Fear and Loathing in Glass Houses

Hello, you.

We are all, said Bukowski, museums of fear.

Fear of commitment, fear of rejection, fear of losing the best thing that’s ever happened to you, fear of missing out on the best thing that could ever happen to you, fear that something better will come along, fear that it won’t, fear that this is the best you’re ever going to do, fear that you could do better but you’re too afraid to do anything about it.

We are all museums of fear.

Perhaps this would have been a better title for this blog. If I only I knew what the hell he was talking about.

Ah, screw Bukowski. That bum never went speed dating.


NO.8’s SECOND DATE - 18/09/09

So. So so so. I ticked three of my mini-datelets. I got one response. And it wasn’t the one I was expecting.

(By the way, my friend ticked six and got a 100% positive match. And then dated none of them. It’s like watching Lenny Henry canter around Ethiopia on a camel, setting fire to food whilst laughing and laughing. As Dawn French looks on, sobbing. And eating.)

And, you know, I’ve got my troubles (oh man I got the troubles, oh I got them bad, oh yeah I got the troubles - like Northern Ireland used to when it was interesting and not utterly pointless as it is now, like Wales). Yeah, I got my fair share. My life hasn’t turned out the way I thought it would do by now. Every year I live is merely another one closer to death and another one further away from my hopes and dreams. I’m losing my hair. My friends greeted my announcement that I was internet dating with the words ‘good for you’. My father is starting to realise that my statement that I would win an Oscar before the age of 30 was, in fact, nothing more than the ravings of a buffoon. PROPER troubles, yeah? Not like this rubbish you see on The Bill or Party of Five or Martina Cole‘s Lady Killers. I mean, as IF anyone really gets so poor that they have to have sex with people for money. Just do an extra shift at Clark’s, or wherever it is you fucking work.

To add to my genuinely heart-rending troubles, I had to date a beautiful woman.

Ah come on. I don’t deal with pressure very well. I feel on edge when I know the man at Tesco’s is going to ask me if I have a clubcard. I don’t! I don’t have a clubcard. And he HATES me for it. I know it. I can see it in his eyes. I mean, I would see it in his eyes, if I was ever brave enough to look into them. I can smell the disdain on his breath.

Perhaps six months of internet dating had knocked my confidence but No.8 (yes, this is how she will be referred to throughout the duration of this blog) was so attractive that I assumed she would have no interest in me whatsoever. Yes, even when she agreed to go for a drink with me. Even then.

I know what you’re thinking. And, yeah, No.8 ticked me after the speed dating, which she wouldn’t have done if she wasn’t a little bit interested. Fair enough. I propped myself with other such platitudes as I tried to think myself attractive on the tube.

Now. When you meet someone for a ‘second’ date, having previously speed dated them, there are several things you don’t really want to hear out of their mouths (or anywhere else). Especially when you’re several degrees less attractive than they are. To hear something negative would be like David heading towards Goliath, only to be told on the way that, contrary to rumour, Goliath isn’t actually a giant at all but a fucking invisible fire-breathing dinosaur. What's that, Davey? Oh, you've got your slingshot, have you? That's, that's great.

So, out of the following list, which you would you LEAST like your date’s first reaction to be?

a) Not recognise you.

b) Say ‘Sorry, I forgot who I was meeting.’

c) Say ‘To be honest, I just ticked the form indiscriminately.’

or

d) All THREE.

I can only assume she had spent the days prior to the date calculating exactly how to perfectly shank my confidence into touch. Because if she did it off the cuff, that is not only incredibly sharp but beautifully brutal. It was a proper exercise yard shiv job.

What she didn’t know is that I've got a bleedin' NVQ in dating prison rules. If someone jabs a sharpened toothbrush into your ribs, then you have to get them back. And fast. Or, you know, you’ll lose face.

We headed down the streets. I loaded my proverbial pool balls into my metaphorical sock, swung the whole allegorical thing round my head and did my damned best to smash her figurative teeth out of her symbolic head.

I had to fight my ground. If she thought the speed dating was a bit silly, I thought it was pathetic. If she hadn’t enjoyed the evening, I had hated it. If she was bored in my company, I was falling into a catatonic coma as a direct result of her conversation. I affected a state of indifference so pointed you could have bunged a load of lamb on it and called it shish. So, she was disappointed when she met me and decided not to hold back. Ok. Fine. So, as a petty child throws the Ludo board across the room, I was going to let her know I felt exactly the same. And then some.

By the time we had got to the pub, I had successfully whittled her confidence down into a small, ornamental chair. Too fragile to sit on but, hey, it looks pretty.

I’m the daddy now. The daddy of whittling.

We got a drink. We sat down. We started talking. And, finally, now that we were too exhausted and humiliated to fight any longer. Now that we had thoroughly convinced the other that we were definitely NOT interested, yeah? Now we were spent forces, we talked like two normal human beings. And it was lovely.

The whole thing, like it had been with me, had been a façade. A front to protect her. I had assumed, simply because she was beautiful, she was confident. Strong. Tough. But under all that, there was someone who, like the majority of us, had been hurt before. And didn’t want to be hurt again. If someone was going to get in, they were going to have to get past some serious defences. Ah, who knew beautiful people had feelings too?

For the one drink we had, yep just the one, we put down our weapons. We were momentarily defenceless. But the damage had been done. Both our egos had been bruised, both our confidences damaged. She had been too embarrassed to embrace dating someone from a silly speed dating evening. I had been too proud to let her air this embarrassment. We both protected ourselves relentlessly, afraid the other one would inflict humiliation upon us. Afraid that we’d be exposed. Afraid that the other would see we were all too capable of being hurt. Afraid of being afraid.

Ah.

Come on in. Take a good look at the exhibits. Years and years worth. Don't touch, some of them are valuable. Some of them are still in collection. Some are too precious to be seen by anyone. A lot of them are very boring.

Yes. All of us then, museums of fear.

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.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Or. Not.

So you guys must Love the hell out of me by now, right?

Look, I know. It’s been a while. How the devil are you? You look great. Is that a new shirt? Ah come on, don’t look at me like that. I have my excuses. I’ve been on holiday. I washed my hair. And, er, I quit. That’s right, I quit. I quit Love. I gave up on the whole thing. I retired and started drawing my quite generous misery pension.

But then, spurred on to fight the good fight for Love by the presence of the latest Jennifer Aniston vehicle, Love Happens (joining ‘shit’ and ‘stuff’ in the elite list of things that happen) and the forthcoming and genuinely terrifying Valentine’s Day (which appears to have evoked some kind of clause in every working Hollywood actor’s contract - seriously, everyone’s in it, I think I’m in it somewhere), I decided to come back to save you ALL. Whilst we’re on the subject - I have a fantastic plan to make the world a much much better place in a very short space of time. Follow the above link to Valentine’s Day and watch the trailer. If you think that this is the kind of film that you’d like to see, then take these steps. 1) Sell all possessions and property. 2) Give all money raised to charity. 3) Walk into the sea.

I couldn’t sit idle whilst this kind of horror was being perpetrated in the name of Love.

Hollywood better be quaking. This is it. I’m back.

Think Presley in ‘68. Foreman in ‘95. Backstreet Boys in ‘05 (who don’t get the credit they deserve for audaciously releasing a single called ‘Backstreet’s Back’ when they genuinely hadn’t been anywhere and then following years of being out of work with the album ‘Never Gone’ - in America 117 teenage girls died of confusion after merely reading the album‘s title. A forlorn Nick Carter was quoted as saying the Boys were ‘disappointed’ as they had been aiming for ‘something closer to a thousand, to be honest’. It’s rumoured that next year Backstreet will be a releasing a greatest hits entitled ‘Some old shit’, which will contain nothing more than a series of desperate answer phone messages left between March and June 2003 by A.J. McLean to his psychiatrist, as the whole edifice of his life and ego was being swept away like carrier bag full of tiny polystyrene balls in a fucking storm.)

But that’s as maybe.

I’m back. This is the greatest comeback since Christ’s over-hyped power nap (I mean, come on, THREE days? He was only crucified. We’ve all been crucified. I was crucified only this weekend. And did you hear me moaning about it? No. I was in work Monday morning, a waterproof plaster over each palm, ready to do a bloody shift).

Enough parentheses. Let’s get to business.

Ah, I’ve missed you guys.


NINTH DATE REPORT - 15/08/09

Think my quest is futile, do you? Think that it’s impossible to meet someone through so spurious a system as internet dating, yeah? Think that you can never replace the physical chemistry of face-to-face encounters with a series of emails and grainy headshots, huh? HAH. Ahaha.

Well, Love may have had me on the ropes but until I’m out for the count it’s not wise to bet against this old slugger. But let‘s be honest, in Match.com terms, it’s the twelfth round. I’ve already lost on points, I think we all know that. If this goes to the bell, I’ve lost. It’s total knockout or nothing.

Picking myself off the canvas, knees buckling, arms like lead weight, I staggered forward, praying I still had one last haymaker left in me. A good fighter never knows when he’s beaten. If your heart still beats, anything is possible.

And so I met Louise.

Pick your metaphor - breath of fresh air, ray of light, an oasis in the desert. Feeling I had already wrung the final drops of human decency out the filthy Match.com dishrag, I searched through Match’s flesh database hoping against hope that there’d be one more, spurred on somehow by an unrealistic optimism, like a death row prisoner praying for a power cut.

And. There she was. A poppy in Flanders.

Apart from the usual caveats - attraction, things in common, sense of humour - she was a NORMAL person. Woo! She seemed like the kind of person I would love to spend time with, in the actual real world and everything. Louise was interesting, creative and intelligent and I couldn’t for the life of me work out why she was on Match.com.

And I still can't.

We met. I was really looking forward to meeting Louise. It just felt right. I knew, even having not met her, that Louise would never want to see the gargantuan shitfest Valentine’s Day, a film so flimsy it makes Damien Hirst‘s career look substantial and considered. Louise was not going to let me down. It felt so right that even when she enquired whether we could meet in a location that I can never usually set foot in, so inextricably linked is it with a previous relationship that the mere glimpse of it makes me want to ram my fist through my chest plate in an effort to stop my rapidly sinking heart from getting tangled in my intestines, I agreed without hesitation.

So, standing quite literally in the shadow my previous relationship, I met Louise. And I really wasn’t prepared for what I was to see. I didn’t pick this up from any of her photos. There wasn’t the slightest hint of resemblance. Nothing. Would never have guessed what I was to be faced with.

Yes, poor Louise had the misfortune of looking eerily like my ex-girfriend. Frighteningly similar. No, not that one. I wish. Another one. A bad one. Ah.

Oh, Louise. Where can we go from here? Where could we go? Well, we went to the pub, obviously.

Hmm. So, sipping my pint I considered the fact that somehow the world had contrived to transplant me slap-bang into the middle of what surely must be Matthew McConaughey’s worst offence to date, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Which would be typical. And, before you ask, it truly is even more charmless, witless and chinless than The Wedding Planner. And, yes, I have just learnt how to do hyperlinks.

No. No, no, I thought. I wasn’t going to let this minor thing (her face) get in the way of falling in Love with my perfect woman. It was fairly dark in the pub anyway and, if I squinted, most traces of my ex were eradicated. Fine. We’re back onboard the Love train. Next stop Loveville. Choo choo! Tickets please!

Despite finding it difficult to make eye contact, the evening went wonderfully, rapidly and boozily (told you she was perfect). There is little to report from the next part of the evening. To the outsider it would have been entirely unremarkable. For me it was a revelation. After a while I began to realise something was wrong. No, not wrong… different. Yes, something was different this time. What could it be? I scritched and scratched inside my tiny mind before stumbling across the answer entirely by accident. Louise said it for me. Fate, innit?

‘This is nice, I feel completely relaxed.’

Aaah, that’s what this sensation is! I’m relaxed! Actually relaxed! Comfortable in the presence of another human being in an awkward social situation. The common denominator for all of the previous dates had been my crippling awkwardness, inner tension and nervousness. But no more. With Louise I hadn’t even thought about the fact we were on a date. It felt natural, normal. Just two people. Who got on well. There was nothing remotely awkward about us. Yes, relaxed. Lovely.

Even when she said some rather alarming and personal things (ah, alcohol) that usually would have made me run a mile, I didn’t mind. In fact, her own problems and issues only made her more attractive to me. She’s a human being, we all have problems. We’ve all had bad moments. We all have issues. Usually I can’t palate this sort of nonsense. But. These were Louise’s problems. This was different. This was texture. I was delighted she comfortable enough to open up to me. I drank up her insecurities in large gulps, slaking a thirst I didn’t even realise I had. Ah, alcohol.

We talked about our lives, our hopes and dreams, our families. Not wanting the evening to end, we moved from bar to bar, reveling in the company of the other. And, yeah, you can cry cliché all you like, but it genuinely felt like we’d known each other a long time.

I walked her to the bus. We didn’t kiss.

We could have done. We should have done. But it was ok. I didn’t regret it as I walked away, elated. Why should I regret? There would be plenty more opportunities for that. I tried to calculate how soon it would be acceptable to call her. I decided I’d throw the rulebook out the window and call her the very next day. To hell with being coy. I walked home with a spring in my step, London looking more beautiful to me than I ever thought possible. I skipped and giggled. I even took a joyful little wee down what I thought was a dark alley but turned out to be, in actual fact, the side of St Paul’s Cathedral (sorry, God).

The best date I’ve ever had and a wee on one of London’s most iconic landmarks. TOP THAT.

Everyone do a nice, happy sigh now. Aaaaahhhhhhhhhh. Lovely.



A couple of weeks later, my colleague asked me if I was going to see that girl again. The one I had spent such a wonderful night with.

‘I don’t know’ I answered.

Since we parted at the bus stop, I hadn’t so much as thought about her once.

If music be the food of love, then jog on

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.

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.

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.

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'

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.

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.

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.

Life is Swede

Around the world there’s a concept that the British a terrible lovers. We’re all backwards drunks, they trill, whilst quaffing their fancy soup. The men are boorish at worst and bumbling idiots at best (Hugh Grant did a great disservice to British men by making it seem not only acceptable but somehow desirable to act like the stammering, awkward, cripplingly shy agriculturalist that you are - note to all other British men who aren‘t Hugh Grant, you are not Hugh Grant), nothing much there to set the pulse racing. And, those foreign types quip, the women are all dogs. Well, two out of three ain’t bad (by that I mean we’re all drunks and British men are graceless hammers - sorry ladies, you are, without exception, hideous. I mean, seriously, have you not see The OC? WHY DON‘T YOU ALL LOOK LIKE THAT? ANSWER ME).

An American friend recently asked me why a British guy she was interested in (and was pretty sure was interested in her) was not actively pursuing her, as an American man might have done. That’s just British guys, I said, we’re not that forward. Oh, she said, so he does like me then? Yes, I said, he probably does. Oh, she said, right.

A week later she was dating an American. Right, I said.

With all this firmly in mind (especially the graceless hammers bit) I went on a date with a Scandinavian.


FOURTH DATE REPORT - 20/06/09

I believe we’re calling this one Mel.

Met Mel at the tube station where I once again managed to greet a date with all the suaveness and sophistication of a sexually aggressive Mr Bean. Look, give me a break here, I am already making progress from Date One. We managed to successfully negotiate ourselves into a very relaxed semi-hug kiss on the cheek kind of thing (which I hate so much it makes me physically nauseous). Fine. But the whole etiquette of the kissing on the cheek debacle still eludes me. Do you actually kiss them? I feel that landing a smacker, or even a gentle little peck, on the cheek of someone you have never met is a bit much (sorry, physically nauseous? How could you be mentally nauseous? Or spiritually nauseous? What am I, an NVQ student?). But missing their face entirely and making little kissy noises is something propagated by the French and people who live in Dalston even though they can palpably afford to live somewhere else. Seriously, don’t swan around Dalston as if you’re Vincent van fucking Gogh or something with a £75 haircut and £90 jeans. Cut both your ears off, and your nose for good measure, and fuck off back to Kent. So. Kissy noises are out. That leaves you with the option of slowly pushing your emotionless face against their cheek, lips un-pursed, as if you were falling asleep against a car window or checking the temperature of some freshly baked bread.

My main point, however, is that all three options above are a better bet than getting confused and kissing the other person RIGHT in their ear. It gets you off on the wrong foot.

Now, before I get to the internal pain you’re waiting for, let me say this. Mel was beautiful and we clicked.

So this is blog over, yeah?

Nyaah. I’m not nearly so flighty. I know, I know I know I know, I’ve got on well with Geri and Emma but this was an actual, natural bit of chemistry.

Or I just fancied her.

Yeah, probably that. I mean, come on, she’s from the Baltic coast. They’re basically genetically perfect out there.

So, I started out intimidated by the fact that I assume all Europeans are dazzling cosmopolitan urbanites and went on by being intimidated at how attractive she was. God, I’m a catch. On top of being beautiful she had a very wry sense of humour that allowed us to openly mock some live performance art together, she mispronounced words in a heart-melting manner and she described Professor Stephen Hawking as a ‘randy spasmo’. HAH.

But.

But but but.

But but but but but but but but.

Apparently we, us ‘umans, accentuate the negatives far more easily then the positives. When asked how are day was we reel off a list of things that upset or angered us and leave out all the moments that made our lives better, happier, fitter, stronger. Oprah Winfrey encourages her audience to go through a common counseling exercise - listing three things at the end of each day that made us happy. I’ve tried doing this. And fuck you, Oprah. I’d have a list the size of your arse if I had your bank balance. Three things? Are you serious? Ah, no, apparently you’re meant to include all the ‘little things’. Like the sun shining, seeing ducklings on the canal, an old woman smiling at you on the bus, someone unexpectedly bringing you coffee at work. But all this does is make you realise that these stupid little things don’t actually make you happy. They are tiny and inconsequential. They are the icing on a cake you‘ve already wolfed down too quickly. You can put icing on a piece of shit but it’s still a piece of shit.

You wouldn’t talk someone down off a window ledge by encouraging them to appreciate the view.

So, I’m going to dwell on the negatives, ifthat’salrightwithyouthankyouverymuch.

We talked liked old friends. That’s not bad is it? Nope. Unless you’re me. The conversation was natural, flowing, mutually beneficial. But, partly because (I guess) she’s not British, and partly because we went to an exciting fairground/circus/festival/thing instead of to the pub or to dinner, the conversation didn’t take the normal question/answer/question format of most first dates. We barely talked about ourselves at all. There was no ‘getting to know you, what do you do for a living?’ business. Great. You’d think.

I couldn’t handle it. It was like an itch I had to scratch. The more free-flowing our conversation, the more I craved to bring it onto more traditional ground. I was resolutely convinced this would not impress her at all and, in fact, would be a conversation killer but I. Could. Not. Help. It. Eventually I started to develop crap-conversation tourettes, randomly blurting out pointless questions and dull remarks, sometimes cutting her off mid-sentence to do so. Feeling the pressure to fill a void in the conversation that didn’t exist I started crow-barring questions into the proceedings like a drunk hairdresser.

She didn’t like it. She swatted most of these questions out of the air (with visible displeasure) and continued on her own track. Every time I upended our conversation with a stupid question she would give me a look so withering you’d think that I’d just admitted to accidentally unplugging the sea or losing Spain or something.

At one point my brain became so utterly fixated on a certain question (which she wouldn’t answer - it was something utterly banal) that I found myself turning into an unkempt Jeremy Paxman, hounding her over and over until finally demanding she ‘just answer the question’. Curse you, you relaxed Europeans. Look what you’ve done to me.

The other major problem was our location. As we were somewhere ‘fun’ I felt pressure to be ‘fun’. Walking about a funfair, even if you are the kind of person who is happiest re-writing code for Spectrum ZX games, you feel an unnatural desire to impress the person you’re with by acting like some kind of free-spirited, fun-loving gadabout.

Even though we were trotting about very happily it still felt as if we could have been having more fun, and I could come across as a more cool and relaxed person, if we had been shying coconuts, or testing our weight in an ironic way, and then laughing as we eat candyfloss (which would inevitably get all over our faces), guffawing on the dodgems, tittering on the teacups, winning giant cuddly toys (conveniently ignoring the fact that it’s sewn by minuscule Burmese fingers, even though we‘d rather jump on a spike than not recycle our Independent on Sunday) at duck shoots and then running freely across a field with the sun going down and slowing down into each other’s arms as the sun goes down. All to the latest release by Jack cockguts Penate.

Listen. Just because I don’t spend my life playing blackjack with tramps or dancing on tables or conversing with Peruvian octogenarians does not mean I am boring. So tit off, Mrs Lonely Planet (emphasis on the lonely).

Hah.

I would seriously recommend you all start a blog where you can air your insecurities. It’s as refreshing as it is embarrassing.

I’d like to see Mel again. We’ll see. If anything, I need to make amends for how relentlessly uptight I was on this date.


So. 4 dates in 9 days. Fun diddly fun fun. More to come. Eyes peeled and all that.

It’s been 6 weeks and already my Match.com standards have plummeted violently. All I want now is to meet a woman who doesn’t list her favourite book as The Kite Runner or The Time Traveller’s Wife.

It's not much to ask. It certainly ain't love. More on that later.

Love in the key of C

Third time lucky?


THIRD DATE REPORT - 16/06/09

Third date down. How many more to go? The answer seems to lie mainly in the hands of Fate and the ovaries of women in their early 30s.

Or, you know, Love. Speaking of which, I’m still attempting to find out what love really is, by hook or flippin’ crook. H.L. Mencken chirped that love is to mistake an ordinary young woman for a goddess. Gee, thanks, Mencks. To be honest, I’ve never had this problem. The mere fact that someone is the object of my rather feeble desires seems to render them pathetically human and irredeemably mortal. Oh to meet a goddess.

Love is the gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everyone else. Ah, that’s more like, Bertrand Russell. Cheers, boyo. But still not quite on the money. Yes, to some degree we elevate our chosen beyond their bounds but we are always, always (sadly) and irretrievably aware of their flaws. And how.

Ok, I’m no Alain de Botton. But then A de B claimed that ‘whilst Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers, they are also terrible writers,’ Either Alain has a tremendous sense of irony or he hasn’t read any of his own novels recently.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld has the last word today - ‘love is like seeing ghosts; we all talk of it, but few of us have seen one.’ How true. But, hey, we all know how to stick a sheet over our heads and go ‘woooooo’.

I met Geri at a popular central London bar. She was, uniquely and delightfully, more attractive than her pictures suggested. Or maybe she wasn’t. She was, in any case, different.

Ah, whatever, I just fancied her.

I too, she said, was more attractive in person. Right. Hmm. Thanks. Not sure how to take this. Ok, I guess it’s a good thing. I was under the impression that I, like everyone else, had put up overly flattering photographs of myself. Apparently not. According to Geri my photos made me look like I had a ‘really, really round head’. But. ‘But no, it’s fine, because you don’t’. Right. Hmm.

Which is odd. Why on earth did she want to date this round-headed chap in the first place? Why go for a drink with someone who, in your own words, reminded you a bit of ‘Wilf from the Bash Street Kids’?

Unless life has desensitized you to the point of idiocy then you’ll have appreciated by now that this was a good date. Or at least that I fancied her. There was plenty of banter (god, I hate that word), flirtation and all that. There were, however, two problems.

Firstly, whilst the conversation flowed, it probably flowed far too much. Certainly from my direction. Not that anything said was out of place. It’s just we (mainly I) talked too much. I was suddenly thrust into a position where I needed, and wanted, to impress someone I was actually attracted to. I was vulnerable. I was the underdog. So I waffled on and on. Nerves took hold and I let my tongue just blabble on. She did the same. We jabbered over each other, barely letting the other start a new sentence, let alone finish one. It was an exercise in pointlessness. Rival grime MCs have more respect for what each other are saying. I frequently found myself saying ‘I’m sorry, I don’t where that was going’. But I did know. I was just trying to shut her up.

The other problem. Ah, ok. During the night some bloke we were sharing a table with, who’d been guffawing loudly all evening and generally attempting to make the entire bar look right at his face all the time, decided to accost us in conversation. Momentarily left alone he clearly decided he had the options of sputtering gobbets of stupidity onto his own lap or turning his desperation-tainted pronouncements towards us.

‘So, sorry to butt in, but’ he began, he wasn’t sorry, he was a cock, ‘sorry, but, how do you guys know each other? Brother and sister? Lovers? Or what?’

Nice. So. Only two options for us. Either siblings or we were fucking. Anyhow, I decided to throw him a doosra (googly, curve ball, dummy - pick your own metaphor, what am I, your mother?). He played it with remarkable grace. Geri, on the other hand, didn’t.

‘No’ I said, my mind boggling a little from what I was doing, ‘No, we’re on our first date. We met through an internet dating site.’

Never in my life have I uttered one single sentence that has made one person so delighted whilst making another person look so, so profoundly dejected.

She wasn’t angry. She was just disappointed. Everyone says that’s worse. But it isn’t. If they’re disappointed they’ll just take it out on themselves, rather than you. Which is fine. Right? To be fair, she dug deep within herself and saw the funny side. Which was annoying, as it just made me like her more.

Aah, yeah, so overall it went well. She left me at the tube station with the words ‘Yeah, thanks, I had a terrible time. Don’t call me.’ Which impressed me terribly. I think the phrase ‘treat ‘em mean to keep ‘em keen’ was invented as a short handbook on how to manipulate me. I’ll call her. In fact, I already have.

But. Where does she fit in the great scheme of Love? Is she woman of my dreams? I don’t think she is. But she’s top of the sapling at the moment. I’m only three dates in and already I’m beginning to appreciate that Love is far more about choice than people (those naughty people) will lead us to believe.

Yeah, it’s a tough one. We all say we want to meet the original Leonard Cohen, when in reality we always end up going for Jeff Buckley’s cover version whilst secretly holding a candle for Alexandra Burke’s cheapness and immediacy. Halle-fucking-lujah.

Remember school? Remember how there was a small and limited pool of people to choose from? How much easier was that? If you don’t hear from me again, it’s because I’ll have buggered off to Ohio to join an Amish community.

But I won’t. Because I date a Swede tomorrow. Wild. Horses.

Love sleeps with the fishes

15th June -

Let’s dive straight in.


VICTORIA’S SECOND DATE - 12/06/09

Ok. So. Right. Second date etiquette? What does a second date mean? What are the second date rules? If a second date falls in a forest and no one’s around, does it still sound like sadness ramming its fist down the throat of loneliness?

I’ve got to admit, having been on a date the night before and having two more lined up this week, I was pretty complacent about this. I mean, she wanted to see me again. Boom. I was a man in demand. She’s going to have to do all the running here. Honestly, my attitude was shocking. Once again I didn’t have any clean clothes but this time I didn’t care. HAH. I think at this juncture it may be becoming obvious why I am single. Anyway, I didn’t care about the lack of clean clothes. Until, that is, I remembered that it was a second date. So. Who knows what might happen? It doesn’t matter on the first date if your pants are a bit skiddy because she’s not going to see them. But. On a second date. She might. I sat on the tube and looked at the man next to me. He met my eye. He understood. He nodded sadly. Yep, he seemed to say, you should have at least changed your pants.

But I hadn’t.

Victoria (remember her? Kids, 2010, fear) suggested we go to a restaurant near her house. How more obvious did she want to make it? Casanova's got nothing on this guy. I considered buying some prophylactics at a newsagents on the way. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t think anything was going to happen, I didn’t want anything to happen. But. These thoughts pass through your mind. I only had £2 on me. I bought some chewing gum and a Lucozade orange instead. I mean, safe sex is one thing. Physical and mental stimulation with minty fresh breath is QUITE ANOTHER. Plus they last longer. Hah. Sex joke.

The evening got off to a good start. I was revelling in the fact that I was blasé to the point of being insulting about the whole situation and she, I imagined smugly, was not. Oh no no, she wanted her a piece of this. And why shouldn't she? Go on then, dear, but you're going to have to do all the running. I didn’t care what happened. If she wanted to see me again she was going to have to really impress. I mean, she’s nice and all that but a third date is a bridge too far. If that was to be on the cards she was going to have to charm my skiddy pants off.

The meal went brilliantly. For me. I sat there oozing charming indifference (well, indifference). Her eyes gave her away. Why isn’t he wooing me? Where’s the romance? I thought he liked me? The more I showed her that I couldn’t give a toss even if she spontaneously combusted over her halloumi, the harder she tried. Not only did I hold all the cards but I was also in possession of pick-up sticks, some marbles and a half complete set of Kerplunk. She flirted like a sailor on shore leave. I did not bite. I would not bite. I was unwilling to take even the smallest of nibbles. Victoria’s attempts to impress me was like watching a clown trying to placate a weeping child. The more she tried the less I cared.

We then went for a drink. It was to be one drink. Then home. Then bye bye, Victoria. Nice to know ya.

And then at that moment, she pulled off the most audacious trick.

I came back from the bar with drinks. And I sat down next to a completely different woman (not literally, keep up). This Victoria did not flirt. Didn’t even smile. She seemed to have no interest in me whatsoever. In fact, she looked bored. I was keeping her from a far more pressing and exciting engagement, that much was certain. This woman certainly did not find me attractive, you could tell. And, my god, she had suddenly become roughly 4000% more attractive. In fact, I thought I loved her. I had to have her. I felt a desperate urge to impress. If I could only make her smile, make her laugh, make her want me somehow. It seemed unnaturally urgent.

Top marks to her, she worked me out pretty quickly. If she carries this on for a couple more weeks I may be forced to propose.

The power shifted so quickly and so violently that I was utterly lost and I run like a monkey gland-enhanced stallion to make up all the ground I had taken from her in the first place.

I think the evening ended in a score draw. She invited me back to hers (2-1). However, soon as we were there she made me feel like not only had I broken into her house but that she had caught me feverishly rifling through her underwear draw and was pocketing my faves. I was soon forced to suggest that I should leave. Yes. She said. You probably should (2-2).

God, she’s good.

But this isn’t love, is it? This isn’t even going to be love. This can’t blossom into something nice and clean and healthy and wholesome and probiotoc. This is just wanting what you can’t have. Is that it then? Is that the sum total of love? It’s hardly not worth all those songs and poems and stuff. Pffft.

The older I get the more it seems to me that love is nothing more than an ark for the coming flood.

No. This isn’t love. I must keep looking.

But I must also see Victoria again because she hasn’t texted for nearly two days and, my word, I can’t resist that.


Date Three tomorrow night. This one’s already given me some abuse during our email exchange. THAT’S how you do it, Vic. Get it in early, get it in first.