The Critical Sell-By Date

When I wake up and my back’s itching in the place I can’t get at, I might think of the times when I had a girlfriend to scratch it for me.
‘Up a bit, down a bit. That’s it!’
The Golden Shot.

Then I might begin to wonder whether it’s because the area I can’t get at is also the area least cleaned that makes it more scratchable than any other area on the back?

I don’t know, but I think I need a girlfriend.

Having sat on the fence of love since splitting up three years ago, I’ve gone through all the hoops that Venus has thrown at my feet, bumbling on in pursuit of karmic parity, tripping up along the way with a dumb smile, to move on to better places.

I was a well beaten man, I admit, and it took over a year to even contemplate the notion that I could actually pick them up again. The hoops, I mean.

By this time, a friend had tried to match me with a friend of hers who worked at a theatre in the West End. She looked cute, stuck to the fridge, sandwiched between two men in a wedding photo.

We met at Waterloo and went to a Slug and Lettuce. We hit it off but not enough. The spark wasn’t there; alcohol did what it could, but it wasn’t enough.
She told me about a dating website that she’d joined and I left thinking that perhaps I’d give it a whirl.

Keen to make headway, I started to wonder why as I got to meet the digital ladies.

I arranged to meet the first one outside Clapham Junction station.
She’d not put a photo on the site but I thought I’d take my chances and have a gander. It was a Friday night.

When she came up to me, I felt like running. Either that or making up some wild excuse about my mother losing her keys again. She looked a bit like Alan Partridge’s PA.
We went to a bar and got chatting. At one point, over a shared pizza, she leant forward to capture ‘a moment’, but I just couldn’t face it.
We stumbled back to the station and caught trains in different directions.

The next one was booked for a coffee on Kensington Church Street.
I waited for a while, during which exceptional eye-contact was established with a gorgeous young Italian by across the café.
When the date arrived, my mouth dropped.
She was twice the age of her photo. I had to stop myself asking where her daughter had got to.
We talked for about fifteen minutes while the Italian girl whispered words under a hand to her girlfriend, giggling and watching me as her friend stole backward glances and flicked her hair.
Side-splitting, I thought. And typical of my luck.

For all I knew, the lush Italian was a rich art student whose parents who were never around, leaving her to loll about at the period penthouse, paint and ashtrays everywhere.
I saw slender parquet, detailed coving, unloved antiques and frayed Persian rugs.

My date worked in reconstructive facial surgery and it certainly looked like it.
Iranian by birth, her achingly long face was dripping in make-up. I could imagine her laying first the foundation and then the slop in stages, quickening drying-times with the aid of a hair-dryer by a window.

I looked at the Italian and sighed. Then, out of boredom, I started imagining that she was the date’s daughter. Maybe she’d come to vet me. I’d suffer the Iranian if the Italian wanted a threesome. Sacrifices would have to be made.

Such was the intensity of eyeballing with the Italian, it came as a complete surprise when the Iranian asked if I minded sitting outside.
Stricken by fear, I sat there trying to ease the insane erection that had developed of its own accord in my shorts.

Moving slowly, with my bum protruding to stem the bulge at my crotch, half bent-over like an old man without a walking stick, I hobbled behind the Iranian to go outside.

The date could tell I wasn’t interested. When I mentioned the difference between her photo and her appearance, she told me that the photo was the only one she had, and then left.

The Italian girl was still there, and as the Iranian turned the corner I looked over to her.
Being rusty, the whole overwhelming idea of sex with her made me ponder too long upon the machinations of an introduction.
As I flicked a newspaper, feeling the spark drain and fade with every page turned, every half-hearted, second-hand glance weakening the prospect of a sexual union.

I paid and left, kicking myself halfway down the road, loathing my own stupidity and lack of resource. Where had my balls gone?

The third one I met in Putney at the Jolly Gardeners.
She worked for the foreign office and was a crack archer and fencer.
She had five brothers to my three sisters, we both supported Arsenal and loved to travel.
Her height was fine and she was pretty. Five years younger than me, the age was good, too.
Did I fancy her? Could I see myself with her?
No.
And why not? Because blooming Venus was still busy cracking the whip and throwing hoops for me to jump through. That’s why. Anyway, the date had to go to Madagascar for six months.

I gave up after the fourth date, a beautiful chancer from Argentina.
We met at Tate Modern and then went in search of a drink.
She didn’t sound like a good Mum, she couldn’t stand her ex, she worked in the City as a secretary and boy did she loved vodka.
She could take it, too, and as I became more and more light-headed on San Miguel, her flirting, not just with me, told me that I was way out of my depth again, splashing about in the deep end while others did breast-stroke lengths all around me.

I wobbled back from Borough to my comfort zone and had a game of pool with Nick.

The thing about girlfriends is that they do require a bit of the old folding stuff, which is only fair. What I’ve found is that if a woman is attractive, she may be well-looked after by her partner. If she’s OK, she still has a good chance of finding love.
If, however, she’s heavy on the toilet or emotionally anorexic, there are far fewer options available to her and she may take on sub-prime candidates and other undesirables. Failing that, she’ll just stay away altogether.
Men aren’t that different.
It’s natural selection all the way.
I’d personally rather wait for the right girl than go with someone I didn’t really love.

Having said that, women don’t always choose men for their wallets, which is perhaps my saving grace. Pre-nups aren’t an issue for me.

My current status provides little for myself, so the thought of keeping a bright, pretty, sexy, honest and cheerful homemaker happy registers as quite remote, all considered. Still, you can but…

Jobseekers allowance is OK if you’re a non-smoking teetotal hermit moulding away in the garage at your Mum’s house on a diet of baked beans and TV.
For anyone else, though, it’s the pits. A bus ride is taken as a weekly treat on Jobseekers, and that’s usually to sign-on.

Maybe it’s just down to the recession.
If/when work comes back into fashion, I can build up a wee nest-egg and rent a teeny weeny flat somewhere.
That’s a start. It shows willing to a lassie, that there’s life in the old dog yet.

I used to have such a laugh with girlfriends but it wasn’t much fun with the last one, the mother of my children, and I’m wondering whether I can go through it all again, especially now that I know about their dark side.

I feel vulnerable and young, as if all that I’ve learnt about love has been thrown out of the window and lays shattered on the grass below, untouched for years.

I’m sure it’s not just me, though.
Figures suggest that the percentage of London’s singularly-occupied flats and houses has surpassed that of Paris for the first time ever, making it the single’s capital of the world.
They say that half of the population will live alone by 2025.

For me, internet dating just about sums up the gaping male/female divide.
Let’s face it; Modern life’s a bit of a tease.

With internet dating, you can see people’s profiles but you can only contact them when a monthly subscription is paid.
Then, you can contact people but you can’t touch them until you meet up.
When you meet up, your heart sinks and you generally want to run a mile.

At least when you buy shopping on the internet, it usually does what it says on the tin and arrives on time.
With people, delivery of goods can’t be guaranteed, and when it does arrive it’s usually well past its sell-by date, soft and mushy.

After all the parties and private views and chi-chi bars, life has changed so much.
‘I was young and bold, wild and free,
There was no such thing as CCTV.’

Thinking more rationally, I suppose every dog has his day. Afterwards, he gets to eat slops, which isn’t so bad.