Single White Female
YOU KNOW YOU’RE TIRED OF DATING WHEN…………..
Honestly readers, what IS the point? I’m fed up and I don’t care who knows it. Why are there no decent single men still in possession of their own hair/teeth/Swiss bank account? The last soi-disant Sugar Daddy that I had dinner with (forget it – five foot four, lisp, sample opinion, “I think Enoch Powell was right about immigration”) was months ago and ended with his inexpert lunge across the steering wheel in a crass attempt to insert his tongue into my mouth.
The thing is, I don’t think I care anymore. Yes, I’ll still go out on a Saturday night and yes, now Britain’s Got Talent has finished I’m prepared to do so before 10pm, but at the risk of repeating myself, really, what is the point?
The Gold Diggers’ Arms is just tired. The same, tired old faces wearing the same, tired old hair pieces, and I’m tired of paying in the region of £450 for a bottle of dodgy rosé that has more in common with a Ribena and vinegar cocktail than an elegant taste of sunny Provence. Although I do like the comfy seats outside where one can enjoy lighting up without ruining one’s hair (more of this later). The Vase and Violin is full of 12 year olds and a few sad 30-somethings whose idea of cutting edge behaviour is climbing onto the bar and singing “New York, New York” at closing. The Snake Pit is full of coach trips from Darlington whose passengers are prepared to offset Harrogate’s expensive drinks with its cheap 3am knee-tremblers. Oh God. A terrible thought has just struck me. Are these thoughts a sign of my getting (whisper it) old?
Pah! What are the signs, anyway? I needed to find out. A swift programme of research conducted in a kitchen in Starbeck revealed the following:
YOU KNOW YOU’RE GETTING ON WHEN
•A “roast” means a dinner comprising leg of lamb and all the trimmings
•You’re more excited about being invited to the above on a Sunday than going out the night before
•When you open the Harrogate Advertiser you go straight to the “planning permission granted” column to spy on your neighbours rather than read the court round-up to spy on your friends
•At any sporting occasion, you leave early to “beat the rush”
•Rather than throw a knackered pair of trainers out, you decide to keep them because they’ll “do” for the garden
•You buy Birkenstocks because they’re comfy, not because they’re fashionable
•You only go to the Gold Diggers’ Arms because they have comfy chairs outside, meaning you can smoke a fag in comfort
•You use words like “comfy”
•You buy t-shirts without anything written on them
•You ask your children “Who sings this?”
•You punctuate your conversation with meaningless phrases such as “believe you me”
•After five minutes in a club you leave, not because you’ve had enough but because you can’t stand having to shout “WHAT?” every time someone speaks so you
•You start to see the point of boxed wine
•You always have eggs and milk in
•You don’t think there’s anything boring about a four-door car
•That pair of tummy-flattening Spanx you bought is getting a lot of mileage
•After sex you wonder if it would be inappropriate to put the bottom sheet straight into the wash
•Not only do you do the Times Crossword every day, you text your friends to see if they’ve got the answer to 4 down
•You watch The Apprentice and blather on to anyone who will listen about how you wouldn’t employ any of them and anyway, not one of them knows how to draw up a decent marketing plan
•You raise the median age of your spinning class by your mere presence
•You start to wonder who on earth you’re keeping in shape for – it’s not like your cats are bothered
•You have cats
I think I need help…………………….
SWF April 2008
“April is the cruellest month,” opined T.S.Eliot in the opening lines of The Wasteland. This is not, as you might think, a description of my dating history, but one of the finest poems in the history of English Literature. However, I’m not here to educate you philistines so I shall turn instead to the reason for my quoting him. Point-to-point meetings. Yes, there is a link, albeit tenuous, because I went to a point-to-point meeting last week and it was held in April. See what I did there?
Anyhoo, what, you may ask yourself, is a point-to-point meeting? Is it, perhaps, a convention of pencil sharpener enthusiasts? Well no actually, it isn’t, it is in fact a large wind-swept field where one’s frozen fingers clutch a plastic tumbler of gin and tonic whilst a bunch of boarding school-educated chinless wonders stand around exchanging anecdotes about the hilarious consequences that ensued when one of them pee-ed into Fotherington-Smythe’s wastepaper basket and somewhere in the background horses hurl themselves loyally over a sequences of fences at the behest of various leather-faced jockeys who last ate a square meal in 1997.
Having been persuaded against my better judgement (I’d had a few port and lemons) to go to this point-to-point, the first quandary was what one should wear. Stilettos were out, unless I wanted to take up position in one part of the field and stay there for the duration. Ugg boots? So 2004 darling. No one wears them now apart from WAGs in velour tracksuits returning from the hairdresser. A dress was out too; unless I wanted to give everyone a flash of my Spanx (regular readers will remember those) clinging to my blue mottled flesh as the inevitable howling gale blew my skirt over my head. Perhaps I should just model myself on Princess Anne and get myself a headscarf.
I was told I had to contribute to the “picnic” (in the first week of April? What is this – a re-enactment of the Crimean War?) and duly made a couple of trays of delicate canapés. Fool. I should have taken an industrial-sized flask of Heinz Big Soup. Still, none of this mattered in the dating scheme of things as I was confident that a point-to-point would be stuffed to the gunnels with serious totty prospects, all rich, fit and looking for a wife. Well, girlfriend. Okay, someone to spend the night with.
Boy, (and I use that word advisedly) was I mistaken. Don’t get me wrong – I’m the kind of girl that generally prefers the son to the father but even I don’t want to find myself on the sex offenders list. These boys were boys; I mean, some of them were still worrying about cramming for their A levels.
The fathers? Forget it. Florid red faces, yellow corduroys and cravats to a man, booming invitations to one another to join them later at a “drinks-potty back at Choochi’s hice.” WTF?
Bounding over the grass (scattered with flattened sheep dottle in the manner of carelessly laid land mines) at regular intervals would come large gaggles of Hamas scarf-wearing females, all of whom had not heard of a volume button and whose conversation comprised little more than “Oh my God!” and “like, totally!” Some of the more studious ones who had obviously attended the odd English lesson instead of skiving off to smoke two packs’ worth of Marlboro Lights behind the school’s newly erected beauty spa, were able to put both phrases together, as in “Oh my God, she like, totally needs to get her roots done, yah?”
I scanned the horizon helplessly for any male who wasn’t wearing the regulation sludge green tweed. Nothing doing. Not that I was any oil painting by this stage, as the sleet blew itself invitingly into my face resulting in a mascara run that made me look as though I was preparing to attend a fancy dress party as Alice Cooper.
Suddenly I was accosted by some almost entirely spherical tweed-clad bore who clutched me to his cravat and yelled “daaaahling!” into my face. Pausing only to wipe the spittle off my face I smiled back and was rewarded with a leer that indicated its owner was a stranger to dental hygiene. “Thought you’d gorn orf to Choochi’s hice already!” he bellowed, re-adjusting his corduroys with one hand and retaining a firm grip of my bottom with the other. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But I’ve no idea who you are.” “Oh gorsh,” he spluttered. “Thought you were Boffo’s gel. My mistake. Do join our potty by way of an apology. We’re just abite to crack open another bottle of Dom Pérignon, what?”
There’s a lot to be said for corduroy.
Feb 2008
From:Leon@LoveworX
To:SWF
Thank you for sharing your hopes and dreams with me, and for signing up on our newest LoveworX coaching programme. It is always a pleasure watching my coachees’ dreams come alive as they develop their love strategies, because each one is incredibly unique.
Think of love as being one of a number of destinations on the road that is life: sometimes there will be a new (we never say ‘wrong’ here at LoveworX) turning, but as we continue on our love journey we gather our learning experiences and thrive. Do you thrive, SWF? Are you looking carefully at the road signs on your journey and following them? Or are you the type of person who never asks directions?
Now SWF, I want you to break down your dreams of love into achievable targets. Can you do that for me? Because by sharing these with me, I can make them come true.
Remember,
Positivity leads to love!
Leon
……………………………………………………………………………
From: SWF
To:Leon@LoveworX
You’re spot on about me never asking directions, Leon. I prefer to just keep driving around in the hope that the next left down a cul-de-sac will magically turn out to be a short-cut that will also reverse time as I am invariably half an hour late.
Here are my goals. I didn’t have to think very hard about them actually, they’re just the bog-standard ones everyone has:
1I’d like to fall madly in love
2With someone who is madly in love with me
3He’s stinking rich and devastatingly good looking
4Has no emotional baggage whatsoever (and no children or desire for children either, I don’t want to be Harrogate’s answer to Angelina Jolie)
5He’s got a huge villa on the shores of Lake Como
6I’d like to lose two stone
Positively searching for love,
SWF
.........................................................................................................
From:Leon@LoveworX
To:SWF
As we embark on this exciting life-changing journey together, I feel I should remind you that I am a love coach and am not trained to provide specific dietary advice.
But I believe in your tremendous potential SWF, and am here to tell you that you can find that special someone. Your goals are as important to me as they are to you. You have an amazing power within you. Learn to unlock it with the attached “Unlock Your Love” PDF set of instructions.
In order to find someone that loves you, SWF, you have to love yourself. Do you love yourself, SWF?
Remember,
Positivity leads to love!
Leon
……………………………………………………………………………
From:SWF
To:Leon@LoveworX
Of course I love myself. It’s finding somebody else that does that’s the bloody problem.
I’ve asked my PA to get a full length mirror and put it up in my office as the “Unlock Your Love” instructions suggest. Although I’m not entirely sure about practising the Seduction Techniques in front of it, quite frankly. I may have the only office on the open plan third floor but the blinds don’t work.
Attempting to learn the techniques of love,
SWF
……………………………………………………………………………
From:SWF
To:Pamela Black
Pam – where the hell is my David Beckham mouse mat? Honestly, I go to Swindon for two days and when I come back I can’t lay my hands on anything.
Can you sort out the blinds please?
……………………………………………………………………………
From:SWF
To:Pamela Black
Found it – false alarm! Thanks for getting the blinds fixed by the way. Any chance of nipping out and getting me a large Latte and a bar of Green&Blacks white chocolate? Day three of the no-carb diet so I can’t have bread.
……………………………………………………………………………
From:Leon@LoveworX
To:SWF
Hi SWF! I’m beyond thrilled with your news of a dinner date. Blind dates can often turn out to be the ones we see with the most clarity. One of the things I shall teach you on our fascinating journey together is that everything is possible. I’m going to teach you to say goodbye to all those negative feelings we have just discussed and instead say hello to positivity! Here at LoveworX we teach you to be the most loveable person there is so people just can’t help loving you. You’ve got to keep pushing the envelope until it falls off the table! We’re going to work on the targets we’ve established and tonight’s special date is target one! Think proactive!
Remember,
Positivity leads to love!
Leon
……………………………………………………………………………
From:Leon@LoveworX
To:SWF
We don’t use the word ‘failure’ here at LoveworX, SWF. We call it a ‘learning experience’. Ask yourself SWF, what have you learnt from last night? I truly believe that your blind date turning out to be your married boss is a learning experience without equal. A chance to show your professionalism and ability to deal with whatever life throws at you. Here at LoveworX we wouldn’t necessarily advise getting so drunk you vomit out of the cab window as a coping mechanism. Let’s work on that, shall we?
Remember,
Positivity leads to love!
Leon
……………………………………………………………………………
From:SWF
To:Colin Pressburger
OMFG Cindy, what an appalling night. Cheating skunk. He even had the cheek to question whether or not I really had got a five hour meeting yesterday afternoon with potential client in the beauty business and actually suggested I skived off to get my legs waxed! Honestly, I haven’t been that inefficiently groped in the back of a taxi since the sixth form disco. Even getting bladdered didn’t make it any better. Still, should help with the promotion prospects
Fancy a large G&T tonight to discuss the horror of it all in depth?
……………………………………………………………………………
From:SWF
To:Colin Pressburger
Hi Colin, I think it’s just possible I sent you something in error. It’s the synopsis of a crisis comms strategy I’m sketching out for a potential new client. Just ignore.
……………………………………………………………………………
From:SWF
To:Pamela Black
Why does Colin want to see me urgently? Pain au chocolat would be good if you’ve a min. I may need a carbohydrate boost later.
……………………………………………………………………………
From:Leon@LoveworX
To:SWF
Hi SWF! Here at LoveworX we’re always striving to be better than our best for all our coachees. Remember, we don’t recognise the word ‘failure’. So your new situation is a fantastic learning experience for you.
You’ll find if you read the small print of our contract (attached) that you will still have to pay me the remaining £1,150 for the rest of the coaching year.
Remember,
Positivity leads to love!
Leon
……………………………………………………………………………
NEW YEAR, SAME OLD, SAME OLD
1 January 2008
I resolve:
1 To work with neglected children. Probably my own, although guarantee cannot be given.
2 To open my bank statements when they arrive, not file them down the back of the hall table.
3 Ditto credit card statements.
4 To develop a lasting friendship with at least one man who isn’t gay (re guarantees: see point number 1).
5 To hand my mobile phone to a trusted friend before embarking on a night out.
6 If this proves impossible, to at least recognise that texting at 2.00am, with only one eye open and slumped against a wall for balance is probably a good indication that the text is unlikely to make any sense.
7 To expunge from my mobile phone all the numbers that I either never call or have no idea who they are but only keep in my phone to reassure myself that I have the acceptable number of friends.
8 To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.
9 To recognise that falling down the stairs of Viper Rooms is a reliable indicator that it may be time to go home.
10 To stop correcting people’s grammar and pronunciation (with the notable exception of when anyone says “pacific” instead of “specific” –this remains a crime for which the only punishment is death by firing squad).
11 To give all prospective dates a realistic chance, instead of taking one look at their cardigan/skinny tie/side parting and immediately designating them pointless.
12 To give up drinking alcohol.
13 Except at parties.
14 And when having dinner with friends.
15 And when I’ve had a hard day.
16 To stop wanting to stab the woman in the Picture Loans ad.
17 To empty the cat litter on a regular basis instead of waiting until the tray looks like an IRA dirty protest.
18 To stop spending hours on Facebook whilst pretending it is in the pursuit of “research”.
19 To stop dating men who have no recollection of the Falklands War/the wedding of Charles and Diana/Duran Duran.
20 To campaign tirelessly for the British national anthem to be replaced by Abba’s “Dancing Queen”.
