The Drought (The hilarious laugh-out loud comedy about dating disasters!) (19 page)

So much so that it ended up in
Row Z.

“
And the
drought continues!” Ollie said, stubbing his fag out in the
ashtray.

I slumped back into my chair as
the final whistle sounded. Yet again, I had come so close to
scoring only to mess it up at the last minute. “Who wants another
beer,” I mumbled with defeat lingering on my breath. All three shot
their hands up.

“
What am I
going to do, lads?” I asked as I handed out our third lot of drinks
of the afternoon. “I need to score soon. This drought is seriously
starting to play on my mind.”

“
Try staying
sober for a start,” Rob said leaning forward. “Twice you have been
in a situation to get your end away, and twice you have got
yourself wasted.”

“
It's basic
first date knowledge, Dan,” Jack said. “The bloke needs to keep a
clear head so he can get the girl drunk enough to convince her that
sleeping with him on the first date is a good idea.”

“
Otherwise,
how else can you expect to perform with her in the bedroom if
you're plastered?” Rob said.

“
It has the
reverse effect on me,” Ollie piped up. “I can go for hours when I'm
hammered.”

“
That’s
because you have more alcohol in your bloodstream than a boozer has
in their pipes,” Jack said slapping Ollie across the back of the
head. “But Dan is a Larry Lightweight and needs to pull it in a
notch.”

“
Maybe you’re
right,” I said putting my beer down on the table. “I’m at the point
where I’ve resorted to praying, but I’m starting to think that even
God has it in for me.”

“
God doesn’t
have it in for
you
,” Jack said with authority, like a man with inside knowledge
of God’s innermost thoughts.

“
He
doesn’t?”

“
No, of course
not. He has it in for Ollie, but not you.”

“
What are you
going on about Jack?” Ollie asked.

“
When God was
handing out talent and looks, you must have got stuck behind David
Beckham and God gave him your share. That’s why you have the type
of face only a mother could love. Plus you have a chode.” Jack
wiggled his little finger at Ollie.

“
Shut up,”
Ollie threw a cushion at Jack as Rob and I laughed. “What do you
think God looks like?” Ollie said with a deep thoughtful look on
his face.

“
I have no
idea, mate,” Rob said.

“
Long hair and
a beard?” was my guess.

“
Wrong,” Jack
said. “Long hair, yes. Beard, no.”

“
And what
makes you an expert on God’s appearance,” Rob enquired.

“
Because God
is a
woman
,” Jack
said and drunk some more of his beer, before sitting back and
letting out a satisfying
Aahh
noise, and offering no further
explanation.

“
How do you
know God is a woman,” Ollie asked with a quizzical look on his
face.

“
Because my
ugly jolly green giant friend, if God was a man then why would he
put his G-spot up his arse?”

There was an
awkward silence in the room as everyone sat thinking about what
Jack had just said. It wasn’t exactly a question you would get
on
Mastermind
,
but you had to admit Jack might have had a point. “Only a woman
could play such a cruel trick as to put the male G-spot in the
rectum,” Jack went on.

“
Maybe God is
gay,” Ollie said, before he excitedly added, “God could be a
lesbian. Now there is a God I could pray to.”

Lazy Sundays and bullshit
conversation. Did it get any better than this? Ollie got up and
went to the fridge to grab some more beer. This is what I needed.
Proper lads’ chat about football, women, and beer.

“
Where the
hell did you get this beer from?” Ollie said as he handed out the
Chinese beer I had bought from my local offie because it was on
special offer.

“
Whoa, hold on
there, Ollie,” Rob said before I could answer. “Are you complaining
about the beer?

“
No, I
just...”

“
Because you
know there are rules about moaning about the beer in a man’s
fridge,” Jack joined in.

“
There is?”
Even I wasn’t aware of this.

“
Oh yeah. It
is forbidden to complain about the brand of
free
beer in a mate’s fridge,” Jack
said.

“
You can
complain if the temperature is unsuitable though,” Rob added. “It’s
simple beer drinking etiquette. You can find this stuff on the
internet. It's the same as never hesitating to reach for the last
beer or the last slice of pizza, but never take both.”

“
Because that
would be greedy,” Jack finished the sentence off for Rob. “You
didn’t know that? It’s like an unwritten man rule.”

“
A bit like
not having to ever have to buy a mate a birthday present?” Ollie
asked.

“
Exactly,”
Jack said. “Even remembering your mate’s birthday is strictly
optional.”

“
I’ve got
one,” I said. “Two men should never share an umbrella.”

“
Unless you’re
at the footy and your pies are getting wet,” Ollie said and we all
nodded in agreement.

“
Talking of
the footy,” Rob started, “any woman who claims they love football
should be treated suspiciously until they can demonstrate knowledge
of the game, and by that I mean fully explaining the offside
rule.”

“
On that
note,” Jack said, “when stumbling upon other blokes watching a
sporting event, you can ask what the score is, but never ask who's
playing.”

We all chinked beers, but I
quickly held up my hand as I swallowed to signal I had one more.
“We missed an important one,” I said. “Let us ogle. We are going to
look anyway.”

“
Fact,” Jack
said holding up his drink to me. “Why do girls always bang on about
going on diets?”

“
And why is it
the stick-thin girls who go on about them the most?” Ollie said.
“Personally, I can’t do diets.”

“
How come?”
Rob asked.

“
Because every
time I shag Jack’s bird she gives me a biscuit,” Ollie said
laughing and pointing his beer towards Jack.

“
You wish,”
Jack responded.

We all laughed, and I was
starting to relax again. Maybe because there was no pressure to go
out on the pull, or maybe it was because I knew there was little
chance of bumping into Dave the Neanderthal in my living room.
Whatever it was I sat back and drunk my beer like I didn’t have a
care in the world. I was already starting to forget about what had
happened with Carla. Heck, it had even been quite funny when I
looked back. The way I was starting to see it, a lot worse things
could happen than not have sex for a few months. I started flicking
through the channels. I switched over to the BBC1 News and my heart
stopped. I pumped the volume.

Metropolitan Police are pleased
that yesterday’s G8 demonstration in the capital passed off
peacefully. The only disturbance noted came when a gay rights
protester clashed with a section of police.

And there I
was in my pink T-shirt, carrying a
gay
& proud
signpost. Why the hell had I
not taken any notice of what the banner had said? I watched in
horror as the reporter shoved the microphone in my face and
asked:
Do you feel a sense of injustice as
a gay man living in the UK?

“
Yes! Yes!” I
shouted. “I haven’t done anything!” The news report concluded as I
watched open-mouthed and wide-eyed. I could feel my friends staring
at me; their stifled laughter about to explode.

“
Gay
and
proud
?”
Rob
said with a smirk. Queue the fits of laughter.

“
I always had
a feeling about you, Dan,” Ollie said, shifting his way down the
sofa away from me.

“
I have to
hold my hands up and admit when I am wrong,” Jack said. “God must
be a man, because only a man could come up with something as golden
as this.”

“
How did this
happen?” I managed to say, staring blankly at the screen. “I swear
to you I didn’t know what the sign said.”

“
And the pink
T-shirt?” Rob asked.

“
This is a
disaster.” I drank my beer, slammed the bottle on to the table, and
sat with my head in my hands.

“
If you had
problems getting girls into the sack before, you are going to
really be up against it now,” Ollie said.

“
No, this
could help,” Rob said laughing. “Girls love gay guys. You could
make this work for you.”

“
Yeah, you
could discuss fashion, haircuts, what boys you fancy,” Jack
said.

My friends were no longer
hiding their delight, and were howling with laughter. An hour ago I
was a striker who just needed to find the net again. Now I was a
young gay fugitive.

“
This isn’t
funny,” I barked, but the angrier I got the funnier they found it.
My house phone started to ring and snapped me out of my state of
shock.

“
Hello,” I
answered the phone. “Oh, hi mum,” and I raised my finger to my lips
to shut the boys up.

“
Yes, that was
me on the television,” I paused. “No, I’m not gay, mum.” The
laughter now roared back into life. I shot them all a look, but the
last thing on their mind was to take any notice of my feelings. In
fact, Ollie had Jack bent over the sofa while Rob thrust his groin
into Jack’s face.

I stormed out of the living
room and into my bedroom. “Look, mum, it was just a big
mistake.”

“
Is that why
you broke up with Stacey?” My mum asked. “Because you like boys
now?”

“
No, I don’t
like boys!”

“
I don’t mind
sweetheart, I will always love you unconditionally. Your father
might take a bit of getting used to the idea, but he’ll come
round.”

“
Mum, you need
to listen to me,” I said. “I am not gay.” I proceeded to explain
what happened, and how I hadn’t realised what the sign said that I
was holding. It took a while, but I finally convinced
her.

“
This wouldn’t
happen if you spoke to your old mum a bit more, and told me what
was going on in your life once in a while,” she said as she
explained away her fantastic mum logic.

“
I know mum,
and I promise I will keep you in the loop more often from now on,”
I lied just to get her off the phone.

We said our goodbyes and I
walked back into the living room. I fell back onto the sofa and
sighed. I closed my eyes waiting for the onslaught but... nothing.
I opened my left eye and scanned the living room. Jack and Rob were
playing the football game, while Ollie had lit another cigarette.
They said nothing. If anything, they were being suspiciously
quiet.

“
What’s going
on?” I asked. But they all just shrugged their shoulders and
carried on what they were doing. “Seriously, what’s going on?” I
asked again, this time with a little more authority in my voice. I
had known this lot for too long. They would have never let this
joke die as quickly as this. No way had they decided this gag
didn’t have any more legs. I scanned all of their blank
expressions. What were they hiding?

Then, out of the corner of my
eye, I spotted it.

“
No!” I
shouted as I grabbed my mobile and saw the words
Message Sent
flash up on
the screen. “What have you done?” The worst possible scenarios were
running through my head.

The laughing started up again.
Then Jack answered through stifled laughter: “We just wanted to put
the message out there that despite national news coverage, you are
100 per cent confident in your sexuality.”

“
What the hell
have you done?” I anxiously started clicking through sent messages,
and that’s when I saw it:

I’m in a bad place right now,
but I just wanted to let you know that I’m all man, and I have
never stopped thinking about you. It’s always been you.

“
No, no, no,
no,” I kept saying over and over again as my so-called friends
cackled like a pack of hyenas. How could I have been so stupid?
Leaving my phone with a bunch of booze-fuelled friends was the most
basic of schoolboy errors. Then the replies started to come
through.

Tina Russell

Who is this?

Okay, damage limitation. I
hadn’t seen Tina Russell since college. I was a little hurt she
didn’t have my number anymore, but I could live with that.

Callie McDowell

Very funny Dan. Are you drunk?
Xx

Jenny Hoxley

Hi Dan. Did you mean to send
this to me?

This was good. Maybe everyone
would see this as a drunken joke or just a simple case of a text
being sent to the wrong person.

Craig Daws

Saw you on the news earlier and
just got your text. Don’t take it personally but I am deleting your
number. I am not that type of bloke – don’t contact me again.

Now I was getting nervous.
Sending it to a bunch of girls in my phone was bad enough, but
sending it to a guy? This was getting ridiculous.