two lessons from the weekend

A 'dinky' is what Australian people call a seaty, I learnt this from the sexy Australian lady who'd asked me for one whilst I locked my bike up outside the pub on Saturday night. I also learnt, after a 50 yard dash up the road, that she had a lovely 'sorry I've got a boyfriend' face.

Another pointer. If you turn up at 12.30 on a Saturday night, the lady behind the counter at Rowans Bowling in Finsbury Park will only let you squeeze two games in before closing time if you plead with her for 5 minutes. She's quite sexy though so I don't really mind. Conversely to the bubbly Australian lady, though, she has a very stern 'sorry I've got a boyfriend' face.

welcome to the jungle, we've got fun and games

A facebook invite to a friend's 'Pre Valentines Singles Mixer' where women outnumbered men four to one seemed like exactly the sort of party to end my current dryspell.

I wore my cowboy boots, my best (only) aftershave and packed my charm. My cowboy boots and aftershave made it to the party. I left my charm in the pub where a quick drink with some old uni friends turned in to six.

Things looked up though when I spotted someone I'd 'favourited' on Soulmates months ago (I should explain, 'favouriting' someone is the equivalent of whispering to Soulmates "I well fancy her" and Soulmates walking across the disco/playground and relaying the message).

Things looked down when her first impression of me was catching my sneaky removal of the Heinekens I'd foolishly set down on the communal booze table upon arrival. Challenging what she (correctly) perceived to be my selfishness, I was caught like a rabbit in the headlights. Had I been thinking on my feet I could have explained how I was taking them outside to keep them cold. Instead I cast a snobbish look over all the Carling and Carlsberg on the table and said, in my most pickish voice 'Urr, I prefer these'.

Maybe it was that or maybe it was my constant, laboured Soulmates jokes, but after ten minutes chatting she had "to go over there for a little while".

I should have just remembered that she hadn't whispered "I well fancy him too" all those months ago on Soulmates.

dating email master class

Guardian Soulmates, very kindly, granted me a free week to send emails and I thought it silly to squander the opportunity. I have been told by reliable sources (through gritted teeth), that instead of cringing - as they expected - at my profile, they were pleasantly surprised and I actually come across very well with my self promotion.

With this in mind, I thought my emails should demonstrate my full comprehension and appreciation of my potential soulmates' profiles and should do so with as much wit as possible. My 'About Me' - surely - would do the rest.

I don't want anyone thinking I just ream through profiles picking the prettiest women....

Anyway, here is a selection of the emails...

A 'my friend wrote this for me' profile, revealing a habit for watching documentaries

Hi,
You look beautiful, your friend says you're alright and I love watching documentaries. Would you like to go for a drink?
Ben
x

Rushed at work? Writing to a writer?

Hello,
I like your words and pictures, I'm at work at the moment though and don't have time to write words that'll make you think 'hmmm, meeting him would probably make my life better'.
I'm fairly confident I could though, even to the critical eyes of a writer...
Ben
x

Rushed at work, but fairly happy with the last email?

Hello,
I like your words and pictures, I'm at work at the moment though and don't have time to write words that'll make you think 'hmmm, meeting him would probably make my life better'.
I'm fairly confident I could though...
Ben
x
Urm, this could well backfire, but as demonstration of my honesty and good character I'm going to admit that I cut and pasted this from an email I just sent to someone else - obviously not this bit, urm, anyway would you like to go on a date and argue/agree about things?
x

Like the sound/look of her but afraid she'll bore you with the 'once in Cambodia' anecdotes that her admission to 'catching the travel bug' promises?

Hi,
Do you actually bake cakes or is a just a convenient rhyme?
It's a big ask, but can you look beyond the fact that it's nearly one in the morning and I'm on a dating website? You can? Brilliant, you'll be glad you did... I quite like cakes so I'd be willing to put up with some traveling stories
Urm, I liked your words and pictures, hopefully mine are not too far from your tastes...

I suppose this is the equivalent of the 'I like you, do you like me?' notes I passed in class as a 5 year old, so you can either tick the box or go and giggle with your friends
x

She specifically asked for someone capable of beard growth, who could sing. Also, she works for a cosmetics company.

Hi,
I'm pretty good at cultivating facial hair, I'm only at grade 2 though, as I can't seem to join my moustache to my beard - it's a work in progress. I can't sing either, actually, that's a lie, I can sing, but not in a way that people or animals could possibly appreciate.
The skincare company you work for, they don't happen to have one of those Victorian miracle hair tonics on their books do they? I'd love to get this moustache/beard problem solved...
x

In one of her pictures she seemed oblivious to the bunny ears her friend was doing to her.

I don't know if anyone's mentioned it, but one of your friends is doing bunny ears on you in that Euston tube photo...Sorry if I'm the one to break it to you
x

I don't really expect to teach anybody anything with these actually. 'Email master class' was more for the catchy title, you should probably treat this more as a hazard avoidance course.

I'll let you know if I get any replies though.

stay cool ben, ben stay cool...

Easyyyyyyyy, Ben, easyyyyyyy...Don't look now but there's a sexy lady across the street and she's looking at you... Walk cool, just relax... ... That's it, you're doing fine, now! Look over, smile. Well done so far, relax relax, don't worry, you're looking good, you've got a fucking awesome jacket/scarf combo on and that side parting's looking pretttttty sweet. Yeah, she's still looking, nicely done ben, she's smiling too... Oooh? what's this coming up? a bus shelter advert for a strip club? Just play it cool Ben, ignore it... No, shit, scratch that, don't ignore it, she'll think you're gay, you're a hot blooded, heterosexual male, of course you're going to look at a poster of tits if it's in front of you. Go on, quick look then and an ironic roll of the eyes... Thattttt's it... not too long, don't stare, smoothly smoo...

WHAT THE FUCK!? WHAT. THE. FUCK. BEN, WHERE IN THIS GODDAMN PLAN DID IT SAY TRIP OVER THE FUCKING PAVING SLAB? YOU FUCKING DOUCHEBAG!!!!...

It's alright, it's ok... urm, see if you can muster a laugh, a sense of humour goes a long way... Woahhhh, calm it psycho, not that laugh...Right, now do an exaggerated comedy patting yourself down, just checking everything's still there - she'll love it. Good recovery Ben, sorry I was so harsh back there... That's it, wallet, keys, phone - knowing smile and......

NOOOOOOOOO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO... NO FUCKING WAY, YOUR FUCKING FLY IS OPEN. BEN, YOU LEFT THE HOUSE TODAY WITH YOUR FLY OPEN.

You stood at the bus stop for ten minutes with a 'Yeah, I AM looking pretty cool today aren't I' look on your face - with your fly open and then you tripped over a paving slab trying to look at a poster of a naked lady...

Just great Ben, just great...

no beer and no sex make ben go something something...

Remaining true to a drunken New Year's Eve pact, January's been a dry month for me. Despite Nick's ill conceived efforts to literally force feed me beer, I've managed to avoid drinking any alcohol. Although it wasn't the genesis of the idea (I still have no idea what it actually was, possibly something to do with health), I had hoped that sobriety would improve my standing with women. I suppose the plan was that drunken leering would be replaced by intense, smoldering glances across the bar and slurring revisits of questions asked two hours earlier would become incisive, laser guided flirting. I have a rocky track record with plans though and should have known better than to be swept up in the euphoria of New Year hope. Rabbie Burns was half right, it's not just the best laid schemes of mice and men that come asunder, half-cocked, drunken proposals suffer a similar fate.

"Pussy" and "Vagina" are words that have cropped up a lot in conversations I've had with women in bars this January, preceded unfortunately by "Why are you being such a..." rather than "Gosh, you're interesting and handsome, would you like to see my..."

Nobody wants to talk to the sober guy in the bar. In fact, the sober guy doesn't want to talk to the drunk women in the bar anymore. The sober guy, not being talked to by anyone, has had too much time to think and has worked himself in to a crisis of conscience whereby talking to any woman, no matter how mildly drunk they are would be taking advantage.

I don't expect there'll be many posts this month.

And yes, being called a vagina by somebody with one is doubly emasculating...

tidy room, dirty mind...

The very first time I had a tidy room was back when I was 13. I had returned from a French exchange and was exhausted from the constant shagging/drinking/clubbing that had filled my two weeks in the suburbs of Rouen - standard fare a for a French exchange really, or at least the tales.

Anyway, I opened my bedroom door to find an immaculately tidy and carefully rearranged bedroom. "Ta daaa", I had been wondering why my entire family had been filling the corridor behind me, grinning insanely.

With an almighty effort I managed to keep the anxiety from my face as I wondered if my (very modest) collection of porn had been discovered. It wasn't helped by the tour I was being given of the aftermath of their cleaning frenzy. Short version, yes, it had been discovered and no, it hasn't ever been mentioned.

The next time I had a tidy room was a few days ago, my reasoning was that a tidy bedroom would increase my luck with women, every little helps - that and the naive promise by Nick to throw a party if I managed it. I lost eight and half days of my life, but I'm now the owner of a spotlessly tidy room - I even hoovered under my bed. My carpet is blue, in case you're wondering....

The grand opening ceremony was attended by Ed, Nick and Polly and a good time was had by all, the official public opening date is yet to be determined but invitations will be in the post soon.

A desperate measure for a desperate man? Maybe, but the time I'll save myself by not having to pre-emptively think up an excuse for the state of my room before every date, party, tube/bus ride, trip to the pub/supermarket/gym/park/cinema/work is incalculable...

**** ** *** * ****** ***

In the interest of haste I'll put it crudely -                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 /                         . In the interest of story telling, I'll follow with the longer, more eloquent version...

When throwing a party, my plans usually revolve around ending up with a woman in my bed. I can count on one hand though the number of times my parties have worked out this way, so the act of tidying my room is more a token ritual than pragmatic readying. In fact, so wasted are my efforts to achieving this end that I have officially given up on trying at parties, if fate's shining on me, sex will come looking for me. Funnily enough, this hasn't been the most successful of plans.

Tonight was different though, having managed to shoo a gang of cyber punk Australian gatecrashers from the psych-hell-techno party they were throwing in my room, I suddenly found myself lying on the bed with Emily in a drunken tangle of hands and hips.

Emily is an old friend and I should have known better, but that didn't matter, I was at a party in my own house, in my own bed, listening to my own music - I'd used some Elmore James to expedite the departure of the neon clad antipodeans. My thoughts were something along the lines of Brilliant!!!! i'm going to have sex at my own party and it's not even 1am yet! It wasn't as peep showesque as I'd have hoped, but my internal monologue was at the back of the queue for my attention.

Having both just gotten naked, Emily decided she needed to visit the little boys room. Fifteen minutes of solitude passed, with the occasional friend popping their head in the door. Presumably wondering why I was lying in my bed, in the dark, on my own during the middle of a party. I decided I should probably not be lying in my bed, in the dark, on my own during the middle of my own party and set out back to the dance action downstairs.

Waking up in the morning, I was indeed sharing my bed. Unfortunately for my loins, my brother's gender and familial proximity were an inescapable set of circumstances.

I assumed the sheepish look on Emily's face as she slid under my covers was embarrassment at her disappearing act of the previous night and, after the departure of my brother, we started where we'd left off.

The lingering hint of misadventure and the sobering light of day lent a fair amount of awkwardness to the whole enterprise, but it was Sunday morning and I was feeling pretty brilliant about the whole 'having sex' situation.

Hungover and hazy,                                                                                                .                                                                                                                                                  . I wish someone had been filming me, I'd love to see how well I disguised my expression as the penny dropped.

And that is the, full, unedited, story of how I managed to have sex at one of my own parties...

crash and burn in aisle three please

The last (and first) time I asked a girl out in a supermarket my jaw had literally hit the floor in astonishment at her beauty. I think Dream Weaver could even have been playing in my head. Anyway, there was a lot of pressure to get it right... I did, somehow, and ended up 9 months later with heartbreak tantamount to a personality disorder...

Thankfully though, the girl who I'd just heard giggling with her friend at overhearing mine, Edd and Nick's conversation about what pies to have was only very beautiful, so the heat was off...

By the time I'd tracked her down at the checkout our dinner plans had changed...

"Excuse me, we're not having pies any more we couldn't find any good ones, we're having bangers and mash instead - would you like to come round for dinner?"

They were buying party supplies, otherwise I'm sure she'd have jumped at the chance to spend her friday night with a weird stranger who counts sausages and mash as appropriate impromptu first date food...

blue sky dating

Having very delicately traversed the minefield of asking a customer out, I was hugely proud of myself for getting L£$%$%^ to agree, in principal, to a date. She was hot, had big sexy hair and most intriguingly, had a South African accent that I found attractive..

In her first email, she suggested 'Teeing something up for next week'... Hmmm, maybe she's being ironic, she does work for a big bank and is probably having a dig at the wanky office speak that, no doubt, harangues her eardrums all day... So, yeah, let's 'tee something up'...

Apologising that her work had kept her busy all week her next Email asked me to 'Touch base in the next few days'...

I'm not sure I'm going to be attending our 'Romance feasibility workshop' after all...

four handjobs and a hangover

It's widely reported that American girls like English accents - this is a myth... They fucking well LOVE English accents.....

I have been mobbed twice in my life, once in an attempted street beating in Thailand and once at a hugely prestigious Ivy League university in upstate New York. The latter was the most fun.

In an act of extraordinary kindness my cousin had not only decided to exclusively befriend super hot, funny women though out his university career, but to whip them up in to some kind of frenzy ahead of the Conway brothers' official state visit to Cornell.

I have never ever felt so in demand; if you happen to have a similarly dispositioned cousin and two handsome brothers to flank you, I highly recommend the trip.

After ticking off the cavalcade of various frat house cliches from my roadtrip checklist I retired to Hannah's room. I don't want to cheapen the experience so, if you will excuse my crudity, I'll direct you to the key on the side.

uni-poony, pooniveristy reunion, repooneyun... um, let's just call it sex with an old university friend who I met at a recent reunion

They're not big affairs, but every year my old university friends and I arrange a little reunion. Actually, I do none of the planning, despite my yearly drunken claims that I'll organise the shit out of the next one and hold them monthly.

Buoyed by the recent loss of my re-virginity, my confidence must have been at record levels, as I had no problem inviting Chloe to stay at mine. I'd like to tell myself that the fact she'd missed her last train home and my house's excellent transport links to Liverpool Street had nothing to do with it and to be honest I'm probably right. Confidence had topped my charm bank up to brimming, I could have probably charmed National Express to run a later train than usual - but that would defeat the whole point of being so goddamn charming. Did I mention I was full of post dryspell confidence and charm? No? Oh, then, let me explain - that night, I was a fucking charmer....

What's that Ben? You were so bloody charming you managed to do the old 'cycle home and meet them at the tube station entrance' trick and you STILL had sex?

Woah... That IS charming

Noooo way... You had another friend from the reunion staying on your sofa - and you still managed to pull it off?

You. Sly. Fox.....

Had your charm and confidence worn off by the morning and was it a little bit awkward in the morning trying to figure out the bustop etiquette of saying goodbye to two old friends, one of whom you've just had sex with and one whom you've not?

Yes, somewhat...

Full sex with a woman

My initial dates with H@&£*& had been full of firsts, I'd never dated an actress, I hadn't been to the aquarium, I hadn't even been on the London Eye, I certainly had never been jacked off in Regent's Park and even though it had nothing to do with her, I had never had a broken rib before.

Don't have sex for the first time in nearly a year if you have a broken rib, stifled wincing isn't the aphrodisiac you'd expect it to be. Clenching and unclenching an outstretched fist to quell pain only looks cool and macho if you've just returned from behind enemy lines rescuing POWs and the pain you're trying to quell is from army medics removing shrapnel without the aid of anesthetic.

Catching yourself doing it during sex is more than a little concerning and opens a Pandora's box of questions...

Has she noticed?
Do I apologise?
Do I need to stop doing this?
If my body's resorted to involuntary arm spasms as pain relief, what kind of facial expression must I have on?
Is it even working?
Why can't I just enjoy the fact that I'm having sex with a smokin' Cambridge graduate with an amazing body?
Did I just say "smokin"?
Oh Fuck, I've been on a 10 minute internal monologue, did I remember to turn on my sex autopilot?
Do I even have a sex autopilot?

I do enjoy sympathy, don't get me wrong, just not during sex.

Lock in at the Rose Garden

I have a funny relationship with food. I know full well that the slab of cow sat in front of me is dead, In fact it's been dead now for over a month, it's very proud of the fact it's hung itself for 28 delicious days and the menu has hardly been modest about the fact. I'm in no doubt as to my steak's terminal lack of animation, I suppose is the point I'm trying to make.

But being told every mealtime growing up, though, that my dinner wasn't going to run away and there was need to eat it with such gusto, seems to have tripped my reverse psychology alarm and manifested itself in an inability to eat at a civilised pace.

I am acutely aware that there are no hyenas in the vicinity likely to swipe my shepherds pie, yet I still manage to clear my plate before anyone's twigged I put English AND wholegrain mustard in the mashed potato....

This, you can imagine, is a trait about as welcome on a date as a rohypnol joke (another issue I've really got to address) and has been the genesis of all sorts of excuses as to why I couldn't make dates if I had a suspicion dinner was involved..

Anyway, as I'm a sandwich maker par excellence, I thought it a brilliant idea to go on a picnic date in a park, not only would my sandwich making impress, but picnics are always messy and my troublesome eating habits would go, relatively, unnoticed and slowly break my safari eating habits to H@&£*&.

So, Regents Park had begun emptying as twilight descended and my, frankly brilliant, sandwiches had disappeared, sans incident - we started kissing.

I don't really want to go in to details about what happens next, But when I'm asked if I've been wanked off in a rose garden after dark by a Meg Ryan/Goldie Hawn from the 70s lookalike, only to find we've been locked in and had to scramble around in the bushes to find a way out... I'm going to have to say yes...

And when they ask, did a slug climb in to your espadrille whilst you were fooling about and did that slug get squashed under your foot when you put your espadrille back on? I'm going to have to say yes again...

"God, you must have had a lot of wine...."

"No, just Perrier..."

Royal Fumble

Just like any other year, Happisburgh 2009 (a yearly party at Edd's beach house) had a theme. Wrestling, more specifically WWF - yes, panda costumed revelers did turn up. Irked, possibly, by the fact that 7 other people had had the same idea.

Planning our costumes around the inevitable rumble on the beach, Edd and I decided that black leggings were the way forward owing to their strong wrestling asthetic, stretch and, let's face it, the sexy snug feeling I was quietly developing a taste for.

In these respects they performed admirably. Crucially though, after half an hour of being against a wall by my crotch in a Taurine fuelled grinding frenzy, @£$% was in no doubt as to the intention of my loins, my leggings' ability to disguise boners had either deserted me or never even bothered to show up - probably off getting drunk somewhere with my dignity.

Being topless, my options for operation 'secret erection' were limited - my usual waistband tuck was out of the question. Being led, past everybody else, out of the dance tent/shed I was forced to wear an impromptu left hand cod piece and a sheepish grin.

Simultaneously realising that a 'secret' drunken fumble behind a friend's house is probably not the best way to conduct a long standing friendship, we decided that we should probably stop.

I did learn one valuable lesson though, leggings really take the chill off a 5am swim in the North Sea. Not enough to arrest the effects of cold on one's willy though and they, as previously discovered, will not make any attempt to hide the fact.

Soulmates signup

Mel was home when I returned home from my harrowing internet coffee date. Noticing my thousand yard stare, she began regailing me with tales of her friends' successes, and advised me to try out the online dating section of a well known newspaper that rhymes with smardian.

A, generous, five minutes later I was the proud owner of an HILARIOUS profile. As Mel had been the benevolent catylist of this exciting new development, I left my picture approval to her. I don't know what I'd done to offend her, but she seemed to have (unconsciously?) sabotaged my efforts by using only the wholly unflattering/zany offerings deemed tagworthy on facebook. The horrified look on Nick and Polly's face when I proudly showed them my profile on their return from work told me that something needed be done.

A photoshoot wasn't really what I had in mind, but a combination of dinner time goading, wine and bourbon sufficiently lubricated me and I was promptly surrounded by seemingly hyperactive housemates and more cameras than I thought we had in the house. I developed a whole new appreciation of the mediocrity of my looks, being a model would have left me in psychiatric care by now.

Urm, anyway, long story short, 300+ pictures and some mild psychological scarring later, I now have a profile on reputable dating site...

Let's see what happens...