"Still I must speak frankly, Mr Shankly. Oh, give us your money."
She'd initially winked at me on Match.com, which is quite a rarity as no-one really looks at my profile, although funnily enough this only happens when I have an active subscription because when I'm not a fully paid up member my profile gets upwards of 20 views a day....what a coincidence, I wonder what that's about. So, I sent her a message as she looked and sounded great, and she replied. We exchanged a few lengthy emails as we had quite a lot in common, then they just stopped. I thought that I must have bored her until I finally got an apologetic message from her about a month later saying she'd been busy with work and she'd been abroad for business a lot so hadn't had time to reply, and she asked me if I fancied going for a drink.
So, we met up at the BFI on SouthBank (a particular fave bar of mine) and had a wonderful evening as we just clicked straight away. She'd studied at Newcastle University (I'm a Geordie by birth and lived there util I was 16), she'd been a season ticket holder at Crystal Palace since she was 15 and as we were the same age, we had a lot of similar reference points in terms of music, film tv etc., so we had absolutely loads to talk about. I've never had a type of woman that I look for but out of all the dates I've met so far she seemed to be one that ticked all the boxes.
A couple of days later I messaged her asking if she'd like to go on a second date and a week or so later she replied in the affirmative saying that she'd had a really great time and that she really wanted to see me again. The only thing was, as she was busy with work, the only available time to see me was for a gig she had a spare ticket for. The band in question were The Drums (more about them later), and ordinarily if it had been anyone else I would have politely declined the offer, but I really wanted to see her again, and she apparently wanted to see me again too, so I accepted her offer.
By this time I'd come to realise that she was really slow in replying to emails (often taking between 1 and 3 weeks) and in between dates we barely had any contact. However, I actually think that this is a good thing as when you're in constant contact with someone from a dating website then you get used to always hearing from them and you probably think that you know them better than you actually do, and then when they don't want to see you again it's always a bit harder to take when all contact just stops.
So, we met for round 2 a few weeks later with both dates taking place either side of my brief dalliance with Date 67. We had a quick bite to eat at Wagamamas in Camden, then made our way to The Roundhouse, which was incidentally my first visit there. I'd purposely not done any research on The Drums as I knew that they wouldn't be my cup of tea and one of my friends had described them as being vanilla dull...and she wasn't wrong! I was also a bit surprised that I had to pay full whack for my ticket as well as she hadn't mentioned that beforehand. I'm not sure about the etiquette of going to a gig of a band that you have no interest in on a second date, but if it had been a gig that I'd wanted a date to go with me to, then I wouldn't have expected them to pay for it, particularly if I knew that it wasn't a band that they had any knowledge of.
As I knew nothing about them, I had no expectations, therefore, I wasn't going to be disappointed, but I couldn't not be as they were the most blandest and unimaginative alleged set of musicians that I'd ever laid eyes on. I went on a bit of a rant about Elbow in Date 65's blog entry, but I'd rather go and see them any day of the week than these set of soporific sell-outs. Aside from them being so boring though, the weirdest part of the night was when Boy George stumbled onto stage mid-set. He then proceeded to sing one of their songs with them then they all did a rendition of 'Do You Really Want to Hurt Me,' in which my reply was 'yes, I do really want to hurt The Drums....a lot.' At least I was familiar with one song then.
That's not to say that I didn't enjoy seeing Date 66, but as we were there for 2 or 3 hours including the support act too, the loud music meant that we couldn't exactly converse with one another for most of the night. A few friends said that I shouldn't have gone but as she'd made it clear that she wanted to see me again I thought that I had to show willing and that hopefully it would give me some brownie points and that I'd see her again. And it's not as though I went into a sulk while I was there as I made the best possible effort of looking like I was having a fun time.
As we were waiting for the tube home, I gave her my email address, as my Match.com subscription was about to expire, and as the next day she was about to embark on lots more travelling abroad over the next couple of months, she said that she'd mail me when she was away.
A couple of weeks later and I'd not heard anything from her, which wasn't unusual, but there was a gig that I was interested in going to and as I didn't have her email address, I texted her to see if she wanted to go and see Kate Jackson (former Long Blonde lead singer) at the end of March. She replied a few days later from New York and said she couldn't as she'd be in Amsterdam then. We exchanged a couple more texts and I suggested that maybe we could meet up once she was travel free. She didn't reply and I never heard from her again.
This was a real shame as we'd got on exceptionally well on the first date and I was quite excited beforehand for the next one as I hadn't been on a second date for well over 18 months. However, in retrospect, I think that she just needed someone to pay for her spare ticket and accompany her to the gig and I was the sucker that obliged. Still, at least I was able to fulfil a life long ambition of seeing Culture Club's lead singer in the flesh...
UPDATE: About 6 weeks after our last bit of contact, I thought that I'd text her again and see if she fancied going for another drink. She responded a few days later and basically said that she was too busy to see me again so I didn't reply and deleted her number from my phone.
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