Screamingqueen

I don’t do blind dates. Does anyone really?
Maybe a long time ago they were real and people did go on them, but now?
Is it even possible to have a blind date in 2010?
I get to know his name and within minutes I can see him on Facebook, Twitter and God knows what else via the electronic wonderment of the Internet.
Surely when we live in an age where there’s every chance I can find a picture of him in the buff somewhere on the Internet, there’s no more secrets? Nothing more to hide. If I actually put my mind to it, with identity search engines, it wouldn’t take me that long to discover what his hobbies were, his medical history and how much he woes on credit cards.
In fact it’s probably easier to find out personal and revealing information about someone than it is to buy a pint of milk after 6 pm.
Given all of this, is there anything blind about blind dates anymore?
Suffice to say I made a point of not doing any research about Steven.
I knew his name, roughly where he lived and worked and a few bits and bobs about his personal life: enough to mount a substantive Internet search. Instead, I decided to go 1970s and make this as blind a date as possible. MEANWHILE he was probably tracking down those pictures of me in Ibiza with that very drunken and ill-advised Henna tattoo session.
Anyway, Steven had been ‘recommended’ to me by Claudia at work. I don’t mean recommended in the same way you would a dry cleaners or confidential and discreet masseuse. It was more a Chef’s special of the day type recommendation or the type of thing that used to come inside your Britannia Music Club magazine (is that still going?)
Steven was Claudia’s neighbour. He’d come to her rescue one day when her communal postbox wouldn’t open and since then they’d been on speaking terms. They’d even shared the odd bottle of wine together and he invited her to his Halloween party, which Claudia had described in some crazed manner as ‘Rad’.
No one is still sure what she means by that.
Anyway, it became apparent at the climax of said Rad party that Steven was gay. Claudia, having misread all of the signs (party invites, wine, helping her out) as a plump come-on, launched her self at him, only to be gently rebuffed. As such, converting her embarrassment into a fruitful opportunity she thought we would ‘hit it off’. Presumably she is hoping that our productive union will expunge the horror of the night when she launched herself at him, dressed as a buxom Magenta from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Should we hit it off, therefore, Steven would be repaid in full for the horror of a drunken Claudia trying to lock lips wit him, clad in an orange wig.
That’s a lot of memory to erase.
I am always circumspect about people claiming to know me well enough to tell me what I will and won’t like. That makes me sound curmudgeonly, but I assure you it’s not meant as such.
Well-meaning Claudia thinks we’ll hit it off, but, why?
Does she know me well enough to have an insight into my inner workings? If she does she’s rather amazing. I mean, I share an office with her, we chat in the kitchen. I buy donuts for to share out and we discuss diets. She tells me about her lazy ex-boyfriend. I compliment her hair when she has it done (whether I mean it or not) and she tells me there’s someone out there for me (whether I asked her or not).
As such is this the kind of person to be matching me up with a soul-mate? I mean, my mother knows me pretty well and she’s the last person I’d allow to pick out a partner for me. Good God (shivers)
“Well,” said Claudia, “you’re both fun, funny and single. He’s out at night a lot, so I think he’s a party animal. I just get a feeling.”
I am not sure whether the complex algorithms employed by Internet dating companies are this inscrutable, but with that level of analysis of my personality what COULD go wrong?
Claudia was convinced we could meet for dinner; I was all for just a coffee and Steven was keen on a beer. So we compromised, a drink at the local café, just before dinner so that we could progress to eats if the feeling was there, and not, if it wasn’t.
Sounded pretty foolproof to me.
I had no idea what he looked like, which posed its own unique dilemma when I arrived. It’s all fair and well meeting a guy for a date – so long as you KNOW what he looks like.
I stood there like a lemon on the boardwalk entrance to the café. I tried to look like I was looking for someone, rather than the fact I had just escaped from an institute and was pondering my next move.
I stood there in the dazzling sunlight. The light shone in my eyes and in a reflex action brought my hand up to shield my eyes. Consequently I looked as if I was on a ship whale watching, or trying to stare into the window of the restaurant opposite. Either way I suddenly became very self conscious about how I looked.
I jumped about six inches off the ground when someone tapped on my shoulder.
In my determined quest to re adjust my vision, I had not seen him walk up and stand beside me. As such, he caught me off guard.
“Sorry to scare you.” He said with a smile.
“Urm, you didn’t, I was just. Erm…”
“I’m Steven.” He said. That much I knew. “Shall we go in?”
As we walked into the café he pointed out that he didn’t want to sound anal but hates being called Steve or Stevo, so could I call him Steven. With an ‘N’.
Sure.
I wouldn’t have called him anything else, but thanks for the parameters.
SteveN had the foresight to have booked a table ‘it gets busy and I didn’t want us getting evicted’. I was impressed.
Although it is all too easy, and misleading, to fall into categories, I realised as we sat down that I was the woman in this arrangement.
I have been in relationships (two nights plus counts…) where I have been the man and the woman. It doesn’t make any real difference, but certain things do change. He’d secured the table; I’d jumped when touched on the shoulder. Already he was the protector and I was the one needing protection. In truth, there were times when I wanted someone to take care of me, so I wasn’t going to challenge him to an arm wrestle just to re-balance the perception, I thought I would just go with the flow. Besides, if this worked out I would be in charge anyway and as such was probably the ‘woman’.
“I hear you like football,” he said as we sat. Instantly I wanted to know what else he knew. What had that wretched witch Claudia told him? Had she mentioned the office party where I photocopied my testicles in an attempt to redress the clichéd sexual stereotype?
“Yes,” I said trying to catch the eye of the waiter, “Man Utd.”
He smiled a lovely warm smile. He had dark hair, that evidently saw little or no attention, had a glow that only people who go rock climbing or collect bins ever seem to have and a rough and ready persona. I was feeling over buffed with my plethora of products.
“Do you follow any sport?” I asked, hoping that if nothing else we could talk about a few matches of note.
“’Fraid not,” he said. “I get my exercise elsewhere…”
I thought that this was cute for two reasons. 1. Did he think I PLAYED football? Good God no. And 2. He was already alluding to sex. If we hadn’t even ordered drinks and he was being playful, then I was in for a very good night!
“No,” he said, beckoning the waiter over in a manly swipe of the arm, “I like to get out and about, the real world, that’s my thing.”
“Oh?” I said. Oh! I thought.
We ordered drinks and he looked at me without speaking. It was an odd moment. As if we were a couple that had been together for years. I stared back trying to work out if he was a hypnotist or whether I could see myself sitting opposite him in years to come.
He smiled, I blushed and looked away as if he had seen what I was thinking.
As our drinks were being put down on the table, he asked: “Do you believe in ghosts?”
I looked up from my pint to him and then to the waiter. The waiter’s look was distinctive: ‘Don’t blame me, he’s your date.’
I looked back at him. “Sorry?”
“Ghosts,” he said, slouching back into his chair and looking around the room as if searching for a ghoul behind the newspaper rack.
“Ghosts? Erm, well, I haven’t really thought about it. I’ve watched Most Haunted before does that count?”
“Amateurs,” he aid with a hateful whistle through his teeth.
He wasn’t the world’s best-looking man, but he was a damn sight better than most. Would I? Yes I would. How much would I? Enough to sit through a conversation about ghosts… actually yes. Maybe not a keeper, but certainly a few nights of guilty pleasure.  What’s more he was sitting in front of me and I was sober. That must mean something? As such I had a choice to make. Endure this meaningless chatter or take decisive action to ensure that things went bump in the night.
“Why do you ask?” I said; looking around at whatever was captivating his interest. “Are we surrounded?”
He laughed at my playful naivety.
“No,” he replied, “I was just interested. You see I’m a ghost hunter. I go out to various buildings, locations and the like hunting ghosts.”
All I could hear was Claudia’s silly, scratchy voice: “I think you two will hit it off, I’ve got a feeling.” Yeah so have I Claudia, it’s call nausea.
I stared back at the waiter who from the safety of the bar rolled his eyes at me. “That must be, erm, interesting,” I managed, taking an extra long drink from the glass.
“It can be.” He said thinking deeply about his quest to communicate with the world beyond.
“Have you encountered any spirits?”
I darted back: “Only with mixers such as coke or lemonade on a Friday and Saturday night.” I knew it was weak but expected a sympathetic ear.
He smiled back at me with a look of complete and utter disdain.
“I bet you hear that all the time,” I said, looking for help anywhere in the room. “You obviously take what you do seriously.” I said, as the foundations for my departure. It may have only been a matter of minutes, but someone who wasn’t going to be charitable enough to laugh at a crap gag on a first date was obviously uptight.
“Last night,” he said, looking at me earnestly as if to prove a point: “I was wrestling with a poltergeist in someone’s bedroom.”
I was amazed and amused: “Really?”
He nodded in contemplative silence. “Yes.”
“I have wrestled in bedrooms with unruly bodies, possessed by spirits before,” I offered in an attempt to make up. Then as soon as I heard the words leave my lips, I realised that wasn’t so much making up as fanning the flames.
His eyes darted away and I realised that it was now or never.
“My apartment in haunted,” I said, looking away as if embarrassed.
His head swung back around to me. “Are you being serious?”
“Of course I am,” I lied. “It’s not the kind of thing you tell people is it? People don’t, get it,” I said, hoping that my little bit of ham acting was enough to do the job.
“They don’t do they?” He edged closer to me, his eyes sparkling. “Could I come and have a look at your apartment?” He asked.
The line had been cast, the fish caught, now for the reeling.
“I’m not sure. I mean, I’ve just met you. And to be honest, it’s, well, no, sorry. Forget I told you.”
He started to salivate, his body pressed as close to the table as was possible without tipping it over. “Tell me please.”
I glanced up at the barman who was smiling and looking at me as if to say: ‘hats off’. We’re not there yet; I shot back at him with a grin.
“It really is very personal, I don’t know if I could share it with you, its just that…”
His eyes were transfixed on me, his breathing noticeably raised. He took his rough, nicely hairy hand up from the table and put it on top of mine. “You can trust me,” he said.
I looked down and smiled: just a few more turns of the rod.
“You’ll think I am crazy.”
“I won’t, really…”
“OK, but if I tell you, you’ll have to promise me it’s between you and me. Agreed?”
He was nodding furiously, the prospect of an untamed ghost to challenge: “Agreed.”
“Well I live in an apartment here in town. It’s a conversion. Anyway, it’s quiet and nothing happens until I, well, I bring a man home.”
I looked down to the table and took a long drink, finishing off the last on the glass. I looked up at the barman who was following my every word with as much enthusiasm as SteveN. “Can I have another drink?” I mouthed at him.
SteveN was looking moist with excitement: “Go on.”
“Well as you know the Victorian weren’t exactly liberal. I think I have a gay hating ghost or poltergeist in my room, because when me and a guy are, you know, that’s when it all starts happening.”
The bar man arrived with my drink and as he put it down, looked at me and said: “Brilliant!”
I took the drink and looking back replied: “thank you very much.” He walked away, I took another sip and continued.
“We get touched, sheets get torn off the bed, bite marks appear, noises and groans can be heard. It’s as if there’s someone else there too. It never happens when I’m alone, only… you know!”

Maybe I should have mentioned that the night in question was a threesome?
SteveN fell back into his chair. ‘Wow!” he said, his eyes darting around the room: “And does this happen every time?”
Another gulp of my drink: “Well not EVERY time, but most times yes. And there’s certain acts that seem to bring it on more,” I added as the barman laughed in the distance.
There was a momentary look of disbelief and concentration that crossed SteveN’s face. I looked away, had I been found out?
“Let’s change the subject,” I said. “It’s just so weird no one believes me. I’m not sure if I would if someone told me about it either.”
“What acts?” He asked.
I smiled: “Let’s talk about something else. It’s personal and I get the impression you don’t believe me, so let’s just talk about something less… weird!”
He looked affronted and was quick to reply: “I do believe you. I have heard about theses malevolent spirits before. Trust me, I do believe you: what acts?”
I shuffled in my seat and looked as uncomfortable as I could.
“If someone is giving me a blow job or I am shagging someone else, that’s when it gets worse. That’s when things can get, well, animalistic.”
He looked horrified, but pleased to be so. “I have an idea,” he said.
“Can I get you any more drinks?” the barman said. “We have a two for one on cocktails. I can recommend the Lying Cheatin’ Hag or the Lady with Two Faces.”
I looked up at the barman who smiled mischievously back.
“I’ll just have another pint,” said SteveN. “How about you – another one?”
I glanced back at the barman: “I had a cocktail once. It was called Sex At My House. I’ll try that again soon, but for now just another pint. Oh, and can we look at the dinner and wine menu?”
“What a good idea” added SteveN, “I can tell you about my plan over dinner.”
“Dinner and wine menu and two pints?” said the barman walking off grinning.
I grabbed my pint glass and looked at Steven, feigning curiosity. “I hope you didn’t mind me telling you about that. It is very personal.”
He smiled and holding my hand again reassured me: “Not at all. I am glad you did. My plan is a bit personal too.”
“Oh?” I said, looking quizzical.
“I’d like to help you out, combine my hobby and your problem, how does that sound?”
I smiled broadly. “That sounds wonderful!” He smiled back at me and we stared at each other. He was enthused by the idea he had ‘just’ had and I was happy my evening was mapped out. Maybe tomorrow’s too.
Oh well, what’s the point of being the woman if you can’t manipulate the man into doing what you want. I only hoped that I could provide sufficient action in this life, to keep his mind off the next. Given my track record, I was fairly sure that I could.
“Let’s just hope something goes bump in the night!” he said laughing.
“I can assure you it will,” I replied smiling. “I promise you that.”

Whilst I like to think I am a step or two up from the uncouth, unwashed masses… Tragically they have infected me with a ‘common cold’. Possibly a chav cold. It’s a travesty and an injustice.

I am therefore feeling as creative as a two ply rectangle of value toilet tissue. In so far as: I don’t last long and the slightest amount of rigour and I fade away.

As such, I apologise for the gaps in my nefarious activities.

As and when the medicine does indeed kick in, I shall let you know about my blind date with Steven. Nothing naughty happened. It was a perfectly lovely evening.

And odd.

COMING SOON

Some old woman asked me the other day:

“Do you do the shake ‘n’ vac?”

I thought for a moment her question was utterly impertinent and related to a sexual position I had never heard of. Then I realised what she was saying.

“No,” I said. “I’m not a fan or carpets… or rugs!”

She looked bewildered, as if I had betrayed her: “oh,” she said.

“Tell me,” I asked curiously, “Does it really bring the freshness back?”

I would have loved to hear the answer, but the queue had shortened and she went to buy her stamps.

As I left, I walked past her haggling over the cost of a second class stamp. “When your carpet smells fresh, your room does too.” I sang.

She looked bewildered again.

I think she was mental. Yet she made me look the loon.

That’s why I don’t ‘do’ community spirit. Or chemical floor cleaners.

It’s good to share these things.