epsiode 18

Faith, Hope & Charity

Trying not to devote my entire life to going to organised dating events, my friends and I pondered the fact that when we went out we were never approached by men. Was it us? Was it London? Were we going to the wrong places? We go out a lot, but it had been a year since I sent a man who tried to chat me up me packing, and he was fresh off the boat from Australia, six months in London and he wouldn't come near. I wasn't going to let it worry me; it was more of a puzzle I wanted to solve. And I thought perhaps if I did then I might be able to achieve my ambition of world domination.
There are of course places where you can go to meet men and be guaranteed of interest. A jail for example, especially on release day, or a seminary when the man has decided he doesn't want to be a priest after all after five years of abstinence, however it's probably not practical for most people because it could be months before you pick the right day. It seemed that the puzzle would remain unsolved, and trying to decipher modern dating would be harder than cracking the DaVinci Code. Then a friend of mine told me that she had come up with a sure fire way of meeting men, which wasn't an organised dating event. She had bought a table at a charity lunch.
I wasn't convinced about the men but I agreed to go, it was to help children and that was good enough for me. However she told me that this particular charity had a sporting bias therefore it would be full of men. Rich, kind men who liked children. It was going to be better than jail.
There were five of us, and we dressed up and went to the venue at midday. I felt like a lady who lunched, which was great as the nearest I get to going out to lunch these days is buying a sandwich from a supermarket. As we got to the reception, we were soon joined by two male friends of one of my friends, but they were quickly dismissed. One was a gay cabin boy and the other was an older man with a rather interesting curly mullet. Soon a theme emerged. Yes, as I looked around the room there were a lot of men, and yes they were well-dressed and probably rich, and undoubtedly kind, however the glaring problem was that they were also very, very old.
I'm not being ageist; we are talking about at the very least old enough to be my father. As we took our seats in the dining room, all four hundred guests, there didn't seem to be a single prospect in the room. In fact the only course of action would be to go around the room asking the men if they had any eligible grandsons. We had a drink and I wondered how I could find out the best day to hang around the jail.
One of our friends was running late, and just as the speeches were about to start a confused man sat down in her place. He'd lost his table, and then someone nudged me and whispered to me that he was in fact a well known comedian and pantomime star (no wonder I didn't recognise him). So, we had swapped a friend for pantoman and it seemed like quite a good swap to be honest.
As lunch got underway, this guy explained he was one of the speakers. Although he should have been on a different table we decided to keep him and asked if they could set an extra place. It became apparent that he was interested in one lady on our table in particular, and he flirted with her throughout lunch.
Mullet man seemed quite keen to try to flirt with as many of us as he could, however the hair meant that no one could concentrate on what he was saying, (how come mullets seem to have a life of their own?). Cabin boy offered us a tour of his cabin, but we had no idea why.
With no male prospects in sight for us we enjoyed the lunch, and the wine. Then came the auction. Due to the fact that my friend was tipsy and hadn't found the rich, kind man she was expecting, she somehow managed to spend a huge sum of money on a day at the races, (she reckoned there would be loads of men there, and hopefully not all of them would be short and on a horse). We all had to sit on our hands until the auction came to an end; otherwise I think I would have been taking home a cricket bat signed by someone I'd never heard of, and my other single friend a romantic weekend for two in Paris.
After a long lunch, the auction, guest speakers (pantoman was quite funny if not politically incorrect) and lots of wine we decided it would be a good idea to go to the bar and carry on. Our group had dwindled a bit, although we still had three men; mullet man, cabin boy and pantoman.
I have a slight fear of long lunches, because it means you start drinking too early and then you forget to stop. As one woman with us had to lie down on the bar floor, another was found asleep in the ladies'. Then we realised that panto-man and our other friend had disappeared. It later transpired that they'd gone up and down in the lift about seven times snogging like teenagers, and every time the lift stopped and someone tried to get in pantoman said that either it was a private lift, or that they were testing it. How we didn't get thrown out of the place, I will never know.
As we wobbled home that evening we went to our favourite burger bar for a debrief. I said that perhaps we needed to be less pro-active in our search for men. But as my friend pointed out, I do write a dating column. So, what's a girl to do? It seems as I stumble through the world of modern dating more and more questions arise. Was it back to organised dating, would I ever solve the puzzle and would mullet man get a hair cut?
The following day I found out that the charity lunch had been a dating success for one of us, and I don't think I need to tell you who. But if she starts saying 'oh no it isn't,' on a regular basis, I might have to intervene.

Next Week: Unlocked?