mistletoe, wine and getting reacquainted

Good news and bad news today. The good news is, as of mid-January, I get to perve over and generally indulge in a little harmless workplace flirting with a new senior on one of the desks, whom we shall call R. (Harmless, since he’s married).

The bad news is, this doesn’t make me a very nice person. Not because of the married thing, (although that’s probably not a mark in my favour) but because he’s starting a job that one of the guys already here was in line for – and should have got, but he’s been royally screwed over by The Boss.

Myself, and other members of my team are no stranger to The Boss’s apparent refusal to reward our massive over-performance with … oh I don’t know … a title or salary reflecting all the extra work we’re (thanklessly) doing. So I’m quite aware that perving over R makes me a bit of a traitor, not to mention probably a shameless hussy. I can’t decide which I prefer. But in my defence, it’s looking only, not touching. I’ve never really considered where I stand on married men, but I’m 90 per cent sure I wouldn’t go there.

Anyway in other news, I finish work today! The workforce and I are off for drinks at about 4 o’clock and I can. Not. Wait! Am wondering whether to take a wander to the local flower market at lunchtime and buy a sprig of mistletoe… as I’m such a fan of looking totally obvious.

Also, today, for the first time in about three years, I am listening, in full, to Longview’s album, ‘Mercury’. And discovering, with a rueful kind of chuckle, that it makes me feel a little sad.

I listened to this CD endlessly when my first long term London boyfriend, O, and I got together in 2005. Whenever he drove us back to my flat on cold nights, I’d stick the CD in the player, and inevitably fall asleep about four tracks in, halfway up the motorway, but catching faint strains of the songs through my sleepiness. Listening to them now still conjures up memories of a warm car, a cold, dark evening, driving past twinkly Christmas lights in people’s houses, feeling so secure and cared for, and thinking: Wow! I’m in a relationship! Me! (my history with men up until this point could optimistically be described as laughable).

After O and I broke up, I was so heartboken and angry that I couldn’t even bear to have the CD anywhere near me, and I didn’t listen to it again for about three years. Then, when I started putting all my CDs onto my work machine to play in iTunes, I discovered Longview again. I’m listening to it now, in fact. And even though I’m completely and totally over O, and I don’t for a second think we were a good match, I still hear these songs with a kind of fond regret… thinking what a lovely time in my life that was, how much part of me still misses his family (they were a lovely family) and how I’m probably quite different now to how I was then – more cynical, a little more battered around. Maybe even a less nice person -  I don’t know. 

Anyway … enough navel-gazing. To the festivities! I’ve got about six nights out crammed into the diary between now and next Thursday. Gah. I’m going to be knackered, but hopefully there will be a few opportunities to do a little frog-spotting, and otherwise pretend to be urbane and glamourous. I say ‘pretend’ because all but one of these nights out will end at about 11:30pm, when I slope off to the car of a waiting parent, for a lift home. Nothing like going home for Christmas to turn me back into a 17-year-old!

I shall keep up the bloggery over Christmas, if anything particularly interesting happens, but for now, I hope you all have a wonderful festive season, hope any travel plans you might have aren’t totally up the spout, and hope you all find exactly what you asked Santa for under the Christmas tree.

And on that note – Santa, this really is your last hint…

fake bake it 'til you make it

Me, tonight: 'So, although it's still a little early for New Year's resolutions, I'm most definitely decided on my pledge to spend 2010 getting out there, flirting outrageously, and seeing who I meet and what adventures I have in the process. Lovely. It'd probably be a good plan to be looking good and making the best of myself, then.' 

I then looked down at myself and noticed a rather galling combination of pasty skin, too-big pyjama bottoms, scruffy nails, slightly ... 'hirsute', shall we say, legs, and (the shame) mince pie crumbs on my jumper.

Hmm.

Half an hour later, I am now body-brushed, smooth, moisturised, fake tanned, manicured, sporting my black satin cami, and promising, cajoling, and threatening to go to the gym tomorrow. 

Well, it's a start. Not quite a sex goddess just yet, but anything's an improvement on crumbs, pastiness and hairy legs. If Mark Ronson did indeed hammer on my door right now and beg me to take him here and now*, I'd at least be in a slightly more presentable state...

* yes, Santa, you may interpret that as a hint.

M – the Italian (couldn’t) waiter

A couple of weeks ago, some workmates and I managed to blag ourselves onto the guestlist for the launch party of a pretty swanky new Italian restaurant in town. Paparazzi outside and everything – ooh. Where, in perhaps not the most upwardly mobile move of my dating career, I ended up exchanging quite a few friendly looks and words, and eventually giving my number to, one of the waiters – hereafter known as M. I blame the free champagne that was flowing all night - apparently I will never learn not to completely cane it on a Monday night.

Anyway, from what I remember (this seems to be a developing theme), he was really quite good looking, dark, Italian, a little shorter than me, I think, but I did have heels on. When we made to leave the bar, he took me aside to ask for my number. Which I may or may not have had ready written down on a scrap of paper. *looks innocent*.

He texted me later that night – or, if you want to be exact, quarter to two in the morning. Which, mercifully, I slept through, but that should have been a pretty clear indicator right then of his grasp of appropriateness.

Anyway, the message was fine, slightly mangled English, but pleasant enough. I was busy that week, but said I’d be free the following week. He dutifully called me the following Tuesday. That day, I’d been to the gym in the morning, met my friend and fellow frog-kisser D for lunch in Covent Garden, got the bulk of my Christmas shopping done, and taken myself to the cinema . A busy, if slightly WAG-ish day, no? (very much not the norm, I promise you!)

So that evening, once I’d hauled my shopping home on the bus, I had a gloriously lazy evening planned – dinner, present wrapping, and hanging out with my flatmate, J. On the way home, M called. I was on the bus, and as usual, a murder was taking place on the back seat, or something, so I asked him if he wouldn’t terribly mind calling me back in 20 minutes, when I’d be at home and would have regained my hearing.

An hour later, I was at home, still waiting, starving hungry, but didn’t want to start cooking if my phone was going to ring right in the middle of it, and I was starting to feel a bit irritable. 

Eventually my phone rang.

Well… it started pleasantly enough, with the level of conversation we could manage. Bless him for trying, but his English really isn’t much better than my Italian. And I can just about manage ‘Please’, ‘thank you’, ‘sorry’, ‘the bill, please’, and ‘no thank you, I DON’T want a rose’ – that one will come in extremely handy if you ever go to Rome. Trust me.

Anyway, we exchanged a few pleasantries, and he asked what my plans were for the evening. I told him – dinner, presents, flatmate, chilling out, etc. Then he asked me ‘What’s your address?’

Huh?

“Um…why do you need my address?’

‘What’s your nearest station?’

I told him.

‘OK, I leave now, I give you call when I’m at station.’

What?!

You’ll what?

Now, I’m all for a little no-strings sex, if that’s what you’re driving at here, but come on! The presumption of the man! More than anything, I’d just mere seconds ago told him I had plans. They weren’t particularly pressing or exciting plans – nothing of the Mark-Ronson-hammmering-my-door-down-and-begging-me-to-take-him-there-and-then variety, but they were my plans, dammit!

(politely) ‘Well, I’ve actually just said I’ve already got plans tonight.’

*click*

*silence*

He hung up.

Wow.

So let's recap, shall we, M? Thought you were cute? Yes. Thought we could have a bit of fun? Sure. Was happy for a total stranger, who I know nothing about and who has no regard whatsoever for manners or other people's plans, and who is so presumptuous as to imagine I'm just going to leap into bed with him, to come to my house? 

Let me put this in terms you'll understand. Io non penso!

T - the Pick Up Artist

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. 


Firstly, and very importantly, have you ever heard of this guy?

His name is Erik von Markovik, but he’s better known by his professional name – ‘Mystery’. Mystery is what’s known in the ‘seduction community’ (yes, such a thing apparently does exist) as a professional pick up artist. 

He has his own show on VH1 called The Pick Up Artist, and despite looking like the slightly consumptive lovechild of Richard O’Brien and early Jamiroquai, he’s apparently something of an expert when it comes to picking up ladies. Not engaging with them as human beings with a view to treating them decently and maybe forming a meaningful relationship with them – just picking them up. That is Mystery.

(this is all relevant, I promise)

A few months ago, I went a house party. There, two events took place (well, rather a lot of events took place, and a good number of them involved erections and a trampoline, but I digress).

Event One: I had rather a decent amount of wine. 

Event Two: I met T. 

T is a friend of a friend, although we’d never met before. Thanks to Event One, I can’t really remember the finer details, but I’m reliably assured that T spent quite a lot of the evening pursuing me, and the two of us seemed to spend the entire evening together, chatting, flirting, and generally getting along famously. Which would explain one of my clearer memories from the evening – a long, slow, soft, gorgeous kiss in the kitchen.

This basically set the tone for the rest of the evening – a lot more kissing and quite a bit of rolling around and visible male sexual excitement on a trampoline (out of view of the other guests, I must point out). At the end of the night, he walked me to my train, there was a lot more kissing, a lot of laughing and smiling, and some teenage-style wandering of hands, and generally, all in all, it had been a good night.

A few weeks later, after a little Facebook flirting, we went on a date. Which I shan’t harp on about, because subsequent events and discoveries have basically rendered the entire evening null and void, but suffice it to say, on the night at least, it was basically as perfect a first date as you could ask for. Conversation flowed all night, we got on amazingly, laughed a lot, had unabashedly geeky conversations, high-fived (don’t ask), made plans to meet again, and shared a number of utterly spine-tingling kisses in the incomparably twinkly setting of South Bank at night.

There then followed weeks which turned into months, of texts, promises (from him) that he wanted to see me as soon as it had all calmed down for him at work, but after two months (Yes. Embarrassingly, it did take me that long), I was sick of waiting for him, and sick of the sporadic contact, so I deleted his number and chalked it up to experience.

Then, by means which shall remain anonymous, I found something. Something which was quite an eye opener. Something which made my jaw drop, made my eyes bug out, and made my workmates endure the sound of my incredulous, hysterical laughter for an inhuman amount of time. And alas, due to the means it came to my attention, something which is pretty much inadmissible as a means of revenge or humiliation. Which is a shame, because this particular something is pure comedy gold. 

Because what I found was this - a comment T left on the VH1 website, on an article called ‘Ask Mystery Anything’.

Oh where, where, where to start?

‘Dude’? 

Always a natural word to trip off the tongue of a white middle class nerd from the suburbs, with a background in IT.

‘More exciting women in my life’

Charming. So glad I could join the queue.

‘Cowboy hat’

Really? I mean really? Are you actually trying to get the shit kicked out of you? Don't get me wrong, I'll gladly arrange it if that's what you desire...

The ‘alter ego’

Now, at first glance, this just looked plain weird and quite sad, but then I actually did some research into this whole ‘pick up’ scene thing, which confirmed that it is indeed very very weird, and truly truly sad. Basically, there are a staggering number of forums and chat rooms out there, where would-be pick up artists discuss their various conquests, in tales known as ‘field reports’. They do this by posting under an assumed name of their choosing – hence the alter ego. 

So….yeah. That would be my first post-relationship experience with dating. What a way to start.

Thing is though, supposedly following Mystery’s teachings is meant to make you devastatingly attractive and desirable to any woman. I’m not sure which piece of his advice is supposed to result in five women (me, my flatmate J, and my friends D, G, and H) one of whom previously thought quite a lot of you, four of whom are total strangers to you, discussing what a complete and utter freak you are.

When I told my best guy friend, also K, about this whole sorry situation, he asked me (after turning the air every colour between  turquoise and indigo): ‘But aren’t you furious?’

In a way, yes, but mostly with myself for falling for T’s mind games, and not having the smarts to give up on him quicker than I did. But as for him…I actually just feel sorry for him. Whatever strategies and mind games he pulled out of the bag on our date, I can honestly say that I went out there, and was myself. I was comfortable enough to be completely genuine and put myself honestly and openly out there.

Now if he didn’t like what he saw, fair enough. That’s dating – it happens, and I expect it to happen a lot more. But at least, unlike him, I feel secure enough in myself to meet and engage with people on my own merit – instead of being so devoid of confidence and personality that I have to resort to manipulating people into liking a sad, pathetic, peacocking façade of what I wish I was like.

But mostly? I’m just shaking my head and laughing. Evilly and vindictively.

this is me

Battling as I am through extreme fatigue (wish was because of recent debauchery, but suspect I am just getting old), a thumping headache, and the incessant crapulent twitter of nearby colleagues, I shall attempt to make some form of coherent introduction to myself and my rambling.

Hello. I am K. I am a single girl in my late twenties. I live and work in London. I cook, I drink, I photograph, I travel, I shop, but mostly, I meet really quite alarming men. And then I write about them. 

Up until fairly recently, I had spent from the age of 23 in a couple of long term relationships, one of which I ended, the other was ended for me. I realised the other day that I've lived in this city for nearly five years, and have spent most of that time coupled up, in admittedly not-that-great relationships. A great swathe of my twenties was spent essentially wasting my time on men that in the end, weren't worth it. And that made me quite sad, to think of the fun I could have been having. So I shall have it now.

Hence, A Year of Kissing Frogs. Historically, I've actually been quite crap at dating. Some girls I've known seem able to meet men and have fun with them fairly dispassionately, but not me. I freely admit, I overthink things. I get too invested too early. I hope for too much. So, what with the start of a new decade and all, I decided it's time for a different approach. While I'm not on a mission to turn my bedpost into something resembling more notches than actual bedpost, I've decided to just, to use the vernacular, knock about. For the whole of 2010, and possibly beyond, I shall get out there, flirt, laugh, meet men, and see where it takes me. 

And while, in principle, I'm really quite looking forward to it all, there is but one small caveat - I meet some really, really dodgy men. I meet men who waste my time, who have emotional problems, trust issues, misogynist tendencies, delusions, truly stupid hairstyles, and in one memorable case, an earnest desire to actually possess, without a trace of irony, a cowboy hat. 

But hey, should make for some good stories! Let the games begin.