The Dating Game. Carolyn Caterer

      Chapter 4

      Date #3: Kevin

      Aha! At last, after spending a couple of hours searching the site, here was a promising one: he said he’d be happy to teach me to scuba dive, despite me emailing him and informing him that I become claustrophobic sitting in a full size football stadium, in fact I had a panic attack during a trip to one of the FA cup matches only a few months previously, a freebie courtesy of one of our clients and I had agreed to go, not because of my love of football (I couldn’t stand what I regarded to be the behaviour of a bunch of overpaid average players, compared to say the lovely well-mannered Jonny Wilkinson, but alas the six nations tickets were not on offer) but because I thought that I might at least meet a potential date there. Oh how wrong could I have been? The men seemed to be intent on consuming as much lager as possible before the match started and then kept having to go out to use the toilet. I was staggered at the lack of bladder control they were demonstrating. The women that were there managed to enjoy the whole match without missing any of it. I sat next to my client, who was about twenty years younger than me so not at all suitable and was looking forward to finding out who was seated next to me. It turned out to be a man who had arrived late, didn’t even acknowledge that I was even there and proceeded to pick his teeth with the little finger of his left hand, thus waving his wedding ring in my direction rather like a red traffic light. I sighed and realised I was in for a very long day at this rate and with no benefit whatsoever.

      But, back to the matter of Kevin. We had arranged to meet at a pub mid way between where we lived and that I realised I had not visited for four years. I drove over and rang him when I reached the car park. He was just turning in so I got out of my car and walked over to his car and we shook hands. He had short light brown hair and a hint of designer stubble. His eyes gave the impression that he wasn’t expecting much from this evening but they did at least look interested as I smiled at him. He was dressed in a white shirt and jeans with brown lace up shoes, that I noted had been cleaned quite recently and I laughed quietly to myself. My mother had always commented that you could judge a man by the state of his shoes and I was starting to wonder if this theory had any truth in it.

      We found our way along the path into the pub and walked up to the bar. I mentioned that I had last visited a number of years ago to the barman and it turned out that it had changed hands since then, so I asked him to recommend something from the menu. This threw him into a frenzy of indecision and he began to list the entire menu for me as I struggled to keep pace with him. Before I could ask for more details, Kevin suggested that we should order our drinks and decide about the food later, so I agreed and we went to sit down. Now, despite my heading towards one table he insisted on plonking himself down at a completely different one, much to my amusement as that was the same table I had sat at the last time I was there on a second date with Adam who eventually became my boyfriend.

      I made the mistake of telling Kevin this amusing tale and adding to my blunder with the following quip

      “So maybe it is a good omen”

      Silence. I was rapidly coming to the conclusion that we had not got off to the best of starts. Determined not to be put off and, having driven twenty five miles to meet him, equally determined to get my dinner as I was by now feeling very hungry as I had only managed an apple for lunch because we had been so busy and I had driven over to meet him directly from the office.

      I asked him how long he had been divorced and he said 3 years (good amount of time and should be over the ex wife) and then it all came out: she’d been having an affair with her boss which was bad enough, but they all worked for the same company so much anger and bitterness ensued regarding who, if any of them, should resign. In the end none of them did, she married her new man and Kevin had to go and work with them every day. Mmm, you can imagine what a happy and entertaining sort of guy that made him? Bitter? Don’t make me laugh!

      “Oh my God!” screamed Polly as I rang to give her an update, later on that evening. “Did you get out of there as fast as possible?”

      “No I didn’t. I was hungry and had driven over twenty miles to meet him, so I decided to order some food”

      “You did what?!!”

      “You heard me – God what a bad move that was.”

      “Why?”

      “Well I suggested ordering and he said ‘I’m not going to eat anything – I’m not hungry.’”

      “What?!!!”

      “Exactly. Turned out he had a big meal at lunchtime, but that was eight hours earlier, so I’m sitting there thinking ‘how can you not be hungry after eight hours, does not compute, does not compute’ and ordered a starter and a plate of chips because by this stage I was really hungry, and I didn’t offer him anything.”

      “So then what happened?”

      “Well we carried on talking for another half an hour, at which point he starts to get restless and has obviously decided he is not remotely interested in me, which is fine, then he looks at his watch and announces he has to go or his dog will be crossing her legs. Now you see that was a big mistake!”

      “You have completely lost me, why was it a mistake to tell you he had to go home and let his dog out?”

      “Well, he had mentioned on the ‘phone, when we spoke to arrange the date, that his dog was three years old, so hardly an incontinent geriatric who couldn’t hold it in for four hours. By that comment alone I knew it was just an excuse to get out of there and that he wasn’t interested in me at all.”

      “But were you interested in him?”

      “Nope!”

      “Well at least you only drove twenty odd miles to meet him and not one hundred and twenty miles! Look on the bright side and put it down to experience; after all it is really a numbers game and the more men you meet the more likely you are to meet someone who is compatible. Plus at least you are looking in the right place as being on the website means that they are interested in a relationship”

      “Well you would think so, but I have had a number of emails from men who seem to be interested in sex and nothing else and, believe me, they make it very clear from the outset. I did think that putting in my profile a piece about wanting to get married would really scare the time wasters off, but it doesn’t seem to have happened. In fact I think some of them see it as a gladiatorial type challenge to do the complete opposite and persuade me to have a one night stand! They really aren’t at all subtle about it either. In fact it can be quite depressing that they make such little effort to engage you in any sort of dialogue before popping the question and not in a Mr Darcy like manner at all; I mean can you imagine him asking Elizabeth Bennett if she wanted a quick shag?”

      “I don’t believe that word was in common use during Jane Austen’s time!”

      I laughed at the thought of what would have happened if that dialogue had appeared in Pride and Prejudice. “Polly, you know what I mean. There seems to be very little romance and very little manners out there today. Personally all this equality for women is great, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t want a man to open doors for me or walk on the outside of the pavement or just act like a gentleman. I guess it cannot be that easy for men either as I am not sure they really know what is expected of them any more.”

      “Maybe it is up to us to educate them then?”

      “Now that would be a challenge and a whole new ballgame, excuse the pun. I think I will give it a miss for now but I will use it as a filter for my dating experiences!”

      Saying goodnight to Polly I contemplated my dates so far; they had all seemed to have potential but went rapidly downhill. Taking into account the fact that I had been filtering out the ones which I thought had been the complete no-hopers I had to accept that perhaps my methods of early elimination weren’t working