The Harsh Reality of Dating

You always know deep down that if you take half a days holiday in order to prepare for a date then you are going to end up disappointed. Especially if you have never even met the person you are meeting that evening. Even more so if his name is Johnny Dangerous. And even further if you have told everyone from your mother to your driving instructor about your evening and eventually find yourself skipping out of the office at 1 pm on a Friday announcing to everyone in the building that you are off to meet the man of your dreams.

None of the above deterred me, I had acquired the slightly warped notion that Mr Dangerous was none other than my Betrothed. We were destined for years of high jinx and excitement together. This feeling was compounded by the fact that my best friend and partner in crime had been talking to Dangerous’s best friend, Stuntman Mike, for the previous 2 weeks and seemed to be getting on fantastically with him. Could it be that we had finally found our male counterparts?

The rational answer is ‘probably not’. Cut to 2 weeks previous. We had gone on a big night out for Laura’s birthday. We had just got hair extensions and were feeling invincible like modern day Samsons tottering around town. It wasn’t long before Laura attracted a very tall, trendy character in a leather jacket with Liam Gallagher’s hair and a swagger to match. Part of a Stag Party from Stoke, he wooed her with imaginative robotic dancing and introduced me to his friend. We all exchanged numbers and Laura and Mikey have been texting ever since.

This friend was not Johnny Dangerous but Dan. He turned out to be a married car thief prone to racist outbursts at taxi drivers. He weaved his way through the night by minesweeping other peoples drinks, a mysterious smell of farts clinging to him as he went. The signs were there, and its needless to say he didn’t text the next day.

Mikey however, seemed to get better as the days went on. He was a graphic designer, single, soon to be moving into his best friend’s flat in Stoke. His best friend was none other than Johnny Dangerous and they seemed to enjoy the male equivalent to mine and Laura’s carry-on. It seemed only natural to us all that Johnny Dangerous and myself should become acquainted.

So back to Friday…6 hours after I had left my working week behind, we had got ready surprisingly easily. There had been no episodes of what we affectionately term ‘gargoyle syndrome’, a condition whereby the more effort you make in getting ready, the more your reflection turns into a despicable ogre until you start to wonder why you are bothering at all and if you should ever leave the house again. I’m not entirely sure if this is a worldwide phenomenon but in our shared house it has been known for both hairbrushes and bedroom walls to be simultaneously destroyed in an extravagant self-loathing tantrum brought about by the condition.

Anyway, this time (thanks to the half day holiday) we had allowed enough time to do our make up in perfect precision and everything was going smoothly. A few glasses of cava had eased the nerves and as we set off we were both in high spirits and feeling excited. It seemed unlikely this one could go wrong. The Stuntman had had Laura in fits of laughter on the phone for days now and certainly seemed attentive with his constant texting and emails. He had even revealed an intriguing vulnerability, a chink in his armour, the day before that made him seem all the more multi-dimensional. There had been talks of canal boating holidays and V Festival tickets, in hindsight it was all going a bit fast.

We had tried to arrive fashionably late but even after queuing at the bar and going to the toilets to correct any minor defects in our appearances we still found ourselves propped behind a sofa chewing on the straws of our gin and tonics nervously and swivelling our heads towards the door whenever anyone walked towards it.

Half an hour after we arrived, the door swung open to reveal the spectacle we had been awaiting. But this wasn’t quite what we had been expecting. The men that were walking towards us were led by a tall slim fellow in winkle pickers and a trench coat who seemed to be having trouble navigating his way around the scattering of fellow drinkers, despite leading the way with the aid of his protruding pot belly. It wasn’t until the leader dodged one particular group of drinkers that I was able to see Johnny Dangerous in all his glory behind him. As I had feared, he looked like an inbred hick with stunted legs sticking out of a beefed up upper body, giving an overall impression of the Tasmanian Devil.

As the duo reached us there were some awkward air kisses exchanged and I wondered if the rest of the bar was aware that most of us hadn’t really met before, or if Mikey was aware that Laura was inwardly confirming the truth behind the phenomenon of beer goggles. Dangerous smelt of stale cigarettes and I wondered if he had bothered to have a shower before he came out.

Needless to say, having barely survived that night, we never saw them again and it’s back to the drawing board on the dating front. I don’t think I’ll be bothering with blind dates in the future, and Laura is now making sure she leaves her beer goggles at home on nights out.