TheGirlGlory’s disappearing act: an apology

Ladies, Gentlemen and other trawlers of the internet who just happened to fall over my blog:

I am sorry. Truly, genuinely, grovellingly sorry. You invested me with your time and your goodwill, and I repaid you by taking off without so much as leaving a note on the kitchen fridge.

I’ll be honest with you, it never occurred to me that I had enough readers for anyone to notice. Then I received this concerned message:

“GirlGlory! What has happened to you? My friend & I used to read your blog and have a little chortle and we feel very sad that you have left us.

In my mind there are three options to what must have happened to you:

1. You have been kidnapped by one of your dates

2. You have become so disillusioned with the UK Christian dating scene (in all its glory) that you have moved to the Outer Hebrides

3. You have fallen madly in love and are so busy swanning around in a haze of bliss that you have forgotten about all your ardent bloggettes

I very much hope for your sake that it is 3.”

I am touched and honoured by this lovely note, and I am happy to offer an explanation of my three-month absence. Sadly, none of the above explanations apply, which is a shame, as any of them would have made for great blog material. Especially 1.

I suppose 2 is closest, although I hasten to add that it’s not a case of disillusionment. Or, actually, of moving away. OK, so it’s not like 2 at all. It’s like this.

After my last post, I discovered that the company I work for was making redundancies and I was losing my job, but I could apply for a new role in the restructured organisation. Almost instantly, any free time I had for dating (and blogging) vanished in a maelstrom of interview preparation. What with the snows in December (keeping potential dates holed up in their urban bunkers), Christmas*, and New Year**, we were suddenly in 2010. My shame at having left the blog so long, without even hint of a sniff of a date, overwhelmed me. I was like the woman who joins the gym, signs up to every class going, then sits at home eating family multipacks of custard creams.

What happened next? Well, this. My company offered me a promotion, a challenging, thrilling new job which began last week. My weekdays now look something like this: wake, pray, work, working lunch, work, go home, work, watch 30 Rock to laugh at someone else’s work, sleep. Repeat x 4.

I have to be honest with you here. At the weekends, I struggle to muster the motivation to turn on a computer at all, let alone spend the requisite hours checking out profiles of people who I just don’t have time to meet at the moment. Which is extremely annoying, because I’d hit a really nice rhythm last year and I want to get back to it.

What I’m asking, I guess, is if you guys who have been so generous already would give me a month or two’s grace, to get myself into this new job; I’m dead keen to do it well, and to repay the faith that’s been put in me.

I don’t want to promise you something I can’t deliver, and at the moment I just can’t manage a full-time dating search. On the other hand, if any of you want to set me up on dates I will be only too happy to go on them and write them up after ;0)

There it is, my mea culpa in full. I will try to check in with you over the next few weeks, and I fully intend to return the blog to its full, ahem, Glory in a couple of month’s time. I hope you’ll come back when I do. And I can’t tell you how much I loved being told I have “ardent blogettes”. It makes me feel like Diana Ross.

* I refer you to dating rule #204: never start going out with someone just before a present-giving occasion, it’s far too awkward

**there’s actually a supplementary story here, I’ll blog it separately

TheGirlGlory finds a new recruit

Four days without a blog! I feel rude and neglectful. Unfortunately the week’s been so busy that I haven’t been able to engage in any dating-related activities for a while. My boss has been on holiday, making work pretty busy, and my church is gearing up for its Christmas services. And as any single Christian girl knows, you don’t turn down opportunities to help out at church! Why else would I be in the worship group, on the café rota, at the homeless meals, in the choir, and on the leadership team?

Anyway, the big news this week is that my flatmate has signed up to internet dating. And we’re doing the same site this month, so that we can keep an eye out for each other: four eyes are better than two when you’re scanning profiles. Supposedly, anyway. So far, we’ve demonstrated the accuracy and good judgment you’d see at a game of pin the tail on the donkey on a stag night in Wetherspoons. In happy hour.

FlatMate has so far emailed me a guy said he was a book lover but had trouble stringing his own sentences together, and a man who loves mountains. Loves them. ‘Winter, summer, there’s no better place to be,’ he gushes. I suspect if it was legal to marry a large, conical landmass, he wouldn’t be on a dating website in the first place. Unfortunately, as FlatMate has not yet discovered, I hate walking up things, and I don’t much like walking/skiing/tobogganing down them either.

At least I have been able, from my experienced position, to calm FlatMate’s fears. Her first evening on the site, she made the novice mistake of getting extremely excited to discover she had some interest in her profile, only to discover that these early birds were 20 years older than her, and had only one full head of hair between them. One of them was a squatter, and one of them had written a 10,000 word essay on his profile detailing every part of his life from birth to recent marital breakup.

Of course, this threw her into an immediate slump. I had to explain the Faucet Principle, that with dating websites as with taps, when you first connect them to the supply, the first thing you get will be unappealing bilge – you just have to let the tap run for a while.

BFC: the second night

After all the effort that had gone into our original, failed date, spending two consecutive evenings with Bona Fide Crush – without any conniving on my part – was too much for my little brain to compute. So my fatalistic side leapt into the breach. This must be God’s will. Something was happening here.

The evening itself only confirmed that feeling. It was the perfect set-up. There were only three of us heading to the game: the third was a male colleague who knows about my crush, and had given me complete licence to flirt. During the pre-match beers I rested my chin on my hands and giggled girlishly. Male Colleague kept the conversation on topics that made me sound informed, intelligent and intriguing. When BFC talked I looked at him with a concentrated gaze and held eye contact just that fraction too long. It was, if I say so myself, a bravura performance.

As the beer slipped down, I was more and more captivated by the idea that this could be it. By the end of the evening, something, I was sure, would happen. It could be something tiny – a word, a look – but however small, I was convinced that it would be something definitive, something that determined once and for all where this whatever-it-was was heading.

We took our seats, and BFC seemed happier than I’d ever seen him. Thrillingly, he kept leaning in to talk to me. True, it was always about the match itself. And mostly pointing out some new piece of brilliance by his favourite player. But I was sure that was only because Male Colleague was in earshot. As if sensing this, Male Colleague announced he was going to leave before the end of the game, in order to avoid the crowds. I said a silent thank-you to whatever angel was on-duty this evening.

With Male Colleague gone, the atmosphere heightened. BFC seemed distracted – he said less, and when he spoke there was a slight tension in his voice. He started fiddling with his iPhone. Then he turned towards me, leaned in close and whispered. “I’m nervous,” he said. “If things carry on this way, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

A sharp dagger of adrenaline stabbed me in the heart. This was it. We were on. I searched my brain for the correct response. I couldn’t find it, so instead I slowly turned my head, and fixed my eyes on his while conjuring my expression into a slightly saucy smile.

He ignored it, and carried on, more earnestly this time. “The way things stand, I’m not sure that they’re going to qualify for the semi-final,” he said. “The points system is just so complicated.”

Thirty seconds later, his favourite player scored. He leapt out of his seat emitting a scream that was two-parts schoolgirl, one-part psychopath. He thrashed about like a spawning salmon, shouting the word “Yes” with more frequency and intensity than Meg Ryan in that diner. It was the kind of physical display from which no social situation can hope to recover. When he finally sat back down, completely spent, we remained in awkward silence until I made my excuses and left, understanding now just how excited he had been about the game. And feeling slightly soiled.

SisterGlory’s verdict on BFC

Urrgh. Bleurgh. I am so tired. Two late nights in a row have left me barely capable of speech. I just went to the office loos and had a micro-sleep on the toilet. That’s how tired I am.

So yes: I have spent two consecutive evenings with Bona Fide Crush. As one of my work colleagues christened it yesterday: ’stealth dating’. I like this phrase. So much less judgemental than ’stalking’.

Wednesday, as you will have guessed, went well. We met up with BFC and his friend, and SisterGlory and I managed to behave ourselves pretty well, apart from one frightening incident when the conversation turned to boardgames – one of our many rock’n'roll pursuits. SisterGlory and I started babbling excitedly about Scrabble. We couldn’t seem to stop ourselves – it was like a verbal snowball, picking up speed and volume – and the guys just sat there, helpless in the face of it, watching the minutes of their evening out slip away from them in enforced silence.

I had the sudden fear that we were never going to work ourselves away from the subject, that we’d be doomed to sit there discussing two-letter words all evening. Happily, an overeager waiter came forward and broke the spell. Crisis averted. Better still, when I mentioned that I was going to see a sports match the next day, it turned out the game included BFC’s favourite player. He asked if I had a spare ticket. I did. And that wasn’t even planned.

On the way home, I asked SisterGlory what she thought. She used what is her standard reply on these occasions: ‘I can see why you like him,’ with the emphasis very much on the ‘you’. She did, however, concede that he was good looking, and told me that he wasn’t even that posh. I pointed out that his dad sits in the house of Lords, and that he plays real tennis. ‘Oh,’ she replied. ‘He’s undercover posh. One of those people who’s so posh that he’s worked hard to appear average middle class.’ She nodded sagely. ‘He’s a pro.’

I’ll have to leave Thursday’s date for the next post…

 

 

BFC met SisterGlory. And she didn’t call him ‘posh’ once

Gah! It’s been a busy day at work and I’ve run out of time to write about last night’s evening out with BFC – and my sister. I want to do it justice so I’m just going to have to leave it til tomorrow, folks. If you want a teaser, though, how about this: things went pretty well – and I’m seeing him again this evening! I’ll tell all in a double bill tomorrow…

The wrong place at the wrong time

Today’s reasons to shout ‘Oh nooo! Unfair!’ and throw things petulantly around the room:

1. Celebrity Crush is not coming to my corporate event this week, after weeks of feverish anticipation
2. Celebrity Crush did, however, make a surprise appearance at the charity event I was supposed to be at on Monday.
3. I wasn’t there. I was 355 miles away on a work assignment.
4. Celebrity Crush spent most of the night on my company’s table, talking to my colleagues.
5. I WASN’T THERE.

There ends today’s lesson. It’s a cautionary tale of what happens when you put work commitments before charity. Your stalking game really suffers.

I’ll be honest, I’ve had enough of this celebrity crush. I can’t keep it up any more. I’ve done everything within my limited power to manoeuvre myself into his way, but even my most machiavellian plans have come to nought. What’s worse, because of my inability to enjoy anything that he appears in for the past year, I have denied myself several hundreds of hours of decent telly. I want them back, dammit!

So I’m going to give him up. For the sake of my sanity, which is beleaguered at the best of times, I am going to wave him goodbye and let the man return to his rightful place as a collection of pixels on my 24-inch screen, and an irritatingly familiar voiceover on margarine adverts. When I hear his name, I will not flinch and change the subject. I will nod when people laud his achievements, I will laugh along when they recount his jokes. And I will try – I really will try – to forget that I know where he lives.

I’ve had some lovely comments about the singles mingles tale I posted this week, which has given me great encouragement – thank you. I’m up for trying out more of those kind of things as blind dating can get a bit repetitive – so if you know of any singles events please do let me know. As American playwright George Kaufman famously said, you should try everything once, except incest and country dancing…

Anyway, my sister meets Bona Fide Crush tonight. I’ll keep you updated on Twitter. Perhaps we should have a sweepstake on how many times she calls him ‘posh’ on the way home.

The weird, weird world of single mingles, pt 3

(cont. from yesterday) After 12 minutes of excruciating public freestyling, the music was turned off. The host announced that, for the next song, we would dance with the man opposite us. She put on some sort of R’n’B with a beat so slow that the only coherent move was a languorous nod of the head from side to side and the room soon resembled a consignment of mechanical toys gradually winding down.

Finally, the chance came to break away to the tiny bar. I asked for a beer. The waiter looked surprised, and told me to hold on, before disappearing from the room. I looked behind the bar and realised it served only soft drinks. In horror, I wheeled around and quickly scanned the room. Everyone was clutching Coke and orange juice.

Having drunk my beer as quickly and discreetly as possible, I returned to the fray, where the ‘warm-ups’ were over and the speed dating part of the evening was beginning. Lining up once again, we were given four minutes to talk to each person. There was none of the apparatus that I associated with speed-dating – seats, for instance, or name badges, note-taking materials, a whistle to tell you when to stop talking. But as a novice, who was I to judge?

My first guy was with a nice Nigerian who worked in construction and went to Kingsway International Christian Centre, the Pentecostal church in Hackney with a congregation into the thousands. We had a conversation about the 2012 Olympic site. He moved on. The next guy was also from Nigeria, and a KICC regular. The third guy came from Hull. Via Nigeria. He had travelled down specially, he said. Apparently KICC had a singles summit this week. Suddenly, things started making sense…

After three quarters of an hour, with a handful of introductions still remaining, fatigue had set in. Throats ached, eyes had lost their sparkle. The last few guys I met admitted they had forgotten all the girls’ names already. As for me, my overloaded brain had agglomerated the last hour’s conversation and I was now convinced I had met a dog-owning, five-a-side-playing, chess-loving baritone from Nigeria, who worked in sales and went to KICC.

At the end of the evening, I collected my coat and went to find T. She suggested getting some food. ‘I’m really sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m just exhausted. Do you mind if I head straight home?’ ‘Oh no, that’s fine,’ she said. ‘I just wondered if you wanted to join us.’ The three guys standing behind her waved. Hurray! I left her to it.

The weird, weird world of single mingles, pt 2

(cont. from yesterday)… and into an even narrower room. About 20 people lined the walls, men one side, women the other. It was impossible not to notice that everyone else in the room was black.

It took a millisecond to absorb the situation – I’ve explained thin-slicing to you already, haven’t I – before, being a nice Christian girl with liberal values, I reasoned that this was a marvellously refreshing situation, which would teach me valuable lessons in how it feels to be a minority. I was resolved to throw myself into whatever singles activities were being acted out here. T and I handed our £10 to the organiser and dutifully joined the ladies’ line.

I’m not sure what I was expecting. (In my university when people lined up in this way it normally signalled a drinking game, but that seemed unlikely in the situation.) Name games, perhaps, or some sort of race involving an orange under your chin. Instead, the organiser announced that we would now dance ‘to’ each other, with every singleton taking their turn to ‘freestyle’ in front of the others. To a 12-minute track.

I can’t even imagine what kind of preparatory, ice-breaking measures had been taken in the hour we’d missed* that could convince 20 relatively sober humans to agree to this. The only thing I’ve come up with so far is group hypnosis. T and I hadn’t even had a drink yet – we hadn’t been given a chance to get anywhere near the bar in our hurried introduction to the event. Now, I don’t what Deuteronomy or St Paul say on the subject of forcing people to dance in front of complete strangers without so much as a half of Bud Light. Maybe it’s a sin, maybe it isn’t. But I’m pretty sure it breaches the Geneva Convention on Human Rights… (cont. tomorrow)

*we were on the bus, remember?

The weird, weird world of single mingles: pt 1

Sometimes, a spontaneous evening can turn out to be the best night of your life. Accepting a last-minute invitation, agreeing to join a friend at a party you haven’t been invited to – these can be the moments that change your life forever.

Or they can just be frickin’ weird.

Yesterday I got a call from a friend who lives nearby. I’d been planning a quiet night in watching Strictly Come Dancing; she wanted to know if I’d like to go to a ‘Christian singles party’ with her housemate, who was a little nervous to go alone. I said yes. I felt like the soul of spontaneity. I even convinced myself that there was something destined about it. After all, I’d been invited out on a Saturday night and I didn’t have already have plans. What were the chances?*

When I met up with T, I asked her where we were headed. She pulled a small scrap of paper – the corner of an envelope – from her jeans pocket, and peered at it. ‘Somewhere near Piccadilly Circus,’ came the reassuringly vague reply.

I asked her what kind of party it was. She wasn’t sure. Who was organising it? She didn’t know. So I asked T how she’d heard about the party. She said she had googled the phrase ‘Christian singles’ and this had come up. All she had was a mobile phone number, the address of an Italian restaurant in the West End, and the promise of dancing.

The journey to the restaurant wasn’t any more promising. Our bus was only halfway into town when it came across the kind of gridlock that suggests a ravenous monster/giant tidal wave is on the loose. We didn’t move for half an hour and one by one the rest of the passengers left the bus (presumably to their imminent, gory deaths). We crept towards our destination a few inches at a time; after an hour, the only people left on the bus, we both admitted that if we’d been going to this party alone, we’d already have turned around and headed home.

But we’re made of strong stuff. One hour late, we arrived at the restaurant and the maitre d’ bustled up to us, trying to show us to a table. ‘We’re here for the party’ said T. ‘Which one?’ he asked with a hint of impatience.

‘Er, we don’t actually know the name…’

‘It’s a, erm, group event…’

He leaned in confidentially.

‘Speed dating, yes?’

Ah. So that was what we were coming to. We followed him down a narrow staircase into the basement…

*Pretty good actually.

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off…

Decision made. I have pulled myself out of my dangerous slough of despond. I have marshalled my troops, given them a damn good pep talk, and will now proceed to sent them out on two fronts at once. Heaven help the men who find themselves in my way.

My new plan is to double-date. Not in the sense of dragging my unfortunate friends along with me on my man hunt, no. Rather in the sense that I shall tackle two dating sites at once. I’ll return to my most successful online destination – the magical land where BigBear and Woodland Vole live – and I’ll try out another, Christian, site that’s free to join. Yes, she’s back in the game. In, I said. In.

On Wednesday, moreover, I am attending a work event at which Bona Fide Crush will be both present and, more importantly, drinking. He may even manage to relax enough to talk to me. On the other hand, I will have my sister in tow, which will make me an even more intimidating prospect than usual. When GirlGlory and SisterGlory descend on a group together, there’s a certain amount of shock and awe. Imagine a scene of extras in a Roland Emmerich disaster movie: that’s how people normally look when we leave. And often when we arrive.

I can predict two things about this event. One, sushi will be served. (My sister and I were recently at a function where my boss observed it was the kind of event where they would serve mini-hamburgers, he was right, and she was very impressed. I wish to prove I too have the rarely-seen gift of catering-prediction.) Secondly, at the end of the evening – or at a far less appropriate moment, say, when BFC turns round to pick up a piece of sushi and SisterGlory incorrectly assumes he can’t hear – my sister will proclaim, ‘He’s SOOOOO posh!’

SisterGlory thinks everyone’s posh. She thinks I’m posh, and she grew up in the same house as me. I’m about to introduce her to someone whose father has a title, who hangs out with the cultural elite and who speaks as if he’s just come out of an elocution lesson at Eton. Luckily she finds posh people incredibly amusing. Hopefully he’ll just think she’s laughing at his jokes…