He was a sales representative. Well, at least that's what he told me. How do you know for sure if they're telling the truth anyway? A bloke could come up to you in the street and say he's an orthodontist and apart from following him to work and seeing if his name's on a gold plaque next to the door (if indeed he has told you his real name), how on Earth would you know if he was lying? He could be Mr. Sanderson DMD, or he could just be Joe Bloggs going to get his teeth fixed. I went out with a guy once who swore blind he worked for MI5. How the hell do you deal with that? When you've just met the person, you can't shake your head and say 'Wrong, try again'. For all I knew, he could have worked for MI5. The fact that I had met him in a Croydon nightclub, he was 22 and dressed like an estate agent could all have been an elaborate cover-up. He didn't bloody work for MI5, though, did he. Let's face it. And once you've lied like that, it's doomed from the start. I went along with it, but eventually he stopped calling and I was rather relieved. There's only so much you can talk about with a guy who answers every enquiry about his day with 'That's classified information'.
My point is, you can never really know somebody. Not really. And especially not after having chatted with them for just an hour. The whole 'love at first sight' thing must only work for people who have mutually low expectations. It's very easy, when taking part in any of these internet dating things or speeddating events or anything like that, to get caught up in your perception of the person you have fixed your sights on, rather than the person as they really are. It's very easy to get lulled into a false sense of familiarity when chatting with this new person, to convince yourself that you have really got to know them, when in fact you have barely skimmed the surface. That's why, when internet dating, it can be wise not to message too much before meeting as it means that neither party has many expectations or preconceptions ready to be crushed spectacularly throughout the course of the date. I actually didn't meet up with the guy that I am about to tell you about, and I consider it to be a lucky escape. The internet, although miraculous, has a lot to answer for when used inappropriately.
Like I said, he told me he was a sales rep. He had sent me a message on the speeddating website that I was on, and we struck up a conversation through this medium. I was hesitant at first to reply to his messages because although he seemed like a nice guy, after looking at his photographs I had decided that he was not somebody that I would be attracted to. He was fat, for a start. OK, that's a little harsh. He seemed like a 'big guy'. The sort of man who shopped at High and Mighty. 7ft tall and 5ft wide. That kind of bloke. Not a bad face- Sort of... pleasant. Like a young Santa without the beard. A kind face. We messaged quite a lot, actually- just average, pleasant exchanges about work and how the day was going, plans for the weekend, things like that. No double-entendres, no saucy implications (I would not have continued to contact him if this had been the tone. Dear me, no) All very 'normal' and pleasant.
He kept asking me out for a drink. I kept avoiding the question. I wasn't sure at this stage if I wanted to meet him. Looking back, I don't know why, actually. Even if I'd decided 'friends' was a good option, why wouldn't I meet him for a drink? Perhaps it was some kind of bizarre dating intuition. For some reason, I wasn't sure. He was a little too nice, a little too normal. He moved on from the drink suggestion to a suggestion that we chat on msn. I was hesistant again, but eventually gave in. The hotmail address I would use wouldn't give my full name, it was pretty much the same as an Email exchange, so I agreed.
At the time, I was working as a receptionist in Mayfair. It was a standard reception set-up: A desk in the lobby of the building with a computer on it. It wasn't lonely because the smokers were coming down in shifts to stand outside in the cold, and visitors were frequently coming or going. And couriers. And engineers. You get the idea. A busy reception. It was a Tuesday morning and I was a little bored. High and Mighty logged in to msn. We started to chat.
It started out as relatively innocent, in the same vein as the previous messages.
Then he asked me what I was wearing.
Ah, the old cliché, I thought. Funny guy. The chat continued. He told me about a couple of new shirts that he'd bought and was deliberating about which one to wear for an office do. All very normal.
Then suddenly he started to type messages that had a completely different tone to his previous writings. I was a little surprised. It was a lot more... flirty. And urgent. Urgently flirty. It was quite funny, really.
Then he asked me to click on webcam.
I said I didn't have a webcam, so no. 'No no', he said, 'click on webcam on the msn screen.' I asked him why. He said he wanted to show me something. Now, anybody reading this will be saying 'Ooooh no. No, no. I know what's happening here.' Reader, I would not consider myself to be naïve. But at the time, at 11am on a Tuesday, my first thought was that he wanted to show me his new shirt. I'm serious. That is honestly what I thought he wanted to show me. After his third, and urgent request, a group of Chinese businessmen walked in to reception.
Just as I clicked on webcam.
He was wanking off. He was there, naked, in all his tubby glory, wanking off in front of his laptop. At 11am on a Tuesday. Online with a girl he'd never met. A girl who was at work, sat in reception, beetroot-red in the face, deperately trying to find the 'OFF' button on the bloody webcam while the one man in the group of Chinese businessmen who could see the screen looked on in horror at the action unfolding. It must only have lasted a few seconds but by God it felt like a lifetime.
Eventually I managed to get rid of it. I stood up, composed myself, and politely asked the businessmen to sign in. The man must have questioned his own sanity. I actually think he convinced himself that he had been seeing things. None of his colleagues had seen it. So what was he going to do, get in the lift and say 'Hey, did you see that bloke wanking off on the receptionist's computer? Awesome'. It was a lucky escape.
As soon as the visitors had gone, I deleted High and Mighty from my msn contacts. And blocked him.
I was quite shaken up. And a little angry. Angry at myself for being so naïve as to click on the bloody thing, but also angry that a perfect stranger felt he had the right to show me such a graphic representation of self-gratification. At 11am on a Tuesday.
He knew I was at work; what did he think I was going to do, join in!?
And why on Earth wasn't he at work?
And how had he managed to type so accurately with one hand?
So many questions that would never be answered.
The disturbing thing was, he probably did it to a lot of people. And that was a little unsettling. I decided to contact the speeddating website to report him. But he had been very clever. Remember I said that the messages that he'd sent via the site had all been very 'nice' and 'normal'? It meant that they had no proof. No evidence that he had been up to anything other than innocent, pleasant Emails. So the dirty litle bugger is probably continuing his Tuesday morning antics. Until someone invents a link next to 'Webcam' that says 'Bobbitt'...
Thursday 10 December 2009
Tuesday 24 November 2009
Past: Muso Man And His Incredible Homemade Sex Toy
He was a musician. Because of this, I presumed that he would be arty and accepting. I was right. He had also been to drama school, so I presumed he understood what that environment was like and would be able to seperate fiction from reality. That bit, I wasn't so right about...
I met Muso Man for the first time in a nice cosy bar in Hoxton. He reminded me a little of Milo from The Tweenies and he smelled like jumble sale, but I decided to let that go. We chatted for hours about the Arts and hit it off rather well. Like most people, when I told him I was an actress he asked me, 'What's the craziest thing you have ever done onstage?'
This is a baaaaaad question for me. Because I couldn't possibly tell somebody I've just met the real answer to that, as it's a little too strange. I have since learned this and now either tell them a tamer story, or just make one up. But this was before I realised just how much of a mistake telling the truth could be in this situation. I thought, 'He's a musician, he's been to drama school, he knows what it is like, he can take the truth. He'll probably find it as amusing as it was intended to be'. So I told him the truth. I'm not going to give you too much information, reader, as it's not necessary. But for the story's sake I shall divulge that it was an hysterically funny (non-pornographic) scene in an Opera involving a Nazi costume, a riding crop and a large gold strap-on dildo. (I hasten to add- 'hysterically funny' in terms of the writing; I by no means intend to flatter my own performance!)
As I told him this story I noticed that he was as amused by it as I had hoped. I joked that my boyfriend at the time was also in the play and was a little disturbed by my costume. But this guy seemed to realise that it was no reflection on myself, just a fun role I had been given the chance to play. I was a little relieved- after all, the 'telling the truth' ploy could have backfired -and grateful to have found somebody who was not in the same business as me, yet could understand how it worked. Much to my surprise, I began to find him physically attractive, and we did kiss at the end of the evening before going our seperate ways on the tube. A lovely night.
We went for a second date. It was largely uneventful, apart from the fact that we spent most of it kissing in a bar. We got to know each others' lives a little better, spoke about subjects that we hadn't covered, and laughed a lot. Again, we didn't do dinner but enjoyed a few drinks and then said goodbye at the tube. Great.
A couple of days later, I got the text message. 'Hey. It's Valentine's day on Friday and I was thinking that maybe we could go out that night?' Now, this was to be the third date. I liked him, but I'd only seen him twice. Going out on Valentine's Day together was a little too much for me. Besides, I'd made arrangements to go drunken bowling. It was sweet of him to mention it, so I replied to suggest going out on the following night instead. Not Valentine's Day, but as good as. He liked this idea.
Saturday came. We met in a pub. He rushed up to greet me, got me a drink and could barely contain himself when he whispered, 'I've got you a present!'
My heart sank. Shit. Were we doing presents?! I barely knew the bloke! I felt a bit awful but presumed it was just a little something; possibly a CD he'd told me about, maybe just a card. But I did have to say 'I'm sorry, I didn't get you anything!' I doubt he heard me. Judging by the look on his face he was so excited to give me whatever it was he'd got me, he was seconds away from weeing himself. He was building this up so much, I half expected somebody in a bodywarmer to lead a Shetland pony into the pub with a bow round its neck. I decided to pretend to be as excited as he was: 'Oooh! What did you get me!?' His face changed from 'Excitement' to 'Covert Operation': 'Not in here. I can't give it to you in here'. Aw. He was embarassed and wanted somewhere a little more private. Of course. I'd have to wait until we were out of the bar.
A few drinks and a few laughs later, we decided to get something to eat. We went across the road to a little Vietnamese restaurant. We suggested getting two dishes to share between us.
I ordered a beef dish that I was particularly attracted to as the description mentioned that it was named after a method of torture that involved stripping human flesh to the sound of a beating drum.
He ordered a salad.
We got on very well, and the food was great. However I was beginning to wonder, in the cold fluorescent light of the Vietnamese, whether I fancied this bloke after all. Each time I had seen him he had looked more and more like a Tweenie and smelled more and more like jumble sale. When he got up to go to the loo, I noticed that he was wearing incredibly flared brown corduroy slacks that were far too short so swung around the middle of his calves, revealing about three inches of grubby yellow sock. Too-short, jumble sale flared trousers. Not that sexy. But the evening couldn't end yet- I was still intrigued about my present...
I asked him if this was a more suitable place in which to give me my Mystery Prize. Apparently even though we were the only people in the restaurant, this wasn't the right enviroment for gift-giving either. I was getting a little suspicious now. Was there a present at all, or was he just going to unzip his flies at the end of the date? Although the action could possibly add an inch to his trousers, this did not sound appealing. I told him this. He seemed amused, and flashed me (wait for it) a little red gift bag hidden in his jacket pocket. Phew. There was a present.
At the end of the meal, we decided to go for a walk to Hoxton Square and have a few more drinks to round off the night. I had given up on the bloody present by this stage. He had milked the metaphorical cow to such an extent that she lay wizened in the mud with flies around her eyes. I was bored. We got to the middle of the square, where there were no other people around and the only lighting was from an exhausted single streetlamp, when he yelled 'PRESENT-TIME!' and thrust the gift bag into my hand. I gave him my best 'Joyful' facial expression and looked inside.
'Joyful' didn't last long. It progressed to 'Disbelief'.
'Disbelief' turned into 'Realisation'.
'Realisation' morphed into 'Horror'.
He had made a tiny gold strap-on dildo.
MADE it. Not bought it, not seen it in a shop and picked it up on a whim.
MADE it.
How? He had bought one of those tiny horrible little squidgy rubbery plastic willies that women chuck around at hen parties, painted it gold, bought a red CAT COLLAR (complete with bell. A BELL!), glued the gold willy to the cat collar, and presented it to a girl he'd only met twice before as a romantic present for Valentine's Day.
A dildo. Glued to a cat-collar. So, effectively: A strap-on. For a cat.
I was speechless. I think my face must have said it all. I felt a bit sick. I had no idea what to do next. I only knew that I didn't want to see or hold this... thing ever again. I didn't say anything, I just calmly put it back in his hand, and walked towards the bar. Then stopped. I had no idea what to do or say next.
He caught up with me. 'I thought you'd find it funny!'
'Funny?! It's. It's not funny! It's. Horrible!'
'But you said your ex-boyfriend wasn't comfortable with it, and I wanted you to know that I am!'
'WHAT?! You think that's what I'm INTO!? It was a PART! It was a PART in a PLAY. That's not ME!'
'Oh. I thought...'
'You thought that was ME?! Like it was a test!?'
'Yeah.'
'Wow. WOW'.
'My mum said you'd find it funny.'
His mother was a lesbian.
Now it was his turn not to know what to do or say next. My mind was racing with questions: What kind of a bloke gives that to his new date for Valentine's day? Did he really think I'd find it funny? Should I have found it funny? He was obviously not an axe murderer but at the same time he must have had a fucked-up sexual outlook. Making that thing would have taken time. Did he think it was a good idea all the while he was making it? Did he chuckle to himself thinking of my reaction as he applied gold paint to a tiny rubber willy?
The possibilities were endless and bizarre.
I think in the few minutes of silence that had passed, the realisation had sunk into his head that this had been a horrible, horrible mistake. He was visibly crushed. He decided to pretend it had never happened. 'Come on, forget about it, let's go get a drink'. But I didn't move. I didn't want a drink. I wanted to go home. He saw this and said quietly, 'I'll walk you to the tube'.
We walked in silence to the station. I was starting to see the funny side of it all, so every now and again would burst out laughing and look at him to share the joke. He just stared at the floor with a face like thunder. Oh dear. I tried to make conversation but he wasn't having any of it. I began to realise that there was no chance in Hell that the evening was going to end well. Happy bloody Valentine's. He had got it completely and utterly wrong and there was no going back from it. He had been mortified and humiliated and now he was angry.
What felt like 6 hours later, we arrived at the tube. He had already decided that I would never want to see him again, so he said 'Well, I guess that's it then', kissed me on the cheek and told me to take care. I was beginning to feel bad about reacting so strongly to his offering and didn't want to burn any bridges on a whim, so I told him I'd see him soon. Well, I thought I might feel different the next day...
The next day, lying on the living room carpet crying with laughter telling my mum all about it on the phone, I decided that my gut feeling had been right. I wasn't going to see him again. What had been done could not be undone.
And I vowed never again to tell the truth about the craziest thing I've ever done onstage.
I met Muso Man for the first time in a nice cosy bar in Hoxton. He reminded me a little of Milo from The Tweenies and he smelled like jumble sale, but I decided to let that go. We chatted for hours about the Arts and hit it off rather well. Like most people, when I told him I was an actress he asked me, 'What's the craziest thing you have ever done onstage?'
This is a baaaaaad question for me. Because I couldn't possibly tell somebody I've just met the real answer to that, as it's a little too strange. I have since learned this and now either tell them a tamer story, or just make one up. But this was before I realised just how much of a mistake telling the truth could be in this situation. I thought, 'He's a musician, he's been to drama school, he knows what it is like, he can take the truth. He'll probably find it as amusing as it was intended to be'. So I told him the truth. I'm not going to give you too much information, reader, as it's not necessary. But for the story's sake I shall divulge that it was an hysterically funny (non-pornographic) scene in an Opera involving a Nazi costume, a riding crop and a large gold strap-on dildo. (I hasten to add- 'hysterically funny' in terms of the writing; I by no means intend to flatter my own performance!)
As I told him this story I noticed that he was as amused by it as I had hoped. I joked that my boyfriend at the time was also in the play and was a little disturbed by my costume. But this guy seemed to realise that it was no reflection on myself, just a fun role I had been given the chance to play. I was a little relieved- after all, the 'telling the truth' ploy could have backfired -and grateful to have found somebody who was not in the same business as me, yet could understand how it worked. Much to my surprise, I began to find him physically attractive, and we did kiss at the end of the evening before going our seperate ways on the tube. A lovely night.
We went for a second date. It was largely uneventful, apart from the fact that we spent most of it kissing in a bar. We got to know each others' lives a little better, spoke about subjects that we hadn't covered, and laughed a lot. Again, we didn't do dinner but enjoyed a few drinks and then said goodbye at the tube. Great.
A couple of days later, I got the text message. 'Hey. It's Valentine's day on Friday and I was thinking that maybe we could go out that night?' Now, this was to be the third date. I liked him, but I'd only seen him twice. Going out on Valentine's Day together was a little too much for me. Besides, I'd made arrangements to go drunken bowling. It was sweet of him to mention it, so I replied to suggest going out on the following night instead. Not Valentine's Day, but as good as. He liked this idea.
Saturday came. We met in a pub. He rushed up to greet me, got me a drink and could barely contain himself when he whispered, 'I've got you a present!'
My heart sank. Shit. Were we doing presents?! I barely knew the bloke! I felt a bit awful but presumed it was just a little something; possibly a CD he'd told me about, maybe just a card. But I did have to say 'I'm sorry, I didn't get you anything!' I doubt he heard me. Judging by the look on his face he was so excited to give me whatever it was he'd got me, he was seconds away from weeing himself. He was building this up so much, I half expected somebody in a bodywarmer to lead a Shetland pony into the pub with a bow round its neck. I decided to pretend to be as excited as he was: 'Oooh! What did you get me!?' His face changed from 'Excitement' to 'Covert Operation': 'Not in here. I can't give it to you in here'. Aw. He was embarassed and wanted somewhere a little more private. Of course. I'd have to wait until we were out of the bar.
A few drinks and a few laughs later, we decided to get something to eat. We went across the road to a little Vietnamese restaurant. We suggested getting two dishes to share between us.
I ordered a beef dish that I was particularly attracted to as the description mentioned that it was named after a method of torture that involved stripping human flesh to the sound of a beating drum.
He ordered a salad.
We got on very well, and the food was great. However I was beginning to wonder, in the cold fluorescent light of the Vietnamese, whether I fancied this bloke after all. Each time I had seen him he had looked more and more like a Tweenie and smelled more and more like jumble sale. When he got up to go to the loo, I noticed that he was wearing incredibly flared brown corduroy slacks that were far too short so swung around the middle of his calves, revealing about three inches of grubby yellow sock. Too-short, jumble sale flared trousers. Not that sexy. But the evening couldn't end yet- I was still intrigued about my present...
I asked him if this was a more suitable place in which to give me my Mystery Prize. Apparently even though we were the only people in the restaurant, this wasn't the right enviroment for gift-giving either. I was getting a little suspicious now. Was there a present at all, or was he just going to unzip his flies at the end of the date? Although the action could possibly add an inch to his trousers, this did not sound appealing. I told him this. He seemed amused, and flashed me (wait for it) a little red gift bag hidden in his jacket pocket. Phew. There was a present.
At the end of the meal, we decided to go for a walk to Hoxton Square and have a few more drinks to round off the night. I had given up on the bloody present by this stage. He had milked the metaphorical cow to such an extent that she lay wizened in the mud with flies around her eyes. I was bored. We got to the middle of the square, where there were no other people around and the only lighting was from an exhausted single streetlamp, when he yelled 'PRESENT-TIME!' and thrust the gift bag into my hand. I gave him my best 'Joyful' facial expression and looked inside.
'Joyful' didn't last long. It progressed to 'Disbelief'.
'Disbelief' turned into 'Realisation'.
'Realisation' morphed into 'Horror'.
He had made a tiny gold strap-on dildo.
MADE it. Not bought it, not seen it in a shop and picked it up on a whim.
MADE it.
How? He had bought one of those tiny horrible little squidgy rubbery plastic willies that women chuck around at hen parties, painted it gold, bought a red CAT COLLAR (complete with bell. A BELL!), glued the gold willy to the cat collar, and presented it to a girl he'd only met twice before as a romantic present for Valentine's Day.
A dildo. Glued to a cat-collar. So, effectively: A strap-on. For a cat.
I was speechless. I think my face must have said it all. I felt a bit sick. I had no idea what to do next. I only knew that I didn't want to see or hold this... thing ever again. I didn't say anything, I just calmly put it back in his hand, and walked towards the bar. Then stopped. I had no idea what to do or say next.
He caught up with me. 'I thought you'd find it funny!'
'Funny?! It's. It's not funny! It's. Horrible!'
'But you said your ex-boyfriend wasn't comfortable with it, and I wanted you to know that I am!'
'WHAT?! You think that's what I'm INTO!? It was a PART! It was a PART in a PLAY. That's not ME!'
'Oh. I thought...'
'You thought that was ME?! Like it was a test!?'
'Yeah.'
'Wow. WOW'.
'My mum said you'd find it funny.'
His mother was a lesbian.
Now it was his turn not to know what to do or say next. My mind was racing with questions: What kind of a bloke gives that to his new date for Valentine's day? Did he really think I'd find it funny? Should I have found it funny? He was obviously not an axe murderer but at the same time he must have had a fucked-up sexual outlook. Making that thing would have taken time. Did he think it was a good idea all the while he was making it? Did he chuckle to himself thinking of my reaction as he applied gold paint to a tiny rubber willy?
The possibilities were endless and bizarre.
I think in the few minutes of silence that had passed, the realisation had sunk into his head that this had been a horrible, horrible mistake. He was visibly crushed. He decided to pretend it had never happened. 'Come on, forget about it, let's go get a drink'. But I didn't move. I didn't want a drink. I wanted to go home. He saw this and said quietly, 'I'll walk you to the tube'.
We walked in silence to the station. I was starting to see the funny side of it all, so every now and again would burst out laughing and look at him to share the joke. He just stared at the floor with a face like thunder. Oh dear. I tried to make conversation but he wasn't having any of it. I began to realise that there was no chance in Hell that the evening was going to end well. Happy bloody Valentine's. He had got it completely and utterly wrong and there was no going back from it. He had been mortified and humiliated and now he was angry.
What felt like 6 hours later, we arrived at the tube. He had already decided that I would never want to see him again, so he said 'Well, I guess that's it then', kissed me on the cheek and told me to take care. I was beginning to feel bad about reacting so strongly to his offering and didn't want to burn any bridges on a whim, so I told him I'd see him soon. Well, I thought I might feel different the next day...
The next day, lying on the living room carpet crying with laughter telling my mum all about it on the phone, I decided that my gut feeling had been right. I wasn't going to see him again. What had been done could not be undone.
And I vowed never again to tell the truth about the craziest thing I've ever done onstage.
Friday 13 November 2009
Past: Mr. Zippy Car Keys
He was clueless. Totally clueless. You'd think that, as a theatre director, he'd be a little more... decisive. And considerate. And polite. But, as I am swiftly discovering, that is too much to ask from some potential dates.
We'd decided to have an early evening drink on the south bank. So he suggested meeting at Waterloo and walking down together. This was also the most convenient set-up as far as he was concerned, as he was getting the train in from Guildford and Waterloo was his final stop. I was working in soho at the time and was strapped for cash, so to avoid paying for the tube on top of my monthly train ticket I had walked to Charing Cross and got off at Waterloo East. But it hadn't been a problem. When we had made our arrangements it had been apparent that he had no interest in what I was doing that day or where I would be meeting him from, so he had chosen Waterloo to suit him. But it made sense considering where we were going, so that was fine by me.
I must admit that I wasn't too keen on what I saw when he turned up. He was slighter than I thought and looked like Christian Bale's unhygenic brother, complete with underbite and swarthy complexion. He was also wearing a necklace. Reader, I have to explain here that I dislike men's jewellry. The odd family signet ring is marginally acceptable and could even be classed as endearingly quirky but when we're getting into Argos chunky chain territory, a line has been crossed. He was wearing a chunky silver necklace in the form of a zip which met in the middle, giving the impression that it was holding together his grubby T-shirt. I wondered why he had bought this item. What part of his brain had kicked into action on a Tuesday afternoon watching the QVC Pewter Special that had promped him to pick up the phone, pay 35 monthly installments of £12.47 plus postage and packing and then wear the said item for a first date? What kind of bloke wears not just a chain, but a necklace? I was about to find out.
He greeted me with a peck on the cheek, and I asked him if he had anywhere in mind for a drink. He stood and deliberated in silence for about two minutes. It was painful. His eyes affixed themselves to the ceiling. I tried to make a joke about it by waving my hand in front of his face and saying 'Let's just walk down and see where we pass' but it was like time had stood still for him. I looked over his shoulder to see if his batteries had fallen out. Was this a Derren Brown experiment? Surely if he wanted to deliberate about a venue he could have done it on the train! When he finally came round he exclaimed that he had no idea where to go. I felt like his carer. I repeated that we should just walk and see where we fancied. He liked that idea.
We toddled down to the south bank chatting about each others' days. Well, chatting about his day. He had been auditioning for a new musical he had written, and was bitching about the low standard of singers he had seen. He spoke as if he were casting We Will Rock You. I asked him where the musical was to be performed. 'Guildford Community Centre'. I was tempted to tell him that maybe, given the evident lack of budget, he should just be grateful to receive a submission from someone whose tag allowed them out of the house, but decided to nod in sympathy instead. This was not the time to question his chosen medium and express my intense general dislike for contemporary musicals. I should have to bite my tongue.
He had something to slag off about EVERY BAR we passed. I just wanted to get in somewhere so that we could have a drink and a chat. But no. He was so difficult to please. 'That place looks shit', 'I don't like the decor in there', 'The Feng Shui is all wrong in the beer fridge' (OK so I made that one up, but you get the picture). I was beginning to suggest we both just called it a night. I was not having a good time, I'd only been talking to him for half an hour and already I was deciding that I didn't like him. We came back to the stairs at the bottom of the Hungerford Bridge and he said 'Why don't we go across here'. I could have screamed. I had walked from soho to Charing Cross to get the train to Waterloo to meet him, and now not only had we traipsed aimlessly around for half an hour, he was suggesting walking BACK over the river to Charing Cross, where I had originally travelled from. We got to Embankment. He didn't want to go in any of those bars either. We started walking up to Charing Cross.
I said 'I actually got the train from here to Waterloo to meet you.'
'Really?'
'Yeah, I work in soho so I got the train from here'
(I was expecting him to say 'Oh my goodness, how ridiculous, I'm so sorry!')
'Well if you know this area then YOU pick a bar'.
I muttered 'I'm trying'
We ended up in the crappiest pub of the lot. I was beyond caring, and I think even he got to the point where he couldn't moan any more at my suggestions. We got to the bar. I really needed a drink. I knew I didn't want to see him again so there was no attempt to be 'girly': I ordered a pint of Staropramen. He hadn't heard what I ordered, so when his piddly bottle of Becks turned up next to my luscious golden pint, he looked dismayed.
'What did you order?'
'A pint of Staropramen'
'Oh'
'Is that OK?'
'Er. Yeah. It's just that. Yeah. No, I just wish I'd ordered that, that's all'
I looked at him.
'Do you want to swap?'
'Er... No. No, that's OK'
I couldn't believe that he had actually considered swapping drinks. This was going to be a longer night than I thought.
We found a table and sat down. I could see him eyeing my pint like a student at last orders. He placed his car keys on the table with a massive flourish and a wink. I looked at them. Was I supposed to be impressed by car keys? I said 'Oh, did you drive to the station?'
'What?'
'Well, you've got your car keys so I wondered if you'd driven to the station to get the train'.
He looked at me as if I were an idiot. 'No'
'Oh'
'Do I LOOK like I carry a handbag?'
'Pardon?'
'I said DO I LOOK LIKE I CARRY A HANDBAG'
'What do you mean?'
'I left the keys to my flat in my car, BECAUSE I DON'T CARRY A HANDBAG'
'So where were your car keys before you put them on the table?'
'In my pocket'
'But surely you could have just put your flat keys in your pocket instead of your car keys?'
'No, I like to lock my flat keys in my car when I go out.'
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. He had decided to lock his house keys in his car because he couldn't fit his keys in his pocket, despite the fact that it resulted in him having to bring his car keys instead. I had never heard of anything so stupid in my life.
I said 'So if someone manages to break into your car, you have arranged it so that they have free access to rob your flat, and have something to drive it all away with at the same time?'
He looked at me like this idea had never occurred to him. Then, in a way that a 5-year old boy tries to convince his mother that a monster ate the last biscuit, he said 'Ah. But. My car's alarmed. So ner.'
I had the feeling that I might have given him the impression that I thought he was a bit impractical (ahem), and I had only made a small dent in my drink so I thought I'd flatter him a little. I asked him what kind of car he had. He said 'A VW Polo'. Now, bearing in mind I'd decided to flatter him, what I blurted out next wasn't really the best thing to say. I spluttered on my pint, laughed like a bloke and said 'They're a fortune to insure'. I don't really know why I said it. It's the first thing I think of when someone mentions a VW because when I was looking into buying a car a year ago and did some research, VWs were indeed the most ridiculously expensive to insure. But given that I was now trying to be nice to the guy, why on Earth did I say it? Because he was obviously the worst kind of arrogant bastard. And if he was the type of guy who waved his car keys in front of a girl's nose, he was the type of guy who liked a girl who was easily impressed by a car, and I wasn't going to take the bait.
He seemed to like this kind of masochistic approach. Oh dear. He started to insult me in a bizarre passive-agressive way, saying that I looked like 'a crier' and that I should grow my hair long 'to detract from your height'. I wondered what he thought was wrong with being a 6ft blonde. And I couldn't remember the last time I'd cried. He was evidently expecting some kind of strong reaction to all this and I just shrugged into my drink wondering what to reply. So he changed tack. He told me that I was a lot more fun now that I was drunk (I most certainly was not) and that he was friends with Terence Trent D'Arby and Matt Lucas. I wondered what Terence and Matt would have to say about this. ('WHO?!') It was getting to the point where he was just throwing stuff out there in the hope of hitting some kind of nerve: Whether this nerve involved me throwing my drink over him and running out in tears, or leaning forward in interest and desire, he didn't seem to care. He got neither.
I wanted to leave. I was starving (What is it with these blokes who refuse to acknowledge the fact that human beings need to EAT?) and I knew I didn't like him. He was the worst kind of director: The kind that thinks it's acceptable to -and gets satisfaction from- intimately criticising someone that they have only known for an hour, just because they're in the same business. The last thing I want from a first date, at the end of another hard day getting by with the day-job whilst trying desperately to make headway with an acting career, is criticism. And when that criticism is coming from a moron who takes joy in insulting total strangers and is currently casting a production of his own musical (complete with pop songs penned by him- Why hadn't Terence helped?) to be performed at the Guildford Community Centre, it's not something you want to write down and cherish so much as scrawl in shite and make him eat it.
I was about to make my excuses and get home in time for Corrie, when he downed his bottle, slammed it on the table and shouted 'YOUR ROUND!' I felt like replying 'Well if we're getting personal mate, you're fucking ugly' but decided against it. How bloody rude. He was obviously as tight as a duck's bum. Despite not really caring what he thought, a polite part of myself kicked in and I went to the bar. I think my internal reasoning was that he couldn't complain that I hadn't paid my way. You know, in case he was discussing the evening with Matt Lucas afterwards (HA!)
During the second drink, all he did was shout out names of famous actors and actresses and I told him what I thought of them. He seemed to enjoy this. Mainly because I just so happened to severely dislike most of the names he yelled out. But one can only pass so much time of an evening doing this, and the game soon wore thin. I was definitely leaving this time.
Saying goodbye was a triumphant moment. It had been an utterly unenjoyable date. He had been insulting, patronising and arrogant. I had given as good as I got, but by God it was exhausting. By the time I said goodbye to him at the bottom of the steps leading up to Charing Cross, I was ready for bed. I said it had been nice to meet him. He said 'Yeah, 'bye' and walked away. I muttered 'Hope your car's gone when you get back.'
God must have heard me.
As I was approaching the top of the steep steps up from Embankment to Charing Cross, in a near-sober state I hasten to say, my foot caught on the edge and I fell. Not a lady-like, 'Oops I tripped but I have maintained a very elegant poise and can not only expect to be helped up by a handsomely coiffed stranger but shall reveal no scratches on me but a small cut in the shape of a heart on my delicate palm which the said stranger shall dab with his handkerchief and later remark on at our wedding in his Castle in the Highlands'...
No.
Imagine a rather large, rather ungainly spider being squashed with a potato masher. Wearing boots and carrying an unzipped handbag. Not being helped up, but rather mocked by a group of spotty 16-year-old boys smoking at the top of the stairs in Adidas.
When I did lift my beetroot-red face upwards and gather my limbs, I noticed that I'd left the toe of one boot scraped up the step and my knee had gone through my jeans. Of course. No lady-like falling for me. I was just lucky I hadn't chinned myself. But as I hobbled to the train, my mind raced backwards to when we had said goodbye. It must only have been a minute since we'd parted when I tripped up. PLEASE let him not have seen me? I doubted that he liked me at all, let alone liked me enough to watch me walk towards the station. No. No he hadn't seen me. Somehow that was important; to hang on to the last shred of dignity that I had by the end of the night.
There was one thing I was sure of. It was the perfect end to an imperfect evening.
We'd decided to have an early evening drink on the south bank. So he suggested meeting at Waterloo and walking down together. This was also the most convenient set-up as far as he was concerned, as he was getting the train in from Guildford and Waterloo was his final stop. I was working in soho at the time and was strapped for cash, so to avoid paying for the tube on top of my monthly train ticket I had walked to Charing Cross and got off at Waterloo East. But it hadn't been a problem. When we had made our arrangements it had been apparent that he had no interest in what I was doing that day or where I would be meeting him from, so he had chosen Waterloo to suit him. But it made sense considering where we were going, so that was fine by me.
I must admit that I wasn't too keen on what I saw when he turned up. He was slighter than I thought and looked like Christian Bale's unhygenic brother, complete with underbite and swarthy complexion. He was also wearing a necklace. Reader, I have to explain here that I dislike men's jewellry. The odd family signet ring is marginally acceptable and could even be classed as endearingly quirky but when we're getting into Argos chunky chain territory, a line has been crossed. He was wearing a chunky silver necklace in the form of a zip which met in the middle, giving the impression that it was holding together his grubby T-shirt. I wondered why he had bought this item. What part of his brain had kicked into action on a Tuesday afternoon watching the QVC Pewter Special that had promped him to pick up the phone, pay 35 monthly installments of £12.47 plus postage and packing and then wear the said item for a first date? What kind of bloke wears not just a chain, but a necklace? I was about to find out.
He greeted me with a peck on the cheek, and I asked him if he had anywhere in mind for a drink. He stood and deliberated in silence for about two minutes. It was painful. His eyes affixed themselves to the ceiling. I tried to make a joke about it by waving my hand in front of his face and saying 'Let's just walk down and see where we pass' but it was like time had stood still for him. I looked over his shoulder to see if his batteries had fallen out. Was this a Derren Brown experiment? Surely if he wanted to deliberate about a venue he could have done it on the train! When he finally came round he exclaimed that he had no idea where to go. I felt like his carer. I repeated that we should just walk and see where we fancied. He liked that idea.
We toddled down to the south bank chatting about each others' days. Well, chatting about his day. He had been auditioning for a new musical he had written, and was bitching about the low standard of singers he had seen. He spoke as if he were casting We Will Rock You. I asked him where the musical was to be performed. 'Guildford Community Centre'. I was tempted to tell him that maybe, given the evident lack of budget, he should just be grateful to receive a submission from someone whose tag allowed them out of the house, but decided to nod in sympathy instead. This was not the time to question his chosen medium and express my intense general dislike for contemporary musicals. I should have to bite my tongue.
He had something to slag off about EVERY BAR we passed. I just wanted to get in somewhere so that we could have a drink and a chat. But no. He was so difficult to please. 'That place looks shit', 'I don't like the decor in there', 'The Feng Shui is all wrong in the beer fridge' (OK so I made that one up, but you get the picture). I was beginning to suggest we both just called it a night. I was not having a good time, I'd only been talking to him for half an hour and already I was deciding that I didn't like him. We came back to the stairs at the bottom of the Hungerford Bridge and he said 'Why don't we go across here'. I could have screamed. I had walked from soho to Charing Cross to get the train to Waterloo to meet him, and now not only had we traipsed aimlessly around for half an hour, he was suggesting walking BACK over the river to Charing Cross, where I had originally travelled from. We got to Embankment. He didn't want to go in any of those bars either. We started walking up to Charing Cross.
I said 'I actually got the train from here to Waterloo to meet you.'
'Really?'
'Yeah, I work in soho so I got the train from here'
(I was expecting him to say 'Oh my goodness, how ridiculous, I'm so sorry!')
'Well if you know this area then YOU pick a bar'.
I muttered 'I'm trying'
We ended up in the crappiest pub of the lot. I was beyond caring, and I think even he got to the point where he couldn't moan any more at my suggestions. We got to the bar. I really needed a drink. I knew I didn't want to see him again so there was no attempt to be 'girly': I ordered a pint of Staropramen. He hadn't heard what I ordered, so when his piddly bottle of Becks turned up next to my luscious golden pint, he looked dismayed.
'What did you order?'
'A pint of Staropramen'
'Oh'
'Is that OK?'
'Er. Yeah. It's just that. Yeah. No, I just wish I'd ordered that, that's all'
I looked at him.
'Do you want to swap?'
'Er... No. No, that's OK'
I couldn't believe that he had actually considered swapping drinks. This was going to be a longer night than I thought.
We found a table and sat down. I could see him eyeing my pint like a student at last orders. He placed his car keys on the table with a massive flourish and a wink. I looked at them. Was I supposed to be impressed by car keys? I said 'Oh, did you drive to the station?'
'What?'
'Well, you've got your car keys so I wondered if you'd driven to the station to get the train'.
He looked at me as if I were an idiot. 'No'
'Oh'
'Do I LOOK like I carry a handbag?'
'Pardon?'
'I said DO I LOOK LIKE I CARRY A HANDBAG'
'What do you mean?'
'I left the keys to my flat in my car, BECAUSE I DON'T CARRY A HANDBAG'
'So where were your car keys before you put them on the table?'
'In my pocket'
'But surely you could have just put your flat keys in your pocket instead of your car keys?'
'No, I like to lock my flat keys in my car when I go out.'
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. He had decided to lock his house keys in his car because he couldn't fit his keys in his pocket, despite the fact that it resulted in him having to bring his car keys instead. I had never heard of anything so stupid in my life.
I said 'So if someone manages to break into your car, you have arranged it so that they have free access to rob your flat, and have something to drive it all away with at the same time?'
He looked at me like this idea had never occurred to him. Then, in a way that a 5-year old boy tries to convince his mother that a monster ate the last biscuit, he said 'Ah. But. My car's alarmed. So ner.'
I had the feeling that I might have given him the impression that I thought he was a bit impractical (ahem), and I had only made a small dent in my drink so I thought I'd flatter him a little. I asked him what kind of car he had. He said 'A VW Polo'. Now, bearing in mind I'd decided to flatter him, what I blurted out next wasn't really the best thing to say. I spluttered on my pint, laughed like a bloke and said 'They're a fortune to insure'. I don't really know why I said it. It's the first thing I think of when someone mentions a VW because when I was looking into buying a car a year ago and did some research, VWs were indeed the most ridiculously expensive to insure. But given that I was now trying to be nice to the guy, why on Earth did I say it? Because he was obviously the worst kind of arrogant bastard. And if he was the type of guy who waved his car keys in front of a girl's nose, he was the type of guy who liked a girl who was easily impressed by a car, and I wasn't going to take the bait.
He seemed to like this kind of masochistic approach. Oh dear. He started to insult me in a bizarre passive-agressive way, saying that I looked like 'a crier' and that I should grow my hair long 'to detract from your height'. I wondered what he thought was wrong with being a 6ft blonde. And I couldn't remember the last time I'd cried. He was evidently expecting some kind of strong reaction to all this and I just shrugged into my drink wondering what to reply. So he changed tack. He told me that I was a lot more fun now that I was drunk (I most certainly was not) and that he was friends with Terence Trent D'Arby and Matt Lucas. I wondered what Terence and Matt would have to say about this. ('WHO?!') It was getting to the point where he was just throwing stuff out there in the hope of hitting some kind of nerve: Whether this nerve involved me throwing my drink over him and running out in tears, or leaning forward in interest and desire, he didn't seem to care. He got neither.
I wanted to leave. I was starving (What is it with these blokes who refuse to acknowledge the fact that human beings need to EAT?) and I knew I didn't like him. He was the worst kind of director: The kind that thinks it's acceptable to -and gets satisfaction from- intimately criticising someone that they have only known for an hour, just because they're in the same business. The last thing I want from a first date, at the end of another hard day getting by with the day-job whilst trying desperately to make headway with an acting career, is criticism. And when that criticism is coming from a moron who takes joy in insulting total strangers and is currently casting a production of his own musical (complete with pop songs penned by him- Why hadn't Terence helped?) to be performed at the Guildford Community Centre, it's not something you want to write down and cherish so much as scrawl in shite and make him eat it.
I was about to make my excuses and get home in time for Corrie, when he downed his bottle, slammed it on the table and shouted 'YOUR ROUND!' I felt like replying 'Well if we're getting personal mate, you're fucking ugly' but decided against it. How bloody rude. He was obviously as tight as a duck's bum. Despite not really caring what he thought, a polite part of myself kicked in and I went to the bar. I think my internal reasoning was that he couldn't complain that I hadn't paid my way. You know, in case he was discussing the evening with Matt Lucas afterwards (HA!)
During the second drink, all he did was shout out names of famous actors and actresses and I told him what I thought of them. He seemed to enjoy this. Mainly because I just so happened to severely dislike most of the names he yelled out. But one can only pass so much time of an evening doing this, and the game soon wore thin. I was definitely leaving this time.
Saying goodbye was a triumphant moment. It had been an utterly unenjoyable date. He had been insulting, patronising and arrogant. I had given as good as I got, but by God it was exhausting. By the time I said goodbye to him at the bottom of the steps leading up to Charing Cross, I was ready for bed. I said it had been nice to meet him. He said 'Yeah, 'bye' and walked away. I muttered 'Hope your car's gone when you get back.'
God must have heard me.
As I was approaching the top of the steep steps up from Embankment to Charing Cross, in a near-sober state I hasten to say, my foot caught on the edge and I fell. Not a lady-like, 'Oops I tripped but I have maintained a very elegant poise and can not only expect to be helped up by a handsomely coiffed stranger but shall reveal no scratches on me but a small cut in the shape of a heart on my delicate palm which the said stranger shall dab with his handkerchief and later remark on at our wedding in his Castle in the Highlands'...
No.
Imagine a rather large, rather ungainly spider being squashed with a potato masher. Wearing boots and carrying an unzipped handbag. Not being helped up, but rather mocked by a group of spotty 16-year-old boys smoking at the top of the stairs in Adidas.
When I did lift my beetroot-red face upwards and gather my limbs, I noticed that I'd left the toe of one boot scraped up the step and my knee had gone through my jeans. Of course. No lady-like falling for me. I was just lucky I hadn't chinned myself. But as I hobbled to the train, my mind raced backwards to when we had said goodbye. It must only have been a minute since we'd parted when I tripped up. PLEASE let him not have seen me? I doubted that he liked me at all, let alone liked me enough to watch me walk towards the station. No. No he hadn't seen me. Somehow that was important; to hang on to the last shred of dignity that I had by the end of the night.
There was one thing I was sure of. It was the perfect end to an imperfect evening.
Tuesday 10 November 2009
Present: 'MINE!!'
He was a detective. OK, so I’d never met a real detective before and I only went on the date because I was intrigued. Was he going to arrive in a mac and a trilby placed at a jaunty angle? I hoped so. He would want to turn up early to suss out the restaurant for ‘scum’. He would have eyes like deep, dark pools of mystery and a way of speaking that persuaded you to blurt out your innermost secrets. If we got into trouble on our Safari honeymoon he would be able to do that Crocodile Dundee thing to calm down the wild buffalo. But while I was daydreaming about these possibilities, waiting outside the restaurant, I got a text saying ‘Sorry late, struggling up hil’. Not a very physically fit, literate or punctual detective then. In my mind I had pictured a younger, taller, suave version of Columbo. Now it was more like a fat lump with egg on his lapel, a broken Casio watch and a squashed Topic in his pocket.
I was waiting outside in the cold for ten minutes. Yeah alright, ten minutes isn't that long. But it was very cold and one would hope to realise it was worth the wait. I was a little disappointed then, that the guy who turned up was skinnier than me (My no. 1 rule: Never to go out with a guy who is thinner- or prettier- than me) and wearing a hillbilly check shirt and a tight leather jacket that was camper than Butlins. Not a big strapping copper at all. Rather a weed, really. I wondered whether he investigated littering. In fact, that had been part of the initial intrigue- what type of detective was he? I was sure that he'd refuse to tell me on the grounds that it was against an oath he took in Cadets or something and in some bizarre role-reversal I'd manage to slip him up and find out the answer using my cunning and guile. The reality was that he could tell me, he just wasn't sure if he should.
Rape. He was a rape detective. There's a pleasant first-date conversation for you. I honestly wished I'd never bloody asked. What the hell do you reply to that? Do you ask him about his day!? I didn't have to. He continued to tell me that the night before he'd been taking penile swabs from a homeless chap. I started to wonder if I'd had any contact with his hands so far that evening. No, no. It had been a peck on the cheek to say hello. No hand contact. You know when there's a leper on holiday and you don't realise they're there until they're in your face asking for money and you start to worry if you'd brushed past them just before that without knowing they were a leper? And then you tell yourself not to be silly because it's not Biblical times any more and surely you can't catch leprosy from just brushing past someone but then you think of your mate Sandra's nan who hadn't had her tetanus and she pricked her finger gardening but didn't have any Dettol and the next thing she knew she was on her back in Costcutter with a weeping finger and an Irish accent?
Yeah. One of those moments.
So we were sat there having a glass of wine before the meal and chatting about the rape cases he'd investigated (the odds of getting a conviction are rather depressing, apparently) when I commented on the fact that he didn't look like a detective at all. That was when he decided to tell me that people meeting him for the first time tend to wonder if he's gay, which might be to do with the fact that he has low testosterone levels that make him seem effeminate. I wondered why on Earth he'd decided to blurt that out 15 minutes into the date- it's hardly a turn-on. Although maybe for ladies looking for a 'metrosexual' type it could be. But I wanted an old-fashioned detective, and the last word you would use to describe a detective is 'effeminate'. I had visions of Columbo flashing sequinned hotpants under his mac, insisting on pink latex gloves at the scene of the crime and doing unspeakable things with his cigar during the end credits.
Campness aside, the bloke seemed decent, and we finally got sat down at the table. But here was another one who seemed to want to ply me with drink- he ordered a bottle of white wine with no consultation... and he was on beer. He asked me how I had found the dating website (we'd met online) and I told him that I didn't really like the idea of onine dating but as I was single I thought I'd give it a go for a bit, despite finding it rather embarassing and not at all something I'd want to have a chat about. He seemed to take this as a cue to tell me, in great detail, about another girl he'd recently met the same way. In his words: They'd gone out a couple of times and she was very pretty but stupid. He'd not been that bothered but she'd been very into him and so he'd decided to sleep with her on the second date, but had left her flat later that night and never called her again. He had got what he wanted, and she shouldn't have 'put out' so soon. At the end of this charming little story, he evidently expected me to find it all very amusing. I said I thought it was unfortunate that she wasn't very bright, and considering how he had behaved I felt rather sorry for her actually. It was at this point that he poured himself some wine.
The food was lovely, and the wine had further loosened his tongue- he confessed that he'd nearly cancelled our date because a close member of his family had passed away suddenly the week before. Naturally I was horrified, said how sorry I was and told him that it was fine if he wanted to chat about it and fine if he didn't. So I got his family history from 1900 to the present day. Apparently he was in constant torment due to the fact that his family were deeply deeply religious and it had grown more and more difficult for him, in his line of work, to continue this belief into adulthood, so he was now an atheist. But with the recent death in the family this had brought up a lot of questions in his head and there was a bit of a mental struggle going on. Having sat through all this for an hour, I knew how he felt. My mind wandered to the scene in Airplane! where various people kill themselves during Ted Striker's stories. I was beginning to contemplate requesting to blow-torch my own creme brulée.
Ah yes, dessert. He had ordered the Banoffee pancake (after having complained like a 5-year-old to the waitress that he would have preferred Banoffee pie, and why could that not be arranged for him?) and I ordered the creme brulée. As the waitress was walking away he yelled 'She's promised me I can have half of hers!' I had done nothing of the sort and took it to be some sort of stupid joke. Reader, I am a little like Joey from Friends in my reluctance to share food. A man (or woman, for that matter) can feel pretty honoured if, on any occasion, I deign to share my meal with them.
Dessert arrived. All good, all lovely, nothing out of the ordinary here (apart from the religious debate between me, him, and the voices in his head). He demolished most of his pancake and popped to the loo, leaving a plateful of soggy melted ice-cream mess. I continued demurely with my delicate little spoon and my dessert.
Suddenly, he RAN back towards the table and looking down at my bowl in horror, exclaimed 'That's MINE!', grabbed the creme brulée from under my nose, threw his melted leftovers in front of me, grabbed his soup spoon and finished my dessert in three enormous shovelled mouthfuls.
I was absolutely gobsmacked. This was unforgivable. He saw the look on my face once he'd finished crunching the sugar with his mouth open, and explained 'You were eating more than half'.
I decided that we were definitely not going for drinks after dinner. We went Dutch on the meal, got our coats and walked outside. I said 'Well it was lovely to meet you but I think it may be time to call it a night'
'WHAT?! No way! We're going for a drink after. I've heard there's a nice wine bar around here...'
'Yes there is, just down there. But I've had enough for tonight thanks'
'Nope! Come on! We're going for a drink!'
'But?'
'NO!! COME ON!'
And with that, he grabbed my arm and frogmarched me down the road to the wine bar.
The wine bar was empty apart from a few regulars and the bartender, who was having a chat with a mate waving his arms so violently during the conversation that he nearly fell off his stool. We took two seats at the bar and my date ordered me another glass of white wine. By this time I had definitely had enough. I wasn't terribly drunk, I just couldn't physically take any more. I knew this had to be my last one.
The religious debate continued. I can't even remember what his point was any more. My take on religion is quite flexible but the main thing is, I think it is used by certain people as a tool to control the masses and as a result can be incredibly beneficial or incredibly dangerous, depending on the situation. I don't know why he disagreed with this, but it seems that he did. He had gone from a sober atheist to a drunken creationist. I kind of understood it, given the family tragedy and his inward struggle, but by God it's not great for a first date. We were having quite a healthy discussion about it, neither of us getting too heated, yet he decided to include the barman in the debate.
The barman's take on religion, it seemed, was that it was not something to be questioned in any way whatsoever. I was trying to put a point across, while he kept yelling 'You must have religion! It is good for family values! We need family values! How can you say you don't want religion? You don't want a FAMILY?! How can you not want a family? It's the most important thing in the WORLD...' and so on and so on. A conversational brick wall. What was worse, the barman's friend seemed to have developed Tourette's and was intermittently shouting expletives for a woman's anatomy to punctuate his mate's monologue. It was at that point, when the barman paused to ask if I wanted more wine and my date said 'YES!' that I'd had enough.
I said it was time to leave and stood up. My date said 'No, come on, it's still early'. I said it was quite late actually. He looked at his watch, took a split-second to take it all in, and finally yelled 'WHAT?! It's eleven-THIRTY?! It was TEN O'CLOCK ten minutes ago! I've missed my last train!' and with that he sprinted out of the bar and down the hill.
I haven't heard anything from him since.
I was waiting outside in the cold for ten minutes. Yeah alright, ten minutes isn't that long. But it was very cold and one would hope to realise it was worth the wait. I was a little disappointed then, that the guy who turned up was skinnier than me (My no. 1 rule: Never to go out with a guy who is thinner- or prettier- than me) and wearing a hillbilly check shirt and a tight leather jacket that was camper than Butlins. Not a big strapping copper at all. Rather a weed, really. I wondered whether he investigated littering. In fact, that had been part of the initial intrigue- what type of detective was he? I was sure that he'd refuse to tell me on the grounds that it was against an oath he took in Cadets or something and in some bizarre role-reversal I'd manage to slip him up and find out the answer using my cunning and guile. The reality was that he could tell me, he just wasn't sure if he should.
Rape. He was a rape detective. There's a pleasant first-date conversation for you. I honestly wished I'd never bloody asked. What the hell do you reply to that? Do you ask him about his day!? I didn't have to. He continued to tell me that the night before he'd been taking penile swabs from a homeless chap. I started to wonder if I'd had any contact with his hands so far that evening. No, no. It had been a peck on the cheek to say hello. No hand contact. You know when there's a leper on holiday and you don't realise they're there until they're in your face asking for money and you start to worry if you'd brushed past them just before that without knowing they were a leper? And then you tell yourself not to be silly because it's not Biblical times any more and surely you can't catch leprosy from just brushing past someone but then you think of your mate Sandra's nan who hadn't had her tetanus and she pricked her finger gardening but didn't have any Dettol and the next thing she knew she was on her back in Costcutter with a weeping finger and an Irish accent?
Yeah. One of those moments.
So we were sat there having a glass of wine before the meal and chatting about the rape cases he'd investigated (the odds of getting a conviction are rather depressing, apparently) when I commented on the fact that he didn't look like a detective at all. That was when he decided to tell me that people meeting him for the first time tend to wonder if he's gay, which might be to do with the fact that he has low testosterone levels that make him seem effeminate. I wondered why on Earth he'd decided to blurt that out 15 minutes into the date- it's hardly a turn-on. Although maybe for ladies looking for a 'metrosexual' type it could be. But I wanted an old-fashioned detective, and the last word you would use to describe a detective is 'effeminate'. I had visions of Columbo flashing sequinned hotpants under his mac, insisting on pink latex gloves at the scene of the crime and doing unspeakable things with his cigar during the end credits.
Campness aside, the bloke seemed decent, and we finally got sat down at the table. But here was another one who seemed to want to ply me with drink- he ordered a bottle of white wine with no consultation... and he was on beer. He asked me how I had found the dating website (we'd met online) and I told him that I didn't really like the idea of onine dating but as I was single I thought I'd give it a go for a bit, despite finding it rather embarassing and not at all something I'd want to have a chat about. He seemed to take this as a cue to tell me, in great detail, about another girl he'd recently met the same way. In his words: They'd gone out a couple of times and she was very pretty but stupid. He'd not been that bothered but she'd been very into him and so he'd decided to sleep with her on the second date, but had left her flat later that night and never called her again. He had got what he wanted, and she shouldn't have 'put out' so soon. At the end of this charming little story, he evidently expected me to find it all very amusing. I said I thought it was unfortunate that she wasn't very bright, and considering how he had behaved I felt rather sorry for her actually. It was at this point that he poured himself some wine.
The food was lovely, and the wine had further loosened his tongue- he confessed that he'd nearly cancelled our date because a close member of his family had passed away suddenly the week before. Naturally I was horrified, said how sorry I was and told him that it was fine if he wanted to chat about it and fine if he didn't. So I got his family history from 1900 to the present day. Apparently he was in constant torment due to the fact that his family were deeply deeply religious and it had grown more and more difficult for him, in his line of work, to continue this belief into adulthood, so he was now an atheist. But with the recent death in the family this had brought up a lot of questions in his head and there was a bit of a mental struggle going on. Having sat through all this for an hour, I knew how he felt. My mind wandered to the scene in Airplane! where various people kill themselves during Ted Striker's stories. I was beginning to contemplate requesting to blow-torch my own creme brulée.
Ah yes, dessert. He had ordered the Banoffee pancake (after having complained like a 5-year-old to the waitress that he would have preferred Banoffee pie, and why could that not be arranged for him?) and I ordered the creme brulée. As the waitress was walking away he yelled 'She's promised me I can have half of hers!' I had done nothing of the sort and took it to be some sort of stupid joke. Reader, I am a little like Joey from Friends in my reluctance to share food. A man (or woman, for that matter) can feel pretty honoured if, on any occasion, I deign to share my meal with them.
Dessert arrived. All good, all lovely, nothing out of the ordinary here (apart from the religious debate between me, him, and the voices in his head). He demolished most of his pancake and popped to the loo, leaving a plateful of soggy melted ice-cream mess. I continued demurely with my delicate little spoon and my dessert.
Suddenly, he RAN back towards the table and looking down at my bowl in horror, exclaimed 'That's MINE!', grabbed the creme brulée from under my nose, threw his melted leftovers in front of me, grabbed his soup spoon and finished my dessert in three enormous shovelled mouthfuls.
I was absolutely gobsmacked. This was unforgivable. He saw the look on my face once he'd finished crunching the sugar with his mouth open, and explained 'You were eating more than half'.
I decided that we were definitely not going for drinks after dinner. We went Dutch on the meal, got our coats and walked outside. I said 'Well it was lovely to meet you but I think it may be time to call it a night'
'WHAT?! No way! We're going for a drink after. I've heard there's a nice wine bar around here...'
'Yes there is, just down there. But I've had enough for tonight thanks'
'Nope! Come on! We're going for a drink!'
'But?'
'NO!! COME ON!'
And with that, he grabbed my arm and frogmarched me down the road to the wine bar.
The wine bar was empty apart from a few regulars and the bartender, who was having a chat with a mate waving his arms so violently during the conversation that he nearly fell off his stool. We took two seats at the bar and my date ordered me another glass of white wine. By this time I had definitely had enough. I wasn't terribly drunk, I just couldn't physically take any more. I knew this had to be my last one.
The religious debate continued. I can't even remember what his point was any more. My take on religion is quite flexible but the main thing is, I think it is used by certain people as a tool to control the masses and as a result can be incredibly beneficial or incredibly dangerous, depending on the situation. I don't know why he disagreed with this, but it seems that he did. He had gone from a sober atheist to a drunken creationist. I kind of understood it, given the family tragedy and his inward struggle, but by God it's not great for a first date. We were having quite a healthy discussion about it, neither of us getting too heated, yet he decided to include the barman in the debate.
The barman's take on religion, it seemed, was that it was not something to be questioned in any way whatsoever. I was trying to put a point across, while he kept yelling 'You must have religion! It is good for family values! We need family values! How can you say you don't want religion? You don't want a FAMILY?! How can you not want a family? It's the most important thing in the WORLD...' and so on and so on. A conversational brick wall. What was worse, the barman's friend seemed to have developed Tourette's and was intermittently shouting expletives for a woman's anatomy to punctuate his mate's monologue. It was at that point, when the barman paused to ask if I wanted more wine and my date said 'YES!' that I'd had enough.
I said it was time to leave and stood up. My date said 'No, come on, it's still early'. I said it was quite late actually. He looked at his watch, took a split-second to take it all in, and finally yelled 'WHAT?! It's eleven-THIRTY?! It was TEN O'CLOCK ten minutes ago! I've missed my last train!' and with that he sprinted out of the bar and down the hill.
I haven't heard anything from him since.
Thursday 5 November 2009
Past: Playing Doctor
He was short. OK, it's not his fault. But he was still short. However, I'd actually met this one before agreeing to dinner, so I only have myself to blame. We'd hit it off on a Speeddating night- he'd told me he was a heart surgeon and seemed rather jovial and interested in me- and although I was unpleasantly surprised when he stood up, I thought I shouldn't be so narrow-minded as to let that stop me dating him. (Reader, I am 5'11'' tall, so it's not difficult to find men shorter than myself)
He apparently lived in Islington, so suggested we meet near there. I did think it less than chivalrous of him to suggest I travel all the way from South East London to meet him around the corner from his house, but was polite enough to agree, if only to relinquish the responsibility of 'picking a venue'. His suggestion was to meet not at the tube, not outside a large landmark, but 'at the end of his road' so that we could wander up to a French restaurant that he knew. So far so good. Unfortunately he hadn't had the foresight to book, so the restaurant couldn't seat us until 9pm and sent us away to (apparently) drink until then. It was 7.30.
We started to wander back towards where we had met in the first place when, out of the blue, he said 'I only live up there, you know.'
I remarked, with a smile, that that was nice for him.
Silence.
I chuckled and wondered why on earth he had made such a big deal of telling me where his flat was. He couldn't possibly be suggesting.... ? Could he?! He stood and looked (up) at me for an uncomfortable minute.
When he realised that I was not under any circumstances going to 'go back to his', we continued walking down the main road.
We passed a Mexican bar which looked like fun and although that was the sort of place I could imagine my (now not-so-jovial) date absolutely hating, on his suggestion we ended up drinking 2 for 1 Mojitos surrounded by sombreros, loud salsa music and cracked yellow paint. I was pleasantly surprised. I thought 'Wow, here's a guy who is a little mysterious, a little quiet but could be a lot of fun'. Perched on our precariously teeny stools at the bar, he ordered 4 Mojitos. I asked why on earth he had ordered four (Were we expecting company!?) He said 'Well, it's 2 for 1, we may as well have two each.' Now, at the time this gesture seemed like the very definition of pragmatism and generosity. However, looking back, I would conclude now that this was purely a ruse to get me progressively and absolutely drunk. And, I'm afraid to say, it worked.
The problem was- the more drunk I became, the more surly and silent my date became. Now I know that I was drinking Mojitos double-handed on an empty stomach, and I know that I was becoming more and more visibly... 'relaxed' as the evening went on, but I also know that with the right person my aforementioned state could have been far better received than it was. Particularly as it was funded and most definitely mirrored by my date. However, maybe I wasn't the 'type' of drunk he'd hoped I'd become. His plan had backfired. Far from flirting with this relative stranger, I dealt with my inebriation in a kind of 'talking crap but happy to be here' kind of way. As a result, he dealt with his in a 'sit in silence and glare' kind of way. So while I grinned encouragingly, he stared daggers at the older couple also drinking in the bar who had decided to provide a spontaneous floor show of clumsy pseudo-Salsa. While I chattered away answering whatever monosyllabic questions he had thrown at me, he replied to my enquiries with 'But I want to learn more about you' and a look that warned me that if I didn't comply I could look forward to a blood-stained Christmas card containing a picture of an elf tied up in his shed. Still, given that by 8.45 I must have consumed just under three bottles of white rum, I took it all in good spirit and was determined to have a good time in spite of the increasingly closed book I was confronted with.
It was time to return to the French place, so we started to stagger back up the street towards the restaurant. By this time I was ravenous, absolutely ravenous. Of course, again we passed his road. Yet again he stopped, pointed up it and said 'I live right there, you know.' The guy did not give up. Now, I had been able to handle this (rather unsubtle) hint quietly and calmly with a little giggle when sober. But the rum had a voice. And it said, too loudly, 'I think that's irrelevant right now, don't you?'
I don't know whether it would have made any difference at this stage to either of our impressions of each other if I had reacted more... softly. All I know is- it didn't help. Again, he stood in silence and looked at me. Again, I stood and waited for him to realise the futility of his suggestion. Except this time I was indignant. The nerve of the guy! I was starting to conclude that I didn't want to see him again: Not a good precursor to the rest of the evening.
Eventually and without detour, we got to the restaurant. We sat down at our table for two and I began to think that maybe I shouldn't have accepted six Mojitos on an empty stomach. I was in dire need of water. The waitress passed by and I was just about to ask her for some when he interrupted with 'Bottle of house red, please'. I tried to look on the bright side- at least he wasn't a skinflint and he enjoyed a drink. Or rather- he enjoyed filling his date with drink...
After he filled my glass with red, I was desperate to strike up some kind of conversation with this guy- he was just sitting there in silence! He hadn't even taken his coat off. He was literally sitting there, looking like a twelve-year-old on his first day of Big School, all buttoned up with his scarf wound around his neck like it was necessary to support his his head. I half-expected to find a mitten in my wine that had roguishly escaped from the string his mother had sewn to his sleeve. It was only the beginning of the meal- I had to try to salvage it somehow. And pointing to his coat and barking 'You not stopping?' had not done the trick. I decided to relate to him on a more personal level by remarking that it was interesting that he was a heart surgeon as my father had had a heart bypass not so long ago. He took a long look at his menu, raised his eyes to me with a disapproving smirk and replied 'Bad genes.'
The waitress prevented me from leaning over and decking him by asking if we were ready to order. Now at this stage, he was pissing me off. I was drunk. I didn't care any more. I knew that I would not want to see this guy again. I knew that I was in desperate need of comfort food. I grinned up at the waitress: 'I'll have the rump steak please. Rare.' I didn't expect the reaction I got. While she smiled and jotted it down on her little pad with her little pen, my date looked at me like I'd shat on his shoe. From my point of view, I had ordered the one and only thing that could have cheered me up at this point in the evening. From his point of view, it was an insult. He, in some sort of strange attempt at making me feel like a philistine, then looked up at the waitress and said 'Fish pie'.
The conversation was most certainly not flowing when the food arrived. Like I say, I didn't care any more, so I was perfectly happy to sit in silence and listen to the couple next to us discuss the film they had just seen. I think he was mentally listing the ways in which he'd like to dismember me at this point. I started to wonder if he was indeed a heart surgeon: Although he did have little hands (I imagined that would be useful for the fiddly stuff), he didn't seem to want to talk about his job and I didn't even want to think about his bedside manner. When my order arrived, all became clear.
He couldn't stand the sight of blood. The 'doctor' couldn't stand the sight of blood. There I was, tucking into a giant, bloody slab of cow, mopping up the red puddles with my chips and making ecstasy noises, while he grimaced and nibbled his fishy mash with eyes fixed to the ceiling. I thought it was rather odd that he was so disapproving. After all, wasn't red meat supposed to be good for you in small quantities? Through a mouthful of heaven, I asked him about this. He couldn't bear to look at me. It was the crimson swimming around my plate. He couldn't look at anything that was directly in front of him for fear of being reminded of sinew and flesh. His annoyance grew. But I was enjoying my meal so much that I wouldn't have noticed if he'd suddenly decided to take his coat off and swing it round his head to 'Agadoo'. (Yes, he still had his coat and scarf on) I talked him through every melting mouthful of my meal, every blood-stained minute of it. This was not actually in an attempt to rile him; I was honestly trying to illustrate that I had started to enjoy the evening. My mood had brightened. I decided to tackle a conversation one last time. I asked him about his hobbies. I got, 'I don't have any'. I was at the end of my tether. I decided to appease him. I replied 'Oh come on. I know you're not boring because of the job you do.'
To be fair, that sentence had sounded better in my head. But in retrospect, given the fact that all the evidence pointed to him not being a heart surgeon, I had just told my date that he was boring. He immediately left the table to go to the bathroom. I paused for a split-second to reflect on my faux-pas, before shrugging and finishing my plateful with relish.
When he came back, the waitress asked if we'd like dessert. I had barely opened my mouth to suggest a coffee, when Doctor Death barked 'NO'. Narked by being deprived of caffeine, I immediately stood up and yelled 'Fine. Now I'm going to the loo,' and flounced down the stairs.
I had a brief chance to reflect on the evening's events in the bathroom. The suggestion of going back to his place before we'd even had dinner... or drinks, the fact that he had flatly refused to take his coat and scarf off all night, the fact that he claimed to be a doctor but couldn't cope with a rare steak, and the fact that he had not told me one single thing about himself all evening, no matter how much I had tried to hold a conversation with the guy. I began to feel a little sorry for him and sorry about how I had handled the situation. Perhaps I could have avoided confrontation- I should have been a bit more 'fluffy' to begin with. I should have reacted less indignantly to the premature advances. I shouldn't have got totally bladdered on Mojitos. Either way, I made a decision to end the evening as politely as possible. I composed myself, walked carefully back up the stairs and looked towards the table.
He was gone. The table had been cleared. I walked up to the maitre d' and asked where my date was. It was so sweet of him to say 'Oh madam, I'm sure he's waiting outside for you' when it was perfectly obvious that I had been left there. I asked if he had settled the bill. He had: That was something, but I still felt totally and utterly lost. It was a slap in the face. Yes, the evening had gone badly. Yes, we hadn't got along famously. No, I didn't want to see him again. But to ditch me there? When we were ten minutes away from the end of the evening? I was dumbstruck.
I walked outside in a daze and decided to send him a text message: 'Did you just leave?'
I got a reply immediately: 'Yes. I think it's safe to say we don't like each other. I paid the bill.'
I rang my best friend, and listened to her rant about what a bastard he was through uncontrollable tears on the way to Angel tube. It was a strange sensation to have been crudely pursued at the beginning of an evening, then rejected so needlessly at the very end of it. He had been so oddly rude throughout, so churlish and quiet. It was safe to say that we most certainly were not mutually compatible. And yet he had still managed, in a brief moment, to made me feel like I had not been good enough for him. I am a sensitive soul, and I think it was during that train journey home, after having calmed down from the small shock, that I decided never to blame myself for bad dates again.
He apparently lived in Islington, so suggested we meet near there. I did think it less than chivalrous of him to suggest I travel all the way from South East London to meet him around the corner from his house, but was polite enough to agree, if only to relinquish the responsibility of 'picking a venue'. His suggestion was to meet not at the tube, not outside a large landmark, but 'at the end of his road' so that we could wander up to a French restaurant that he knew. So far so good. Unfortunately he hadn't had the foresight to book, so the restaurant couldn't seat us until 9pm and sent us away to (apparently) drink until then. It was 7.30.
We started to wander back towards where we had met in the first place when, out of the blue, he said 'I only live up there, you know.'
I remarked, with a smile, that that was nice for him.
Silence.
I chuckled and wondered why on earth he had made such a big deal of telling me where his flat was. He couldn't possibly be suggesting.... ? Could he?! He stood and looked (up) at me for an uncomfortable minute.
When he realised that I was not under any circumstances going to 'go back to his', we continued walking down the main road.
We passed a Mexican bar which looked like fun and although that was the sort of place I could imagine my (now not-so-jovial) date absolutely hating, on his suggestion we ended up drinking 2 for 1 Mojitos surrounded by sombreros, loud salsa music and cracked yellow paint. I was pleasantly surprised. I thought 'Wow, here's a guy who is a little mysterious, a little quiet but could be a lot of fun'. Perched on our precariously teeny stools at the bar, he ordered 4 Mojitos. I asked why on earth he had ordered four (Were we expecting company!?) He said 'Well, it's 2 for 1, we may as well have two each.' Now, at the time this gesture seemed like the very definition of pragmatism and generosity. However, looking back, I would conclude now that this was purely a ruse to get me progressively and absolutely drunk. And, I'm afraid to say, it worked.
The problem was- the more drunk I became, the more surly and silent my date became. Now I know that I was drinking Mojitos double-handed on an empty stomach, and I know that I was becoming more and more visibly... 'relaxed' as the evening went on, but I also know that with the right person my aforementioned state could have been far better received than it was. Particularly as it was funded and most definitely mirrored by my date. However, maybe I wasn't the 'type' of drunk he'd hoped I'd become. His plan had backfired. Far from flirting with this relative stranger, I dealt with my inebriation in a kind of 'talking crap but happy to be here' kind of way. As a result, he dealt with his in a 'sit in silence and glare' kind of way. So while I grinned encouragingly, he stared daggers at the older couple also drinking in the bar who had decided to provide a spontaneous floor show of clumsy pseudo-Salsa. While I chattered away answering whatever monosyllabic questions he had thrown at me, he replied to my enquiries with 'But I want to learn more about you' and a look that warned me that if I didn't comply I could look forward to a blood-stained Christmas card containing a picture of an elf tied up in his shed. Still, given that by 8.45 I must have consumed just under three bottles of white rum, I took it all in good spirit and was determined to have a good time in spite of the increasingly closed book I was confronted with.
It was time to return to the French place, so we started to stagger back up the street towards the restaurant. By this time I was ravenous, absolutely ravenous. Of course, again we passed his road. Yet again he stopped, pointed up it and said 'I live right there, you know.' The guy did not give up. Now, I had been able to handle this (rather unsubtle) hint quietly and calmly with a little giggle when sober. But the rum had a voice. And it said, too loudly, 'I think that's irrelevant right now, don't you?'
I don't know whether it would have made any difference at this stage to either of our impressions of each other if I had reacted more... softly. All I know is- it didn't help. Again, he stood in silence and looked at me. Again, I stood and waited for him to realise the futility of his suggestion. Except this time I was indignant. The nerve of the guy! I was starting to conclude that I didn't want to see him again: Not a good precursor to the rest of the evening.
Eventually and without detour, we got to the restaurant. We sat down at our table for two and I began to think that maybe I shouldn't have accepted six Mojitos on an empty stomach. I was in dire need of water. The waitress passed by and I was just about to ask her for some when he interrupted with 'Bottle of house red, please'. I tried to look on the bright side- at least he wasn't a skinflint and he enjoyed a drink. Or rather- he enjoyed filling his date with drink...
After he filled my glass with red, I was desperate to strike up some kind of conversation with this guy- he was just sitting there in silence! He hadn't even taken his coat off. He was literally sitting there, looking like a twelve-year-old on his first day of Big School, all buttoned up with his scarf wound around his neck like it was necessary to support his his head. I half-expected to find a mitten in my wine that had roguishly escaped from the string his mother had sewn to his sleeve. It was only the beginning of the meal- I had to try to salvage it somehow. And pointing to his coat and barking 'You not stopping?' had not done the trick. I decided to relate to him on a more personal level by remarking that it was interesting that he was a heart surgeon as my father had had a heart bypass not so long ago. He took a long look at his menu, raised his eyes to me with a disapproving smirk and replied 'Bad genes.'
The waitress prevented me from leaning over and decking him by asking if we were ready to order. Now at this stage, he was pissing me off. I was drunk. I didn't care any more. I knew that I would not want to see this guy again. I knew that I was in desperate need of comfort food. I grinned up at the waitress: 'I'll have the rump steak please. Rare.' I didn't expect the reaction I got. While she smiled and jotted it down on her little pad with her little pen, my date looked at me like I'd shat on his shoe. From my point of view, I had ordered the one and only thing that could have cheered me up at this point in the evening. From his point of view, it was an insult. He, in some sort of strange attempt at making me feel like a philistine, then looked up at the waitress and said 'Fish pie'.
The conversation was most certainly not flowing when the food arrived. Like I say, I didn't care any more, so I was perfectly happy to sit in silence and listen to the couple next to us discuss the film they had just seen. I think he was mentally listing the ways in which he'd like to dismember me at this point. I started to wonder if he was indeed a heart surgeon: Although he did have little hands (I imagined that would be useful for the fiddly stuff), he didn't seem to want to talk about his job and I didn't even want to think about his bedside manner. When my order arrived, all became clear.
He couldn't stand the sight of blood. The 'doctor' couldn't stand the sight of blood. There I was, tucking into a giant, bloody slab of cow, mopping up the red puddles with my chips and making ecstasy noises, while he grimaced and nibbled his fishy mash with eyes fixed to the ceiling. I thought it was rather odd that he was so disapproving. After all, wasn't red meat supposed to be good for you in small quantities? Through a mouthful of heaven, I asked him about this. He couldn't bear to look at me. It was the crimson swimming around my plate. He couldn't look at anything that was directly in front of him for fear of being reminded of sinew and flesh. His annoyance grew. But I was enjoying my meal so much that I wouldn't have noticed if he'd suddenly decided to take his coat off and swing it round his head to 'Agadoo'. (Yes, he still had his coat and scarf on) I talked him through every melting mouthful of my meal, every blood-stained minute of it. This was not actually in an attempt to rile him; I was honestly trying to illustrate that I had started to enjoy the evening. My mood had brightened. I decided to tackle a conversation one last time. I asked him about his hobbies. I got, 'I don't have any'. I was at the end of my tether. I decided to appease him. I replied 'Oh come on. I know you're not boring because of the job you do.'
To be fair, that sentence had sounded better in my head. But in retrospect, given the fact that all the evidence pointed to him not being a heart surgeon, I had just told my date that he was boring. He immediately left the table to go to the bathroom. I paused for a split-second to reflect on my faux-pas, before shrugging and finishing my plateful with relish.
When he came back, the waitress asked if we'd like dessert. I had barely opened my mouth to suggest a coffee, when Doctor Death barked 'NO'. Narked by being deprived of caffeine, I immediately stood up and yelled 'Fine. Now I'm going to the loo,' and flounced down the stairs.
I had a brief chance to reflect on the evening's events in the bathroom. The suggestion of going back to his place before we'd even had dinner... or drinks, the fact that he had flatly refused to take his coat and scarf off all night, the fact that he claimed to be a doctor but couldn't cope with a rare steak, and the fact that he had not told me one single thing about himself all evening, no matter how much I had tried to hold a conversation with the guy. I began to feel a little sorry for him and sorry about how I had handled the situation. Perhaps I could have avoided confrontation- I should have been a bit more 'fluffy' to begin with. I should have reacted less indignantly to the premature advances. I shouldn't have got totally bladdered on Mojitos. Either way, I made a decision to end the evening as politely as possible. I composed myself, walked carefully back up the stairs and looked towards the table.
He was gone. The table had been cleared. I walked up to the maitre d' and asked where my date was. It was so sweet of him to say 'Oh madam, I'm sure he's waiting outside for you' when it was perfectly obvious that I had been left there. I asked if he had settled the bill. He had: That was something, but I still felt totally and utterly lost. It was a slap in the face. Yes, the evening had gone badly. Yes, we hadn't got along famously. No, I didn't want to see him again. But to ditch me there? When we were ten minutes away from the end of the evening? I was dumbstruck.
I walked outside in a daze and decided to send him a text message: 'Did you just leave?'
I got a reply immediately: 'Yes. I think it's safe to say we don't like each other. I paid the bill.'
I rang my best friend, and listened to her rant about what a bastard he was through uncontrollable tears on the way to Angel tube. It was a strange sensation to have been crudely pursued at the beginning of an evening, then rejected so needlessly at the very end of it. He had been so oddly rude throughout, so churlish and quiet. It was safe to say that we most certainly were not mutually compatible. And yet he had still managed, in a brief moment, to made me feel like I had not been good enough for him. I am a sensitive soul, and I think it was during that train journey home, after having calmed down from the small shock, that I decided never to blame myself for bad dates again.
Tuesday 20 October 2009
Past: The Fish Man Cometh
He was... floppy. Well, OK, his HAIR was floppy.
I had suggested a bar just down the road from my office, so I was prompt. He was late. Apparently it's a woman's prerogative but a man's necessity. But one must not let the fact that one's date is slightly late cloud a first impression. That would be slightly unfair, after all. There may have been a toilet emergency or a monkey on the District Line. So I smiled sweetly, appeared to take interest in what his day had been like (banal, from what I could make out) and ordered a beer. I have since learned that ordering a beer on a first date may not give an impression of femininity and fluffiness. But I was thirsty, so push off.
He was actually rather charming in a boyish, long-ish haired kind of way. A bit like Jim Carrey without the abrasiveness. We had quite a deep conversation about what it's like to be an actor and how difficult it is to keep going. He told me that he had a lot of actor friends and admires us for following such a treacherous path! I noticed that throughout our conversation he managed to peel the label off his beer bottle completely, so that the bottle looked as if it had never held a label at all. I remembered that whenever anyone absent-mindedly peeled a label off anything at school we used to tease them for being sexually frustrated, and wondered if that applied to this situation. It probably did, let's face it. But I brushed all that to one side and tried to focus on the conversation. I was having quite a nice time, actually- it's not often that you strike up a rapport via Email that translates to an actual face-to-face conversation, but this was actually quite good fun! All lovely lovely.
Until.
It got to about 8.30pm. He asked me if I'd like another drink. I said I would, but it was getting late and perhaps we could go and get a bite to eat? His reply? 'I'd love to, but... I've got a piece of fish in the fridge that needs eating today and I really should go home and cook it.'
I laughed! I thought it was a joke. It MUST have been a joke? But the look on his face indicated that it wasn't a joke at all. In fact he stood up, grabbed his coat and said 'So do you mind if we call it a night?' I was a little taken aback (and still reeling from the fishy excuse) so I said I didn't mind at all and stood up too. We said goodnight- a peck on the cheek and a 'take care'- and I walked to the station completely flabbergasted and contemplating the fish issue in great detail. Why on EARTH would you say THAT to somebody as an excuse to leave?! What grade of expiring fish warrants cutting a charming date short: Lobster? Monkfish? Was this a piece of fish so rare that he simply couldn't bring himself to be parted from it on its last day of relative freshness? Or the worst (and most likely) theory- Was the date going so badly from his point of view that he didn't care what he said just as long as he could get away? This idea hurt my feelings a little, given the fact that I had thought it was going well. But it was really the only explanation, so I resigned myself to the idea that he just didn't want to see me again, and texted Mr. X on the train home. (We'll come back to Mr. X later)
So, lovely reader, you may think that that is the end of the Fish Man. And I would have heartily agreed with you whilst I was sat on the train thinking about my continuing singledom. I was wrong, however (as would you have been). The following day, at 11.56am, I got an Email from him:
'Hi
Did you enjoy last night? I did. It was nice to actually meet you.
On the train home I noticed a really good exhibition we could have gone to in the paper, do you like stuff like that? It was about the evolution of electronic music over the last 20 odd years..
x'
I was totally caught off-guard. What was going on? Why on EARTH was he messaging me when it was very clear from the fishiness that he didn't want to see me again? A new theory presented itself in my brain: He DID want to see me again; he is just the kind of person who will not throw out a decent piece of fish and is prepared to relinquish a possibility of intercourse for that principle. Not a sexy thought, really. My mind fast-forwarded to our first anniversary:
'I've booked your favourite restaurant for dinner tonight, darling'
'You bitch, if you'd told me earlier I could have frozen the rollmops.'
I now had a small dilemma- to reply or not to reply? To overlook the Sell By Date trait or not? I decided to thow him a slightly greasy rope:
'Hi! I enjoyed last night too. Although I was a little perplexed that you cut the night short because of a piece of fish..........!?'
We had a small Email conversation, him apologising and saying he hoped I hadn't taken it personally but he had had college work to do, me pointing out that maybe he should have used the college work as an excuse instead, him saying that he was having some trouble speaking on the date so he just blurted something out (?!)... it was all a bit strange if I'm honest. And as hard as I tried, I just couldn't let go of the fish excuse. I couldn't get past it. It was the giant fish in the room that nobody mentioned.
We exchanged a few more messages and eventually set a second date, but I cancelled it at the last minute.
After all, I had some chicken in the fridge that needed eating.
I had suggested a bar just down the road from my office, so I was prompt. He was late. Apparently it's a woman's prerogative but a man's necessity. But one must not let the fact that one's date is slightly late cloud a first impression. That would be slightly unfair, after all. There may have been a toilet emergency or a monkey on the District Line. So I smiled sweetly, appeared to take interest in what his day had been like (banal, from what I could make out) and ordered a beer. I have since learned that ordering a beer on a first date may not give an impression of femininity and fluffiness. But I was thirsty, so push off.
He was actually rather charming in a boyish, long-ish haired kind of way. A bit like Jim Carrey without the abrasiveness. We had quite a deep conversation about what it's like to be an actor and how difficult it is to keep going. He told me that he had a lot of actor friends and admires us for following such a treacherous path! I noticed that throughout our conversation he managed to peel the label off his beer bottle completely, so that the bottle looked as if it had never held a label at all. I remembered that whenever anyone absent-mindedly peeled a label off anything at school we used to tease them for being sexually frustrated, and wondered if that applied to this situation. It probably did, let's face it. But I brushed all that to one side and tried to focus on the conversation. I was having quite a nice time, actually- it's not often that you strike up a rapport via Email that translates to an actual face-to-face conversation, but this was actually quite good fun! All lovely lovely.
Until.
It got to about 8.30pm. He asked me if I'd like another drink. I said I would, but it was getting late and perhaps we could go and get a bite to eat? His reply? 'I'd love to, but... I've got a piece of fish in the fridge that needs eating today and I really should go home and cook it.'
I laughed! I thought it was a joke. It MUST have been a joke? But the look on his face indicated that it wasn't a joke at all. In fact he stood up, grabbed his coat and said 'So do you mind if we call it a night?' I was a little taken aback (and still reeling from the fishy excuse) so I said I didn't mind at all and stood up too. We said goodnight- a peck on the cheek and a 'take care'- and I walked to the station completely flabbergasted and contemplating the fish issue in great detail. Why on EARTH would you say THAT to somebody as an excuse to leave?! What grade of expiring fish warrants cutting a charming date short: Lobster? Monkfish? Was this a piece of fish so rare that he simply couldn't bring himself to be parted from it on its last day of relative freshness? Or the worst (and most likely) theory- Was the date going so badly from his point of view that he didn't care what he said just as long as he could get away? This idea hurt my feelings a little, given the fact that I had thought it was going well. But it was really the only explanation, so I resigned myself to the idea that he just didn't want to see me again, and texted Mr. X on the train home. (We'll come back to Mr. X later)
So, lovely reader, you may think that that is the end of the Fish Man. And I would have heartily agreed with you whilst I was sat on the train thinking about my continuing singledom. I was wrong, however (as would you have been). The following day, at 11.56am, I got an Email from him:
'Hi
Did you enjoy last night? I did. It was nice to actually meet you.
On the train home I noticed a really good exhibition we could have gone to in the paper, do you like stuff like that? It was about the evolution of electronic music over the last 20 odd years..
x'
I was totally caught off-guard. What was going on? Why on EARTH was he messaging me when it was very clear from the fishiness that he didn't want to see me again? A new theory presented itself in my brain: He DID want to see me again; he is just the kind of person who will not throw out a decent piece of fish and is prepared to relinquish a possibility of intercourse for that principle. Not a sexy thought, really. My mind fast-forwarded to our first anniversary:
'I've booked your favourite restaurant for dinner tonight, darling'
'You bitch, if you'd told me earlier I could have frozen the rollmops.'
I now had a small dilemma- to reply or not to reply? To overlook the Sell By Date trait or not? I decided to thow him a slightly greasy rope:
'Hi! I enjoyed last night too. Although I was a little perplexed that you cut the night short because of a piece of fish..........!?'
We had a small Email conversation, him apologising and saying he hoped I hadn't taken it personally but he had had college work to do, me pointing out that maybe he should have used the college work as an excuse instead, him saying that he was having some trouble speaking on the date so he just blurted something out (?!)... it was all a bit strange if I'm honest. And as hard as I tried, I just couldn't let go of the fish excuse. I couldn't get past it. It was the giant fish in the room that nobody mentioned.
We exchanged a few more messages and eventually set a second date, but I cancelled it at the last minute.
After all, I had some chicken in the fridge that needed eating.
Monday 19 October 2009
FYI
A little bit about myself to put you all in the picture... I'm an actress, 28, and I live in a lovely one-bed flat in South East London. I like steak, horror films and making people laugh. Right. Let's commence....
Friday 16 October 2009
Welcome...
...to my blog. I have no idea how to do this or how it works, but thought I'd start it and see what kind of response I get!
Hopefully it'll make you laugh/cry/tut loudly and shake your head...
(IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE?)
Hopefully it'll make you laugh/cry/tut loudly and shake your head...
(IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE?)
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