Following on from the last sub-post in which Josh told me that my approach to finding the right girl was all wrong, I now found myself back to taking this more pragmatic approach to dating... i.e. back to being clueless.
And that was how, a few days later, Josh and I found ourselves on a night bus in London; I dressed as a dustbin man and he dressed as a Thunderbird. Nothing dodgy or 'owt, we were returning from a fancy dress party, although given it was a “wear whatever you like” sort of fancy dress, I’m not entirely sure what made me think going dressed as a dustbin man would be a good idea… particularly as much to my chagrin, my outfit was probably a little too authentic and a number of people mistook me for an actual dustbin man.
And that was how, a few days later, Josh and I found ourselves on a night bus in London; I dressed as a dustbin man and he dressed as a Thunderbird. Nothing dodgy or 'owt, we were returning from a fancy dress party, although given it was a “wear whatever you like” sort of fancy dress, I’m not entirely sure what made me think going dressed as a dustbin man would be a good idea… particularly as much to my chagrin, my outfit was probably a little too authentic and a number of people mistook me for an actual dustbin man.
The party had been lots of fun and, having made an obligatory stop for fried chicken, we were now getting on the night bus, homeward
bound. Regular users of this service will know that it’s always a
motley crew of drunkards, socialites, late workers, randomers, and more
drunkards. Josh and I fell firmly into the final category, and as we boarded
there were only two aisle seats left near the front. I took my seat on the one side
and quietly settled myself down. Josh on the other hand, has always fancied
himself something of a Casanova when drunk… and sober for that matter. And
immediately attempted to crack on to the lady to his right. At
this point I’ll describe the cast in some more detail: Josh is something of a
himbo, blonde surfer dude, around 5’10, who spends longer on his hair than most
women (this is exactly what he looks like in real life)... and now dressed as a Thunderbird. His poor victim this time, was what I can only describe as one of those very
tall exotic African goddesses, and even sitting down you could see she was fair bit
taller than Josh. Taking all this into account, it still did not prevent our
indomitable hero from having a go.
I didn’t hear all of what was said but I
could see all the classic Josh-isms coming into play – leaning and whispering
into her ear, a few attempts at shared jokes, completely ignoring her physical comfort zone,
starting to work his arm round via the chair. The poor Goddess tried
her best to ignore him staring directly ahead at all times and doing her best
to avoid eye contact of any sort. Then I heard Josh blurt “ Oh you’re French?
”… I tapped Josh discreetly and jokingly mouthed “ Give it up dude, you don’t
speak French ”, to which surprised me by replying “ No mate... I’ve been doing audiotapes.
Watch this ”. It was strange as Josh didn't seem particularly loud but this
final statement suddenly seemed to draw the attention of the entire downstairs section of the bus. In fact, everybody seemed to have noticeably quietened down to
listen to our linguistic lothario in action… all were in on the
joke ("entertainment"), except Josh and the Goddess.
What followed was what I can only
describe as car-crash French. I’ve done my best to recreate the experience below, please forgive the terrible English phonetics:
Josh: “ Comong Tapell Yu? ” [ Comment t'appelle-tu? ]
Goddess: “ … “ * 20 second pause *
Josh: “ Jer mapell Josh. Jer doooooooooozon " [ Je m'appelle Josh. J'ai 12 ans ]
Goddess: “ … “ * 20 second pause *
Josh: “ Savva? ” [ Ça va? ]
Goddess: *snigger*
There was another very long awkward pause. Josh
had clearly exhausted his entire audiotape’s worth of French and looked a bit defeated.
He looked at me, I shrugged my shoulders and now you could see the cogs really turning
in his head. He still hadn’t cottoned on but the entire downstairs bus audience was now grinning, willing him to continue his hopeless
quest. And then the lightbulb
moment… Josh’s whole face lit up as he suddenly remembered his killer French line, the
one that would mean he would swing things in his favour! He tapped Goddess on
the shoulder to get her attention, grinned, and then excitedly shouted in her face:
“ Hey…. 'Ello! Yes. Listen... JEM BUKOO PARI! ” [ J'aime beaucoup Paris! ]
* 5 seconds of silence *
I shit you not, the entire downstairs
section erupted with laughter and applause as Josh suddenly felt very sheepish, like one
of those guys who’s just been caught behaving badly on a hidden camera show.
It’s funny how such embarrassment and humiliation will very quickly put a man
back in his place... and that was the end of Josh’s attempts at seduction. Thunderbirds were definitely not go on this night!
For anybody who wants an actual
masterclass on use of the night bus as a legitimate place to pull, can I refer
you to my Manchester-based friend Tim; regularly leaves a night out on his own,
rarely leaves the night bus on his own. I may write about him one day, the scoundrel.
When I had gotten on the bus, I took the other remaining seat and hadn’t even noticed the girl I was sat next to, however throughout Josh’s drunken attempts we found ourselves chuckling at the same points and sharing the occasional knowing glances – it’s always easier to strike up conversation over a shared laugh isn’t it? I got talking to this lady (mainly taking the piss out of Josh) and it turned out that she was actually quite an interesting person.
I didn’t realise publishing had such
punishing hours, but Rowan was an American (Caucasian) girl working as a sub-editor
for a national Sunday paper... and was on her way home after work… at 2 am? We chatted over a number of topics, covering America and why she was here, what it was like working for a newspaper,
the unsociable hours, her specialisms, and then in particular talking about what a tosser one of the
well-known columnists for the newspaper was.
Rowan wasn’t really my type but the
conversation was excellent and there was an undeniable bit of a spark; at the
risk of sounding incredibly shallow, I must say, it’s not often I would have that with someone without at least finding her physically
attractive first. Despite only talking for around 25 min, it felt a lot longer (but not long enough)
and by the time it came to her stop, there’d been plenty more smiles, jokes, laughter.
I almost asked for her number but bottled it and that was that. After she got up and off the bus,
I said to Josh: “ She was alright, wasn’t she? ” [ “alright” meaning "good" ] to which he nodded, still red-faced. Before
I felt a gentle smack round the back of the head… oh… Rowan hadn’t gotten off
yet and was stood right behind me waiting for doors to open. At least she was still smiling!
The next day I felt like the
conversation had given me the right to ask for her number without seeming a
little creepy, and kicked myself for bottling it. Nonetheless, I endeavoured to
see if I could track her down. And she, lo-and-behold, turned up on the very
first Google search I did… [ REAL NAME ] + “sub-editor” + [NAME OF NEWSPAPER ]. I’m
already a heavy user of LinkedIn, but even I was surprised by how easily it came up with the top result. I sent a message and we see what happens.
The thing about what I had just done was that it
was actually quite creepy… I’d taken a gamble that she felt the same as I
did and then actually looked a girl up who I’d spoken to for less than half an
hour. Essentially, it seems the only difference between whether I would be deemed
creepy/stalkerish or sweet/romantic is down to whether Rowan found me
attractive. So often and in all aspects of our life, we feel we’ve made
ourselves abundantly clear on an issue only to find that the person you’re
communicating with has missed the point entirely… Differences in age, cultural background, language,
and ability to properly hear mean that this usually happens with my parents, mainly… BUT seriously though, my heart goes out to all you guys and girls who’ve
ever (romantically) got the wrong end of the stick and been branded a stalker
or a creep as a result.
Amazingly Rowan messaged me back that day
and back-and-forthed a couple of times before I suggested we meet up one night.
She replied back almost immediately saying she’d really enjoyed chatting to me
and yes she’d love to do something one night. Boom, The Banana Dater has
secured his first date that didn’t start on the internet. Whoop whoop!
We now know that:
- Josh can’t speak French. Or he can, but very little and with ridiculous English-style pronunciation. And he still thinks he's 12.
- LinkedIn is a legitimate way to secure a date. Out of curiosity, have any readers got any of their own stories to share on this one?
- This wasn’t date 4, since it never happened. But that she agreed to it, boosted my dating confidence immensely.
- I was brought straight back down to earth the next night though, when walking home from the gym I walked past a couple of drunken ladies. As I walked by, one of them uttered " F*cking hell, he's hot! ". That certainly boosted my ego further, until I realised there was this perfectly-formed male model-looking chap walking right next to me that I'd mysteriously not noticed. My turn to look sheepish :(
- If you secure a date, then go for it. Recently I've not been on a few dates that I could've and should've. Mainly complacency, no follow-up, hectic work schedule... But don't tolerate the excuses!
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Whilst I have your attention, can I also do some shameless self-plugging? To have it emailed to you every time I do a new entry, then please stick your email on the top right box. Those of you on mobile, please switch into "view web version" first.
Whilst I have your attention, can I also do some shameless self-plugging? To have it emailed to you every time I do a new entry, then please stick your email on the top right box. Those of you on mobile, please switch into "view web version" first.
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