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.