The Serial Dater Page 2

  He’s impeccably dressed: a smart pair of black jeans, charcoal polo shirt with white collar, and over the shirt he’s wearing a black tailored jacket. It looks like a Boss, but I’m no expert, unlike my colleague Karen. The whole ensemble looks a world away from what I imagined of a veterinary surgeon and enhances his big puppy-dog brown eyes. I laugh at the irony then look down at his feet, imagining scruffy trainers breaking the look, but am greeted with black highly glossed dress shoes. I’m suddenly aware he’s speaking to me.

  He smiles and repeats, “Would you like a drink?’

  I see he has a Coke, so I ask for the same.

  With our drinks in his hands, he points to a quiet corner with his chin. “That table looks good.”

  We sit and, after a sip of Coke, he asks me, “What is it you do again?”

  I know he’ll have read my profile. “I’m a secretary for a training company.”

  “Is that interesting?”

  “Yes, it can be. We get all sorts through the door. Our courses are for top-level executives, but some people…” I try to be diplomatic.

  “Don’t make any effort?”

  I smile. “You’d be surprised, but you can never judge a book…”

  “By its cover. Yes, I know. It’s the same with my job. The smartest of people with the scruffiest of animals.”

  “Look at Richard Branson – classy shirts, but never a tie and always wears jeans. The expensive casual look.”

  “As long as they’re loved.”

  “Sorry?”

  “The animals,” he explains. “People spend a fortune on their pets.”

  “Except me.”

  “You don’t spend a fortune?’

  I struggle to recall what I put about pets on my profile and nothing springs to mind, so I avoid specifics. “No animals. We had dogs when I was growing up, but I work full time, so it wouldn’t be fair.”

  “Ah, this is where I’m lucky. I can take mine to work and am surrounded by more.”

  I smile as I imagine William being surrounded by them all. He’s allergic to nearly everything, alive or otherwise: nuts, gluten, hair, and especially pollen. Except for the bird.

  “Something funny?” he asks.

  “Apart from a bird he says he has, my boss isn’t what you would call an animal lover.”

  “But you are.”

  I nod and change the subject.

  The conversation flows and an hour goes by before we even get on the topic of music, and that’s only because Oasis’s ‘Wonderwall’ comes on and we mime to it. Weather is never mentioned. When I can drag myself away from Duncan’s soulful eyes, I notice he occasionally pulls down his polo shirt. I look at his trousers, wondering whether he’s trying to cover up a stain, and then I realise I’ve been staring at his crotch for far too long and my eyes spring back to meet his. I feel like Helen Hunt to his Mel Gibson as I recall a similar scene from What Women Want. Duncan smiles and I blush like a schoolgirl caught kissing the football team captain behind the bike sheds.

  Finally, I break the pause in conversation. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure. Anything.”

  “I’ve noticed you tugging at the bottom of your top. Are you nervous?”

  He laughs. “A little, but more self-conscious. Or at least I used to be.”

  “Why?”

  He leans in to me and whispers, “I used to be a bit of a heifer.”

  “Really? You don’t look…”

  “It was a long process. Weight Watchers.”

  “My friend Donna would love you!” I blurt.

  “Is she single?” I can tell he’s teasing.

  “She is. Do you want me to...?’ I say, half joking.

  He puts his hand up. ‘Thanks, but...”

  “Were you very big?”

  “Yes, huge. I still have my forty-eight-waist trousers.”

  “Forty-eight... inches?” I feel as if I’m being particularly thick, but he seems not to notice.

  “Yes. We’d probably both get in them.” Now there’s an offer.

  We smile and I see our latest Cokes are almost untouched. We drink at the same time and the same speed and the noise of the bar around us appears to resume. I’d forgotten Mondays were film nights, so the large bottom end of the building is closed off and presumably quiet, whereas our end makes up for it. I don’t think either of us had noticed it getting so busy and, as we drink, I realise that talking so much, and at a higher volume, has made my throat quite sore.

  “What were we saying?” I have a brain like a colander.

  “About my weight.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so personal.”

  “It’s fine. I’m happy to talk about it. I’m still not used to being this size.”

  “Do you mind me asking how you got so…?”

  “Large?” He smiles.

  “I was trying to be diplomatic, but yes.”

  “An unhappy relationship.”

  “Married?”

  ‘Thankfully, no, but we lived together.”

  “For a long time?”

  “Too long. We worked together too, which made things a bit awkward.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So it was comfort eating.”

  “Very much so.” He pats his stomach. “People think only women do it, but we’re just as likely, except we can get away with more.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Look around. How many men have a paunch?”

  I look. “A few.”

  “And overweight women?”

  I look again. “Not many.”

  “Exactly. It seems fashion magazines keep women slim, but men can do what they like.”

  “What about the likes of GQ, Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, and…?”

  “You know your men’s magazines.”

  Oops. “A friend of mine reads them.”

  “A male friend, presumably.”

  “Err, yes. Friend, yes,” I say, not sure why I feel the need to add the last bit. Above the waterline I struggle to stay sane, hoping he won’t notice my metaphoric feet paddling away furiously underneath.

  He yawns.

  “Am I keeping you up?”

  “Sorry. Had a callout last night. Well, this morning. One o’clock and the phone goes. Someone’s cat’s been shot.”

  “No!”

  He nods. “Air rifle.”

  “At one in the morning?”

  He nods again.

  “Is it going to be all right?”

  “Oh yes, patched him up a treat. He’ll be catching mice again in no time.”

  I’ve never owned a cat. “Do they really do that?”

  ‘Mice and other things. I used to have one, it brought a frog in once.”

  I winced. “Dead?”

  “Oh no, very much alive. Hopping around the kitchen like a sucker toy on a spring.”

  “I used to have those.”

  “Weren’t they fun? And Weebles.”

  “I’d hurt my fingernails trying to flick them over,” I say, attempting to keep a straight face as Duncan sticks out his cheeks and elbows, and sways from side to side. I fail miserably.

  He puts his arms back on the table and sighs. “Those were the days.”

  I nod, still smiling like Alice’s Cheshire Cat.

  Before we know it the barman comes over to collect our ‘empty’ glasses. We’re knee deep in conversation and Duncan is the first to look up. He finishes his drink and hands over the glass. I look around the bar and realise we’re the last two.

  “I’m sorry, I have to… er,” I splutter.

  “That’s okay. It’s been a lovely evening. Thank you.”

  As we reach the front door, he steps back to let me out first, so I do a little ‘thank you’ curtsy. He laughs, and I melt.

  We hover outside the bar as the door is locked behind us. The silence returns and we have the awkward ‘do we shake hands or kiss’ moment. We go for a peck
on the cheek, his on mine, and I go to speak, but he beats me to it.

  “Would you like me to walk you to your…?”

  “I’m only round the corner, but thanks.”

  “Sure. Send me a message if you want to do this again.”

  I say a wimpy, “It’s been fun,” and my insides cringe. He smiles and goes towards the pedestrian crossing that connects the Picturedrome to the Racecourse’s car park.

  I watch him walk towards the pavilion and a dark-coloured Toyota RAV-4. As he unlocks the driver’s door, he looks in my direction and smiles.

  I lift a hand, then scuttle off to my awaiting Polo, feeling guilty that he might actually like me.

  I’m the first to admit that I’m heightist, but remind myself this is only a work project and I won’t be dating any of these guys properly, so it wouldn’t matter if Duncan was four feet twelve and I’d get a chronic neck or backache looking down at him, because I’ll never see him again.

  “Onwards and upwards,” I say, with the emphasis on ‘up’, as I zap the remote control and open my driver’s door.

  Chapter 2 – Tim the Weeble at the World’s End

  As I type the heading: Miss Fussy meets Mr Short, I feel rather guilty saying anything bad about Duncan, but remind myself it has to be an objective piece and starting the first article with pure praise isn’t good journalism. I dismiss the ‘had a good time’ part of my brain and instead select the ‘he was great, but…’ part, and I’m now in mode.

  William hovers over my desk holding a mug of something resembling coffee, or at least smells like it. He thumps it down on my ‘Office Angels’ temp company coaster. “Here, Janine’s off again.” I wonder what the two facts have to do with each other, but he continues. “I made this but didn’t like it.”

  “Thanks.” I smile weakly and debate whether I should tell him I don’t drink coffee. Everyone knows that, including Janine, but it’s the first time William’s ever made me a drink… even though it wasn’t.

  “Liked your intro piece,” he continues. “How did it go last night?”

  “Good, thanks. Writing it up now.”

  William leans over and reads the nine words on the screen. “Looks like it. Ready by lunchtime then.”

  I sit there open mouthed, trying to work out why it’s not the usual two p.m., when Donna bounces over. “Hiya!”

  “Morning,” I say, a tad subdued.

  “Oh dear.” Her face is covered in frown lines. “Didn’t it go well with Hunky Dunky?”

  “Who?”

  “Hunky–”

  “Dunky. I thought that’s what you said. It went well, thanks.” I couldn’t help smiling.

  “Ah ha!”

  “No, not that good, Miss Smut. We went our separate ways.”

  She fakes a Pierrot expression and I burst out laughing.

  “So, you seeing him again?” She flutters her eyelids.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s work. Research. A project. Not real.”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “He’s just–”

  “What? Too ugly, too weird, too creepy?’

  “Short.”

  “Oh? How short?”

  “My height.”

  “Your height? Why that’s huge.”

  ‘Thanks, Miss Five feet two.”

  “And a half. Don’t forget the half. So, he’s your height. Is that such a bad thing?”

  “If I want to wear heels, yes.”

  “But you like him.”

  “Yes, but–”

  “Ooh, sorry…’ She points to William who’s coming out of his office. “Fill me in later.” She winks and heads for her desk.

  I continue with the article as William walks past. He doesn’t pay me or my computer screen any attention and goes back to the kitchen. Donna and I look at each other as a series of expletives follows a few seconds later.

  How difficult is it to put an empty mug under a machine and press a button? This is William we’re talking about though; he and technology don’t exactly see eye to eye.

  As he walks past my desk, the mug he’s carrying drips onto the floor by my desk and I picture the poor cleaners cursing at… me. Thanks, William.

  I eventually type again and out it comes.

  Last night was date one of a series of daily dates for the entire month of May. Yes, that’s right. If you missed yesterday’s edition, my usual column of technology reviews and recommendations will be back on June second.

  For this month, you can follow me as I swerve round the chicane of chivalry, sail down the slalom of speed dating (that was something I had never done, but thought it went well with ‘slalom’) and… I was running out of analogies… and bait the barrage, no, barracuda of blind dates. Or would oubliette of one-night stands be better? Oh yes, I’ve liked the word ‘oubliette’ since seeing the film Labyrinth with David Bowie in his tight leggings, so ‘blind dates’ has to go.

  Last night I met a lovely man who I shall call D. We met at the Picturedrome on the Kettering Road, and the conversation was almost non-stop. Resorting to the weather proved unnecessary.

  The bar staff were very pleasant and the surroundings immaculate as always. Although I didn’t see anyone eating, the food is normally of a very high standard and all in all I would recommend this venue as a very convenient meeting place and a credit to the Richardson organisation.

  I ramble a bit more about the place and avoid further commentary about Duncan and somehow manage to eke the piece to nine hundred and fifty words.

  I dump it in William’s in tray, pleased to be early, and go to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, the old-fashioned non-vending-machine way with a kettle and a teabag, discreetly pouring William’s abandoned reject down the sink and placing his mug in the dishwasher.

  I’ve just returned to my desk when William storms out of his office and drops my article on my desk. “What’s this?”

  “My article?” I offer.

  “I know it’s your article, but it’s more like a restaurant review than a dating experience. The paper already has a food critic. Where’s the juicy gossip I’m paying you for.”

  It’s not difficult to understand why he emphasised the word paying. I should be grateful to have this job and I am; I love what I do, normally do, but equally I don’t want to slate a man who was nothing but charming. William wants a mixed bag of good and juicy and I’ve just given him good. Okay, so it was Picturedrome-good rather than Duncan-good, but what does William expect? A line-by-line recount of our every word?

  “It’s not that I want every word that was said.”

  Boy, that was spooky.

  “But I want more than this.” He looks at the clock, which is heading towards one.

  Just as well I brought in sandwiches today, I think, but just smile synthetically.

  It’s back to the drawing board, more or less. Losing any reference to the venue would lose eighty per cent of the words, so I’m reluctant to do that. An article of less than two hundred words isn’t exactly what the readers, or William, expect, so I remember the shopping list and open up the Notes document for inspiration. I give it a quick read and return to the ‘31 dates art. 0205’ file and scan the words.

  Last night was date one of a series of daily dates…

  I like everything until I waffle about the venue, so delete everything after The bar staff... and add Earlier in the day I created a ‘shopping list’ of what I want, and what I don’t look for, in a man. It may sound clinical, but as anyone having read John Gray’s book will know, men and women really are from different planets. You can’t tell me that other than looks (which we say we’re not bothered about, but really are), we search for the same things in a prospective partner. Part of the conversation with D revolved around weight and, as he rightly pointed out, there is more pressure on the female species than the male. I did raise the subject of the ‘new man’ men’s magazines, but, looking around the bar, I saw his point.
>
  This article is about making a good first impression and the Picturedrome is the sort of place where you can get away with wearing almost anything. I had anticipated that D, working in animal services, would have worn casual smart, but he excelled himself with a very smart and co-ordinating dark James Bondesque ensemble, which suited his dark features perfectly.

  I tweak one of the ‘smart’s and ‘dark’s then go on.

  His manners were impeccable, naturally buying the first drink and offering the second, but I’m a ‘pay my way’ kind of girl (and on an, albeit small, allowance from the paper) and going Dutch seemed to please him. We talked too much to get to a third round.

  We also touched on previous relationships, which is usually a no-no for a first (or even second) date, but the conversation with D was so natural that it fell into place with everything else. Before we knew it, the evening had come to an end. Again his chivalry kicked into place as he let me leave the bar first. He offered to walk me to my car and although it’s a level of gallantry I could get used to, we went our separate ways.

  What did I learn from last night? That there are still some nice guys out there, that the female population of Northamptonshire shouldn’t write them, or themselves, off, and that, so far, internet dating is more than it’s cracked up to be. Is D an exception to the rule? Maybe, time will tell, but with such an enjoyable date one, I can’t wait for the other thirty.

  So, I can tick the first two items on my ‘dater’s shopping list’: Don’t – too short (sorry D, we girls like to wear heels and still be able to look up to our man in an Officer and a Gentleman kind of way) and Do – funny and great conversation. In fact he ticks a lot more Do boxes than that, but that would be greedy.

  I go to the Notes document and tick the ‘funny/good conversation’ Do box and ‘too short’ Don’t box.

  As this is the first article, I’m still not exactly sure what I should report on and leave out; it’s a bit of a departure from testing mp3 speakers and digital radios. I guess the responses, if any, to my first article will lead me in the right direction… and of course William’s editing.

  With the article revised and left in William’s tray (thankfully without him anywhere to be seen), I log on to my ‘tallgirlnn1’ profile and am stunned by: ‘You have 22 new messages’. I click on the ‘read messages’ link and a gallery of photos appears. Reading and deleting the less than savoury ones, including five ‘happily married’ (not that happily if they’re prepared to play away), I’m left with fourteen. The first is from a chap called Tim who, at an astounding six feet seven, sounds like another nice guy. I send him a message and scroll down. I remind myself that while I need to meet a cross-section of the male population, I should be doing it from the point of view of a real dater, so include the men I’d normally dismiss. Besides, I have thirty more dates to find so, with just fourteen messages so far, I should be saying yes to them all.