A
Cavalier Approach
By
Dominic Horton
I
have recently learnt from the murky and mostly unsatisfactory worlds
of online dating and social media that women are increasingly
referring to their best friend with the annoying colloquialism of
“bestie.” I don't think that this would work for men as it could
be misconstrued that your closest friend is George Best. And that
would not do given his chronic alcoholism. And also due to the fact
that he is dead. Given his prowess with the women Bestie would not
have had to subject himself to the indignities of online dating but
as I do not have the charms of the late flawed genius I have recently
been floundering around in cyberspace trying to strike up a
connection with an unsuspecting lady.
 |
Bestie,
unusually sporting a moustache
in pre-Movember days.
|
My
experience of internet dating has generally been frustrating and
grim. I am not being unrealistic and aiming for a brand new Ferrari
but I am not prepared to settle for a clapped out Austin Allegro
either. A well maintained Vauxhall Cavalier would be fine, even if
it had a little bit of rust on the bodywork and the tyres are worn
close to the legal limit. But in all honesty as long as the model
gets through the MOT unscathed I don't really care. It would be good
to eventually get my Roundhead in a Cavalier, even if it lead to
civil war breaking out. Or uncivil war, as would more likely be the
case.
But
the Vauxhall Cavaliers of the dating world are generally
uncommunicative and lukewarm to my advances, which are always polite
and thoughtful. It is not that the Cavaliers have delusions of
grandeur and think they are Ferraris, it is more a case of men being
more likely to contact women on online dating, leaving women with a
number of men fighting for their affections. This means that women
can be relative choosy in whose messages they reply to, so an oddity
like me gets cast out in the garbage with the left overs of last
night's chilli con carne. In my experience it is rare for a woman
on internet dating to make the first move and contact me, but if a
woman does then she is usually of the clapped out Austin Allegro
variety.
 |
An
Austin Allegro.
|
Barty
Hook, Lowlife's London correspondent, informed me that things
are radically different in the Smoke. Barty told me that when he was
using online dating a whole plethora of women would contact him
asking for dates and he had as much trouble fighting them off as the
British Army did fending off the Zulus at Rorke's Drift. And Barty
is no Michael Caine in the looks department. But alas, I live in
Halesowen not cosmopolitan London and women are generally a little
more conservative in the West Midlands and expect men to make the
first move.
In
the old world you might meet a woman in a pub or at a disco and get
chatting and if you liked each other it might lead to you seeing each
other again and both parties would be happy with their lot. But
online dating breeds a “the grass is always greener” attitude
because as good as a person's profile looks on a dating site (or as
well as you get on if you actually meet) it is always in the back of
your mind that a more appealing suitor could be a mere mouse click
away.
To
assess the propriety of a potential date, after looking at her
photographs I scrutinise her vital statistics like it is the “tale
of the tape” of the challenger in a WBC world welterweight title
fight. You have to be careful and read the small print as just one
small word can make a difference in a woman's dating profile, such as
the inclusion of the word "the" here:-
"I
enjoy going out to club with my friends"
"I
enjoy going out to the club with my friends."
 |
A
disturbing picture of Barty Hook
looking like an IRA terrorist
from
the 1970's.
|
The
former sentence conjures up images of a fun, outgoing party girl who
loves a boogie on a Saturday night and the latter alludes to an
overweight woman with tattoos and greasy hair who likes to sit in the
social club all day supping cider and smoking fags while her kids run
riot in the function room.
Often
I see an attractive photograph so delve deeper and read a woman's
profile and all seems fine and dandy and I end up thinking to myself,
“she seems wonderful, perfect for me almost, we seem so compatible,
what's the catch?” Then I read the killer blow on the profile,
being “I do not drink.” All of a sudden our compatibility goes
from 60 to 0 in a mere nanosecond. If I ended up dating a member of
the “I do not drink” brigade I can just imagine how telephone
conversations between us would go regarding an evening out:-
Me:
“Shall we go to the pub?”
Woman:
“I was thinking we should go to the cinema.”
Me:
“Ok, let's pop to the pub for a bit then we'll go to the cinema.”
Woman:
“I don't want to go to the pub before the cinema if you don't
mind.”
Me:
“Right you are, let's go to the cinema then go to the pub
afterwards.”
Woman:
“Can't we just go to the cinema?”
At
which point, to the woman's surprise and disgust, the line goes dead
and by the time she rings back I will have already grabbed my coat
and be making haste to the Flagon & Gorses having taken the
precaution of switching my mobile telephone off.
There
are others who are not strict abstainers but are not far from it.
One woman's profile read, “I'm not a massive drinker but I love a
cheeky spiced rum every so often.” Maybe I should change my
profile comments to, “I'm not a massive drinker but I love a
cheeky seven or eight pints with the Pirate in the Flagon &
Gorses every so often.” Not that I am advocating drinking, as
that is not something I have ever done in this column. Moderate
drinking is a good modus operandi if you know how to do it but I have
no talent at it and I even struggle with the rules so for me it is
purely a spectator sport.
If
you want to guarantee that a potential partner is not an abstainer
then realalelovers.com* seems to be the dating site to use. Though
I am not sure that dating and real ale generally mix that well. If
you got on particularly well with a date in a pub you might both get
carried away and have a skin full leading to a diary entry the
following morning that reads, “Had a wonderful first date with Jane
last night but I can't remember a thing that she told me though I do
recall drinking a pint of Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby Mild and eating a
Chicken Tikka Jalfrezi in the curry house.”
 |
Kinver
Half Centurion,
by request of Toby In-Tents.
|
I
wonder whether Mills & Boon have ever published a book where the
main characters met in a real ale setting? It could be a winner: “At
the beer festival our eyes met across a crowded town hall which had a
haze of beer farts in the air and I knew it was love at first sight.
He slowly approached me and offered me half of a pork pie, which had
been in his coat pocket all day and was a big sweaty and on the turn.
Little did I know it at the time but that pork pie was to cement our
love as it gave me botulism but he tenderly nursed me back to health
by giving me small teaspoons of Bathams Best Bitter. When I was
fully recovered he made the Earth move for me before nipping out to
buy some Kinver Half Centurion (5% ABV - bottle conditioned) to
refresh us with."
With
any luck I might not have to suffer the rigours of online dating for
much longer as incredulously the woman that I met in Birmingham a
couple of weeks ago that I was semi-stalking (see last week's
Lowlife) unexpectedly contacted me out of the blue. She has
apparently been on holiday in Italy which explains her lack of
contact with me hitherto and it transpires that I did write my
telephone number down correctly after all so my stalker-like
behaviour was not warranted. Anyway, the problem with
realalelovers.com is that you have to pay to use the site and 6
months membership costs £99, the equivalent of 34.137 pints in the
Flagon & Gorses and I know how I prefer to spend my money.
Talking of which it must be time for a pint. Adios for now amigos,
I'm off to see the Pirate.
(*
realalelovers.com has changed it's name to loveinn.co.uk. )
©
Dominic Horton, September 2014.
*
EMAIL: lordhofr@gmail.com.
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