Well my friends guten abend (Quiet pedants I can’t find the umlaut key!) and wilkommen once again to the veritable Oktoberfest of grouchiness that is my bloggy world. So pull up a stein of hoppy German ale, tuck into a bratwurst and enjoy my wailing against this grossly unfair world.
Tonight I thought I’d talk about something very close to my own heart and something that is surely at the very epicentre of all of us, the pursuit of a mate. Now the in-built desire to procreate with anything that moves is a perfectly natural desire in any creature but the idea of monogamy is one that is peculiarly unique to humans (and apparently swans, who knew?). The problem is that unlike the swans we feel the need to lecture others on the best ways to find that special someone in your life, I can hardly see the swans that I so enjoy watching on a lazy Saturday afternoon in Birkenhead Park are busy calling out to each other “Oi Gielgud! (10 points to anyone who gets that reference!) look at the pen I’ve got!” – for anyone a little concerned that swans are mating with stationary a lady-swan is actually called a pen. It just seems to me that if you are a single person, especially in a group of couples, it seems everyone is busy trying to set you up with some equally desperate person. To me all it ever seems to show is quite how little the person who’s setting you up seems to know about you, why of course I’d love to meet a girl who’s interested in cats and needs to be home by 10 to give her elderly mother a sponge bath or some such nonsense, no I’d far rather you and your partner just sat there sniping at each other while I down a bottle of merlot and snigger!
If I did want to find a lady friend of course though what would be my options? Well it seems the vast vast majority of us meet our life partners while very drunk indeed, no problem there of course as I spend a considerable portion of my life a few sheets to the wind. Sadly the kind of establishments I frequent such as the symphony and the opera tend to look down on you a bit if you try drunkenly flirting during them “Sir I’ll have to be quiet and stop trying to convince the woman next to you to dress as a valkyrie” that kind of thing. Sadly the only places where getting drunk and picking up a partner are the norm are the kind of vile clubs and bars that I despise so much, and my chances of finding Miss Right in such a place are slim to say the least.
The other major area of soulmate searching, though I hasten to add not one I’ve ever tried or attempted to try, is the lonely heart column or dating service. To be honest I actually do rather enjoy getting the Guardian on a Thursday just to look through the personal adds just to amuse myself with some of the declarations, genuinely last Christmas there was one for a man who was after “help stuffing the bird” – would any woman seriously be even tempted by that? Particularly a Guardian reading woman. Another claimed he had bought a goose and had no-one to share it with, which is rather sad but also a little foolish in my eyes, I know how pricey a goose is, why would you buy one just on the off chance someone reading the Guardian would like to share it?
Another of my favourites is the old “spotted” column in the local metro. Every so often on my way to work I find myself leafing through it wondering if anyone on the train is using it (Okay I confess it’s just in case the hot girl has left me a message – nothing yet but I live in hope!). Some of them are very generic I find though “You were reading a book I was listening to my music, write back” for example. Now on my way to work I tend to listen to my mp3 player and on the way back I’ll usually read so anyone reading that particular add could well think I was trying to flirt and yet I’m simply trying to avoid having to talk to anyone!
However badly all these methods work to be honest as long as there’s couples out there they’re going to try and set up their single friends and who knows maybe one day such a set-up will work. I fondly dream of the day when I’m told I’m being set up and the person who meets me is not someone who’s just temporarily managed to remove her arms from a straightjacket but a cultured woman who enjoys The Guardian, Talk Radio, folk music and foreign cinema (yes I delude myself she’s out there!). Until then of course as long as the wine is flowing I’ll try and make conversation while trying desperately to work out an exit route!
This week Matt:
- went and salivated over the lovely suits in Debenhams - not literally I hasten to add!
- went a bit OTT and ordered a lot of tea online.
- Started listening to Roddy Woomble's new c.d. and now is unable to do anything without humming the brilliant "into the blue".
