Post haste, date o' clock

In exactly an hour and a half I will be leaving this joint to go and eat cheese.  And I will eat cheese to my little hearts content. It is both my favourite thing in the entire world and also my arch nemesis. For today friends I am giving the finger to my healthy eating and gym bunniness. Tomorrow morning however, at approximately 8am, I will let the gorgeous gym instructress have her way with me and get my ever expanding arse into gear.

Enough about cheese, time for the wonderful world of dating. Sometimes singledom gets you down, so you grab the proverbial bull by its proverbial horns, and say ‘hey ho, throw me on that bandwagon’ and here is what happened. It was a sad, sad day when my housemate dragged me speed dating and being weakened by single status I woefully agreed. Off we trod to trendy Shoreditch for an evening of table football, 3 minute conversations, strangers, even stranger hosts and possibly a cocktail or 4. Sceptical was not the word. Cynical was. However my thoughts of trendy sorts in ankle-swinging trousers and 40s war time comb-overs were laid to rest. I met a grand total of 19 men, 16 of which I didn’t hate and 6 of which I thought held potential and I gave the tick of approval. I left feeling strangely positive about the weird old world of dating, little did I know the anxiety and embarrassment that would haunt me in the days to come.

Not 24 hours later and there sat I, at work, in a casual meeting in the downstairs lobby, of what I think would be fair to call, our extensive offices. Who should walk past? None other than Thor.  Not the Thunder God, but someone who had the night before masqueraded under this very pseudonym at speed dating. Oh the shame, admitting to colleagues that the reason you are now chuckling strangely and near silently to yourself is that Thor has just entered the building…

A few nights later housemate and I sat with our laptops, well, in our laps (obviously). I watched as not one, but two, TWO, emails arrived in his inbox, ‘congratulations you have a match!’ the emails proclaimed. I then watched in agonised silence as the event organiser went offline. I sat and stared for a few moments longer at my empty inbox, remembering the immortal words of Peter Kay: “You have no messages. Not even from your mum.” Days passed with only one further email from those bastards, inviting me to sign up for a televised dating show. Inviting me to endure this humiliation in a more public, but I expect, somewhat less speedy domain. No fucking thank you.

 I have since tried real dating. Without speed. Simple, boy meets girl kind of stuff. Well French boy meets girl. Let’s just say it’s a minefield. It’s a brutal and dangerous, anxiety filled minefield, and it’s a long story, which I will tell you another day. I will say this though – cheese will never let you down. Never.