Chapter 4
Surprisingly for me, I actually got round to the online dating fairly quickly. I’ve never been the proactive sort; usually I think about something for a few weeks before finally doing it but the online dating lark wasn’t difficult really; a single Google search produced a list longer than the Thames so I deemed it prudent to investigate three or four of them before choosing the cheapest. I decided to keep my venture into the World Wide Web quiet, mainly because there’s an historic stigma attached to cruising the net for women and I feared the pitying look of failure on people’s faces when the words ‘online’ and ‘dating’ were mentioned in the same sentence.
My first date was arranged via the optimistically named www.getmehitched.com which, unlike other dating websites, chose not to show pictures of the victims, instead using an extremely complex and totally untrustworthy scoring system which rated how compatible you were through your likes, dislikes, hopes for the future and where your last name sat in the alphabet. Apparently my first victim, Victoria, and I scored an 88% match so things looked pretty promising for a future hitching although, I have to say, the selection process didn’t fill me with too much confidence. I had a mental image of the website founder randomly selecting the names of couples out of a bag, trying to force clients together because she still believed in fate but who was I to argue, the website was virtually free so what it lacked in a business model it made up in cost.
In fact I wasn’t entirely sure how www.getmehitched.com made money to be honest. It seemed the only way they acquired any was by taking commission on the announcement of a marriage. So, on top of the average £25,000 wedding, you were also meant to volunteer the information to www.getmehitched.com and hand over £125 as a reward. It was a trustworthy entrepreneur who used such a pricing structure but I was determined to at least think about paying them if I got a wife from their efforts.
If truth be told, I didn’t expect anything from that first night. I was hardly going to hit jackpot on day one but I did take a bath just in case. Even I knew it was gentlemanly to have a good soak of your nether-crackers before a date. No woman wants to meet a guy for the first time with barely washed dangly bits do they so I headed off to some place called The Cock at Wishore looking like an old prune.
Victoria had chosen the pub, a few miles out of town, which I’d never been to but childishly chuckled at the name all the same. I wasn’t overly keen on eating on our first date, partly because I’d feel self-conscious as hell wolfing down a meal whilst staring into a strangers eyes and partly because I’d had a slight fear of pub grub ever since my first visit to one nearly nine years before when my chicken pasta had been whimsically warmed by a microwave and placed in front of me by an outrageously buxom barmaid before she walked off all sexual and provocative, leaving me to lift the table with my groin. It wasn’t the only thing she left me with though, as I duly found out that the so called chicken pasta also had a healthy slathering of salmonella in it, resulting in two days spent on the toilet seat with a bucket in my hands.
Strangely enough, a pub was the first place I nervously touched a girl’s flower…or whatever it’s called these days. God knows what her name was, the girl that is, I never do remember trivial details but I do recall she was a red head who barely uttered a word until thrusting me up against a badly lit wall, all demanding and scarily aggressive before I tried to stick my tongue in her nostrils, clueless and frightened, wondering whether or not she was a schizophrenic.
My attempts at passionate kissing didn’t impress her much but instead of calling it quits she tried to move things along by getting her claws into my kegs. Merely brushing her left breast nearly made me burst so if she managed to touch little Terence she’d have been in for a surprise which is why I fastened my belt so tight it nearly cut off the circulation to my legs. I wasn’t looking forward to being ridiculed as Two-Second-Tel so I kept pushing her hand away, pretending I wanted our liaison to be all about her pleasure and not mine but that was difficult considering very few women find their nostrils being tickled a turn on. After a short while she kind of got fed up and stormed off but I later found her up against the same wall with another boy from my school who wasn’t at all as shy as me and so I got the unedited live version of what I missed out on.
Fortunately there would be none of that with Victoria but it went without saying that she was late. Apparently, there’s this rule invented by women with too much time on their hands, that they should be late to the first date and then again to their wedding. Still, it wouldn’t have been such an issue if that had been the only thing which pissed me off about her but, sadly, it wasn’t.
There was nothing wrong with her physically, she wasn’t half bad looking but her face kind of annoyed me from the moment I laid eyes on it. You could tell she thought a lot of herself even though she had a massive jaw and a fair bit of timber on her. Even before she spoke, I knew she would be an uppity bitch because she walked up to the table straight backed and stern with her arm out at a ninety degree angle and a handbag dangling from the elbow joint. She also had these sunglasses on which were about as wide as the wing span of an eagle. I’m not one to judge but most women who dangle a handbag from their elbow joint and wear sunglasses indoors aren’t to be trusted. When she did speak it was like we were long lost pals.
“Torrance, how are you? Lovely to see you, it really is,” she proclaimed in high pitched succinct tones, clearly wanting the whole pub to notice her before she air kissed both of my cheeks. There was no apology for being late, she just sat her wide ass down on the chair and ushered the waiter over even though the pub didn’t have table service. I was pretty sure she got my name wrong as well but wasn’t entirely certain so chose not to challenge her on it just in case I ended up looking foolish.
“Nice to meet you Victoria?” I replied, a little bewildered by her and flummoxed by how www.getmehitched.com had managed to calculate an 88% match between us.
“Oh, I’m just divine, just divine. I’ve not long been back from Prague,” she said, accentuating the A, “wonderful little city. A touch run down on the outskirts but the market square in the centre is to die for; it really is quite humbling watching the little Croatian people making their way in the world.”
I nervously chuckled, acknowledging what I thought was an attempt at humour but her smile slightly faded when I did so, her eyes becoming quizzical, wondering what I had found so amusing. I figured there and then that she wasn’t too bright, just severely condescending.
Victoria was extremely preoccupied with her own life; if she wasn’t talking about herself then she was working to bring the conversation back to talking about herself or, at one point, even texting someone, no doubt about herself, whilst I was telling her about my late grandfather and how he had fought in the war and all that. If it had been her grandfather who was a war hero I bet she would have brought his war medals to the date but because it was mine she didn’t give a rat’s ass. And I couldn’t get my breath when she ordered a plate of salad, telling me that she was on this ‘kick ass’ diet where she basically ate her body weight in lettuce but burnt off more calories from chewing than she did consuming it, clearly not taking into account the bottle of red wine she had in front of her.
However, the worst part was when I got visibly annoyed with her insistence on using the phone at the table so politely asked who she was texting, only to be told that she wasn’t actually texting merely Facebooking her old man. I mean, text your Dad, call him, email if you have to; for Christ sake send a carrier pigeon but don’t Facebook your old man I told her and especially not during a date. Well at least that’s what I thought about telling her but I don’t speak my mind with my friends so I wasn’t about to start with a complete stranger.
What with her groaning on about how great she was and writing on Daddy’s wall I had a sudden urge to commit murder. Of course I would never do it, I’m a yella belly after all and scared of what might become of me in prison but
the harrowing thought crossed my mind as she consumed that first mouthful of mayonnaise soaked lettuce whilst chuckling away at her old man’s posts.
How we were supposedly compatible was beyond me. We had literally nothing in common so my vision of a lonely spinster randomly picking names from a hat didn’t seem to be too far from the truth, especially when, on Victoria’s second mouthful, a small peppercorn lodged itself between her teeth and she unashamedly fished it out with her knife. I contemplated a sharp exit, blaming the pub food maybe. After all, I did have previous history, which she would have known had she taken five minutes to actually listen to me but before I could make my move Victoria ceremoniously recognised someone she knew and the opportunity was lost.
I despise it when women see people they know, it’s always such a big drama, like their world is finally complete. The noise is like a braking freight train coming towards you. Blokes will generally shake hands and quietly enquire to their fellow man’s well-being, that is if a mere nod has not sufficed but women; gee whizz; it’s like a murder scene, screaming and shouting, gesticulating all over the damn place with their arms. You would have thought this Ems character was royalty the way Victoria basically threw the table across the room to get to her.
“Ems, Ems, over here darling. OMG, how are you honey?” She squealed, air kissing the living daylights out of her.
“Hey Vics how are you?” Ems replied air kissing her back, like she was afraid to catch something, before glancing at me. “Who’s this then Vics?” she asked, acknowledging me but unwilling to engage in direct conversation. She perused me like you would an oyster, somewhat interested but unsure what to make of it.
“Oh this is Torrance,” Victoria said wafting a hand in my direction. “We met online. It’s sort of a blind date, all very exciting Ems.”
I rose to shake her hand and give her my real name in the process but Ems barely gave me the time of day and instead fished around in her handbag before pulling out this god awful bright red lipstick.
“Oooohhh, Internet dating,” Ems replied unenthusiastically, beginning to apply the lipstick. “Never done it myself but I hear it’s amazing.”
“Oh it is Ems, it is. I haven’t done it for long but I’m hoping I find Mr Right if I keep at it,” Victoria announced, blatantly unimpressed by our date but choosing to share it with everyone instead of having a quiet word in my ear at the end of the night. On seeing Ems eyebrows rise Victoria suddenly realised what she had said but instead of feeling shame, merely turned to me and declared,
“Oh sorry Torrance but…you know what I mean.”
I did know what she meant; I just didn’t want it pointed out to me in front of a pub full of people.
It might have been easier if I had the sanctuary of my meal to bury my head into but my carbonara wouldn’t have fed a small frog so I’d wolfed it down in all of three mouthfuls. Gastro chefs deem tiny portions a sign of fine dining, I just deemed it stingy and as a consequence I had to sit there with nothing to do for five minutes whilst they continued their conversation, oblivious to the unwanted date next to them, until Victoria eventually declared she was being rude and had better get back to Torrance.
“Sorry Torrance, that was rude of me, I just haven’t seen Ems in so long and she’s such a good friend…I shouldn’t really tell you this but you’ll keep it to yourself right?” she asked without waiting for an answer. “Well, she was engaged to be married not long ago but Edward, her fiancé, broke it off with her because she wasn’t very good in bed. Can you believe it? She must have been mortified the poor girl. Still, if you’re going to get married, you have to be able to satisfy your man don’t you, I mean there’s no point in getting married and then lying there like a sack of spuds for the rest of your life else he will just trot off to some other bimbo. You know what I mean Torrance?”
“It’s Terence by the way.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s Terence, my name.”
“I know, that’s what I said,” she lied, screwing her face up in the process.
“Oh right, I thought…never mind.” There was no point in arguing with her.
“Anyway Terence,” she sarcastically replied, “I’ve had a marvellous time. I’m just going to the toilet so I’ll let you settle up here,” she ordered before trotting off to powder her already cement covered face or whatever it is that women do in toilets these days. Of course, I was left to pay the bill.
Fair enough, before the night had started I had planned on doing the gentlemanly thing and pay but as it became increasingly clear the date was a complete waste of time, I figured I could at least get away with making her fork out for her own meal, considering I would never see her again and all. Victoria had other ideas though, that tight wad never even contemplated putting her hand in her pocket for the shambles of a date so, being the schmuck that I was, I emptied mine of £54.35 plus tip for my spoonful of pasta, three slithers of lettuce leaves and a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, chosen by Victoria because she ‘absolutely adored Chilean wine’.
When she sauntered back to the table it looked like a quarry load of clay had been applied to her cheeks but I could tell she thought she looked like a million dollars by the way her chin was held high and her lips turned up at the corners forming a condescending smile.
“Oh, you’re such a gentleman, thank you so much for paying. There aren’t enough gentlemen left in this world.”
“It was my pleasure,” I slowly replied, lying through my teeth, “I’ll walk you outside shall I to get a taxi?”
“There’s no need for that. You get yourself a taxi and I’ll come and say goodbye. I think I might just pop over and see Ems one last time,” she nonchalantly informed me, clearly fobbing me off so she could spend the rest of the night with Ems before bitching about her behind her back.
I’m not confrontational by any means so I didn’t even bother to point out the rudeness of her actions, instead I took out my mobile phone and ordered a taxi to arrive as soon as possible, eager to get the hell out and return to my bed where I could torture myself over how Victoria wasn’t a patch on Jess and how www.getmehitched.com was an energy and morale sapping experience.
She was, however, kind enough to come outside and wait with me for my taxi although it was a warm night and she fancied a cigarette so it wasn’t a great hardship for her by any means. Usually it’s the man who places the woman into the taxi so I was slightly embarrassed by the role reversal but appreciated the gesture all the same. It’s probably why I agreed to her request.
“So….” She said, looking up at the sky, “shall we have a little kissypoo to finish the night off?”
Now, I know I found her severely annoying and not at all attractive, except for maybe her ample chest, but she didn’t have three heads and had waited with me for my taxi and, most important of all, I am a man. Most the time we have to take what we can get so when I half nodded, almost trying to convince myself, she pounced on me, lips clashing against mine like two cars in a head on collision.
I’ve never considered myself the best kisser in the world but even I had learnt from past mistakes that when using a bit of tongue it’s supposed to go in the mouth but Victoria went at me like I was a Cornetto, working her way around the edges, occasionally taking a dip into the middle as a treat. When she pulled away with a gasp of satisfaction, I had half the quarry on my face. There was an awkward few seconds where I had to wipe the clay and saliva mix off with my sleeve whilst she stood there with this stupid grin on her chops.
“That was a delight Torrance. Well, you know how to contact me,” she suggestively said, giving me a wink before placing her handbag on her elbow and rushing back inside the pub.