36 Tales of a a Real Life Romance - Chapter 19

I felt quite nervous as I travelled on the train over to where Hands lives.

[Cue: cheering, clapping and waving of flags and banners that say things like 'Good luck Rapunzel!' and 'Hands is hot!']

Yes I'd decided to go for Option A. It was only Date 4, but it had taken months for us to get to that stage so we could hardly be accused of rushing things. Plus the Goddess had gone away to work elsewhere and I had a new flatmate who'd invited his girlfriend round that night. I wasn't keen on Option C - Being a Gooseberry, so was quite happy to make myself scarce.

It didn't take me long to decide that I'd made the right decision. If I'd played it safe and chosen the second suggestion It might have taken a few more months before I found out that...

1. Hands is very tidy

Extremely so. It was the first thing I noticed as I entered his abode. Obviously he would have cleaned before my arrival but it seemed like he'd had Monica Geller round helping. My flat has also been that clean, but that was in the first hour I moved into it, before my suitcases had haemorrhaged my possessions all over it.

(A new friend has started reading my blog and has remarked that I write about things she wouldn't even dream of admitting to her best mates. I've decided that she has a point and so will now not be revealing my innermost feelings for fear of being mocked or considered odd. So I won't be telling you that I panicked when I realised how different Hands and I were and wondered how we'd cope if we ever lived together. It would be wrong to even have had a thought like that anyway....it was only Date 4 after all...What do you take me for?...Some kind of weirdo...No, no I was enjoying taking it slow and having months between dates and hadn't even thought about our next one, never mind The Future.)

2. Hands is very handy

As he took me on a tour he pointed out all the home improvements he'd done himself, like rooms he'd decorated, things he'd made, under-floor heating he'd installed. I was impressed. Hands will make someone a lovely husband one day. Obviously I didn't think about that someone being me. (See above for proof)

3. Hands is a proper adult

He has grown-up things in his house. I asked for a coffee when I first arrived and he made me one from a coffee machine with a nice cup and saucer and a biscuit. I normally drink the builders version from one side of a Dirty Dancing mug. It has to be from one side cause the other is so chipped it is dangerous. I suppose I have a coffee machine as well. It's just that it's five minutes walk away in Starbucks.

4. Hands has other big things besides his hands

Hands has a massive one. I've never seen one as big. Except once when I stayed in a hotel. I suppose being 6 foot 5 it's only reasonable that he'd have one as long. I was still surprised though and couldn't help but turn into Little Red Riding Hood.

'My what a big bed you have!'

'All the better to sleep with you in.'

He didn't actually say that. I'd fore-warned him that wouldn't be happening and he'd already shown me the room I'd be staying in. Shame really as I could easily have shared the bed with him without us even seeing each other, it was so vast.

5. Hands is very thoughtful

He'd downloaded songs onto his iPod that he knew I'd love, even though it could have opened him up to ridicule if any of his friends had ever seen them. I'm talking cheesy eighties pop. Music he doesn't even like himself.

He also talked about how much he helps the old woman that lives next door by doing her shopping and the like, and how he'd just bought her a jar opener in case he wasn't around when she needed him. It's an amazing coincidence but I have something in common with his elderly neighbour, as I'm also the proud owner of such a utensil. My mum popped one into my stocking at Christmas after she heard I'd had to take a jar of honey down to the concierge so I could make a hot toddy. My concierge was fine about it even though that's not in his job description. He had remarked on the fact that I didn't need help opening the whisky though.

6. Hands is smooth

I knew this fact anyway but I hadn't been on the receiving end of his charm for a few weeks. It started as soon as I got in the car when he collected me from the train station and he said that when he saw me he did a little 'Yes!' out loud because I was lovelier than he'd remembered.

I melted.

Yes there was no denying that Hands knows how to flirt. How much was just patter and how much was genuine? I wasn't sure.

Out in a bar that evening, Hands returned from the toilet and asked if he could join me while my boyfriend was away. I played along with his little game and said he could but warned him that my bloke was big and might want to fight him. He reckoned that he'd already seen him and knew he could take him on in an arm-wrestle.

I really did my very best not to analyse this statement and accept it as role-playing fun. Honestly. But I just couldn't stop myself wondering whether Hands had implied that I was his girlfriend...

22 Bye Dolly!

I have high hopes for 2010.

It has to be better than last year. I mean don't get me wrong, 2009 wasn't awful. I don't have any real complaints, but as I explained to my flatmate it was just a nothingy year.

"Nothingy?" He enquired.

"Yeah just nothing really happened. I won't really remember it for anything in particular. Bit boring actually."

Flatmate went back to watching his favourite programme Nothing to Declare while I mulled over what I'd done in 2009.

I'd shared my beautiful abode with three different people. A pilot from Ireland, an IT consultant from Mumbai and now current roomie from Oz, who does god knows what.

I did lots of different jobs. Some were emotional, like the documentary filming parents of disabled children. I had my eyes opened and met the most amazing people on that.

Some jobs were a bit more light-hearted, like the one where I was sent to Greece for three weeks with a cameraman I'd never met before. Luckily for me, he was one of the nicest guys ever and we had a ball. I just wasn't so keen on him when he filmed me jet-skiing. Or to be more specific, that he filmed the bit where I tried to get on the jet-ski. I've never looked so unladylike. And my ass looked huge. I'm sure that must have been the wide-angle lens.

There were jobs, that I'm not sure what possessed me to do them, like the night I spent working in a lap-dancing club. I could lie and pretend it was also for a documentary, but it wasn't. Just so you know, I worked behind the bar, not as a dancer. I made £32 in tips and trust me, I wouldn't have made anything close if I'd been dancing in my knickers!

I suppose I went to quite a few places last year. Taggart and I had a credit crunch holiday in Southampton and Brighton. I laughed at comedians at the Edinburgh Festival, I had a cream tea in Devon, I saw beautiful stars in Cornwall and in Cheltenham I...er...did some filming.

It was the year of catching up with friends I hadn't seen for eons. My friend that I met when I was 18 and worked in Portugal in an Indian restaurant, my friend that I met when I worked in Gran Canaria in er..an Indian restaurant and my friend that I lived with when I studied in Canada (was too busy being a student to work in a restaurant, Indian or otherwise!)

I also fell in love in 2009. A friend suggested I go to Barcelona with him when he read on Facebook that I'd bought a new bikini and had nowhere to wear it. So I did. That's when I fell in love. With Barcelona.

Of course it wasn't all good. There were a few terrible things that happened. Like when I was measured and I discovered I'm an inch shorter than I thought and I've been kidding myself for years.

And the time my dad's car was broken in to and I had two bags of clothes and nine pairs of shoes stolen. I was distraught. I even contemplated phoning Victim Support. My brother was as sympathetic as usual. He told me my clothes were shit anyway and the thieves had actually done me a favour.

That's about it. Nothing else happened in 2009.

Except I suppose for when I dressed as Dolly Parton and had a 'boob off ' with another Dolly.

And it was the year I dyed my hair blue.

It was also the year I had a wee in an £8million house that Robbie Williams considered buying.

And the year I 'performed' with a group of muscly, long-haired men wearing nothing but kilts and playing the bagpipes. I accompanied them on the maracas.

It was the year I was on TV in the audience of Don't Forget the Lyrics.

And it was the year an old man stopped me in Kwik Save because he thought I was Lisa Marie Presley.

It was also the year that a taxi driver in Greece wouldn't give me my change until I showed him my party piece (that's not a euphemism by the way, I do have a special trick I do with my double jointed arms..!)

So yeah, like I said. Not much happened.

2010 had better be better!

41 The Date Date part 2

It's a very strange experience going out with someone you've met online.

You don't have a mutual friend to discuss to start you off. Like you would if it was a blind date.

In fact you don't actually know if you have anything mutual to discuss.

You don't even get the chance to have a proper look at your date...

I know that sounds a bit weird, but think about it... when you are out in a group you can give them the proper once over while they are in conversation with someone else. You can even make licking motions to make your friends laugh if you think your date is lovely.

When someone is sitting in front of you though, and it is just you two, you can't properly look at them. It just comes across as staring. Then they think you are weird.

Instead, in online dating dates, you have to look at them without looking at them. All the while trying to fill that space that is meant for conversation. Silences do not work on internet-born dates. They are more than just awkward...they are excruciating.

So, feeling slightly unfeminine after taking on the role of the man, and being the chattier of the two of us, I decided to take the opportunity to be the girl and satisfy that weird fable that females talk a lot...

So, I talked. Ohmigod, I talked. I talked for Britain. No subject was out of bounds.

'Could somebody please get a gag for the girl with the builder's haircut. She won't shut up.'

I talked so much I tired myself out.

I got respite thankfully, (or maybe he did?) when Mr Third Base went to the toilet. I took the chance to check my phone. There was a text from my flatmate. Well?

I was still replying when Mr Third Base came back from the toilet. I apologised for being on my phone. He said it was ok and he'd take the opportunity to check his phone.

Oh, he had a text too.

Ohmigod please don't let it be from my flatmate.

Yes, my flatmate had insisted I leave Mr Third Base's number for him. Although I'd made him swear only to use it if he thought I'd been murdered, I knew his promises were empty.

I mean this is the guy that walked into the living room, saw me sitting with a male friend and despite not knowing who he was, or his relationship to me, asked if he was one of my internet dates.

Subtle is not a word I'd use to describe my flatmate.

Please don't let him have texted my date.

Please!

Phew. The text wasn't from him.

Finished dinner. Had another drink. Had been all very pleasant. What a nice guy. I was ready to go home though. It was a school night after all.

'What time is your train?' I asked.

'Not for another hour.'

Damn.

Get through the next hour. Walk him to the train station (well may as well keep to the theme of the date, with me taking on the role of the man...) and bade each other farewell.

Get home. Tired and drained from talking so much.

Flatmate wants all the gossip.

I didn't really have any.

Wants all the details.

I didn't really have any.

Asks me what my date was wearing (I don't think in a weird, 'what was he wearing?' leery, way, just in a curious, way. I hope anyway....)

I had no idea.

I realised he can't have made that much of an impression if I didn't even remember what he had on.

Also realised I'd just spent a very long evening with a stranger. And apart from not being very memorable, the only thing I had to show for it, was a lighter purse.

Decided there and then to invent a new dating rule...

1/ Always, always, always go on a pre-date first - It won't tire you out as much, and at least the most you will lose is the time it takes to have a cup of coffee.

166 Note to Self...

Must not brush my teeth in my bedroom again. Not using my electric toothbrush anyway. Could give flatmate wrong impression.

15 Toenail Tribulations

It is week 4 of living with a stranger whose surname I still can't remember.

It's quite a bizarre experience meeting someone briefly and then deciding you are going to share lives for the next few months. I picked a good one this time though. Well he seems it so far anyway. What I actually mean is that as yet he hasn't left his toenail clippings out for me like the last one did.

No, I'm not joking. Let me set the scene for you. It was a Friday night and former flatmate was away for the weekend and I was absolutely delighted about having the place to myself. I delightedly poured myself a glass of wine and delightedly sat down to watch TV. I should also tell you that my flat is P.O.S.H. So posh you actually get in trouble if other people in the building hear you calling it a flat. It's an apartment don't you know, dahling. It has floor to ceiling windows and at night when you are looking out to a sea of lights you can actually convince yourself you are in Manhattan rather than Manchester. It is also very minimalist - the kind of place that looks untidy when you leave your copy of the Sun lying around. So not the kind of place to leave anything lying around. Especially not things you have cut off from your body. But my flatmate obviously didn't agree because as I delightedly put down my glass of wine on the coffee table there were his toenail clippings.

I've still not got over it. Not sure I ever will. The concierges in my building thought it was absolutely hilarious when I told them. They were giggling like school girls when a few days later they buzzed me on my intercom to tell me that they worked for Toenail Watch and were giving me a one minute toenail warning that toenail guy was in the lift and on his way up to the apartment.

I'm glad someone found it funny.