gah!!

I have made a most alarming discovery about the Australian. 


He has one of these:

Slightly creeped out now. And thinking if I do ever sleep with him, I might need to wear oven gloves.

bloody hell, what now?

Last night I went for a spot of shopping and dinner on Oxford Street with my chum D. Paris clothes being chief on the agenda (three weeks to go, and as yet, I still have a ton of stuff to sort out, loads of things to buy, an online aptitude test to complete, insurance to buy, I still can't speak basic French, and I still don't bear an uncanny resemblance to Eva Green or Marion Cotillard). But I digress.


Browsing the rails - in French Connection, funnily enough - I felt my bag vibrating with an incoming call on my mobile. I fished it out, only to see the American's name flashing up.


"D!!" I hissed. "The American!! What do I do? Do I answer it?" (why did I even ask?!)


"No!" she said, incredulously. And quite rightly. This is why I should never go anywhere unaccompanied.


So, back in the bag it went, and eventually he rang off. Didn't leave any kind of message, so I think we can safely assume he was just bored and desperate for company. Never mind - I'm sure he can find plenty of other people to go drinking on a roof with. Preferably near the edge.

Well well WELL....

Oh, this is going to be GOOD. 


This is going to be very, VERY good. 


The Pick Up Artist and I meet again! 


The friend whose birthday barbecue we met at last summer is having another birthday barbecue. And The Pick Up Artist has confirmed his attendance. 


So this is what's going to happen:


- I am going to look STUNNING.
- I will not get drunk, but remain in complete control.
- I will be sociable, friendly, and good company - to everyone else.
- Him, I shall ignore. Not in a rude way, or an obvious way, I just shall not see him.
- If by some morbid stroke of fate he does try to speak to me, I shall respond with only the bare minimum that politeness demands. Then very quickly lose interest and find something better to do. Which is basically anything.
- I have a lovely evening, and at the end of the night, perform a victory dance all the way to the station, leaving him eating my dust.


Now the only part of this I should struggle with - perhaps worryingly - will be the not getting drunk. You know what it's like, it's summer, you're in the garden, someone puts a glass of rose in your hand, and... well my antics at last year's party are sufficient illustration of that. But I am going to really really try to stay on the soft stuff. Everything else should be a doddle - I don't find him remotely attractive any more (how could I? Seriously, if you haven't read my blog entry about The Pick Up Artist , do so now). Added to the fact that I don't think I could look down on him less if I tried, I don't think I'm exactly going to be swooning.


'But K', you might ask, 'isn't this all a little immature? Didn't you two only have one date? Should this really be such a big deal to you?'. And the answers are: yes, completely / yes, we did, and / probably not, but I can hold a grudge like nobody's business. At the end of the day, I had really high hopes for this guy, and he left me feeling disappointed and momentarily worthless. But you're right - this was over a year ago, single life has come on in leaps and bounds since then, and no, in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't matter? So what better way to illustrate that than by making it excruciatingly clear to this guy how little he matters to me? 


In fact, I think, in order to keep my resolve, and also in order that I might get a knowing little smirk on my face whenever we cross paths at this party, I should print out and keep in my wallet the following:

Ahh.... it's the gift that never stops giving. 

today, from the 'what the fuck?!' files...

Dear. Sweet. Baby. Jesus. In. The Manger.


Remember this guy? 


This guy - let's quickly recap - is someone I got on immensely well with at a party last year, had an absolutely amazing once-in-a-lifetime date with, who ended up leading me on and screwing me over for months before I finally had enough and ditched him, and who, I later found out, is a disciple of some picking-women-up guru called 'Mystery'. And he also wants a cowboy had because 'Mystery' had one. *shudders*


Anyway, today, after nearly a year, he sends me a message on Facebook, completely out of the blue. It flashed up on my iPhone when I was at lunch just now, and I almost projected my food out of my mouth and across the room with shock.


What did he want, you may ask? Well - 

Hey you,

Hope your doing well, saw this and as your an amazing photographer I thought I would forward it on :o)

'It' was basically a request from some guy at a photography agency, wanting people to cover the Pride festival in London this weekend. Which sounds alright, but I have plans already, plus, I'm not quite confident in my papping abilities yet.


But that's quite enough of that.


'Hey you'? Dearest, I'm not sure if you noticed, but we are no longer friends on Facebook. Which you would know, because you would have had to scroll through our mutual friend's list of friends to find me. This is for the simple reason that you acted like a total dick. So let's cut the chummy tone, shall we?


Hope I'm doing well? Yeah, I'm sure you do.


And - 'an amazing photographer'?? I mean thanks and everything, but for all you know about me, you may as well describe me as an amazing gymnast, or an amazing singer, or an amazing neurosurgeon (clearly I suck at all three - especially the neurosurgery). 


What a random and flimsy excuse to get in touch. 


The answer to your next question is: 'Did I fuck'.

a dry spell

Pardon my not beating about the bush (ahem), but I need to get laid.


I require a man. A man good-looking by my standards, who will be amusing company for an evening, who will be an exciting and satisfying bedfellow, and who will be perfectly happy to leave it at that. A fuck-buddy situation is fine, but just actually finding one is the first objective.


I’m bored. As, I’m sure, are you. While this year and hence this blog hasn’t been a complete desert, I freely admit I need to get off my arse and make things happen. Lately, my social life and plans for Paris have eclipsed my mission to work my way through the frogs of London, but now I’m very much feeling the need to pull my finger out.

Oh dear. The double entendres speak for themselves.

Well then, what to do? My workmate A, (who is battling his woeful way through an equally dry spell) and I were discussing our mutual frustration at lunch today, and he suggested I try looking around at my gym.

Well, it’s certainly do-able. Plenty of men go to my gym, after all, but there are two fairly significant drawbacks.

Firstly, quite a lot of men who work in my office go to that gym, and I’m not sure how keen I am to become known as the girl who weirdly and inexplicably smiles at everyone (and is therefore probably extremely desperate). The other problem is that, unlike a lot of the girls at my gym, who first of all have slightly better attire than whatever baggy ensemble I’ve thrown on, I do not breeze through my exercise sessions with a sexy flush, nary but a light mist of sweat on my glowing brow and a total absence of weird perspiration patches. In fact, I look like such a huffing, red, sweat-drenched nightmare at the gym, that to try and woo a member of the opposite sex seems to be at best, touchingly futile, at worst, a gesture of extreme self-mocking.

Another possible lead might be this cute little fruit and veg market I go to before work sometimes, and which, at least on Fridays and Saturdays, has THE hottest man working there. We had quite a giggle-filled exchange a few weeks ago, in which he was apologetically half-asleep and almost charged me £421 for six stalks of rhubarb and an onion (he pressed the wrong button on the till, I believe). I’ve been back a couple of times since, but it’s always busy. However, in the interests of being proactive, I shall go this week, and attempt to muster actual words again. I’ve already bought more strawberries than Wimbledon does in June and July.

However, the gym is the only plan I’ve got tonight (well, that and the supermarket), so I shall cast my eye over promising-looking specimens there (and actually MAKE EYE CONTACT instead of wimping out). Seriously, something will have to be done. The only naked body I’ve been in proximity to recently is that of the woman who was getting changed next to me after my gym session yesterday, and I found myself even eyeing her up.

Seriously.  


PS: In the meantime, if you have any suggestions about where to meet men, I'd love to hear your comments! 

désolé

(it’s French, it means ‘sorry’, and expect to hear a lot more annoying stuff like that from me for a while).

My darlings, I must apologise for leaving you unattended for so long. It’s neither because I have given up this whole dating lark and got me to a nunnery, or that I and some gorgeous specimen have only just emerged from betwixt the sheets (more's the pity). It’s merely because for the last few weeks, I have been having ideas...

...which translated into more ideas.

...which translated into plans.

...which translated into the rather exciting fact that I’M GOING TO PARIS!!

I’m going for a month this summer and I’m so ludicrously excited, I’ve had to limit myself to emitting only one high-pitched squeak a day (you should have heard the squeak-frenzy I emitted when I was permitted the time off work – time off work I had to beg for and write a thesis detailing why I should be allowed to have it, but I bitterly digress). 


The plan is thus:

In the mornings, I shall be studying an intensive course in French. I studied French for a few years at school, as did we all, then as soon as we chose our GCSE subjects, I ditched it for German. Not the most spiffing idea, seeing as the net result of that was ending up with a particularly frog-like boyfriend (I met him in my A-Level class), and a piddling, barely-scraped qualification in a language I can hardly speak any more. Not to mention I’ve been to Germany and put said qualification to use only once in the last decade. So all things considered, I really should have stuck with French. At the moment, I’m trying to brush up a little at home with a textbook, and it’s fairly painless so far. Then again, I haven’t tried to conjugate many verbs yet.

In the afternoons, I shall grab my new camera, my guidebook, and bum around the city. I shall visit museums, galleries, cafes, shops, wander around pretty little streets, buy yummy foods to take home, take photographs, ride bikes along the Seine, sunbathe in the parks, watch outdoor movies, and generally pretend I’m in a film. Oh, and of course, in the name of gathering useable material for this blog, meet an array of delectable Frenchmen (or at least try to...)

And in the evenings? I shall retire back to the apartment I’m renting, for dinner, drinks, and stimulating conversation with my temporary flatmate – a 27-year-old, blue-eyed, six-packed, cute-as-a-button Frenchman.

Whoops. That’s my high-pitched squeak allowance used up for the day.

umm....no.

So, this Saturday just gone, I had the long-promised drink (OK, three) with The Marine. And in a nutshell – nah.

Don’t get me wrong, he was very nice, and actually a lot nicer-looking in the flesh than I’d expected. From what I’d seen of his Facebook pictures, he looked like kind of a meathead. Then again, in the flesh, he didn’t spend quite so much time with his shirt off, flashing his tattoos and posing as if about to commence a boxing match. Swings and roundabouts.

Anyway, we met at a pub on the Northern line on Saturday night. He had a drink waiting for me (Merlot, lovely) and said I looked great. Although I think he was a little gutted that I was taller than him in my heels – ha! Oh come on, the man’s pure muscle, it’s only fair that I have some kind of physical advantage over him.

He had the ‘date jacket’ on, or what he called his ‘unlucky jacket’. As it may well be, because I really wasn’t that into him. Conversation didn’t feel as easy as it has on other dates I've had. Although I hate to use the Pick Up Artist as an example, because what I saw of him was pretty much 80 per cent showmanship, when I went out with him, the conversation didn’t falter once, and it was interesting and funny, and we went off on incredibly geeky tangents, with lots of gesticulating, slapping the table and going ‘YES! Totally!’ .. and we just ‘clicked’...as much as you can when the person opposite you is utterly deceiving you, but you get what I mean, as an example.

The Marine and I didn’t not get along, but the whole night I was very conscious of the conversation being an actual effort, instead of flowing naturally. And at the end of the day, I just didn’t fancy him. It didn’t help that the pub we were in was absolutely packed to the rafters with really quite attractive men – at least I know where my friend and fellow-frog-kisser D and I are going on our next night out!

Then, rather annoyingly, he asked me – and it may be unfair that this bothers me – why it is that I’m single. People ask me that fairly often, and it’s one of my pet hates and one of the things guaranteed to put my back straight up. Not because I’m sensitive about it – on the contrary, six months into being single, I’m really quite enjoying myself! The thing that really irks me about that question is the implication that I don’t have any say in the matter – like there’s no possible way I might actually like being single, and that I’m just waiting for some man – any man – to come along and change my Facebook status to ‘In a relationship’. It seems like such an inane thing to ask me – it’s like asking why my hair is the colour it is, or why I have size 7 feet, or why I’m right-handed.

Who knows, maybe, hypothetically speaking, it’s meant to be flattering, maybe he was genuinely astounded that someone as attractive and intelligent and articulate and kind-hearted and well-dressed, and urbane as me (well, I did say ‘hypothetical’!) couldn’t possibly be single. Surely some man must have come along and snapped me up by now? Because I can’t possibly have any influence over the matter, can I?

Grrr.

Anyway, after three glasses of Merlot for me, and a couple of beers for him, we made our way home. We got the same bus, as we live fairly close to each other. I must say that by this point, there had been no physical contact – hands on backs, legs, holding hands, kissing, at all. And it hadn’t even occurred to me, which is pretty much all I needed to know about how I felt about him, I think. I got off the bus first, thanked him for a lovely evening, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and made my way home. And as I did, I was thinking Well, he’s nice, but thank God I can go home now. It probably didn’t help that my shoes were killing me. As much as I appreciated them for giving me the height advantage, they are ludicrous.

He texted me when I got home, to check I’d got back safely, to thank me for a lovely evening, and he also said he’d like to see me again. As I wrenched the Shoes of Death off my feet, I believe I thought Whatever...let’s cross that bridge when we come to it, and sank gratefully into bed.

He texted me on Sunday, too, just asking how my day had been, and on Monday night, he texted me again, to ask the same thing, and also if I wanted to meet for dinner next week. Now I’m all for giving people a second chance – no one’s really at their relaxed best on a first date – so I said yes. He replied with something, I can’t remember. Then, about half an hour later, I got this:
To be honest, I wasn’t sure if you were that keen on me or not. X

Really? Must we? It’s two days post-date, it’s late on a Monday night, and he wants to go there? That said, he does have a point. I don’t have a thing against him, and I certainly wouldn’t relegate him to Frog status, and I thought he was nice, but I didn’t feel any sparks – compared to the evening with the Frenchman, where I had to excuse myself to the Ladies, merely for the purpose of sending a text to my friend, H, the precise contents of which were, I believe: Oh. My. God.

So really, I suppose this would be a convenient opening to nip this one in the bud. But what to say? - I’m terrible with these things. And while men traditionally seem to have no apparent problem with vanishing on me, I meanwhile would prefer to be a little more gentle with people’s feelings. I can’t very well condemn people for ignoring me if I’m going to behave the same way in turn. So with that in mind, I’m trying to think of a kind but gentle way to respond to that text. Although, seeing as he sent it a day and a half ago, I’m thinking the silence may have already spoken volumes for me. 


PS: I posted this at 11:21 am. At 11:25am, my phone buzzed. It was The Marine. Hi, how's your week going? x

While I'm still loathe to resort to fuckwit behaviour, good God man, take a hint!