We're Gonna Score-ore-ore Tonight...

Yes, my friends, I am back from a temporary blog-abyss – I'm running out of anecdates so in order to keep you interested it has become necessary to string out these entries I like to keep you lovely readers both in suspense. :-)

And in case you're misled by the post title into thinking I gave in to the demands of the KIB (far from it) this blog title paraphrases a song "ostensibly" about bowling; really about, well, 30-year-old teenagers getting it awn, from the filmic fabness that is Grease 2.

Here it is, just in case you feel you're missing out on something having never seen Grease 2*:

Yes that is a young Michelle Pfeiffer. She went on to better things. I'm told.

During my last meeting (I shan't say Date) with KIB in which he poked his noodle salad and narrated the Museum of 1951 to anyone who may be hard-of-caption-reading, he had managed to bait me again and subliminally persuade me to give him one more strike... with the promise of bowling.

Oh man. I'm making bowling/baseball puns. This is not good.

Now. I like to bowl. I'm fairly heinous at it (see: all sports and games involving co-ordination) but occasionally I pull one out of the bag (like when I play pool after a couple of drinks) and hit a pin or two.

...like zis. via here

And from what KIB had said, and based on his fetish penchant for all things vintage** he would find us an old-fashioned bowling alley where You Actually Had to Keep Your Own Score. Imagine.

Well, he didn't. He found us a contemporary alley in Bayswater and was (typically) keen to have me commit to the bowling so he could book it. And by book it, I genuinely thought he meant, just ring and reserve. So after his barrage of texts (including two within twenty minutes without even waiting for the reply to the first…) I said aye, or, in non-committal language, "That sounds OK".

Of course, there was a small amount of time between PseudoDate The Third and DeciderDate the Fourth (six days) and in those six days I'd Done a Lot of BrainThinking and Worrying and Overanalysing that Actually I Wasn't Sure I Wanted to See Him Again.

And I'd been doing a lot of Overheating too.

Yes, the day we'd chosen for our bowl-fest was a Wednesday in early August when it had been absolutely broiling all day. And the air-con (or lack therein) in my office had left me lethargic and in need of an evening of Doing Nothing and essentially feeling a little bit like this:

Yuuuuuuuurrrrhhhh... via here

Bowling, i.e. Something That Involved Exertion and Also Finding My Way in the Heat to Bayswater was not something that appealed. Plus, I knew I'd be grumpy in the heat, and for all his flaws (and one of mine) I didn't think I could inflict Grumpy QB on him yet again.

So just before the end of my working day I sent him a text to apologise, and pull out. It went something like this:

Hi KIB. I'm afraid I need to cancel this evening. I'm sorry if this is a pain as you've already booked. QB

Which I thought was fair. Wasn't it? Who knows? Much like Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory my grasp of social cues isn't all that strong. I thought it was polite, anyway, and apologetic. A little cowardly, maybe, but hey, that's just me.

via here

I did not expect this reply five minutes later:

30 quid non refundable

That was it. No salutation, no signoff. Just STROP.

WHOA. Back it up, huff-boy, no need for that.

At which point, I hate to admit, I think I gave a little primordial growl, right there in the office, to the tune of, "Arrrrrgh! MEN!"

This little one-liner actually served two purposes: 1) it guilted me into retracting my cancellation and yet 2) made me see KIB in a whole new light, and let's say, it wasn't flattering. It was the sort of light that makes Dates who were Once Good Prospects actually seem Scary and just a little bit Sociopathic. The kind who if irked will lash out. And I wasn't sure I could be doing with that.

But yet. I then sent a grovelling apology (that I'm not sure he deserved).

And he sent an overlapping apology asking me to excuse his last text. It had been "a rough day at work".  

Yes, I have those too. And when I do, I try to spare relative strangers from Grumpzilla QB by calculating my responses. But anyhoo.

He said he appreciated my text and was sure I had a good reason. Which made me feel even guiltier because, well, it wasn't like my pet gecko had died or I'd misplaced a limb under a vehicle somewhere.

I was just hot and bothered, and wanted out of the Date.

Colour me this bird:

BOK! Bok bok bok! via here

but I also still had considerable reservations about KIB after the Hair-Pulling Incident and although he'd been well-behaved enough at our last meeting, the Over-Narrating (or, as I perceived it, Treating Me Like an Illiterate Imbecile) was also Something of a Deal-Breaker.

And yet… off I toddled to darkest Bayswater via my coffee retailer of choice (which rhymes with Foster Toffee) for something cold and tasty, and sat in Hyde Park for about an hour with my book and my continuing reservations over the integrity (and incidentally the mental status) of KIB.

We met, we chatted, we popped into another coffee retailer (which rhymes with Tar Sucks) then headed to the alley. And by and large, we were actually fine. It was actually sort of fun. He was kind enough to steal back our bowling balls from the Japanese teenagers in the next lane who appeared to be stockpiling them. Plus there was an interview with dishy Dominic Cooper playing on the TV that hung over the alley so I was neatly distracted.

...Smoulder. via here

(Yes, I was ogling Le Cooper while KIB was bowling. But I did mention it wasn't a Date, not really. And besides. Mr Cooper is but fantasy. Sadly.)

All was going well.

Except for one small snag.

Either KIB is the worst bowler known to humankind, or I'm the worst bowler known to humankind and he was humouring me but I Won. Two games in a row, I won.

And he seemed almost incapable of accepting that I was winning. Maybe it's a Male Competitive/Ego Bruising Issue but he seemed to feel the need to give me a near-patronising congratulation every time I hit more than two pins (Well done, little lady! You can throw a ball in a near-straight trajectory, even though you're a girl…) and then proceed to throw a ball down into the gutter as if that was the way to score.

Je pense que NON.

I did ask him outright if he'd let me win and he denied it… but I have my suspicions.

After my TRIUMPH we decided to grab something to eat and settled on a Tex-Mex place on Notting Hill Gate. Ordered a non-alcoholic cocktail (some sort of daiquiri) and a heap o' nachos and he ordered some sort of potato-skin dish. And I thought, marvellous, we can just eat and be.


No chuffing chance.


Now, not that I'm one to disclose the ins and outs of my innards but I'd recently been suffering quite horrid bouts of indigestion whereby I'd actually looked somewhat pregnant after eating (talk about a food baby…) and felt really uncomfortable and balloon-like.

...like zis. via here

After much Google-based self-diagnosis I'd finally put it down to not letting myself sit and just eat quietly whether it was at lunch at work, or out with KIB – there always seemed to be the need to talk or break up the monotony of digestion with, I don't know, doing something less monotonous. Like Holding Conversation.

He hadn't helped matters in the past -- on the night of the Incident we'd been looking for somewhere to eat after the gallery, but I was just after something small following our chips earlier that night, and he'd made some comment along the lines of, "Ah, are the chips layin' heavy on you?".

A world of urgh.

Concern it may have been, but there's nothing less attractive than a man drawing attention to your stomach and its contents. Of course we then had that Black Forest Gateau but we'll gloss over that.

So having concluded that talking-whilst-eating was my problem I was all ready to sit quietly and scoff my little self silly on tortilla chips and cheese (and yes I expect my carb-tastic diet may have contributed to the afore-mentioned discomfort but we'll gloss over that too). And bask in his company comparatively safe in the knowledge he wouldn't try pulling my hair again, and there were no captioned pictures nearby for him to narrate to me.

But of course not.

He talked.


And talked.


And talked.

Which would have almost be OK if at each juncture he hadn't waited for my response on questions relating to my recent activities. Such as my visiting friend J for a weekend in Somerset.

Now. Before you label me Queen of the Hypocrites after smiting down ODNU for not upholding a Conversation, at least with ODNU we were just conversing over a drink, not trying to eat as well. Two very different media, people. Very different Kettles of Fish.

via here

Subsequently when I did respond to KIB's Spanish Inquisition – or should that be Texan-Mexican Inquisition – after pointedly finishing my forkful very slowly I felt the need to emphasise that one of the many upsides to spending that weekend with J in Somerset was the Quiet.

Yes, the Lack of Need to fill every moment of silence with Words.

And he seemed to agree.

Yes, the man who could not just let me wander in Silence around a gallery or exhibit without filling the void with his insights claimed to like Silence.

Je pense que NON!

**you thought I'd forgotten those double asterisks, didn't you. No, never. I never abandon punctuation.

(Except maybe parentheses.

) < there you go.

**KIB was one of those overly perky puppies for whom London is not the overcrowded, overpriced every-man-for-himself metropolis that it really is; it is full of tiny vintage hidden alleyways, secret vintage dinner clubs, secret vintage cinemas, secret clubs for Those Who Like to Pull Hair, secret vintage rooftop pubs, everything that a Londonophile with a Thing for Vintage could dream of.

And yes, to begin with I was almost convinced that there was more to our c(r)apital than this:

"MOVE DOWN THE CARRIAGE!" via here

but then reality set in and the London Love was soon lost in the crowds of Very Unvintage Pushy Me-Me-Me-ers barging me onto the Tube of a morning/evening/mid-afternoon.

I did find a good opportunity to "sit quiet for a while" (as my grandmother used to say) and ingest my nachos while he regaled me with the details of an Average Week in the Life of KIB. This usually went along the lines of:

Monday, tea in a secret tearoom

Tuesday, secret gig

Wednesday, secret vintage car rally

Thursday, secret BSL class

Friday, secret evening class in Gallery Narration for Insecure KIBs

Saturday, secret cinema screening

Sunday, watching a motor race on a rooftop. A secret rooftop, natch.

[some incidences contrived for comedy value but not by much.]

And yet here he was telling me that, just like me, he liked his Me-time, and his Quiet.

I'm not quite sure when he ever had time to be Quiet with all the secret vintage carryings-on with which he filled his every day.

And then...

...he raised the Big Question.

"So… I really like you, like. How do you feel?"

…

WHOA.

I have to answer that?!

OK. OK, admittedly I'd seen this coming and if anything I was hoping this discussion would happen as at this point I had reached the inevitable conclusion that if KIB and I were ever anything more than Friends we would just get on each other's gourds he would just get on my gourd. And that's not criteria for a Lobster, I'm sorry to say. If he were my Lobster I could have overlooked all of this.

But no.

So, I took a deep breath, finished my forkful of nachos, and decided that honesty was the best way to go.

…uhmmm…

Oooh!

…Er, well…

I'm not sure what I want at the moment. [Read: Or, I know what I want and it's not you. Soz.]
 
Aaaand... I think I'd like to try just being Friends. [Read: Abandon hope, ye KIB. Soz.]

...

Silence.

Actual silence.

REJOICE! I'd actually left him with Nothing to Say.

...

After that little bombshell I may have mentioned that I'd be incommunicado for the next couple of weeks as I was off to Austria.

I may or may not have committed to getting back in touch.

Either way, I didn't.

To his credit, neither did he. Obviously he wasn't in to being Friends, and all honesty I was relieved to sever the connection at this point.

So... thus endeth that nonDate... And subsequently thus endeth all Dates with KIB.

...It was too weird an experience and also far too stressful given how friends seemed to be promoting Dating as Fun when I found myself all too often trying to find a way to get out of a Date, or to concoct an answer to a question like, "Do you like having your hair pulled?"

So, onto the next...

Flaws and All

When I started this blog I should have included in my sidebar a proviso that, for comedy value, I have deliberately masked about 95% of my flaws in order to portray my Poor Unsuspecting Dates in the most unfortunate light possible.

That proviso aside, I'm not taking all the blame for unsuccessful dates upon myself although I can accept some, being peculiar and unused to the Dating Malarkey as I am was. Because my word I tried my hardest to spark with Mr Shorts in Winter aka ODNU. And as for KIB no human being is at their best after a twelve-hour day and a blatant display of follicle-fetishism.

But yes, it's safe to say that I'm no Meg Ryan-in-any-rom-com-she's-ever-been in. I'm not cute and sparky, I'm just quirky. And flawed. And I accept that.

Yes, I acknowledge and bewail my manifold quirks and weirdnesses.

Here be they:

• I'm picky.
• I can be judgmental.
• I'm pedantic about spelling, grammar, punctuation and punctuality. And the misuse of the word "myriad".
• I have fluctuating levels of tolerance especially of people who have no handle on the above.
• I cringe at the use of the word "foods" (plural) as in "I like all sorts of foods" – arrrgh. I don't even care if it's grammatically correct versus "food" plural, and that's saying something.
• I'm not fond of "movies" for "films" either. We're British. It's a film.
• I'm grumpy as feck when I'm tired or hungry. Or tired and hungry.
• I'm stubborn as. 

via here

• I have my whiny moments.
• I have my drama-queen moments.
• I can be insecure about my mediocre intelligence to the point whereby I can't be patronised … but I also can't Miss Out and need to be Kept in the Loop.
• I obsess about odd things, about which most sane folk wouldn't have any interest. Aussie serials. Actors in Aussie serials. Bad 80s dance films. 80s rock and 80s rockers. Camels.

Yes, camels. via here

• I have my moments of immaturity.
• I also have my moments of old-lady-dom.
• I play The Sims on Facebook or chain-Sudoku in my spare time.
• And I'm not a great hugger. In fact I'm a pretty appalling hugger. I suspect shoulders have been bruised in the process of my attempts.

BUT!

BUT!

I'm also arty, daft, quirky, medium-maintenance, and capable of love.

And if someone transpires to be my Lobster, two things will happen:

1. They'll love me for all those flaws above
and
2. I'll love them, flaws and all.

I've been told that's how it works.

Sushi Wars and Sunsets

Now. In my last entry, born of the trauma of tress-tugging, I mentioned that I gave KIB/IHP a wide berth for quite some time.
 
That time frame was two weeks. For two weeks I was able to find reasons to avoid meeting up with his ever-tugging self, which given the Events of Our Last Date gave me enough time to – ahem – MULLET over.

Don't break my heart, my achy breaky heart...via here

(Get me and my poor, poor hair jokes...)

In that time I was able to persuade myself that while hair-pulling re-hea-ally wasn't my bag (baby), I’d perhaps been a little hasty in putting up the barriers and perhaps I ought to give KIB, who had been a great First Date, a second chance. But this time play it differently. Approach him as a Potential Friend.

Play it cool.

Agree to no riverside walks with their heinous capacity for cliché and subsequent Poor Snoggage.

And Other Refinements.

Admittedly, I’d never been brave enough to say explicitly to KIB that the hair-pulling had – ahem – wigged me out. I was so thrown by it, and so dog-tired, that maybe, just maybe, I’d overreacted, so by the time we’d made plans for meeting again, I’d pretty much shelved it in my annal of ‘anecdates’ and was all prepared to Move On. As long as he didn’t try it again. And we did OK. We chatted well, crossing the bridge from Embankment. I made light of my fatigue last time we met. We discussed what books we were reading. It was fine. It was all good.

I'd suggested we go for sushi, thinking we’d rock up to the chain sushi place on the South Bank. We did sushi not at Hi! Sushi* as I’d hoped but at a small sushi restaurant down the side of the Festival Hall that he led me to despite my dropping hints that the place I wanted to go to was just around the corner. Meh.

We ordered miso soup and got some strange looks from the staff when we asked for cutlery (how else do you eat miso soup?! Oh, you can just drink it, apparently...) and ordered salads – mine was seaweed, his was noodles. Admittedly these salads were basically plates of, respectively, seaweed (and nowt else) and noodles (and nowt else) but while I happily chowed down on mine KIB ended up probing his and commenting a couple of times that it was just a plate of noodles. (This never would have happened if he’d let us go to Hi! Sushi where he could have had a more varied platter but neeeever mind. I didn't mention this and just stayed as beatific and non-vocal as possible, choosing to seethe inwardly instead.)

We went to the South Bank Centre after that, just to see what was on. He parked in front of the leaflets bank and picked up several for the upcoming vintage event, and insinuating, as he did, that we could take in these events, or we could go to this secret gallery or that secret gig and I smiled, considered, didn't commit to anything, and wondered whether it was bad form to get more excited that Moby (one of my crushes once upon a time) was appearing at Foyles in a week or so to sign his new book…

Moby. Sigh.
via here

Then, we found and wandered around the Museum of 1951, the excellent free exhibit detailing the anniversary of the Festival of Britain.

And yes, He Narrated.

Ah, those are the programmes.
(he stated in front of a frame full of Festival of Britain events programmes)
I love the design and typography, I ventured. (Because while the Narration was Annoying as billy-o I wasn’t so mean as to not validate his attempts to Make Conversation.)

Ah, that’s a 1950s room.
(he stated in front of a set-up of a 1950s sitting room complete with period furniture and books)
It actually looks quite contemporary, I ventured, noting the current fad for retro furniture.

Ah, they’re steel drums.
(he stated in front of a set of steel drums)
Yep. (I had nothing else to say about steel drums.)

I took a few deep breaths, decided to Let the Annoyances Wash Over Me, but noted that gosh it was getting late. And I’m not at my best when I’m tired.

As we know.

But we decided to check out the view from the fifth-floor bar and balcony before we left and, well, I like a good view.

And it was a magnificent sunset. (Was it a Waterloo Sunset? Couldn't possibly say.)

I yanked my compact camera out of my bag and snapped away.

“See, I knew you’d like the sunset and I knew you had your camera,” he said, as if somehow he had personally engineered the workings of the universe to my liking. But I don’t recall ever having told him I had my camera with me. He was bluffing.

At some point as I snapped I spotted the Houses of Parliament and may have dropped the name ‘Westminster’ into the conversation. Purely by accident.

“Do you want to go back to Westmins—” he began.

“Nope.”

Nope, I was not about to re-enact the Tug of War. Or the All-You-Can-Eat-of-my-Face Buffet.

So we returned to Embankment and went our separate ways.

I’d survived! And to his credit he hadn’t tried anything so he had redeemed himself a little, at least for the time being. Perhaps we could try being friends.

...And then came The Day of the Broiling Bowling Session...

*not its real name – betcha can’t guess which chain of sushi restaurants I’m possibly referring to!

On the Pull OR The Second Date, When Your Real Self Shines On Through

The famed First Second Date (FSD) with the Keen Irish Bean was, as you can imagine, much anticipated.

However. However! I'll admit it.

I wasn't on top form that Thursday night.

I'd been out for birthday drinks with work friends the night before (for my birthday the following day, so completely justifiable to my mind), and the ravages of my night out, plus getting up at 5am, 5.30am all week, to miss the commuter squish into London, meant I was exhausted by the time I was due to meet KIB at Waterloo under the clock. (His suggestion.)

via here

He had oodles of energy, though (maybe too much at times, even for me the caffeine fiend), so I made the effort, and I was pleased when he suggested we check out the Glamour of the Gods exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Hey, I like films. I like photography. Big ticks all round.

First we stopped off in a bar near the Festival Hall for a drink (a lemon-lime fizzy soft drink for me, a cola for him – yeaaaah, no product placement here, people!) and chips, which this time I managed to keep in a strong, drop-free trajectory between the bowl and my mouth.

He was, very enthusiastically, telling me about the Radio 4 show he'd been to see recorded, and I was very actively listening. Then he was, also very enthusiastically, telling me about the GoodwoodRevivalProhibitionPartiesambitiontohaveapartyonHMSBelfast... and I was still actively listening.

Mostly.

Because I'd been up since 5.30am and was secretly hoping the sugar in the lemon-lime fizzy drink would wake me up enough to keep up with his very enthusiastic patter. And general puppy-like enthusiasm.

And I'd not even finished my drink when he said, "Shall we go?" I rattled my still-brimming glass meaningfully, and kept drinking. Nothing less alluring than a date with hiccups (and other refinements) and I wasn't about to rush! We got slightly lost on the way to the Gallery but made it eventually! He paid for the tickets, which was very kind... and we went in.

And the Narrating Began. 

Now. Intelligence-wise, on a scale between these two girls:

The Big Bang Theory's Penny, in case you're wondering
via here

and

TBBT's Amy, also in case you're wondering – and yes, she was 'Blossom'.
And the young Bette Midler character in Beaches. But I digress.
via here

I sit closer to the Penny end of the spectrum.

But. I read. I can read. I've made a career out of it.

So I can only imagine it was some sort of nervous habit or maybe a throwback to the arts volunteer days that KIB insisted on narrating on almost every single photo in the exhibition.

You know, just in case my eyes had at that moment failed me and I couldn't quite corroborate that, yes, that was Rock Hudson. Or yes, that was a very young Joan Blondell.

There I was, wandering about the exhibit with KIB, quite happy to observe in tandem but in comfortable silence and I'd stop, agog, in front of a quite frankly striking photograph of Katharine Hepburn set in front of a venetian blind so one saw the contrast of Hepburn's freckles and hair versus the stripes of light thrown by the sun through the window... and I'd hear this voice (the voice of KIB, by the way, not the voice of the Ghost of Galleries Past or indeed Katharine Hepburn, in case you wondered):

Ah, that's Katharine Hepburn.

She was great, wasn't she?

She was. I liked her in Little Women. I was never convinced by Winona Ryder as Jo March...

...The light's great, eh?

Yes. Yes, it is. It's such a striking photo.

(Stand. Admire. Then move on to a shot of a young Judy Garland.)

Ah, Judy Garland.

(Yeees. I get that. I read the label. I've also seen The Wizard of Oz more times than I've had Nudges on QuirkersAnonymous.)

She was great, wasn't she?

Mmm.

(Yes, yes she was. Tragic. But great. I know. Everyone knows.)

And… move on to a shot of Marilyn Monroe.

Ah, Marilyn Monroe.



(Yes. Yes, I know. I didn't even need a label for that.)

She was great, wasn't she?

Mmm. Yes!

(And move on. Ooh, a photo of a young Marlon Brando looking swarthy and brooding.)

Ah, Marlon Brando.

(I'm one step ahead of you there, fella-me-lad.)

...

He was great, wasn't he?

(Yes, yes, he was, though I can't say I've ever seen Last Tango so I'm not 100% familiar with his works but he was very convincing, swarthy and brooding in Streetcar. Now, please hush and let me absorb the fabulousness of the exhibit, without added subtitles, whilst obviously also basking in your presence. Please?!?)

…I know. I know.

I'm a terrible, intolerant person.

But I'm also a comparatively quiet person (except maybe under the influence of the previous night's glasses of red wine), and I'm also a person who can read.

KIB had also promoted himself as a Quiet Person in his profile (OK, actually, he wrote 'quite person' but I got his drift). Not so much.

Admittedly, after we left the gallery I decided to chill, and put the extensive Narration down to Second-Date nerves. He was still ridiculously peppy, so my exhaustion and tendency to Walk Away to Enjoy a Photo in Peace for Five Minutes obviously didn't faze him.

As the night progressed I got the feeling he may have been oblivious to some other blatant social cues.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

It was shortly before 9pm by this point, and I was tired and hungry. (Did I mention I'd been up since 5.30am? Did I? Yep, come join my pity party...) and it took us roughly half an hour to find somewhere that wasn't crowded, or closing, or extortionate, to sit for a quick coffee and a cake. We finally settled in Leicester Square, and ordered coffee and a slice of Black Forest Gateau.

His suggestion, to which, again, I was amenable.

Ooh. Gateau. Nom! via here.
PS This is not the one I ate.

 After about two bites, several pokes at the cake with a fork and his slightly disdainful declaration that, "it's very sweet" I think I ended up eating most of it. (It was just sweet enough. And I like cake.)

If two things bring out the terse intolerant in me it's hunger and tiredness (but then as The Pretenders once famously sang, I'm only human on the insiiiiiiiiiide), so by the time I'd assuaged these by the Healing Powers of Coffee and Cake I was feeling much better and more open-minded, and we were able to chat properly for a while and recover the vibe of the Successful First Date.

Time, like the clock dangling over commuters at Waterloo Station, ticked on. It got late. Ish. We started to plan our journeys (note: plural) home.

We found ourselves at Westminster tube where we could both find the trains we needed.

We said goodbye with a generally polite kissonthecheek.

Next thing I knew – SNOGGAGE.

Yes. It wasn't broad daylight or owt so I wasn't compromising any of the morals with which I'd been raised but yes. SNOGGAGE. And... it was...

Meh.

Yes. Meh.

I wasn't expecting a symphony and fireworks.

I also wasn't expecting to feel so... Meh about someone with whom I'd originally sparked.

But when he suggested we have a quick walk down to the river, I did my usual overanalysis, decided against it in my head, then told myself off severely for being Queen Prissy of Prissingham (or, basically, my usual buttoned-up self) and thought, oh, why not? Let's just see how this pans out.

And then I thought, what if he's actually a psychopath and pushes me into the Thames? I know I said earlier this very year that I could die happy having finally seen Richard Marx live (a noble ambition I'll defend to the death) but hey, I'm not even 33 yet.

And then I thought, oh, stop being irrational. It was a SNOG. People SNOG. They do that. Nothing strange nor startling. Granted it wasn't earth-shattering and granted he'll probably go in for another try and you can always just picture a silent Hugh Jackman or something but... just go with it. So I went with it. And him.


On the way over the bridge, I vaguely remember asking KIB how he found the whole Dating Scene and specifically why he was on it i.e. why was he still single? I expected he'd say he was quite (or quiet) shy... What he did actually say was, he'd met up with people but they always ended up going back to their exes.

OK. Well, given my case history that wasn't likely.

We walked down the steps to the embankment facing the Houses of Parliament. It was a warm night but I was tired so I was chilly. I was also hoping that with a shove of his elbow KIB wouldn't end me in the Thames. Thankfully he didn't.

What he did do was try to find us a free bench. When he finally spotted one it was several yards along the embankment. He sprinted on ahead, peppy-puppy style (and don't make me remind you that I'dbeenupsince5.30andwasabsolutelycrackered) to secure it. A few minutes later I plonked down next to him, smiled gamely, then stared out at the Houses of Parliament which were rather splendidly lit, I did notice...

Not long afterwards came the voice again. You're very quiet. What are you thinking about?

Nothing really. I'm just very very tired.

(And I like to Be Quiet sometimes. Yes. Some People Like Quiet Sometimes.)

After a moment an arm appeared on my shoulder (his, by the way) and I braced myself for more SNOGGAGE. It had to be an improvement... hadn't it?

Nup.

I tried to get into it, I really did, but I actually at one point thought, you're eating my face. Literally.

Now, I'm not saying I'm an expert in the field of snogging. Not a lot to compare it to and I'm sure I could hone my technique considerably... But what was happening felt more like, well, being chewed at than anything remotely passionate.

I retreated if only to recover my breath, which was being sucked from me. And not in a romantic breathless way.

But here came the first misinterpretation of the social cues. He possibly thought this was good. "I got lucky with you," he said, before moving in for another serving of my face. Uhm. OK... Oh dear. That doesn't bode well.

I should mention that in the process of the Snoggage, while one hand was probably around my back or somewhere, his right hand was in my hair.

OK, fine. I have quite thick locks. Easy for a hand to get lost in there. But as the Snoggage continued I became aware that there was some tension and release going on there as he tugged rather earnestly at my tresses. And less earnestly, more fervently. Was I imagining it?

No.

The next thing he said was,

Do you like having your hair pulled?



...

Wait.

WHAT?!??!?!?

Rewind.

Do you like having your hair pulled?

What I should have said was, quite bluntly, "no". Followed by, "YOU'RE A MENTALIST!".


But so taken aback was I that KIB the peppy puppy with the slightly annoying propensity for over-narrating was asking me, on this, our Second Date, essentially if what he was doing was in some way, erm, exciting to me, I think I said something like, "I don't know. I hadn't really thought about it," in what I hoped was my curtest, most taken-aback voice.

Moments later, my instincts, which I should have followed since the Meh kiss outside Westminster tube, kicked in good and proper. I needed to get the chuff out of there. I made my excuses, and he offered to walk me back to the tube.

Once underground, we said a more reserved goodbye -- he went one way, I went another.

But I could not get those words out of my head.

Who does that?! Who asks that on a Second Date?!

And moreover, why on earth would he think that I was the type of girl to do that to and ask that of?!?! Did he mistranslate my fatigue, hunger and annoyance as some sort of... well, fetishistic come-on?!

I was officially freaked out.

And I made the resolution never to indulge in Snoggage again on the Second Date.

Needless to say, KIB (or, the newly dubbed Irish Hair-Puller, IHP) was given a very, very wide berth for quite some time.

Breathe and Reboot

You know when you're at the start of a Dating Site Downer when...

• You list a non-smoker in your criteria and the site recommends you... a smoker
• You list men between 31 and 40 as your criteria and a 45-year-old gets in touch
• You're a prim little missy in need of an emotional connection, so when a matching service claims that "hornydevil82 seems really right for you" you begin to mistrust their judgment. BIG TIME

Needless to say I gave the whole dating malarkey a miss for a few months.
But in May, I opened the Metro to find an article about a new "alternative" dating site which we'll call "QuirkersAnonymous", for, erm, anonymity's sake, where folk meet up and do something they'd both like to do, such as feed pigs on a farm, go ice-skating, drink cocktails, visit a gallery, dress up as clowns and try juggling. That sort o' thing. I was intrigued. I tore out said article and stashed it in a pile of articles labelled, "hmm, may do something about this if the mood strikes me". And sat on it. But didn't stop thinking about it.

Then, in June, I spent the weekend with a friend who made me rethink my whole perspective on dating. This friend, whom I'll call J, is something of a dating aficionado now, and has very recently got herself engaged to a man she met online. Evidence if ever there was any that there is that Hope to be Had.

J had some brilliant stories to share about her experiences in dating, and something a few things she said to me struck a chord and made me think, I'm going about this all wrong.

At the time I think there may have been an aura of desperation and resentment about me, and I was taking entirely the wrong attitude. I wasn't enjoying the Game at all, I was doing it because I felt it was my Last Resort and if I didn't try it, well... this was my future:

via here

But J, while confirming the frog-kissing adage, also reminded me that dating could be fun, I could throw myself Out There, meet some new people, and even if no Big Romance came of it then maybe I'd make some new friends.

A fog lifted for me at that point, I think, and I decided that I could have some fun with the whole Dating Game if I didn't place too much pressure on it.

So I signed up to the new site I'd seen advertised in the Metro. And I used a Very Serious Picture of myself as my profile shot, thus breaking my own rule no. 5 of Dislikes by using a seemingly Overthought Profile Shot. To which not one blighter responded unsurprisingly.

Only when I replaced said Serious Shot with a more Quirky, more Natural Shot (taken by J) did my fortune start to change, especially when I hinted that I might like to see this Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit.

Shortly thereafter I got an email on the site from an Irish Chap, which went along these lines:

Hello QUIRKY_BRUNETTE. I hope your enjoying the weekend.

So. Ive checked out the exhibition youd like to see and it looks good.

Fancy some company attending the event sometime?

Any plans for this weekend?

Now, as you can imagine if you know me at all (!), it was a War of Wills to overlook the grammar and punctuation errors in this message.

But I reasoned that a) this guy (we'll call him Keen Irish Bean, or KIB for now) was the first to contact me on the website and b) he had three photos on his profile so seemed genuine and quite cute to boot and c) actually sounded like a fun person to meet.

After I'd replied to his email, we exchanged details and after discovering to our annoyance that the Courtauld Gallery never seemed to be open after 5pm, decided to visit the Titanic exhibition at the O2 instead as our first date. His suggestion.

And I was -- wait for it -- actually quite excited.

I think I changed my dating fortunes by changing my dating attire for this occasion -- I tipped up in the blue, daisy-print dress I'd been wearing in my profile photo (in case KIB couldn't distinguish me in a crowd otherwise...), waited outside the tube station at North Greenwich and true to his assertion in his profile that he valued punctuality (as do I) he turned up well on time, armed with tickets to the event. Big tick. He also turned up in a colour I'm particularly fond of. See my reference to (over)attentiveness to detail in my last post under no. 9.

We were early, so we grabbed a coffee and had a conflab over caffeine. He was a caretaker by day, an arts volunteer by, er, weekend day and was about to learn BSL. All sounded pretty good (I've always wanted to learn more BSL and, well, I like the arts). He was passionate about motor racing and vintage cars and he mentioned the Goodwood Revival and other retro events like the Prohibition Parties, which in the flush of Good First Date Euphoria did sound like good fun at the time (I'm quite into my 1920s style these days). It was one of those conversations that actually worked -- we seemed to click.

I got hopeful.

The exhibition itself was astounding and would have been enjoyable in its own right if I hadn't been there on a date. We even had our photo taken in front of a green screen as we went in, and received copies at the end of us as if in front of the wreck of the Titanic. It was sort of cute if not a little premature...

As it happened, KIB was very knowledgeable about the Titanic and its sister ship, both of which were built in Belfast, and his knowledge added a dimension to the experience, which was, yay, a good thing. (Though, me being me, and not being quite able to disassociate any real-life experience from a film experience, I couldn't quite shake this song from my head the whole way round...)

Afterwards we had a quick drink and a bowl of chips at the venue. Now, this was a square bowl, full to the brim of chips, and quite frankly I had issues keeping the ruddy things in the bowl. Cue un-date-like behaviour of dropping chips into my lap, onto the leather seating, onto the floor. Cue apologies for my lack of decorum. If this was a Guardian Blind Date he'd be marking me down for table manners by now. But oddly he didn't seem put off.

We parted soon after the last chip was down (my gullet), and I headed home, with that odd sort of positivity that, chip-fail aside, actually this had gone pretty naffing well. I actually liked this person. And he seemed to like me.

For the next couple of weeks, we messaged. OK, he was a little over-keen with the messaging at times but at least he was messaging, and we even spoke on the phone -- yes, Spoke, on the Phone! -- at one point when he was extolling the virtues of obtaining tickets for Radio 4 comedy show recordings, and trying to send me links to the Prohibition Party website. Keen Bean he certainly was, and when he talked about meeting up again I was just as eager.

via here

And we made Plans for Date Two.

Yes, Dear Readers, I had me a First Second Date.

Things seemed to be on the Up.