Dating history – The story of The Columbian

Toast

Things have been going well with The Theatre Producer. So well that finding something interesting to say is a struggle. ‘We did this and it was lovely’ doesn’t make a good read. So I thought now would be a good time to revisit some dating disasters, namely The Columbian.

Setting the scene

It was around 2007 when we met. I was working at a rather silly magazine and living in North West London, near Hampstead Heath. Only six months previously my father had got in contact with me after years apart to let me know he had cancer and it wasn’t looking good.

Our first date

I was dating girls on MySingleFriend. A slightly grumpy but very pretty looking girl contacted me. She had really long black hair and was from Columbia. She listed that she smoked in her profile so I was a bit casual about the whole thing but she did appear to live only a couple of streets away so we met up for a date.

Our first date was a meal and then a walk on the Heath. It was pleasant.

She did something complicated in the city, she had come over to England when she was very young. So she remembered Columbia but had spent most of her life in London.

Her accent was interesting, sort of softly melodic. She was very pretty, tall and a brunette so well it was basically much all my weaknesses in one. After the walk on the heath we strolled into town stopping in bars on the way. We got quite drunk.

We had a few more dates after that. We went out for a lot of meals. They went well. So well that I sat her down and had a bit of a chat about the situation with my father. I felt it was important to let her know that there was some stuff going on.

On our fifth date I cooked for her. She liked my cooking and she stayed the night in my tiny single bed while my flatmate  played loud punk music in the next room. I can remember that her thick black hair fell down to her waist. It made her look amazingly exotic.

We carried on dating. I was made redundant from my job which was a shock but also the right thing. On the day I was made redundant I had typed up my letter of resignation and put it on the desk of my boss. He called me into a meeting before reading it so I had to steal it back and got to leave anyway but with redundancy pay. Win.

I went freelance for a while. Freelance journalism is tough, especially when you are just starting out. Luckily I had a very good friend who gave me some names and helped me get going. She gave me three names to contact and pitch ideas too. Two of them became semi regular work and I was away.

I ended up house-and-dog sitting for a chum. I invited the Columbian to help me house sit for a week. It was fun and a way of testing if we could live together.

We got on great, although the dog got really angry if we touched each other in front of him. My Father took a turn for the worst and so we went to go and see him. It was a long exhausting drive but it was good to see him and after years of not talking we’d even sort of become close. It was also nice that she got meet my father.

Moving in

The Columbian and I carried on dating, as in a proper relationship. I visited her extended family in South London a lot. This would involve dancing. There was always salsa dancing and the English boys (the women seemed to exclusively date English boys) would be taught how to dance in front of the whole family. It was quite embarrassing trying to clonk your way through dance steps while 30-40 professional dancers watched you and talked about your form but I did it because it was a relationship and that’s what you do.

A few months passed, she was looking for somewhere to live. I was sort of looking and a friend of mine who had a lovely place that he got for a steal was moving to Dubai. We decided to move in together.

The flat was tiny but perfect in a lovely part of town. Moving in was exciting. We had loads of some things (mostly clothes) and almost nothing of others (cooking equipment) for a while it was brilliant, if very expensive.

I would work from home writing and pitching ideas and then I’d cook an evening meal so she had something lovely to eat when she got back. I’d also make her coffee in the mornings while she was in the shower. She was very particular about her coffee so would be surprisingly angry if it wasn’t milky enough.

She started to get angry a lot. I was earning a reasonable wage, enough to cover the rent food and the occasional present for her but not as much as she did. Someone she worked with, a man, was starting to make her feel bad about going out with someone who earned less than she did and she’d sometimes return home so angry that even posh chocolate milk couldn’t cheer her up.

Bad news

My father passed away. He suddenly got a lot worse and then was gone. It happened in 48 hours. The funeral was rushed and his second wife wrote me and my siblings out of his history. We sat in the front row and listened as the man doing the ceremony talked about our dad but neglected to mention his children. It was a tough time.

The next day I pitched for a book and got my first book deal. I didn’t mope around or anything like that, I threw myself into my work for the next few weeks.

Birthday fun

My birthday came around. I got given money by my mum for a lovely coat that I had lusted after for years. I spent it on our gas bill. My birthday came and we went out and she got me a kebab, and I paid for us to go to the cinema. She didn’t give me a card but I didn’t want to make a thing out of it so didn’t say anything.

The next day she returned from work laden down with presents. Huge bags full of gift-wrapped boxes. I was shivering with excitement but waited a few hours before politely enquiring if they were for me. She said no, she’d got them for her aunts to cheer them up. I ask if she’d got me a card, she said she had but that she hadn’t given it to me because I was acting weird and didn’t deserve it.

A few days later she came back from work and said ‘I was talking to my friend at work, he says a parent dying isn’t such a big deal and you should just get over it’.

It was such a horrible thing to say I didn’t even know how to react. I walked out to cool off. Forgetting my wallet, phone or coat. So I just stood by some bins shivering in the rain until I came back. She started sleeping on the sofa some nights but wouldn’t explain why.

What makes a date?

The guy at work who had been pouring poison in her ear asked her out on a date. Well she said it wasn’t a date but they went to Notting Hill for the day to go to the market and then for a meal. Inside I was uncomfortable but didn’t make anything out of it. She was the only girl to ever meet my dad and that meant something to me in a weird sort of way.

We had a pregnancy scare. She didn’t read the instructions for the pill and so we had a very tense evening with those little tests with thankfully turned out to be a false alarm. I tried to remain calm during the whole episode which she would later list as a reason she broke-up with me.

A friend of hers came down to stay, and spent the whole time being deeply unreasonable. She would fly into a furious rage with her boyfriend (also staying) over nothing and then stomp around for the rest of the day. The Columbian was confused by this behaviour and was not amused when I mentioned that she acted a bit like that sometimes.

I had a big weekend of work. I had to review a night club, go on a stand-up course for a feature and then re-write 3000 words on poker. I warned her that I would be chained to my desk so she went out with her friend and her boyfriend.

After the club night I was home for 20 minutes before I had to shower and go to the stand-up course. I did the course, and my first ever stand-up performance, wrote the words and then on the Monday she said ‘we need to talk.’

I knew what was coming and I had decided it was for the best.

If I gave in again I’d spend the rest of my life being mentally badgered by her. So we broke-up. If anything it was quite amicable. I asked if I could have the flat for a week to finish a book and she said yes and stayed with her parents who had a spare flat nearby.

I ate some bad mushrooms and so was violently ill for a few days and then got stuck into the book. We were still Facebook friends so I got to experience her joyous Facebook updates about being back on the dating scene until I did the right thing and un-friended her.

She counter-acted by writing a long email to my mum listing everything that was wrong with me.

A week or so later I moved out to a friends house and resolved to have nothing to do with her any more, apart from getting my half of the deposit on the flat back. That took six months and involved several emails from her saying she wanted to get back together.

We’ve not spoken since.

For those about to rock, we salute you

Hello all, this is Marty McFly, from the distant past! Well, ok, it’s Biscuit but it does feel like I’m from the distant past. It’s not that I don’t love you any more (promise) I’ve just either had NO time to write or Jen has been here, making it a bit difficult to do!

I have a few important accounts to write up, then there’s gonna be something of a montage post to bring us up to date. Here’s the first (from about 2 months ago it seems):

My favourite night out involves a lot of vodka Red Bull, several hours of rock music and dance moves to make your dad cringe with embarrassment. I had been promising to take Jen there for ages and eventually (sometime around late May) I made good on that promise.

She rocked up from work in a black leather jacket, tight jeans, and a figure hugging black vest top. First stop was the warm up pub wherewe were due to meet a friend of Jen’s who was due to join us.

They say “first impressions last”. The friend’s first impression of me was when I leant over his shoulder at the bar, whilst Jen was still looking for him. He heard a tall man order “4 double vodkas, straight, over ice” then follow with “Oh, I’ve left my money in the cash machine, I’ll be right back” and thought “glad I’m not out with him”.

But, lucky boy, he was out with me!

Once we’d all become acquainted we drunk a lot of vodka mixed with contraband Red Bull smuggled into the pub down my pants and made balloon models for strangers. After the customary spazzing around we hit the club.

I’m the kind of person who gets all fretful about plans until I’m settled in wherever I’m supposed to be. Because of this we were in the club before most other people had got there. The friend was wondering what sort of barren warehouse party I’d brought him to.

The magic of the place is that you don’t really notice it filling up or time passing until you look round and realise it’s rammed with long haired occupants dressed in black and throwing their best air guitar.

Jen was totally at home and did me proud.

We all got drunk. Very drunk!

At one point a boy sidled up to Jen when I was away at the bar and tried some terrible cheesy line on her. He was still there when I got back, which I found quite amusing, but my masculine imposing figure must have scared him off.

That, or the fact that I was wearing colours and he shuns the gaiety as a vampire would garlic.

Eventually, it was time to pack the air guitar away and join the nocturnal zombies on the streets in search of a ride home.

We said goodbye to the chum (we were now best buddies, the vodka incident just fuelled my mythos in the end)  and made our way home for a lot of painkillers and very little sleep.

Marriage Percentage: 68% - Being able to rock out with your metaphorical cock out is an absolute MUST and Jen can flash her imaginary penis with the best of them!

A very smug weekend

Toast

I spent last weekend with the Theatre Producer, at her house. It was little a mini-break to a different part of London. I do think it’s important to learn about new cultures and things like that.

It won’t be spoiling the story to say that it was a very nice weekend. So nice that I’ve been struggling all week to think of a way of making it interesting to read. I’ve come up with a plan. See if you can work out what I’ve done.

Friday

I met up with the Theatre Producer after work. I’d been hanging around in my favourite wine shop and she joined me there. It’s the same wine merchant owned by the chaps who have the restaurant from EPICDATE #1 so they were curious
to see how epic date went. I also gave The Theatre Producer a one-week anniversary gift of a book I thought she would like, she asked if there would be weekly gifts but I said only weirdos celebrate a fortnight anniversary. We drank a few glasses of wine and then hopped on a bus.

Zombies appeared and started attacking us. Luckily I had my umbrella so I was able to use that as a rudimentary
weapon to fend off attacks. It’s got a spiked end but I really struggled to ‘kill’ any zombies with it, unless I managed to poke it through their eye sockets.

After a short journey and a little walk we arrived at the house of the friend of the Theatre Producer (who was the third and final Schwingalong Girl). It was a very smart place with cream carpets and carefully selected furnishings. The Editor was already there and so we said our hellos and started drinking cocktails while supper was made.

Before we could eat any food at team of ninjas burst in through the window. An epic battle followed. Ninjas are trained in variety of weapons but I don’t think their schooling covers avoiding champagne glasses or cocktail shakers. Because of this we had an advantage when using our improvised weapons. We  defeated them eventually and the ones that were still standing dragged the bodies of the ones that couldn’t stand away.

Supper was lovely and afterwards we went to a karaoke club. Biscuit and Jen were there after visiting the zoo. So they were of course face painted as a monkey and a tiger respectively. They were quite drunk and dancing around. MyLoveLifeInYourHands was also there. He had bumped into Biscuit and Jen at the Zoo and so came along to join in the karaoke fun. There was some singing, and some drinking and we stayed until the bouncer told us we had to leave because the place was closing. Everyone said goodbye and the Theatre Producer and I walked back to her place. We collapsed into bed, well she needed a bit of herding, she was terribly drunk. I had to help her take her shoes off.

Saturday

We woke late. The Theatre Producer needed to watch Game Of Thrones and so I popped out to the shops to get papers, bread and nice things to eat bread with. I got a bit over excited and brought quite a lot of fruit too. We had a relaxed breakfast and I read the papers while she watched faux-medieval people stab each other up. Some time in the afternoon we decided to go to the shops to get something to cook in the evening and a few bits and bobs.

On the way to the shops a dinosaur appeared from one of the parks. At first we were shocked but when we noticed it was a Triceratops. Since it was a herbivore the risk to us was a bit reduced. It kept snorting and charging around so we had to duck behind a wall when it crashed into a couple of cars. There was a rumble and we realised why it was so agitated. A mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex was chasing it. The two beasts circled each other slowly occasionally knocking lamp posts and bicycles over. Then the Triceratops charged at the Tyrannosaurus. They smashed together and fell over a low brick wall and down a hill out of sight so we carried on to the shops.

At the shops we picked up a copy of LA Noir and some food to eat. I decided that The Theatre Producer needed some more flowers so she selected a couple of weedy looking bunches, which was simply not acceptable. Things got a bit out of hand and soon there were more flowers than food. We headed home, cooked a vast meal and messed around on LA Noir. It’s an excellent game where you solve crimes and you have to tell if crime suspects are lying or not. Rather alarmingly The Theatre Producer was terrifyingly good at it so I’m going to have to be careful around her.

Sunday

We woke up late again and had a light breakfast before heading out to meet another friend of The Theatre Producer for brunch. We were running a bit late and then were even later because the tube was being naughty. We eventually arrived to find the chum carefully guarding a table for us so we could skip the huge queue outside. Brunch was large and afterwards we decided to go shopping. We headed over to a big department store to buy shoes but on the way managed to stop at another place where a couple of dresses were purchased.

Before we could get to the shop there was a loud banging sound and something like metal being crushed. A giant robot was walking just north of Oxford Street. It was dragging it’s huge robotic hands down the side of the buildings. Bits of offices and broken glass were spilling out onto the street. Then a drain cover burst open. A wizard appeared and started throwing fireballs at the robot. The robot fell over, then charged towards the wizard. It was just about to crush the wizard when a unicorn jumped off a bus and stabbed the robot in the head with its horn. The robot exploded and we went into the department store.

The Theatre Producer wanted to buy some shoes that she didn’t need so we worked our way around the various parts of the shoe gallery while she chatted with her chums about things. After careful thought some Louboutin were selected and paid for. We headed back to her house and had some food before she went to go and see Pulp in Hyde Park. I had some work to do so I stayed at home (I also didn’t have a ticket) while she went off. She was going to be coming back much later so I decided to have a some food ready for her when she returned. I went to the supermarket while a bit hungry and got rather too much food so when she returned at nearly midnight there was a vast Cajun inspired meal waiting for her. She was pleased by this but couldn’t finish it all.

Afterwards she told me I’d make a pretty good house-husband.

Apart from the zombies, ninjas, robots, wizards and unicorns it had been a lovely relaxing weekend.

Marriage percentage: 61%

If in doubt, meet the girl at the airport

Toast

I arrived at the airport early, just early enough. The flight was a little delayed so I had time to position myself in arrivals ready for the return of the Theatre Producer.

Whoever designed Terminal 5 needs a bit of a slap. There were two doors for arrivals to come out of so it was entirely possible that the Theatre Producer could have walked by me without either of us spotting each other.

Luckily I had a plan. I would send some clues so she would know I was there.  Here are the text messages that were exchanged.

Theatre Producer: Guess who’s back in the UK. Some other dudes and me! Boom.

Toast: Lovely weather we are having eh? I appear to have had another attack of the stupids. I missed my tube stop on the way into work.

TP: Slick work on the tube stop BTW.

T: Oh. Yeah. I’m actually a bit lost. I got out of the tube and I can work out where I am. Can you help me?

TP: Describe what you can see.

T: Lots of people with suitcases.

TP: NFW

T: What?

TP: No Fucking Way.

T: Why are you all sweary? It’s very touching how concerned you are that I am lost but I’m not sure quite that much swearing is needed.

TP: I’m afeared for you to be so very lost amongst suitcases. Believe me, I am amidst them too and it’s dangerous.

T: Well I’m just going to hang around here for a bit and see if I bump into anyone I know. That seems the most logical thing to do.

TP: Good plan. I might get off this plane now, hurry through passport and baggage and see if I can’t find someone to escort me into London. Dangerous suitcases, you see

T: V Wise. Let me know how you get on.

TP: Will do.

She appeared a short while later. Even with the sign I’d made she didn’t spot me instantly. The meeting was dramatic and worthy of some stirring music. Someone even tutted at us for kissing.

She liked the flowers, and the goodie bag and is looking forward to our first proper date tonight. So am I.

(Previously at the Airport)

Snoop Dogg, Boobs and Balkan Brass

Biscuit

This is something of a ‘highlight reel’ to bring you up to date with the present situation. It’s been tricky to find time to post during may as I have had a lot of work stuff on (over weekends too) and have mostly been either knackered or seeing Jen. Since it’s probably a bad idea to write up posts whilst she’s visiting I’ve slipped rather far behind.

Fake sex injuries

The first time I saw Jen as boyfriend and girlfriend I looked like I was covered in serious sex scratches. No, this wasn’t a repeat of my ill-fated date with Indy. I had been to a very moshy ragga-metal gig the night before.

She is an excellent ’concerned girlfriend’, wincing over my wounds which meant I could nonchalantly parade my war scars and feel extra manly as she hung at my arm like a medieval maiden (minus the pointy hat, those things are dangerous with the height difference between us; she could have my eye out).

We got to spend most of the day lounging around in bed with absolutely nothing to do, it was amazing. It has struck me since that that’s the first time we’ve really had the time to do it because we’re usually bolting from one place to another.

Feeling fake boobs

The following Friday Toast and I were busy at the Dominatrix’s birthday. Jen wasn’t actually coming but there was a telling incident involving strangers’ boobs.

Somehow the conversation got round to fake boobs and out of the table of four of us, I was the only one who had never felt fake ones. The friendy dominatrix (is that an oxymoron?) at the table decided that it would be her mission to rectify this for me as there were plenty in attendance at the party.

Now, I did think about this as it’s the sort of thing that tends not to go down well with girlfriends. I reasoned I could easily do it and just never mention it but that 2 things stopped me:
1) I don’t want to start down that road of little deceits.
2) If there were any good stories then I wanted to share them with Jen so we could giggle together.

I politely thanked the dom but said it would be bad form as I had a girlfriend. Then I text Jen to tell the amusing tale of enhanced norks offerings. The reply I got from her says a lot about why she is an awesome girlfriend:

“I say go for it, for science. But you are not allowed to do sexy feeling, more perfunctory”

Sadly I didn’t get to follow through with the offer but it’s reassuring to know that, in an emergency, I would be able to grasp firmly onto pumped ladybumps. Maybe for floatation.

Meeting the chums (…again)

The following night I had made plans to join Jen in town with her friends on the Saturday. Although she’s hung around with my chums a few times this was the first big friend test for me. Although I’d already spent the night drinking with her chums in the town where she lives, it turns out most of them were only casual acquaintences. Tonight it was the real friends.

No pressure then.

I’m usually fine so I pretty much just had avoid developing sudden explosive tourettes or backing myself into a conversational cul-de-sac about the Hitler Youth. By the time I arrived in the first pub all the friends were assembled and clearly curious to see who it was that had snared their diminutive friend.

Everyone was very friendly and played the ‘new boy’ game with me for a bit of pretending that different people were in couples, which was made all the more confusing as there was one gay couple there too. In all there were 6 friends there so I refused to let anyone move seats until I had all the names down.

The chums then took it in turns to quiz me about various tidbits of information that they know, much to Jen’s cringing. It turned out that her most recent ex was universally disliked amongst her friends for being a cock.

So far so good!

The main event of the evening was Eurovision so we all grabbed a cab to another bar which had a whole floor dedicated to the fiesta of trash pop. As I wasn’t bothered about standing shoulder to shoulder craning at screens of bad music performances I chatted to the few of Jen’s friends who remained when the others ran upstairs to see how our entry was performing against the competitors.

Towards the end of the evening as everyone was leaving, one of the chums leant over, slightly drunkenly, and whispered in my ear “well done, you’ve passed stage 1″, then gave me a knowing wink.

Dancing to Snoop Dogg

Very early on we had been on a date to see a filthy electro rock band. This establised the very important precedent that Jen is an excellent gig partner. Immediately after this we booked tickets to see the king of gangsta rap: Snoop Dogg.

We arrived at the venue much later than intended as Jen had a journey worthy of Ulysses on our much delayed public transport network so I was expecting to walk straight in and have to weave through the crowd to a good spot. Instead, we were faced with a queue that ran the entire length of the building, around the corner and the same length AGAIN.

When faced with so much time to kill there is only one reasonable course of action. Jen volunteered herself to run to the shop to grab some beers. THAT is the mark of an awesome girlfriend!

The gig itself was great and once again confirmed what a compatible gig partner she is. Music is a really important part of my life and being able to share that with someone who might be a potential wife is really important.

Love and Balkan Brass

The following Sunday we had one more gig planned. Toast was supposed to come too but couldn’t.In stark contrast to Snoop Dogg, This was a Balkan Brass Battle. We were late getting there (again) so necked a couple of drinks from the off licence on the way there. The bands were amazing (I thoroughly advise you to check out  both of them) and we danced our way through most of the 2 hours.

The more we drank the more I was convinced I had authentic gypsy dancing down to a tee… in retrospect I probably just looked like a spaz waving his arms around and gyrating badly but we both had a euphoric time!

Towards the end Jen needed to pop upstairs the terrace for a quick fag so I joined her for a rest from the dancing. The next bit is, sadly, a little bit of a blur but it unfolded something along these lines.

We were sat roof lined by flower filled planters and I was just filled with the joy of being out with someone who has proven to be consistently awesome, funny, tolerant, exuberant and an absolute delight to spend time with. Because I’ve rushed into things in the past I’ve been trying really hard to be measured and slow about this but that evening I felt like a freshly shaken bottle of pop and was having to try hard to contain myself.

It’s strange opening up to someone again after being burned so badly by Cupcake but I really feel like I can trust Jen. I would lend her my lightsabers and everything.

I gave her a massive hug and, with a big grin on my face, I looked into her eyes and said “I do love you!”. She hugged me back and said, with palpable relief, “Oh I love you too. I’ve loved you for weeks.” I’ve even talked told my mum!”.

I told here that I knew (about how she felt, not about her mum… her mum asked her what was wrong with me since I hadn’t been married or had any kids by the age of 3… but she is from the north), I could tell and tell that she was holding it in. I said that I didn’t want to say anything when I had been drinking as I didn’t want her to think that it was just because of the booze.

We made our way back downstairs for the last of the band and eventually left the venue hand in hand, buoyed along by amorous bliss and alcoholic exuberance.

The ills

The following morning we both had the day off work to lounge around, have sexy times and generally be work-shy hedonists.

What actually happened is I was ill. Very ill. There were lots of visits to the toilet as my body punished me, somewhat unreasonably, for the relatively meagre amount of booze I had drunk.

Jen was just really concerned and kept asking if there was anything she could do to help. Grimly I professed that there was nothing she could do until I weathered the storm unless she wanted to sit and stroke my feet for hours as that’s the only thing that seems to ease the pain.

She was just really happy to be ably to do anything to help so sat at the far end of the sofa stroking the soles of my feet as I suffered behind a pair of sunglasses, occasionally softly weeping to myself that I didn’t want to be ill any more.

I love booze, but occasionally we fall out and I always come off worse.

Eventually I stopped planning my will and improved. Jen was amazing all day and still loved me when I looked like I was suffering with cholera. This is one of the many reasons why she is awesome and why I am keeping her.

Marriage percentage: 65%. She has no problem with me feeling boobs for science, grabs beers in an emergency and will play Florence Nigtingale if I’m ill. What more could I want?

Lunch in a Japan in the 1980s

Toast

Friday was the last day I was going to be in London at the same time as the Theatre Producer. She was off to America on Monday and I was going to visit my family on Friday.

So I did the only logical thing and invited her out for lunch. Yes I’d seen her the day before, and the day before that and on the weekend but I wanted to see her again.

I took her to one of my favourite restaurants. It’s a great Japanese place that is hidden away above a supermarket. It’s got amazing service the food is brilliant and the furnishings are so dated it could be run as a theme restaurant.

The staff are ridiculously helpful. One of them came over to personally apologise for the fact that the orange juice wasn’t freshly squeezed.

We ordered some bento boxes and chatted away. Spending time with the Theatre Producer is very easy and it’s nice to have a lunch break that involves a lot of laughter.

Sadly it was over too soon and she walked me back to my office. We kissed briefly and then said goodbye.

I’m not going to see her for a month now. That’s quite a long time, although I am looking forward to the possibility of our first date. That should be exciting.

Marriage percentage: 50% (that includes knocking points off for being a reader and thus more complicated).

Disney, drinks and dim sum

Toast

The next day after eating cake, the Theatre Producer and I went to the launch of a perfume. It’s a scent made by a well known film company that make children’s films and TV shows and dolls and. Look it was Disney okay?

We met on Oxford Street and then went to the launch that was in the new Disney store together. She was wearing the nail polish I had given her, it was a very distinctive light blue colour which I decided was either ‘Shark’ or ‘Battleship’.

The store wasn’t very busy, because it hasn’t officially opened yet. So we got to look at all the toys while drinking Prosecco and eating canapés. Since she was on powerful painkilling drugs the Theatre Producer wasn’t allowed to drink, which was a shame but didn’t spoil the fun.

The perfume was okay I suppose, not really my sort of thing, but the store was excellent. There was a magic mirror that showed you pictures of princesses when you waved a wand in front of it, lots of fluffy toys and a colouring in area.

We spent a lot of time in the colouring in bit. I’ve not done any colouring for years but once I had a crayon in my hand it all came back to me. Someone should organise a speed dating event where you do colouring in, it’s a wonderful ice breaker and because you are sort of distracted you tend to be a bit more honest.

Once we’d finished doing our art stuff we looked at some more things and I ended up buying some stuff because well I was drunk and I’d got a bit caught up in the magic of the evening. The Theatre Producer had quite a long chat with one of the ladies in the store about comic book characters which was very impressive. Girls with nerd skills are hot.

Later on that evening

We waltzed off into the night. The plan was to go and get some buns at the Nordic Bakery. On the way we gatecrashed an art launch party but since she couldn’t drink raiding the free bar wasn’t as tempting. It was fun gatecrashing though, it seems a confident waltz is the way to get past the lady with the clipboard.

The gallery was next to a Ping Pong and so we went for dim sum. I love dim sum.

We got a table downstairs and ordered a frankly offensive amount of food, which is what you should do with dim sum. The meal was lovely and we talked about all sorts of nonsense while giggling. It was nice.

Eventually we got the bill and headed off into the night to catch the tube. We were heading off on different lines so we said goodbye underground with a couple of kisses.

Marriage percentage: 45% (with massive reductions for being a reader) It was skills, she is amazing, fact.

Coffee, cake and goodie bags

Toast

So we’d had a first kiss, what now? Well after the kissing in the pub some text messages were exchanged.

They mostly consisted of me calling the Theatre Producer a moxy seductress and admitting I fell asleep with a wok on my chest (leftover stir-fry eaten while drunk in bed).

There were emails exchanged too. In one of them I asked, entirely hypothetically of course if she would be up for a ‘proper date’ some time.

She said we should talk when she gets back from America. Yes the Theatre Producer is off to America for a month in about a week’s time. Boo.

Also because it hadn’t really been dates yet I’ve managed to avoid the tricky issue of a marriage percentage. *phew*.

With the date question out of the way we settled down into emailing each other quite a lot in a chummy way. I mentioned I had a plus one for a perfume launch if she fancied it and she said yes. It was all terribly nice.

The Theatre Producer had to go into hospital, it wasn’t anything too serious she just hurt her neck dancing on tables. Well falling off tables to be more exact.

She had ignored the injury for a while (hard core!) but after consulting with NHS direct had been told to go to a hospital. This being the NHS (which I love of course) she spent a lot of the day waiting around. I said that if she was still there by the time I finished work I’d pop in to say hello and to give her something to read.

She was, and so I put together a goodie bag of books, novelty soft drinks and make-up to cheer her up.

By the time I arrived she had seen a doctor and been given a prescription and instructions. I handed over the gifts (they were a hit, especially the nail polish which I said was ‘shark’ colour) and then sort of took them and her bag back because she wasn’t supposed to carry heavy things around with a wonky neck.

We decided to go for a posh coffee and cake. Everywhere was super busy so we got to go on quite a long walk before we found somewhere suitable. We sat outside drinking coffees, eating cake and laughing.

I realised I must like her a bit at this point because I let her have a some of my chocolate cake.

After the cake was finished we said goodbye, I had to head back and she had to walk home very carefully and take powerful painkillers. There was absolutely no kissing because this wasn’t a date.

Also we had the perfume launch the next day.

Marriage percentage: 30% (With massive reductions for being a reader)

The romance of Wayne’s World

Toast

I love Wayne’s World. I understand it’s not a to everyone’s tastes but it does have its moments.

It really spoke to me when I was younger, perhaps I was just at the right age when it came out that having long hair and talking about rock music seemed impossibly amazing.

I must have watched it a 100 times, I used to know all the dialogue in the film off by heart. I hadn’t seen it in years, so when The Theatre Producer mentioned that it was being shown at the Prince Charles cinema as a ‘Schwing Along’ I got a bit excited.

I emailed some chums to see if they wanted to go and they got excited too. However we missed out an important step. Actually buying tickets instantly and so it sold out before we could get organised.

However a vague plan was formed. The Theatre Producer and a chum were going and I could meet up with them afterwards for a drink. I watched Wayne’s World on DVD to get into the right frame of mind and then hopped on the tube to meet up with them.

They were in a lovely pub tucked away in a back street, before I’d even arrived they had got me a gin and tonic which rather set the tone for the evening.

The Theatre Producer was wearing a Stacey (from Wayne’s World)  inspired look. It involved a blue very swishy skirt, the dressing up theme continued as her chum was wearing an amazing body-con dress. We said hello and then talked about the cultural importance of Wayne’s World.

I got another round of drinks in, large drinks, well two rounds of large drinks because I feared the bar was going to close soon. We started drinking those but the bar closed so briskly that we had to fight to finish all our gin.

Then we went to another bar. I ordered a round, and then shots for nine people. There were three of us. In hindsight this could have been the point when the evening went a bit wrong.

There was a jukebox in the corner of the bar, full of lovely juke. We took it in turns to buy drinks and inflict our musical tastes on the bar people. There were even more shots and quite a bit of dancing.

Everyone was very mashed at this point.

A complicated matter of kissing

I was chatting away to the Theatre Producer’s friend about, well I don’t remember. I had been on a bit of a charm offensive because I had realised that The Theatre Producer made me feel a bit tingly and so I wanted her chums to be Pro-Toast.

The Theatre Producer had nipped to the loo. We were alone for a moment and The Theatre Producer’s chum kissed me. No tongues or anything just a kiss on the lips. I looked rather shocked not because it was unpleasant, but because it was a total surprise. I think I may have said blimes.

I then sort of told her off a bit about how kissing wasn’t allowed. In hindsight sounds a bit arsey but I did realise in my drunken state that if I kissed chums I probably wasn’t going to be allowed to ever kiss the Theatre Producer and that would make my tingles sad.

We had drunk an awful lot of booze at this point, and we’d even been talking about flirting so I can understand how perhaps I was sending out mixed signals.

The Theatre Producer returned and left the two of them to put more music on the jukebox. Foxy Lady to be exact.

There was some dancing, the Theatre Producer’s chum went to the loos and then the Theatre Producer said ‘So you’ve kissed X eh?’

‘Erm, well it was more like she kissed me. I told her not to do that anymore.’ I replied.

This continued for a bit. I can’t remember the exact words but I decided to kiss the Theatre Producer.

She didn’t say blimes and it was nice.

We had a brief chat about how this could be complicated because she knew about the blog. I said something about how while it did make things complicated I hoped it wouldn’t make things impossible. I think I may have said some slightly soppy things too.

We danced some more and even drank some more. It was time to head home. The Theatre Producer lived nearby so we said goodbye (with a little bit more kissing) and I fell into a cab home.

It had been a very surprising evening.

Grog and dressing up

Toast

So after the first meeting with the Theatre Producer I emailed her a few times and suggested another, longer drink to talk about plays and writing. You know, like a proper business meeting.

This however ended up a business meeting with a dress-code. For some reason, we ended up having a competition to see who could dress like the most tragic hipster. I spent hours working on my outfit.

I arrived a little early at a bar near Old Street. It was underground and was like a speak easy. It was a Sunday so that was almost empty. It was a very cool place. Not the sort of place to be wearing an outfit that would make people wish for colour-blindness.

The Theatre Producer arrived, she was wearing a cape. Yes an actual cape and irresponsibly short shorts. Her hair was in a bun on the top of her head and she was wearing proper hipster glasses. She did admit that the glasses were fairly normal for her, but that the cape only came out on special occasions. She looked rather silly, but also stunning. I just looked like a spaz.

The drinking begins

We sat down in the corner and had a couple of cocktails. We chatted about everything apart from plays and writing. Then we ordered some grog. It was grog for eight people served in a funny wooden barrel/jug. It was extremely tasty.

We talked more, and more and more. We laughed while discussing families, friends and all the catching up stuff you do when you are starting to get to know someone. The Theatre Producer has done a lot of really impressive stuff.

I love conversations where one of you can have a silly idea and the other person understands it and then takes it one step further. You take it a little further and with in minutes you are laughing so much you feel a bit sick. We had a lot of those.

We also drank all the grog.

It was an excellent business meeting.

We talked about plays for about 30 seconds at the end.

I had put my card behind the bar earlier so asked for it and the bill. The bill arrived first so I had to ask for my card again. In the time between me asking and the card arriving the Theatre Producer had settled a bill. That has never happened to me before, ever.

It was a good business meeting, although I have to admit I had been a bit distracted by having too much fun.