man than show-off loafer man any day of the week.
I lean over and whisper to Ben, “You are my old slipper and I love you.”
He looks totally shocked. As he would be - public displays of affection are not my thing. Even whispered ones.
“Jeez, babe. Where did that come from? But I love you too, FYI.”
SB has bought real champagne for the girls and beers for the boys. It must have cost him a fortune. We all raise a glass. “Happy birthday, SB! Thanks for the tickets!” we all chorus. Except Frank who looks stony. Why is he so ungrateful? He’s as hard, fake and uncomfortable as his poxy shoes. I whisper this to Jen who says, “Yes, Ella, but he is so good-looking!” Why can’t she see that he is ugly inside?
“Look! He’s coming on! Rod!” SB cheers wildly. He is going to have such a good night, bless him.
Rod doesn’t look that Rod-like, but his voice is excellent and a few glasses of wine in we can believe we are watching the real Rod Stewart. By the end of the evening we’re all down by the stage. Fred and SB are dancing in that embarrassing way only old dads can. Frank is dancing in a way he thinks is cool. Charlie is on Ben’s shoulders. It comes over me again. He is lovely. I love him. It doesn’t even matter that much that it has started to rain, because everyone knows it always rains at the Taronga Zoo concerts.
Jen
Have I told you how Kelly and I met? I don’t think I did. Speed dating. No, I’m not kidding. Kelly’s boss, Balding, bought it for her one Christmas after she’d separated from her husband. Kelly rates this as her shittest present ever, except of course, she met me which actually made it a very, very good present for both of us.
I was there because it was the latest in my series of ‘He-Must-Be-Out-There-Somewhere’ endeavours. She had to go because the voucher was about to expire, and the speed dating company kept emailing her boss saying it needed to be used soon. So she couldn’t fib and say she’d been already, which is what she really wanted to do.
Here’s how it went. Ghastly. We walked into this little room where everyone was doing a bit of pre-event mingling. Some women were eyeing up other women with real mean looks: ‘Ha, I’m a better specimen than you’ or ‘Bitch! You’re a better specimen than me.’ All the women (apart from Kelly but definitely including me) were throwing filthy looks at the skinny spandex clad one who was definitely not (fuck off!) in the forty/fifty age category she was supposed to be, and all the men snuck furtive glances at her boobs whilst trying to retain an air of interest in whichever of the older specimens was chatting away to him.
So, it was bad before we even got going, and here’s what we got:
4 x Quite nerdy, not really my type
4 x Quite nice, but I didn’t fancy them
2 x Good-looking, I ticked them both
1 x The Cardie. Seriously weird.
Kelly ticked no one at all, but we exchanged numbers in the loo at half time, over a lot of cardie-inspired guffawing. As we were the only women to exchange a friendly ‘Oh, God’ smile as opposed to a ‘Don’t impress more than me, cow’ one, we realised we might be kindred spirits – in a roomful of not very nice and rather over-accessorised women with personalities as spiky as their stilettos.
Post speed date night, you wait to see if any of your ticks correspond with any of the men’s ticks. I opened the email, eagerly awaiting my match with at least one. After all, the two good looking ones I had ticked weren’t that good looking and I’d had a nice chat with them both. But they hadn’t ticked me. And do you know what? I cried for ages. Sobbed, actually. For the longest time. What’s wrong with me? Why didn’t they like me? Wah wah wah wah.
I’ve since found out that the blokes are often roped in at the last minute. The organisers have a lack of men, so they contact some blokes they’ve had before and are on their database, to offer them free places to make up the numbers. They probably turn up for the one included free drink and the ropey canapés. I hate to say this, but Australian men can be a bit tight. A bit long in the pocket, as Kelly says.
Well, clearly such ringers are not going to be as motivated to match ticks as the saps like me, who paid ninety dollars for a big dent in self-esteem. Had I known this at the time, I may not have felt so devastated.
The thing with the artificial dating scene is, you need to be really tough. You need to not have a mushy ego like mine. You need to have a strong sense of self-worth, which isn’t so easily trashed by the rejection of a stranger. Kelly phoned during my blubbing tsunami. She told me to stop it at once, or I would look a horror when we went out the next night. And she had decided we should go out the next night and have a fun night to make up for the frightful one.
I didn’t quite stop the wah wahing, but we did indeed go out the following night (a Saturday), and we had such a good time. I ended up on the pub stage at the end of the evening singing a Meatloaf song. Kelly - she has the hair for it after all - was Meatloaf’s backup singer. Yes, naturally, we were very drunk. Turns out, Kelly does the Meatloaf backing singer a lot, and to find a buddy who will obligingly play the far less glamorous Meatloaf part was a big thrill for her. And for me too. We’ve been best mates ever since.
Anyway, that’s how we met. Not sure how I got started on this, I think I may have been distracted again. Sorry. No, not sorry. Kelly says I need to be less nicey and that includes not being so apologetic all the time. So not sorry I went on and on here, but yes, very sorry I ever put myself through speed dating. I will never again subject myself to that horror. There must be a way of finding the lovely man who is out there for me which doesn’t involve such mortification.
Kelly
Jen is my best mate, but her head when it comes to this bloke stuff is truly scary. We talk a lot of shit to each other, so please don’t think she has bored me rigid with the following, but here are some of my recollections on the blokes Jen has dated. Best not name them, and I can’t recall the names anyway. But I do have a very good memory for the gory details. And there is plenty of dating gore here. Drum roll please for...
Jen’s Roll Call of Blokes
Number One
Aged sixteen, met some impressively older very handsome twenty- something bloke on holiday in Devon. Post holiday romance/fingering in tent, she wrote him a heartfelt letter. He never replied and she blubbed a lot. Soundtrack, The Bangles, Eternal Flame. Much blubbing as it turned out to be anything but an eternal flame, more a fingering episode on a camp site near Torquay.
Number Two
Aged eighteen, her first real boyfriend whom she met at a sixth form party. Had fingering session on armchair. Don’t judge us on this fingering thing - that’s what we all did in those days! Soundtrack, not I Wanna Sex You Up (remember that? 1991, ghastly). More Bryan Adams, Everything I Do, I Do It For You. Which she did. For two years or so. Then she had an ill-advised first term at Uni dalliance with:
Number Three
Who dumped her on her return from dumping the boyfriend over the Christmas holidays. Bad timing there. Number three is now a moderately famous jazz musician on Wikipedia. Soundtrack, ghastly saxophone playing. She hated jazz (still does) but listened diligently anyway.
Number Four
Very handsome local lad met whilst working at pub to boost student coffers. He was working his way around the female population of Norwich. Soundtrack, Dina Carroll. Don’t be a Stranger. He certainly wasn’t. To anybody.
Number Five
Trombone player met at Pontin’s holiday job. Small penis. Trombone soundtrack, obviously. What is it with her and these blowy instrument types?
Number Six
Coach