Every fortnight I’ll be regaling Flavour readers with my dating tales from the Urban Jungle.
It’s safe to say my last date was not the romance rollercoaster I hoped it might be. It takes me about 48 hours to recover from my monster hangover, during which time I keep getting hideous flashbacks of less-than-tactful things I said in my drunken stupor. When I’m restored to my former, less troll-like self, I resolve I’ll remain distinctly more sober on date number 2.
Date number 2 is the sort of bloke you immediately look at and calculate the pros of dating someone so utterly delicious versus the inevitable months of heartache he will ultimately cause. In fact, he is so gorgeous, that I immediately copy his photo and email it to all my mates, just to show off. One replies “OMG! Cover him in melted chocolate and lick him all over!” (although I’m determined to stick to the kind of behaviour I could recount to my Mother).
He suggests meeting in the kind of self-consciously trendy venue I’d normally avoid. After spending several long seconds psyching myself up, I take a deep breath and try not to get stuck in the state-of-the-art revolving door. And there he is, in all his brooding, Mediterranean, exotic-Mr-Darcy style glory. He is also captivating two, very giggly, blonde bar-staff who are hanging onto his every word.
It turns out that the giggly blonde barmaids are not the only people who’ve noticed that this man looks like he’s just stepped out of an Armani ad. He is acutely aware of it too. I come to realise that the reason he has picked the shiny bar is because it’s mirrored on all sides, meaning his conversation is punctuated with frequent, furtive glances …….at himself. The more cocktails we drink (I’ve abandoned my sobriety promise to myself by this stage) the more blatant he becomes in his self-adoration.
He also speaks in a way that I can only describe as being like he thinks he is in a film. He says all the ‘right’ things, but they’re generic and insincere. I am beautiful, I have lovely eyes, what is a girl like me doing on a dating site? I’m beginning to wonder the very same thing myself. He marks the end of the evening by swooping in for what he clearly believes is a Hollywood-esque kiss that will leave me weak at the knees. In fact, it is simply the confirmation I needed that all the model-like cheekbones in the World can’t compensate for a lack of chemistry.
He texts a few times in the following days and I abandon my default instinct to always be polite and neglect to reply. After all, I have a picture of him, which is actually better than the real thing.
Check our next fortnight’s column to find out where my search for love took me next.