Out of the Blue

Out of the blue I received a text message from my Match.com friend asking whether I’d like to meet up. Considering I wasn’t sure just what the heck was happening between us, not only was this quite a pleasant surprise, but it was the first time that she had taken the lead and asked me. Naturally, I agreed and we arranged a time and somewhere to meet for a bite to eat.

And it all appeared to go quite well. She was her usual chatty and attractive self and it wasn’t long before our time together was over . Naturally, with me being the gentleman, I paid the bill. However, interestingly enough, she offered to pay “next time”. So, a quick peck on the cheek later, we went our separate ways – after receiving instructions to send her a text message when I got home (and receiving a nice message back in the process).

So, the question is – is this blossoming into just a friendship or something else? Never the less, one thing is for sure – I’ve decided to give up trying to work out what goes on in a woman’s mind. It’s just too complicated!

Cappuccino and Convulsions

There’s nothing I like more than spending a Sunday morning in my local branch of Costa coffee, enjoying a nice hot Cappuccino and browsing through the Sunday newspapers. After a hectic hour or so down the gym it’s the perfect way to unwind (and pile back on the pounds with a chocolate muffin!).

However, for some odd reason, today was rather busy and the shop supplied newspapers were scattered over the place, with only the useless Sunday supplements left in the paper rack. So, I had no choice in the matter – it was either reading the Sunday Times property supplement, the Mail on Sunday “Live” supplement or stare blankly into my coffee or out of the window. Given the amount of happy couples frequenting the establishment, I played safe and opted for both supplements.

So after looking through the property supplement – which handily listed lots of compact, i.e. read “tiny”, one bedroom apartments in London for a quarter of a million pounds (extremely useful for all of those home hunters in Manchester) I finally moved on to the “Live” magazine. It was at this point that I ended up choking on my cappuccino.

You see, there was a page that contained some one-eighth scale models of cars, including such beauties as a Ferrari F430 and Porsche 356 Speedster. Ordinarily, it’s not much to make you choke – unless you’re a bit of a petrol head and someone who worships Jeremy Clarkson as a god - but after spraying coffee everywhere the Heimlich manoeuvre was urgently required after I spotted the price of said models. These things cost well over £1000 pounds – with the Ferrari model costing a whopping £2,750 pounds from Amalgam. You could buy a real car (albeit not a Ferrari, perhaps a Fiat Punto) for that sort of money!

Still, you do get a lot for your money. For example, for the Ferrari, the actual design team supplied the exact specifications so the model is accurate the smallest detail. You may also be glad to learn that you can also order a customised model tweaked to your own specifications. Perhaps you should opt for the model with the satellite navigation and climate control system.

Still, on the plus side, at least you'd have no trouble parking - although you'd have more worries in losing it. Also, I wonder whether it's congestion charge exempt?

Patience is a Virtue

Or is it a curse? I’m not really so sure these days.

With one date cancelled due to a bad cold, the rearranged date was also cancelled due to her still being a bit under the weather and not really up to it. Sure, we still have a regular natter on MSN and the phone – with her doing the contacting just as much as me – but I can’t help having this nagging feeling deep down within myself that I’m being taken for a ride on the friendship train, destination Dumpsville. I think I may even have a season ticket for that route.

I’m just finding it very difficult to read the situation, and I’m kind of worried that it will end in the usual scenario of “I’ve met someone” – after all, I’ve already been to that place once already with her.

Sorry, but I just can’t help feeling negative about it all, but I’d hope that from reading my blog you’d discover that I’m not your average shallow bloke who is only out looking for one thing. Well, I am, but probably not the thing you’re thinking of.

Perhaps it’s simply down to the far too many run arounds and excuses I’ve had with my previous Match.com experiences – after all, I’ve had them all - but I’m trying ever so hard not to give up and throw in the towel.

In Honour of the Sexes

Some of us blokes, well OK then – probably just me – are very grateful for the time and effort you ladies go to in order to make yourselves even more beautiful than you already are.

You may hog the bathroom for far too long, change your mind about what you’re going to wear at the last minute and, even worse than that, ask us what you think of your clothes and whether your bum looks too big, but we still love you all.

So in honour of your beauty let me reveal to you just how we men plan to satisfy:

Caress, praise, pamper, relish, savour, massage, fix things, empathise, serenade, compliment, support, feed, soothe, tantalise, humour, placate, stimulate, stroke, console, hug, ignore the fat bits (not that you have any), cuddle, excite, pacify, protect, phone, anticipate, smooch, nuzzle, forgive, accessorise, entertain, charm, carry for, oblige, fascinate, attend to, trust, defend, clothe, sanctify, acknowledge, spoil, embrace, die for, dream of, tease, gratify, squeeze, indulge, idolise, worship and, last but not least, wash up.

Conversely, how a woman can satisfy a man:

Arrive naked.

In The Hands of the Gods

I've got this strange feeling that I’m being toyed with by the Gods and, as with Jason and his hearty band of Argonauts, I’m on a chessboard being overlooked by Zeus and the rest of the Gods on mount Olympus in their attempts to thwart me at every possible move.

But, unlike Jason, I’m not sure if any of the Gods are on my side – even Aphrodite. Fortunately though, there doesn’t appear to be an army of skeletons that needs defeating – although if you give some of the old blokes down my local pub a sword and a shield then I might be in a spot of trouble.

But, call it fate, fortune or just straight good old fashioned luck, my Match.com friend who opted for another was recently stood up by said "other" for no apparent reason. No calls, e-mails or letters. Nothing. Naturally, she was a little upset by this, but after much chatting on the phone and MSN (and managing to hopefully overcome her distance concerns) we arranged to meet up again somewhere near – if only to prove that I could, and would, be able to manage to see to see her.

However, my plans were thwarted yet again – but this time not by another man – but a humble, but equally scheming, microbe. Yeap, when I spoke to her yesterday to confirm what we were doing she was coughing, sniffing and sneezing down the phone and sounding positively rotten. As a result, the meeting is off and she’s taken to her bed. I guess she’s not ready for the sympathetic brow dabbing yet.

So, my fate is yet again placed in the hands of the Gods and if I can only hold her hand or kiss her lips by fighting off an army of skeletons or beheading a Minotaur then so be it. Bring it on...

When is a Kiss not a Kiss?

There’s one thing that truly puzzles me about communicating via e-mail with a woman – and that is that it nearly always finishes with kisses of some sorts.

It doesn’t even have to be from any one you really know or even met as – in my case at least – some female business contacts I deal with finish their messages with a friendly “Thanks xxx” or just a “x”. Blokes certainly don’t do this – well, not the sort of blokes I know!

So after being told by my Match.com friend that she had “met someone” (as usual blog fans, I romp home in yet another race somewhere near the back of the pack) her e-mails and messages mysteriously stopped finishing with an “x” or three. Although her friendly messages continued (albeit no longer via SMS) there was a distinct lack of them.

But after deciding to dust myself down and fight for her, and in the process rolling out the welcome wagon in an attempt to win hearts and minds, they are back again and I’ve no idea how to react to them. Is she, like apparently half the women out there in e-mail land, just being friendly and polite, or is there something else meant from it?

I mean, should I respond in kind – is she expecting me to - or is it just something we blokes should never consider doing? I’ve not done it in the past – perhaps that’s where I’ve being going wrong - so should I start doing so now?