Saturday, 1 May 2010

He's called Florian, by the way. Or Chris. I'm pretty sure of that.

Out of curiosity Fran and I decide to go to a speed-dating event, to review the battlefield. There's not a lot that I can contribute to our study, so I'm really relying on Fran to report to me on the quality of the male talent she meets. I'm just a chaperone, I think. I feel this project of ours needs a name, so for the moment I will call it Operation Interfering Brother. For anyone who is interested in these things, this appears to be the order of proceedings:

1. The hopefuls arrive, mostly singly. When you get there, a crowd of young men you later discover to be working in IT are already waiting, having got to the place on time. So gauche... The rest of us seem to be arriving in dribs and drabs. Almost all the men are dressed for business (Often, when I go to an event after work, I'm the only one in a suit, and I get to play out my fantasy of being "something in the industry", standing aloof at the back by the speakers. Not this time. We all look like we're something in the industry tonight, so if we all try to be aloof, this is going to be a quiet night for Cupid...) I have grim fears that this is some kind of business networking meeting, and the speeddating event is actually next door.

2. You know how cows out in a field sit down when they know rain is coming? I notice Fran hits the bottle immediately, and keeps going.

3. We register with the organisers. We pick up name badges. We receive dating cards. For each one, we have a short space to write down any notes or reminders we might want to, and a row of checkboxes of the 'Yes','No','Hell no' variety. I wonder what I shall be recorded as?

4. Dating begins. It's two minutes per person. Times twenty, with a half time break. The men, are expected to move from table to table to meet the women. The organiser calls this chivalry. I call it exercise. I leave the pen they supplied me at the first woman's table. At the second table, I quickly ask the next woman if she has a pen I can borrow. She's says no, because she doubts she'll ever see it again. But she has a crayon she's prepared to give me. She's a primary school teacher, it emerges. The crayon is green. It is a nice crayon. I score Susan as a 'maybe', as she did help me.

5. At half time, the men and women congregate in their own gender groups. This would be why they're all single then. Except, Fran comes over to talk to me. The other chaps seem rather spooked by this. "What a bunch of stiffs,' she says to me. 'Who?' I say. For some reason there a silence in the group.

6. I lose track of who I'm talking to in the second half, as I'm keeping an eye on Fran's table, where every passing weakest link is now being made to really feel it. I'm not sure whether this a strategy of Fran's, or like the Sex Pistols, she doesn't care. This question in turn starts me off wondering how Sid and Nancy would have done in this scenario. At one point, a woman waves a hand in front of my face to check I'm still listening to her. I'll be down as a no, then.

7. It ends, thank god. There is some kind of socialising afterwards, which neither of us can be bothered with. Results are meant to be sent to us at some point.

8. Fran gives me a full report on the tube home. Salim, Andrew, Mark, Jason, Jason 2, Florian and Chris are serial speeddaters looking for a quick shag, she says. The rest didn't annoy her enough to be memorable. Florian and Mark, she says, are sharp-suited and clever, but essentially arseholes. 'I would lay a bet,' says Fran, 'that at least one of that pair tried it on with Bel, when she last went along.'

Thanks Fran. That's cheered me right up. Alcoholism it is for me, then. Fran and I hit the red when we get back. She tells me, at some length, that she was only joking; I accept this. I retire to bed, worried and miserable.