T - Date 3 (the alternate version!)

When writing up a date, it's tempting to filter the write-up through the lens of whether it later worked out or not. Reader, things with T did not work out! Here is the alternate version of date 3 with warning signs included!

We met at Greenwich station, and went to Cafe Rouge for a cooling drink. As I was feeling a little abashed at the flowers, having arrived so late (and hot and flustered, I avoid the term "sweaty"), and the small matter of having a crone-like missing tooth, I let him talk.

Oh T, which of us wouldn't?

In a monologue I will generously entitle “falling for the wrong people” T began recounting a detailed story about his best friend who declared (unrequited) love for him. The essence: the two were extremely close for years, did everything together, sufficient for the friend to assume there was some romantic spark, and one day, "out of the blue" the friend decided to leave his wife for T. T, appalled, said there had never been anything romantic between them and alas, their friendship has never fully recovered this cruel blow.

Hmmm. This does not ring true. I internally drum my fingernails on the table.  “That’s a shame,” I offer.

Unadvisedly encouraged, he progresses to a second anecdote in similar vein.

As he works nightshifts at a hospital he has a driver (for home emergencies). Story 2 involves his female driver, Claire, whom he used to take to dinner/the cinema once a week, make treats for, and have a great laugh with. And guess what, dear reader! Despite the fact he clearly had No Interest Whatsoever, this driver remarkably also declared undying love to him and also imagined it would be reciprocated.

At this point I was forced to interject. Looking him in the eye and with a silken tone I can only summon for cases of the most scathing irony, I cooed, “You know what I find reeeeeaaaallly sexy? I just love it when I'm on a date and a man tells me stories about all the people who are in love with him. It’s just… [I mime a shiver of delight] irresistible.”

He looked confused. Clearly this was not going to plan!

Not my style, I'm afraid.

I presume his revelations (ever so ‘umble, mind) were based largely on three flawed assumptions:

1) Other people who know me very well have fallen desperately in love with me so you should too. Or at the very least be quite a bit impressed.

2) I wasn't interested, but it wasn't my fault. Because I'm so self-deprecating that I never imagined that they would want more, because I'm A Good Guy.

3) In the case of the first, as it was a male friend, note how metrosexual and liberal I am (this possibly to counter my 2^nddate question, prompted by the high open-collared blue shirt, excessive confidence and public school accent: “Are you a Tory?”).

However, I cannot bear this kind of story because:

1) It’s grotesquely egotistical to brag about your romantic fan-base on an early date, especially when the subject was artificially made out to be chanced upon, when it was clearly engineered. Also, purely pragmatically, if you're bragging, there's no space for me to give you a compliment.

2) The idea that this will inspire some competitive impulse to prove myself and win his heart where others have failed, is way off. I don't want to compete, that is not the way to start a relationship.

 3) No one declares love to anyone unless they feel they have a semblance of hope in it being requited. Therefore for this to have happened twice (and to be a tale delivered with pride rather than shame) I can only conclude the teller is an arch-manipulator whose priority is to be at the centre of an adulation he has disingenuously cultivated with no concern for the feelings of the supposed “friend.”

What's that Simona? You think T is a bit of a bell-end? Well, you'd know best...

4) It is incredibly disrespectful to discuss your current friends/colleagues in this way, if there is any chance your interlocutor (whom you are making romantic overtures towards) might one day meet them. 

Did it stop there? Well, I heard about how he loves how his eight year old daughter (overseas) loves wrapping Daddy round her finger (a man who loves being played by women - hmm), and every date so far he had brought his psycho-therapist along. Or Simona, as he refers to her (Unlike T I don't work in health care, but even I know that there's a rule against pairing a patient with a counsellor of the opposite sex). She has kindly taken his part in every disagreement thus far. "Simona says it's my intelligence that hinders me with women." Later, it would be: "Simona says that although she can see your side of events, mine is also equally valid." Did I ask to have these three-way dates? How can she possibly see my side when I haven't even explained it to him, let alone her?! Perhaps "Simona" will turn out to be a sock puppet that he pulls out of his blazer pocket.



Between this and jokes about how I probably "throw like a girl", how he gets his female assistant to "chase a ball round the office" like a dog and how I "must be on my period" if I refuse to chortle at said comments, I became increasingly irritated and determined to say something. Something incisive, thought-provoking, challenging yet not unnecessarily riling, something to put a rapid stop to the sexist slop coming out of his mouth, something intelligent, articulate and unequivocal. What did I say? Drum roll please. The perfect sentence formed itself in my head. The put-down to end all put-downs. Here it is. I said... "Shut up, Paki."

Ok, I didn't say that.

I would never be so utterly offensive as to say, "shut up." However, I indeed did make a joke with the word "Paki" in. Before you start quilling the death threats, may I clarify that this is the first time the word has ever left my lips, and it felt far more taboo than the few times I've said cunt (a word I take offence at being called offensive, as a part of the female body cannot possibly be considered that disgusting). The sole reason I mock-jovially called him "Paki" was to provoke an angry response, which I could then relate to my feelings about his sexist comments. The response took a few days, but I did receive an email informing me that that word was "never, ever, acceptable" but that I could be forgiven for my "slip." (This I found bizarre: he would prefer I was covertly and accidentally racist and made that kind of "slip", than said it to make a point?).

So, racist jokes are never acceptable? Oh really? Is that because racism derides not just the person involved, but a huge swathe of friends and relatives (and their associated cultures), who are/have been historically belittled, oppressed, ridiculed, disenfranchised, considered deviant from the norm, and thought incapable and physically disgusting by the dominant power?


Funny. That's how many people also feel about sexism...

Was there anything else that should have rung an alarm bell? Well, at one point he pulled out a vial of the malodorous scent that he had stewed himself in, and sprayed my forearm. I felt as a lamp post must, when subjected to the pungent visitations of a local hound.

And yet, as he was deliberately (rather than ignorantly) being provocative (and because I am so frequently provocative myself), and because he was otherwise funny, considerate, unusual (in a mainly good way) and interesting, and because I rather wanted to kiss him despite all this, I decided I would give it another chance...

T - Date 3 (the positive version)

Dear Reader,

Here is a quiz. I am midway between Aldgate and Aldgate East stations and am running late, am too hot, have had an annoying day at work and have managed to snap my tooth, thus making myself about as attractive as the witch in Disney's "Snow White", if she had been transported to the tropics and asked to do the 1500m hurdles in her cloak with her basket of apples. In order not to further exacerbate the situation, which route do I take to meet T as promptly as possible in Greenwich?

OK. Here is what I actually did. Prepare to be bemused.

Got on at Aldgate East. I could have walked to Tower Gateway, but my feet were hurting. Didn't get off at Whitechapel as would have been sensible as I was too hot and tired and had a seat which I didn't want to risk not getting on the next train. Instead I took the Hammersmith Line to... West Ham. There instead of taking the Jubilee Line short cut all the way, being flustered, I took it to Canning Town, got off, got onto the DLR to Poplar, and then changed again for Greenwich.

Minutes this trip should have taken: 20
Minutes it actually took: 60
Minutes I was late by: 50

T had received my texts informing him of my mishaps, and kindly replied that he was just happy that I was turning up, and to expect to see him opposite the jazz saxophonist outside Greenwich station.

He was leaning against the wall, looking attractively dandyish, and as I approached he went to pick up his bag, next to the saxophonist, and a bunch of flowers, for me!

We ordered lime waters at Cafe Rouge, and then ate delicious tapas at a colourful place near the market. I produced a book that I had bought him for his birthday, which he asked me to inscribe (he was pressurising me for some sort of witty epigram - I wrote something mature about him being a prick). But we both laughed. Without alcohol (gasp!) we had both got a bit giddy and giggly, and as we walked back to the station I had a strong desire to take his hand, and sensed he was considering it too. But neither of us did it (the trials of dating a teetotaller).

On the DLR we continued winding each other up, and could sense the eyes of the carriage on us - confirmed when I pointed it out and three people started laughing. Then, suddenly he leant over and planted a kiss on my cheek. And blushed. How immensely charming!

He hopped off and I spent the rest of the voyage home trying to suppress my grin.

Couldn't have had a happier train ride!

T Re-met (Date 2).

No, reader, it didn't all end with my heart being trodden on like a squeaky dog ball, by S.

I won't tell you where this is, as they gave me food poisoning.

After I got back from a conference-cum-springtime-holiday in the US, T casually got in touch. It became clear that he has an eye for the aesthetic, as I received instructions to join him at an atmospheric Moroccan restaurant. (This was pre the 50 Shades tsunami, or I may have drawn a parallel, on the level of authoritativeness, at least).

What did we talk about? I remember that listening formed my main duty of the evening, and that there was a distinct absence of follow-up questions when I mentioned my Masters. There was also a notable moment when he didn't let me have the dessert I wanted, insisting instead that we go for ice-cream (on what was a chilly March evening), at a place that turned out to be shut.

Look good don't they?  Sadly I never found out!

Undeterred, he selected an extremely over-priced touristy pseudo-Italian cafe on Regent's Street, where I watched him eat a tiramisu, while he told me he wouldn't normally have contacted me as I'd put my body type as curvaceous (accurate) and I should have put slim (inaccurate). As he had also labelled himself slim (inaccurate), I suppose I could have. However, my premise is to err on the side of um... honesty, in order not to be greeted with the horror of the first-date-falling-face. Experience, however, begins to indicate that this is not a typical male concern.

It seems my somewhat snarky replies had charmed him, as once the serious business of dessert was out of the way, he put his cutlery down, looked me in the eye and told me he didn't like to play games, he was interested, and would like to see me again. As I rather enjoy being non-plussed in this kind of way (it happening so rarely), I said yes, that would be acceptable, and then walked back to the tube babbling so self-deprecatingly I was waiting for him to stop me and say he'd changed his mind.

awkward...

However, he didn't.

We shared a charmingly awkward goodbye in the tube tunnels under Oxford Circus, where he clumsily kissed me on the cheek and concluded, "Nice to meet you!" belatedly remembering, as I arched an eyebrow, that this wasn't in fact our first date.

He picked his bag up, flustered.  Smirking, I tripped off down to my platform.

S and the weeping woman... (that'd be me)

After the exchange of some fruity post-date texts suggesting we visit Mary W's gravestone in Bournemouth, all went quiet on the S front. Considering the evening had cost him the best part of £150 I thought it only polite to follow up the next day with a sober thank you for the delicious dinner "and post-meal entertainment" which elicited an amused and enthusiastic reply, but this followed what I've learnt is his typical pattern of courteous responses and zero initiation. Hmm... Just maybe I scared him off with my drunken recommendation not to do "the man-nonsense of waiting until it was too late"?!

S somehow manages to have a profound effect on my mood - when he's keen it's like the sun shining down a blessing on me; when he's politely dismissive it's like the thunder clouds have opened over my head and battered out any self-esteem I might have ever possessed.  I enjoy his company and find him exceedingly attractive. I know he's no good for me. I suggest we meet as friends.

My plan was just to have a coffee and brief catch up, possibly with a view towards making myself indispensable as a friend (and perhaps along the way provoke him into realising he'd missed out on a good catch), but avoiding alcohol and anything that could be implicit in "getting my hopes up". This morphed into going to the cinema, and then going to the cinema and getting something to eat (both his idea).

Unfortunately for him, it was the once a month free bar at my work, and we weren't meeting until 7.30. I had been planning to fill the time gap with a spot of light reading, but following a major work-related vexation at 5.29pm, I was persuaded to join my colleagues in the pub. The same colleagues who, on ascertaining my plans for the evening, ribbed me with "Not a date?! Yeah right!" until a few beers and sufficient innuendo later, I was riding the crest of certainty that I was the most desirable woman in London and was essentially heading out to be proposed to.

Within minutes of meeting S, my confidence and mild alcohol-induced elation were doused. 

"I've started seeing someone," he announces as we sit down opposite each other in the restaurant of his choice. "I've taken my profile off the website, we're serious about each other."

"Oh? The One?" I reply nonchalantly, possibly in a slightly higher pitch than usual. "That's nice. How long have you been together?"

"You're going to laugh. Since Tuesday."

Laugh? I should have. But not many people laugh when they receive a metaphorical slap. Today is Thursday. He made categorically clear that he did not want to "rush into" a relationship after first meeting me. I'm starting to feel a little... well, shit.

"I thought you weren't into rushing into anything?" I allow myself (trying to avoid doing the petulant mimc voice and accompanying "talking hand" when quoting his words back at him).

"Yes, well, we'd been writing to each other for three weeks, so we felt like we knew each other well already."

There's a pause as at least one of us contemplates the fact that he and I were writing to each other for three months before we finally met up. He gets up to pay for the meal (you have to pay when you order in this place).

"Wait!" I say. "How much do I owe you?" I'm not accepting dinner from someone else's boyfriend.

He declines to take any money. Guilt? Pity? Flash? Still wanting to be charming? Just a nice guy?

"Come on," I text (he is now in the queue), "you should be saving your money for your new fiancee."

"Yes, weddings are exorbitant nowadays!" He texts back.

Fine. "Can I be a bridesmaid?"

This is what my outfit should say!

Dear reader, before reading his response, note that I was wearing what I'll pretend to think of as my Lois Lane outfit - i.e. a satin pencil skirt, non-slutty fishnet tights, boots and a low cut but smart white shirt. I probably wear this to work about once a week, but it doubles up as my work-to-date-without-looking-like-I've-made-any-particular-effort-for-you outfit.

His reply: "Definitely, if you wear that outfit!"

I shrugged the inappropriately flirtatious comment off with, "What? Office wear?"

But really, what game are we playing here? Is he seeing someone or not? And either way, why is he even meeting me? To take his turn at knocking me back? I was too unsettled to eat much, or to even mentally note infractions of commonly held table manner conventions for later ridicule. Yes, it was that bad.

We go to the cinema. To see Martha Macy Myrtle Margery Miranda... This was my choice and not a good one. Brooding, sinister, alienating, wholly depressing... the ideal film to give a very wide berth when you're exhausted, haven't really eaten, have pmt, are reaching the groggily depressed stage of drunkenness and have just been publicly given the mega-brush off by someone you have been pretending to everyone (yourself included) not to like a quarter as much as you do.

The film is like walking further and further into a dank, deserted forest at dusk. As, three-quarters of the way through, a character submits herself to rape, a tear slips down my face. I lose the will to pretend I'm enjoying myself anymore and the tear's followed by a cascade of more. This is the sort of mood where you need to be in bed with a hot chocolate, a Pixar DVD and a sleeping pill, not out on a date with someone you like but have somehow blown it with. The film ends and I go to the toilet to have a sob (experience has taught me that teariness needs immediate purging or I'll be on the cusp of a breakdown all evening).  I emerge red-eyed and -nosed, hoping the dark will conceal this and I can emerge with a thread of dignity.

No such luck!

S appears to jolly me along: "Remind you of your experiences in a cult, did it?"

"Yes." I retort, flatly.

I recall that S is a psychiatrist. At this moment there are few professions I would less like to be on a date with.

He seems, understandably, in a slight hurry to get his tube. I tell him to go ahead: I need a hot chocolate or I'm going to spend the whole night being haunted by the film (I'm very suggestible). He accompanies me despite my internal pleas that he doesn't decide to benevolently humour me. He gets kinder and more distant by the minute. I feel more and more like a young and foolish patient... I wonder if he has any diazepam.

We have hot drinks and a share a cake. He makes the sort of kindly gestures to cheer me up that a psychiatrist would of course be so adept at - steering the conversation towards my past successes, asking questions he already knows the (cheering) answers to in a bid to buoy my mood, all the while keeping it impersonal and himself detached. This is smart and considerate of him, and truly depresses the hell out of me. The only thing that could possibly make it worse would be if he started telling me what a catch I would be - for some other man. And that's exactly what he does. If I'm that good a catch... but no, I don't labour that point.

Goddam phoney psychiatrists!

The next day I will send him a message apologising, explaining I am not on the verge of a nervous breakdown, do not want a fling, do not go home with men after only meeting them once, am not persistently drunk, have not been in a cult and do not like seeing films with anything higher than a 12 rating. He will write back telling me he accepts my self-evaluation, and how funny and intelligent I am, how I owe him dinner and how he can't wait to see my published work on the 3 for 2 table in Waterstone's: "All I ask is to be a character in your book, so that I can tell my friends."

But for tonight, this week, this month, I have had enough. I listen to assorted tunes of torment on repeat all the way home and snivel into my pillow, with a plan for the morrow to invest my future energies into dull essays instead of phantasmagoric romances.

Here endeth the blog (for the rest of this month, anyway).

Q – the profile and the reality!

A man doing this for the camera? Please no.

I met Q through a mutual friend a couple of years back and we had a brief fling followed by a superficial and occasional gesture at friendship, so it was with some amusement I recently stumbled upon his online dating profile. This seemed an excellent opportunity to gauge the ratio of truth to nonsense of a man's self-analysis (a qualitative rather than quantitative survey, you understand).

The profile commenced with a photo of Q looking imploringly up at the camera, hand coyly over mouth, puppy dog eyes.  This alone would usually be enough for me to "Next!" a bloke (no effete manipulators, please).


The content of the profile itself however, was more engaging. He comes across as funny, articulate, self-effacing, genuine, charming, sweet. A fantastic date and/or boyfriend in fact.


I will refrain from quoting it directly, in the interests of maintaining some shred of decency and anonymity (for him not me), but I think it is fair to say that were I to rewrite this profile (as many men request a female acquaintance do), here are some of the key points I noticed were missing:

• Happy to offer unsolicited unconstructive criticism on anything from your career to your choice of footwear to what you are cooking for dinner this evening (even if he is not invited to said dinner).
• Rude to taxi drivers, and potentially anyone else who is working class and/or an ethnic minority.
• Likes to receive texts and exclaim expletives such as “bugger” (or the strangely unplummy "motherfucker") in loud voice to provoke you into asking what the problem is. If ignored will repeat in attention-seeking manner until he gets the go ahead to disclose a "teaser" about the latest girl who is "stalking" him.
• Enjoys point-scoring off friends, particularly in front of their new girlfriends.
• Inability to give compliments: they "have to be earnt" - yes headmaster!
• Frequent difficulty in distinguishing between wit and tactlessness/rudeness.
• Capacity for occasional acts of charm and sweetness, but only activated after at least a bottle of wine, and likely to be strenously denied in the morning.
• And let's not forget my personal favourite: the post-coital baby voice with accompanying lisp. Irresistible.

On the other hand (after all, it wouldn't do to appear one-sided), also unrecorded on his profile was the fact that he possesses a rather nice, sleek body.


Can I ever approach a profile with my prelapsarian innocence again?

Date with T: Renaissance Man.

Is he a doctor? Is he a banker? Is he a philosophy and theology double postgraduate from Oxford University?

Yes, this was my date from last week.

Instead of taking me to planet Krypton he takes me to a restaurant that looks rather ordinary (in fact, verging on dingy) on the outside, but inside, tardis/phonebooth-like, opens down into a indoor south Indian villa replete with fountains, palm trees, grottos and multi-level splendour. Wow.

And despite the fact he doesn't drink the evening passes fluidly. He's intelligent, interesting, asks questions I want to answer (engaging ones). He orders vegetarian to share. He's open. He's straight-talking and witty (therefore slightly dangerous). He's foppish (I wasn't sure about the pink blazer at first, but I'm now of the opinion that individuality is an excellent thing). He's going on holiday to North Korea (as above).

So - ticks all my boxes. But do I fancy him? Unsure. In the sense that if he flirted with me more overtly I'm sure I would, but it seems I'm required to do the chasing, which leaves me a little cold: I don't like to feel I'm with someone because I've ground them down, even if they are resplendently out of my league. And does he fancy me? We exchanged texts, but as he seems to be waiting for me to make the move twice (something he said he prefers women to do) I get the impression the answer is, if at all, then not enough.

In which I have a moral dilemma.

Until now, all the men I've met I was talking to prior to commencing The Blog. Whilst I do sometimes feel a little pinprick of guilt typing our meetings up, this is waylaid by the fact I leave it at least a week before publishing each post in case I change my mind (or my interpretation - they have time to make reparations), and also the fact that I hadn't met them originally with the intention of publicly humiliating them - if that's what they feel has happened, perhaps they should look to their own behaviour?

Kiss and tell

Now, starting new conversations, I feel rather like a venus fly trap - luring men in to ensnare them in a report of their own weaknesses. Am I more expectant of finding someone to love, or more expectant of finding someone to laugh at? It's surely the latter (although I hope you'll agree I am equally willing to laugh at myself). This has definitely taken the sting out of rejection: however badly a date goes instead of feeling I've wasted an evening, two cheering words spring to mind: "blog fodder."

In my last LTR I behaved pretty badly at times, little thinking that the intimacies of our relationship would ever go beyond our bedroom (imagining, as you do when you're 20-something and living together, it'll be 4EVA).  In fact, one of the cruellest parts of the break up was the thought of him sharing with some sympathetic eyelid-batting 6-stone beauty what a monster (both physical and mental) his ex had been (Of course, this did not extend to any hint of remorse about doing the same thing to him - and to be frank at times he'd bordered on the beastly).

For example, no jokes like this. 

However, from this I learnt the valuable lesson that you should never do anything you'd regret having done if someone else found out (e.g. no slamming-door-and-marching-off tantrums, no farting in bed, no using tears to get what you want, no silent treatment, perhaps exerting a fraction more effort in toeing the line with the rude mother-in-law, and no using the full range of my whiplash tongue on a man* - exceptional circumstances notwithstanding).

Subliminal?

So is blogging about the men I'm dating an abuse of trust, akin to trampling on their Yeatsian dreams; or is it fair enough that consenting adults should be held accountable for their behaviour, albeit through the medium of a secret, snidey pre-meditated blog?!


*See what an amazing gf I'd be?!