fact that I am on a date having not showered for some time, supporting an excruciating hangover, with four friends, in a gale. He has a contagious laugh. The presence of my friends and his adds to my need to impress. The need to impress suppresses me. I remember a lesson at drama school - the more you try to be interesting and funny, the less you will be.
But this is not a performance, this is me trying to be me. I wish we had met alone. But for the rest of the evening we hung out as new group of festival friends. It got drunker, we laughed a lot and I genuinely had a great time. I will aim to continue this friendship as I'm finding this all pretty darn amusing. My first blog - see what rich experiences online dating can help you stumble into....you bugger!
The End'
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
Loving for the weekend
Just a quickie as I’m naffing off to Latitude festival in the morning to roll about in mud and pretend to be relaxed for four days despite the fact that all I’ll be thinking about is the pikey that is probably be robbing/pissing on my tent. As thousands of free spirits around me soak up the bohemian atmosphere and revel in the cultural offerings all I will be able to do is fret myself into coma over the second test at Lord‘s (cricket, for the uninitiated) and slowly but surely develop irritable bowel syndrome due to the constant fear about how much money I’m spending and the continual diet of lager and super noodles. I;m already starting to worry about Tuesday, when I go back to work. Part of wishes this festival was over already so I could just get the work-based misery over. Oh christ, I may as well stay at home. I’ve got Sky Sports. Fuck culture. Seriously, I would have far more fun at home with no company other than a packet of Kettle chips, The Times and a televised projection of Nasser Hussein frightening bird-like face.
Why can’t I just relax?
I’ll tell you WHY. Because I am a dating HOUND hot on the scent of LOVE. It’s as if Love was nothing more than a terrified fox, tearing it’s way through the knotty wood of Life, as I, the frenzied bloodhound of Romance, track it down with all the mercy of a Nazi concentration camp guard with Asperger‘s, eventually tearing it’s guts out as if the meaning of life itself was buried somewhere deep in it‘s vertebral column, as it squeaks and twitches and bleeds and bleeds and bleeds.
So fuck you, Love, I’m coming to get you. Like it or not.
So the old batch are out (I’m losing 2-3 in rejections, incidentally) and the new recruits are lined up. There’ll be a few dates over the next 2-3 weeks. This has no immediate impact on your life but it means for me that I need to wash some clothes (but not my sheets, not yet) and practice not being a total spaz in front of women.
Sorry, what’s that, mate? Does that mean you won’t be able to have a date over the weekend? Oh ye of little faith, fat chops. I’ve only gone and lined one up for Latitude, ain’t I? First date at a festival. Lovely stuff. This means I’ve got another fucking thing to worry about this weekend. Great.
Yeah thanks, everyone, I’m off to have FUN now.
Bye bye bye bye bye and bye.
Why can’t I just relax?
I’ll tell you WHY. Because I am a dating HOUND hot on the scent of LOVE. It’s as if Love was nothing more than a terrified fox, tearing it’s way through the knotty wood of Life, as I, the frenzied bloodhound of Romance, track it down with all the mercy of a Nazi concentration camp guard with Asperger‘s, eventually tearing it’s guts out as if the meaning of life itself was buried somewhere deep in it‘s vertebral column, as it squeaks and twitches and bleeds and bleeds and bleeds.
So fuck you, Love, I’m coming to get you. Like it or not.
So the old batch are out (I’m losing 2-3 in rejections, incidentally) and the new recruits are lined up. There’ll be a few dates over the next 2-3 weeks. This has no immediate impact on your life but it means for me that I need to wash some clothes (but not my sheets, not yet) and practice not being a total spaz in front of women.
Sorry, what’s that, mate? Does that mean you won’t be able to have a date over the weekend? Oh ye of little faith, fat chops. I’ve only gone and lined one up for Latitude, ain’t I? First date at a festival. Lovely stuff. This means I’ve got another fucking thing to worry about this weekend. Great.
Yeah thanks, everyone, I’m off to have FUN now.
Bye bye bye bye bye and bye.
Saturday, 11 July 2009
Short, angry man seeks, oh god, anyone now to be honest
Things are drying up.
That’s how it is. I’m struggling. The people I have dated seem to have lost interest and my luck in securing new dates has all but run out. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. But clearly it’s the same thing I’ve been doing for the previous 26 years that has lead to my permanent state of howling loneliness.
But FEAR NOT, you. This is terrible news for Love but great news for your horrible judging eyes, as this means I am going to have to set my sights a lot lower and start dating some horrors. Speaking of which, see below for the latest date report. Hoo hah.
But before you do that, a quick word…
There is something that is starting to annoy me more than the literary taste of the ladies of Match.com. And that is the blatant and, frankly, criminal heightism that is going on. Not only on the venerable dating website I have joined, the broken basket into which I am firmly chucking all my Love eggs, but also in general everyday life.
Now. I am not a tall man. I admit this. And, perhaps, like other diminutive chaps in history I have a complex when it comes to this (the ‘short man syndrome’ is something which is said to have lead people to perform unspeakable acts - think Hitler, Mussolini, Cruise). But I am getting sick and tired of looking at someone’s profile, thinking ‘ooh, they seem nice’, then scrolling down to see that they will only date someone above 5’10” or 6’. It happens. And it happens a lot.
Many women I know will only date someone taller than them. God forbid that they should be seen with a man a couple of inches shorter. WHAT WOULD PEOPLE SAY? They’d probably spit on you. I’m not kidding, I have seen dozens of profiles that read like their written by a beautiful angel until the final paragraph which usually blurts something like…
‘Oh yeah, one more thing. Sorry, I don’t want to seem really superficial, and I know this sounds really bad, but you really have to be over 6 foot, cos I really like wearing my heels!’
Well, don’t worry, missie. You don’t seem really superficial, you just seem like a cunt. And really superficial. If a man went about saying he’d only a date a woman with a DD cup and the pert arse of a 15 year old Brazilian table dancer, he would, rightfully, be pilloried. But women can trot about (in their fucking 4 inch heels) merrily proclaiming that it’s ‘tall men only’, as if men under 5’9” are some kind of unpalatable untermenschen.
Honestly, it’s only because during your formative years, when you were an ickle girl, your father was significantly taller than you. At least us men have the good grace to accept the reason that we’re obsessed with tits is because we were breast-fed.
Pfffrrrr. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em (and you can’t beat women anymore, apparently it’s ‘not cool’ - I know, I KNOW). So, in response to this body fascism I’m changing the final paragraph of my profile…
‘Oh yeah, one more thing. Sorry, I don’t want to seem really superficial, and I know this sounds really bad, but you really must look identical in every small way to my ex-girlfriend because I really like to close my eyes and pretend she’s still with me and I’m getting tired of bumping into things. If I could call you by her name as well, that’d be a bonus. No timewasters.’
Sigh.
FIFTH DATE REPORT - 02/07/09
What can be done in ten years? The world can become unrecognisable. Empires can crumble. Legends can be created. You could change history. Or you could spend that time getting a ten year head start on someone, growing and living and that, then spend another 25 years growing and living a bit more, whilst the other person also grows and lives a bit too, and then date them. You could do that. Cheryl did.
So. A ten year age gap. That’s fine, right? Nothing wrong there. Look at all the famous couples with a large age gap. Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones. Demi Moore and Ashton Kutchner. Jerry Lee Lewis and his cousin. All beautiful romances.
Why, even one of my flock of sisters has married a man 13 years her senior, so what’s a mere decade when it comes to Love?
I was nervous. How could I, a man in is mid-20s who acts like he’s in his teens and dresses like he’s 7, impress a well-travelled, cosmopolitan 35 year old like Cheryl? I was also worried that we would want wildly different things. A single 35 year old woman is thinking of one thing and one thing only. A single 26 year old man is thinking of one thing and one thing only. They both involve the same body parts and, more or less, the same actions. But significantly different long term results.
Plus, what would we talk about? Would she want to reminisce about the Great War? Or describe how she felt when she saw her first ‘talkie’? Perhaps she would go on long, rambling monologues about ‘the good old days’. I bought some Werther’s Originals, just in case.
This isn’t quite fair. From our email exchanges it was clear that we had a lot in common, that she was not a biological clock-watcher and that it would interesting to meet her. In fact, I was very excited about meeting Cheryl. We really seemed to connect and our personalities, over email, complimented each other’s perfectly. This could be the one, I thought. So soon!
We met. The what-do-you-do-when-you-meet-someone saga continued. Desperately trying to learn from my previous blunders I decided confidence was the order of the day. There is, however, a big difference between being confident and being just plain weird. Hello, we said. We leaned in, kiss on the cheek. Perfect. Great work. She leaned for a second kiss on the other cheek. I decided to take charge. ‘No’, I said, ‘Just the one.’
Cheryl did not like this. Not one little bit. Her face resembled that of a foreign ambassador fielding cultural questions from Prince Philip.
I tried to lighten the atmosphere. ‘Maybe later’, I said.
She did not like this. Her face resembled that of Prince Philip asking questions to some dusky chap in a hat who talked funny.
My confidence waned, drooped. I became a burbling idiot. On the way to the bar I think I asked her how she was about eight separate times. She dutifully answered each time, perhaps reasoning that I had severe learning difficulties and should be treated with kindness.
At this point I should mention that our email exchanges had been spectacularly good. Witty, erudite, philosophical. I was tempted to suggest we simply became penpals, instead of meeting up at all, so good was our written relationship. So, each of us was expecting someone witty, erudite and philosophical. Oh cruel world. Instead, she got Wurzel Gummidge and I got someone who has read far too many self-help books. We were as incompatible in real life as we were compatible in writing.
And, to be quite fair, we were both stunned. The wine went down very quickly as we furiously drank to get over the shock. It wasn’t simply the age difference (although it was palpably clear we were at severely different stages of our lives), we just didn’t really get on.
I don’t mind people who are introspective, who analyse themselves, who have buckets of self-knowledge. But I don’t really want to hear about it. All about it. She knew exactly who she was, exactly what she wanted from life, exactly where she was going. She used the word ‘exactly’ like a dagger, punctuating each of her points with a little stab to the ribs.
I tried to move the conversation onto lighter topics. So I went into an amusing, and well-rehearsed, monologue about the ridiculous paranormal investigators I encounter regularly in my job. I ridiculed their silly little ways, I skilfully dissected their hopes and beliefs, I stood open mouthed as she told me how she firmly believes in the paranormal.
Backtracking at an alarming rate, I explained ‘oh no, not you, I mean, that’s fine, what you said, no problem with that, it’s just these guys seriously, I mean, yeah, paranormal, yeah, we all believe that, naturally, it’s just these guys are too much, not you, no no, I didn’t mean people like you, nope.’ She didn’t buy it.
The evening ended with a collective shrug. I felt like consoling poor Cheryl. For starters, I knew exactly how she felt. I was as disappointed as she was. ‘I’m sorry’ I should have said, ‘I’m rubbish, aren’t I? I know. You’re a bit rubbish too. Good luck with the search.’ What I said was, ‘Thanks for a lovely evening, I’ll see you again soon.’ She nodded. She knew I didn’t mean it. She was glad I didn’t mean it. I’ve never seen a nod that looked more like a sorry shake of the head in my life. We went our separate ways into the London night, each wondering where that witty, erudite, philosophical person we had been emailing had got to.
Sigh.
That’s how it is. I’m struggling. The people I have dated seem to have lost interest and my luck in securing new dates has all but run out. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. But clearly it’s the same thing I’ve been doing for the previous 26 years that has lead to my permanent state of howling loneliness.
But FEAR NOT, you. This is terrible news for Love but great news for your horrible judging eyes, as this means I am going to have to set my sights a lot lower and start dating some horrors. Speaking of which, see below for the latest date report. Hoo hah.
But before you do that, a quick word…
There is something that is starting to annoy me more than the literary taste of the ladies of Match.com. And that is the blatant and, frankly, criminal heightism that is going on. Not only on the venerable dating website I have joined, the broken basket into which I am firmly chucking all my Love eggs, but also in general everyday life.
Now. I am not a tall man. I admit this. And, perhaps, like other diminutive chaps in history I have a complex when it comes to this (the ‘short man syndrome’ is something which is said to have lead people to perform unspeakable acts - think Hitler, Mussolini, Cruise). But I am getting sick and tired of looking at someone’s profile, thinking ‘ooh, they seem nice’, then scrolling down to see that they will only date someone above 5’10” or 6’. It happens. And it happens a lot.
Many women I know will only date someone taller than them. God forbid that they should be seen with a man a couple of inches shorter. WHAT WOULD PEOPLE SAY? They’d probably spit on you. I’m not kidding, I have seen dozens of profiles that read like their written by a beautiful angel until the final paragraph which usually blurts something like…
‘Oh yeah, one more thing. Sorry, I don’t want to seem really superficial, and I know this sounds really bad, but you really have to be over 6 foot, cos I really like wearing my heels!’
Well, don’t worry, missie. You don’t seem really superficial, you just seem like a cunt. And really superficial. If a man went about saying he’d only a date a woman with a DD cup and the pert arse of a 15 year old Brazilian table dancer, he would, rightfully, be pilloried. But women can trot about (in their fucking 4 inch heels) merrily proclaiming that it’s ‘tall men only’, as if men under 5’9” are some kind of unpalatable untermenschen.
Honestly, it’s only because during your formative years, when you were an ickle girl, your father was significantly taller than you. At least us men have the good grace to accept the reason that we’re obsessed with tits is because we were breast-fed.
Pfffrrrr. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em (and you can’t beat women anymore, apparently it’s ‘not cool’ - I know, I KNOW). So, in response to this body fascism I’m changing the final paragraph of my profile…
‘Oh yeah, one more thing. Sorry, I don’t want to seem really superficial, and I know this sounds really bad, but you really must look identical in every small way to my ex-girlfriend because I really like to close my eyes and pretend she’s still with me and I’m getting tired of bumping into things. If I could call you by her name as well, that’d be a bonus. No timewasters.’
Sigh.
FIFTH DATE REPORT - 02/07/09
What can be done in ten years? The world can become unrecognisable. Empires can crumble. Legends can be created. You could change history. Or you could spend that time getting a ten year head start on someone, growing and living and that, then spend another 25 years growing and living a bit more, whilst the other person also grows and lives a bit too, and then date them. You could do that. Cheryl did.
So. A ten year age gap. That’s fine, right? Nothing wrong there. Look at all the famous couples with a large age gap. Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones. Demi Moore and Ashton Kutchner. Jerry Lee Lewis and his cousin. All beautiful romances.
Why, even one of my flock of sisters has married a man 13 years her senior, so what’s a mere decade when it comes to Love?
I was nervous. How could I, a man in is mid-20s who acts like he’s in his teens and dresses like he’s 7, impress a well-travelled, cosmopolitan 35 year old like Cheryl? I was also worried that we would want wildly different things. A single 35 year old woman is thinking of one thing and one thing only. A single 26 year old man is thinking of one thing and one thing only. They both involve the same body parts and, more or less, the same actions. But significantly different long term results.
Plus, what would we talk about? Would she want to reminisce about the Great War? Or describe how she felt when she saw her first ‘talkie’? Perhaps she would go on long, rambling monologues about ‘the good old days’. I bought some Werther’s Originals, just in case.
This isn’t quite fair. From our email exchanges it was clear that we had a lot in common, that she was not a biological clock-watcher and that it would interesting to meet her. In fact, I was very excited about meeting Cheryl. We really seemed to connect and our personalities, over email, complimented each other’s perfectly. This could be the one, I thought. So soon!
We met. The what-do-you-do-when-you-meet-someone saga continued. Desperately trying to learn from my previous blunders I decided confidence was the order of the day. There is, however, a big difference between being confident and being just plain weird. Hello, we said. We leaned in, kiss on the cheek. Perfect. Great work. She leaned for a second kiss on the other cheek. I decided to take charge. ‘No’, I said, ‘Just the one.’
Cheryl did not like this. Not one little bit. Her face resembled that of a foreign ambassador fielding cultural questions from Prince Philip.
I tried to lighten the atmosphere. ‘Maybe later’, I said.
She did not like this. Her face resembled that of Prince Philip asking questions to some dusky chap in a hat who talked funny.
My confidence waned, drooped. I became a burbling idiot. On the way to the bar I think I asked her how she was about eight separate times. She dutifully answered each time, perhaps reasoning that I had severe learning difficulties and should be treated with kindness.
At this point I should mention that our email exchanges had been spectacularly good. Witty, erudite, philosophical. I was tempted to suggest we simply became penpals, instead of meeting up at all, so good was our written relationship. So, each of us was expecting someone witty, erudite and philosophical. Oh cruel world. Instead, she got Wurzel Gummidge and I got someone who has read far too many self-help books. We were as incompatible in real life as we were compatible in writing.
And, to be quite fair, we were both stunned. The wine went down very quickly as we furiously drank to get over the shock. It wasn’t simply the age difference (although it was palpably clear we were at severely different stages of our lives), we just didn’t really get on.
I don’t mind people who are introspective, who analyse themselves, who have buckets of self-knowledge. But I don’t really want to hear about it. All about it. She knew exactly who she was, exactly what she wanted from life, exactly where she was going. She used the word ‘exactly’ like a dagger, punctuating each of her points with a little stab to the ribs.
I tried to move the conversation onto lighter topics. So I went into an amusing, and well-rehearsed, monologue about the ridiculous paranormal investigators I encounter regularly in my job. I ridiculed their silly little ways, I skilfully dissected their hopes and beliefs, I stood open mouthed as she told me how she firmly believes in the paranormal.
Backtracking at an alarming rate, I explained ‘oh no, not you, I mean, that’s fine, what you said, no problem with that, it’s just these guys seriously, I mean, yeah, paranormal, yeah, we all believe that, naturally, it’s just these guys are too much, not you, no no, I didn’t mean people like you, nope.’ She didn’t buy it.
The evening ended with a collective shrug. I felt like consoling poor Cheryl. For starters, I knew exactly how she felt. I was as disappointed as she was. ‘I’m sorry’ I should have said, ‘I’m rubbish, aren’t I? I know. You’re a bit rubbish too. Good luck with the search.’ What I said was, ‘Thanks for a lovely evening, I’ll see you again soon.’ She nodded. She knew I didn’t mean it. She was glad I didn’t mean it. I’ve never seen a nod that looked more like a sorry shake of the head in my life. We went our separate ways into the London night, each wondering where that witty, erudite, philosophical person we had been emailing had got to.
Sigh.
Monday, 6 July 2009
For Sale: Love - bit battered, one wreckless owner, less mileage than I'd hoped for
You know those little Chinese finger traps? You stick your finger in and the harder you pull the tighter it gets? The only way to get it off is to completely relax. But your instinct is to panic and keep pulling. The more you pull, the less chance you have of getting the thing off. In the end, filled with a unique sense of embarrassment and a niggling fear that you’ll have to wear the stupid contraption forever - like some kind of massive floppy finger extension, rendering you partially disabled and a complete laughing stock - you wrench the thing off, breaking it forevermore.
Trying to find Love in a limited time period is very much the same. With every date I go on I seem to get further away.
Confucius said - 'It is hard to find a black cat in a dark room, especially when the cat is not even there.'
I can't even make a joke about this. This so accurately and profoundly sums up how I currently feel about Love that you're lucky I can still type, so overwhelmed am I.
I think I’ve broken Love. Sorry everyone. I know how much you were looking forward to it.
The point is, I find this all very unfair. Because I have been following the accepted advice for years - relax, don’t look for it, don’t force it and you’ll find it. When you least expect it. Like when you’re in the bath or breaking the news to a 4 year old boy that Daddy won’t be coming back from his holiday in Afghanistan. Suddenly love will leap out at you like Jeremy Beadle, possibly wearing a novelty costume. And a little withered hand.
Well. WELL. I have sat here. I have waited. Patiently. I put all thoughts of finding Love out of my mind. I tootled about in my ivory tower as everyone I knew embraced Love with a big, warm sigh. No matter, I said, when I least expect it, it’ll happen.
SO WHERE ARE YOU? Are you dead or something? Oh that would just be my luck. That's probably it, isn't it? The love of my life probably died of leukemia when she was eight. 'Cos we've only got one each.
So. Waiting patiently hasn’t worked. Yet actively searching for it seems to be burying it deeper than ever.
Which simply leads me to the conclusion that either a) I am incapable of love, or b) I am incapable of being loved, or c) the whole love thing was made up in order to sell estate cars and riverside condos and that the rest of you are lying to me or idiots.
My head says a), my heart says b). I’ve ignored both and am plumping for c). In your meaty faces, internal organs.
Anyhow. Since we last talked, I’ve been on two dates. One report below, the other to follow in the next couple of days. And, believe me, it’ll be worth the wait. Oh boy.
GERI’S SECOND DATE - 30/06/09
Ah ha. The second second date. The last one didn’t go fabulously, if you recall. Surely I will have learned from my experience? If there’s one thing you nice people have learned from this blog, it’s that I am incapable of learning from my own, or other people’s, mistakes.
So. Geri. Remember her? Thought that I looked like Wilf from The Bash Street Kids and whom I didn’t so much engage in conversation with but rather subjected her to, and received in return, the vocal equivalent of a sustained and fascinatingly violent assault. We ended the evening like two perfectly matched prize-fighters, trading exhausted swings, praying the other would just fall their knees and succumb before one of us actually died. Lots of talking. Not a lot of listening.
I vowed that this time things would be different.
I also once vowed to stop playing Championship Manager. But. Once you’ve got Torquay United to a Champions League final, quitting would only make all those hours perfecting formations and scouting the Belgian lower leagues seem like a tragic waste. Plus in real life I’m not a professional football manager. In Championship Manager, I am.
People call it ‘verbal diarrhoea’. However, to suggest that it was liquid shit that flowed from my mouth all evening would be very generous. Very generous indeed.
I get ahead of myself. What I should first mention is that it was a really hot day. Really hot. A scorcher. Glorious stuff. And I wasn’t meeting her until 8. And there’s this pub near my work with a great little beer garden. And my colleague suggested we have a drink after work (it may or may not have been my suggestion).
Now. You’d think that turning up late and a little bit drunk (empty stomach, that’s my excuse) for a date would be a bad thing. But given the circumstances, I think I covered rather well. It may have even worked in my favour.
At first I even listened (yes!) as she talked words at me. I asked thoughtful questions, allowing her to elaborate on her chosen subjects. However, once we had relocated ourselves to a delightful little spot by the river I suddenly realised, with a jolt, that I hadn’t heard quite enough of my favourite sound that evening. My own voice.
Plus, with the sun going down over London, it was the perfect setting for my lengthy pontifications on life, politics, the arts and fact that Woolworth’s was shit anyway and the only people that went in there were shoplifters or the deranged or people in those little provincial towns where they still have, you know, a Wimpy and everyone is overweight and it's not surprising as there's a Greggs every two yards.
Yup. I was drunk and getting drunker.
Maybe it was the drink but we got on very well. I started noticing little things about her that I found attractive. The wrinkle of her nose when she laughed, the way she held her drink, the fact that she treated most of what I said with a slight sense of disapproval.
After ending our first date by suggesting she had had a terrible time and that I shouldn’t call her, she ended the second by suggesting we definitely see each other again. Bang. What’s that? No, Adonis is over there. This is just little old me. Smoother than a pane of glass. Hotter than a crematorium in the summer.
That’s it, fellas. That’s the secret to wooing a lady. Just turn up drunk. It really works. If this turns into a full-blown relationship I’m going to be necking stolen nail varnish remover this time next year.
Looking forward to that. Looking forward to seeing Geri again too. Whenever that’ll be. Might even turn up sober for the third date (I know, I must like her).
Although I shouldn’t rest on my laurels. Victoria couldn’t see me this week because she’s ‘going to Germany’, Mel couldn’t see me because she’s ‘going to Sweden’ and a couple of other people took rain checks on meeting up this week because they’re ‘going on holiday’.
Hmm.
Now, it has been pointed out to me that this is ‘the summer’ and people ‘go on holiday’. But I’m not listening to this guff (the facts). I prefer to let natural paranoia kick in and believe that they’re either all lying or I am literally forcing the women of Britain to emigrate one by one until the whole country becomes one massive sausage-fest and I’ll be publicly lynched in Hyde Park by 20 million very angry, sexually exasperated men. If I’m lucky.
Check in later this week for Date Five. It’s a date with a whole decade of age difference. Fruity.
Trying to find Love in a limited time period is very much the same. With every date I go on I seem to get further away.
Confucius said - 'It is hard to find a black cat in a dark room, especially when the cat is not even there.'
I can't even make a joke about this. This so accurately and profoundly sums up how I currently feel about Love that you're lucky I can still type, so overwhelmed am I.
I think I’ve broken Love. Sorry everyone. I know how much you were looking forward to it.
The point is, I find this all very unfair. Because I have been following the accepted advice for years - relax, don’t look for it, don’t force it and you’ll find it. When you least expect it. Like when you’re in the bath or breaking the news to a 4 year old boy that Daddy won’t be coming back from his holiday in Afghanistan. Suddenly love will leap out at you like Jeremy Beadle, possibly wearing a novelty costume. And a little withered hand.
Well. WELL. I have sat here. I have waited. Patiently. I put all thoughts of finding Love out of my mind. I tootled about in my ivory tower as everyone I knew embraced Love with a big, warm sigh. No matter, I said, when I least expect it, it’ll happen.
SO WHERE ARE YOU? Are you dead or something? Oh that would just be my luck. That's probably it, isn't it? The love of my life probably died of leukemia when she was eight. 'Cos we've only got one each.
So. Waiting patiently hasn’t worked. Yet actively searching for it seems to be burying it deeper than ever.
Which simply leads me to the conclusion that either a) I am incapable of love, or b) I am incapable of being loved, or c) the whole love thing was made up in order to sell estate cars and riverside condos and that the rest of you are lying to me or idiots.
My head says a), my heart says b). I’ve ignored both and am plumping for c). In your meaty faces, internal organs.
Anyhow. Since we last talked, I’ve been on two dates. One report below, the other to follow in the next couple of days. And, believe me, it’ll be worth the wait. Oh boy.
GERI’S SECOND DATE - 30/06/09
Ah ha. The second second date. The last one didn’t go fabulously, if you recall. Surely I will have learned from my experience? If there’s one thing you nice people have learned from this blog, it’s that I am incapable of learning from my own, or other people’s, mistakes.
So. Geri. Remember her? Thought that I looked like Wilf from The Bash Street Kids and whom I didn’t so much engage in conversation with but rather subjected her to, and received in return, the vocal equivalent of a sustained and fascinatingly violent assault. We ended the evening like two perfectly matched prize-fighters, trading exhausted swings, praying the other would just fall their knees and succumb before one of us actually died. Lots of talking. Not a lot of listening.
I vowed that this time things would be different.
I also once vowed to stop playing Championship Manager. But. Once you’ve got Torquay United to a Champions League final, quitting would only make all those hours perfecting formations and scouting the Belgian lower leagues seem like a tragic waste. Plus in real life I’m not a professional football manager. In Championship Manager, I am.
People call it ‘verbal diarrhoea’. However, to suggest that it was liquid shit that flowed from my mouth all evening would be very generous. Very generous indeed.
I get ahead of myself. What I should first mention is that it was a really hot day. Really hot. A scorcher. Glorious stuff. And I wasn’t meeting her until 8. And there’s this pub near my work with a great little beer garden. And my colleague suggested we have a drink after work (it may or may not have been my suggestion).
Now. You’d think that turning up late and a little bit drunk (empty stomach, that’s my excuse) for a date would be a bad thing. But given the circumstances, I think I covered rather well. It may have even worked in my favour.
At first I even listened (yes!) as she talked words at me. I asked thoughtful questions, allowing her to elaborate on her chosen subjects. However, once we had relocated ourselves to a delightful little spot by the river I suddenly realised, with a jolt, that I hadn’t heard quite enough of my favourite sound that evening. My own voice.
Plus, with the sun going down over London, it was the perfect setting for my lengthy pontifications on life, politics, the arts and fact that Woolworth’s was shit anyway and the only people that went in there were shoplifters or the deranged or people in those little provincial towns where they still have, you know, a Wimpy and everyone is overweight and it's not surprising as there's a Greggs every two yards.
Yup. I was drunk and getting drunker.
Maybe it was the drink but we got on very well. I started noticing little things about her that I found attractive. The wrinkle of her nose when she laughed, the way she held her drink, the fact that she treated most of what I said with a slight sense of disapproval.
After ending our first date by suggesting she had had a terrible time and that I shouldn’t call her, she ended the second by suggesting we definitely see each other again. Bang. What’s that? No, Adonis is over there. This is just little old me. Smoother than a pane of glass. Hotter than a crematorium in the summer.
That’s it, fellas. That’s the secret to wooing a lady. Just turn up drunk. It really works. If this turns into a full-blown relationship I’m going to be necking stolen nail varnish remover this time next year.
Looking forward to that. Looking forward to seeing Geri again too. Whenever that’ll be. Might even turn up sober for the third date (I know, I must like her).
Although I shouldn’t rest on my laurels. Victoria couldn’t see me this week because she’s ‘going to Germany’, Mel couldn’t see me because she’s ‘going to Sweden’ and a couple of other people took rain checks on meeting up this week because they’re ‘going on holiday’.
Hmm.
Now, it has been pointed out to me that this is ‘the summer’ and people ‘go on holiday’. But I’m not listening to this guff (the facts). I prefer to let natural paranoia kick in and believe that they’re either all lying or I am literally forcing the women of Britain to emigrate one by one until the whole country becomes one massive sausage-fest and I’ll be publicly lynched in Hyde Park by 20 million very angry, sexually exasperated men. If I’m lucky.
Check in later this week for Date Five. It’s a date with a whole decade of age difference. Fruity.
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