Is It Just Me? (28 page)

Now it seems that this chapter endeth, which means it’s time for me to finish the jelly, bung on the Billy Joel and have a little dance. Who says we can’t be free like kids from time to time?

^*
Little Miranda rushes back in
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Actually, hang on. Kids aside, I’ve decided I need a little more explanation about this whole ‘no husband, no serious relationship’ business, if you please. And I’m sure your fabled reader chum is a tad curious as well – just what ON EARTH has been going on for you in that department?

^*
deep breath
^*
Oh, all right then. I suppose it is time. Fasten your seatbelt, MDRC, and batten down the hatches as we bravely sail forth into the world of . . . DATING. We’re in for a bumpy ride . . .

^*
C
lears throat
^*
Ahem. As you may or may not remember, MDRC, depending on what you’ve been doing between chapters (perhaps you’ve mown the lawn or knocked up a tart – if you’ll pardon the expression), at the end of the previous chapter I warned you that we were in for a bumpy ride. Fasten your seatbelt, I recommended, buckle up and brace yourself and batten down the hatches (though maybe batten down the hatches first, because if you’ve already buckled up and braced yourself you might not be able to reach them to batten them down effectively. What do you mean I’ve gone too far with the analogy . . .?). I mentioned that we were going to be exploring the weird and wonderful, wild and wacky world of dating.

This is where it all kicks into gear. Let me be your Carrie Bradshaw, let me guide you through the saucy mysteries of ladies and men and shoes and rules and sexiness and banter and my own hilarious, marvellous, wicked and wonderful stories of romping through the world of dates. Yes, siree. Dates, second dates, the first kiss and all the subsequent shenanigans.
^*
teeters on imaginary Manolo Blahniks, sips Cosmopolitan, adjusts Wonderbra
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Except . . . umm . . . scratch that, as I’m afraid that’s not going to happen. There’s really no need for you to fasten your seatbelt (unless you happen to be driving a car and, if so, please put this book down immediately and FOR GOODNESS’ SAKE FOCUS ON THE ROAD); you should also feel free to leave the hatches unbattened, for this, quite frankly, isn’t going to be a very bumpy ride at all.

To be honest, and I know you’ll be extraordinarily surprised to hear this: I am not an experienced ‘dater’. I don’t even
know
many people who are. At least, not in this country. I have a theory (the sort of well-thought-out theory that’s concocted in the darkest reaches of the night, whilst eating drinking-chocolate powder with a spoon and pairing up my socks in a mad insomniac thought-binge), that the whole concept of dating is an elaborate trick played on British people by the makers of American television programmes. Because, really, who here
dates
?

MDRC, are
you
an experienced dater? Have you been known to sit elegantly on a bar stool on a week night, sipping a cocktail, awaiting a tall and handsome man? And, while we’re sort of on the subject of cocktails, can we just take a moment to ponder the whole terrible business of cocktail-umbrella etiquette? Does one remove the umbrella and place it neatly on the bar, or is that offensive to the barman? And if it is, must you drink the cocktail with it still in, and risk being blinded by the little pokey stick? What’s a girl to do? Sometimes the umbrella covers such a large portion of the drink that you have to sip at a very awkward angle in order to get any liquid near your mouth. And it’s not a sexy angle, not at all. Boldly I say this: drink doesn’t need an umbrella. It is already wet. I’m digressing a little, I can see, but I think it was, quite frankly, irresponsible of
Sex and the City
not to cover the whole cocktail-umbrella issue, and it’s my duty – nay, pleasure – to bring it up now. You’re welcome.

So,
do
you date? Have you ever found yourself in that rom-com datey moment at the end of an evening with a man you like, and suddenly you think ‘Maybe I need to do something sexy; something that someone in a film would do,’ so you opt for the swishing-your-hair-and-laughing move that Julia Roberts does so nicely? Ever done that? How did that work for you? A success? Or did a gust of wind suddenly fling your hair all over your face and make you look like a cave man? I tried it once, but with short hair it just looked as if I was having a small seizure. No kiss, but I did get a lift home from the paramedics.

Maybe you’ve been on a date, had a meal and then it ended with a nice romantic walk? Have you managed to elegantly teeter along in those high heels without getting them caught in something and leaving the shoe behind so you end up doing a few steps with a large limp? Or have you, like me, showed that you’re a little bit cold of an evening – you know, revealed your feminine vulnerable side . . . only for it to backfire spectacularly as when your beau gallantly offers you his jacket, you take it and then realise you can’t fit it on? That it simply won’t go on over your upper arms? What does one do then? I went for the, ‘Actually, I’m suddenly rather hot, don’t worry,’ thereby suggesting a pre-menopausal symptom. Not sexy.

Be honest, have you ever mastered any of these dating scenarios that this lovely life presents us, cruised adorably through them, to end up with the man of your dreams? Is it just me who’s convinced that only a certain kind of woman from New York could do so – and perhaps only a fictional woman?

From what I can see, in this country, people just tend to sort of . . . bump into each other. Maybe in the pub, or in the office, or at the library. They then stare moodily at each other across the bar/desk/bookshelf for a bit, harbour wild romantic fantasies about the other for anything between five minutes and eighteen months, then eventually arrange it so that they’ll bump into each other at a social event. Throughout said event they’ll then make it abundantly clear that THIS IS NOT A DATE. WE ARE NOT ON A DATE. HA HA HA! IMAGINE IF WE WERE. THAT WOULD BE AWFUL. They’ll then possibly get drunk and snog each other, occasionally breaking off to reassure the other that this is an ‘ironic’ snog. Four years later, somehow, after one trip to the theatre, a couple of nights in watching the
X Factor
together and one BBQ where they meet each other’s friends, they’ll get married. That, according to my best observations, is How Dating Works In Britain.

You might think, ‘Well, that’s a bit depressing, Miranda. How unromantic.’ But I’m just not sure that Brits are suited to the high stakes created by a formal dating ritual. A date, a proper date, is just a bit embarrassing, isn’t it? A bit . . . staged. Is
anyone
really comfortable with the notion of sitting across from someone else in a quiet restaurant, so quiet that anything you say can – and will – be overheard by the surrounding diners? (Why doesn’t anyone
talk
in those restaurants?) Then there’s the end of the evening. You know the bit: you’re going to have to say goodbye with that awkward peck on lips or cheeks, or someone’s going to have to work up the confidence to ask someone into someone’s house. I mean, really, what are we – Italian?

So I’m afraid I have very little advice to offer you as far as dating is concerned. I cheerfully wash my hands of the whole business.

^*
uncharacteristically meek
^*
Er, hello.

Gosh, Little M. What on earth is wrong with you? You look terrified. Have you got a big lacrosse match on or something?

I wish I had a big lacrosse match on. Lacrosse is easy. You just run at people with a big stick and hit them in the teeth. No, this is far, far worse. I’ve got to go out with . . . with . . . with a boy.

Oh dear, you poor frightened little poppet.

He goes to the local boys’ school. We met at an inter-school choir-athon –

Sexy.

– and when Mr Selbourne the music teacher asked who wanted to come and sing the
Requiem
next term, we were the only ones to put our hands up. And we smiled at each other. He’s even taller than I am, and has intense eyes like David Hasselhoff in
Baywatch
. And he didn’t mind that I was the only girl in the tenor section.

Pretend you didn’t hear that, MDRC.

He’s asked me to meet him outside the corner shop. He said he’d buy me a Fanta and some white mice . . .

I hope he meant the sweets, not some actual small mammals, because that would be weird
^*
laughing at her own joke
^*

This is no time for crappy jokes. Podge says that Clare-Bear says Twig says that Bella – who knows his sister’s best friend’s cousin – says he’s never snogged anyone before and he’ll probably try and lunge. I haven’t kissed many boys before and I don’t think I want him to lunge. I practised on my pillow last night, and Bella made a fake mouth from an orange but I was hungry, so I just ate it.

Listen, if you don’t want to kiss him, you don’t have to. If you see the lunge coming, then quickly bend down to ‘tie your shoelaces’.

That’s clever.

I am here to serve.

Bella says that usually if a boy’s going to lunge he’ll try and hold your hand first. But as Podge said, if we’re eating white mice and drinking Fanta, we won’t have any hands free.

If anyone knows what’s achievable whilst holding sweets, it’s Podge.

Please stop treating this lightly. I’m scared. What happens if he puts his tongue in my mouth?

Well, it does happen.

But it CAN’T. Bella says that if you kiss with tongues on the first date then you go on a ‘slag register’, and can’t get married in the Church of England.

^*
laughs so hard, inhales Diet Coke up nose
^*
Bella said that? And we all thought Bella was the cool one, the worldly one; the one with brothers who knew it all.

Oh, this is awful. I’m going to hide in the sports cupboard for a bit.

You do that, Little M. Pop out again when you’re ready to chat.

MDRC, I imagine you might be a bit worried that my eighteen-year-old self is so shockingly naïve and unschooled as regards the ways of luuuurve. I was, as you may have a gathered, a bit of a late developer. Particularly in that sense. Ditto all my friends. I appreciate this might just be me, unless you were also at an all-girls school in the 80s.

You see, an all-girls school (worse for me too, with it being a boarding school) isn’t terribly conducive to developing a particularly healthy attitude towards the opposite sex. Starved of actual living men, we lived off rumour. The first things that any boarding-school girl in the late 1980s would have heard about all that business were based entirely on something that the most hysterical/malevolent/imaginative girl in the school had said late one night.

Imagine the scene: it’s midnight, and eight girls in Laura Ashley pyjamas are sitting cross-legged on a bed listening to Pandora, the head girl’s younger sister, as she relays the ten love truths that have been passed round 300 girls of various ages and levels of hysteria, via a kind of faulty Chinese Whispers system. Here is what we were told:

1. ‘If you kiss with tongues, you become legally French.’
   
2. ‘You can get pregnant from sitting on a rugby ball which a boy has recently sat on.’
   
3. ‘If you kiss a boy in a churchyard the dead people come out of their graves and scream.’
   
4. ‘You can get pregnant if you hold hands and you’ve both got cuts on your hands.’
   
5. ‘If you get off with a boy in your mum and dad’s bed, it’s the same as having sex with your mum and dad.’
   
6. ‘You can get pregnant from toilet seats.’
   
7. ‘If a boy can still sing soprano in the choir after the third form it means he’s a eunuch and you can use him as your servant.’
   
8. ‘If you hold hands and jump in a river on May Day then you’re legally married in Sussex.’
   
9. ‘You can get STDs from shaking hands if both your hands are sweaty.’
   
10. ‘English people can’t get pregnant in Germany.’
    (I believe this was originally said by someone trying to seduce a young man on a German exchange visit).
    

As I say, it wasn’t the best grounding. The only other source of information came via the odd ‘trendy’ teacher like Miss Manning. During class, she’d lower her voice conspiratorially and say things like, ‘I’ve got quite a history in that department, you know; don’t get me started on
men.
’ We’d lean in expectantly, hungry for insights. ‘If you learn only one thing from me, learn this . . .’ she’d say. ‘Wow,’ we’d think. ‘This teacher is
breathtakingly
saucy.’ In
Sex and the City
terms, she was our Samantha. ‘What
is
she going to reveal next?’ Then with a faraway look in her eye, she’d say, ‘
Never
trust a man who’s trying to sell you a second-hand refrigerator. Once the deal is done, he won’t be calling you again.’ We’d lean back in our chairs, certain that she’d just said something terribly profound and filthy. What did it mean? Was it euphemistic? Were we the refrigerator? Was
he
? Bella spun the rumour that ‘The Refrigerator’ was some kind of perverted sex move only done at orgies in nineteenth-century France. To this day, I can’t look at an Currys catalogue without wincing.