Searching for Something...

I’m pretty sure I won’t find the love of my life at 4AM in the Dolphin.  And yet there he was; an incarnation, a very close imitation of my perfect man.  Granted, he hated the Sopranos and insinuated that every Smiths song sounded like a cover of their one original, shit song, but hey, nobody’s perfect, right?  He was tall and funny and greying and mutha frickin’ Irish.

It was less sex, drugs and rock and roll, more dry-humping, cider and Easy Listening but chemistry should NOT be underrated.  He had a superheroes name and a lilt like drunken poetry. 

I can’t decide if this is me clinging to freedom, (like that bird in Cliffhanger); partying like a bastard and seeing in each dawn with a bunch of tinned-up hobos, or me searching for a future like a pale, squidgy lighthouse, fog beams bleeping in the night.

THE TRUTH WILL NOT SET YOU FREE.

And even more disgusting than waking with a Dolphin stamp (and a blotted wrist bone) is having an internet dating profile.  It’s skank.  But because ovaries have a shorter shelf life than a Bombay Badboy Pot Noodle, I am begrudgingly trying to steer my life towards the ‘norm’.  I have about three years before I have to start popping ‘em out and I’m starting as slowly as possible.  I am not one for marriage, (spend that twelve grand bobbing around the Phillipines on a moped please) but I do eventually want mini successors and an excuse to go to Butlins every summer, (I’m not stupid).  So I begrudgingly went on a date. 

The Monday Date:

Lolly, say hello to the nice, boring, fresh out of River Island, accountant:

“Dude, you lost me at darts enthusiast”.  

I quaffed wine and swore like my naval Grandad in the second world war.  Turns out, a beard does not equate to alpha-ism and northerness does not ensure comedy gold.  I talked myself out of a fourth Pinot, boarding the 55 back to Breaking Bad and a mice ridden attic.  Living the goddamn dream.

In the ‘About Me’ section of my online *profile (*urghhh, spew), I put:

‘Answers to Dickhead.  Likes vodka’

…before changing it to something wanky.  If only I was as honest as this guy:

In the ‘What Am I Looking For’ section, I wrote:

‘40+ Comedian required, funny but broken.   Happy to wear a baby harness whilst buying me expensive flowers in Columbia Road.  Saturday Guardian reader.  Willing to be fixed with romps, folk lore and Chianti.  A love of Fleetwood Mac essential’. 

I know shacking up with a beast is the only way to own sash windows and a fire escape that catches the sun, but I begrudge it.  I hate how being a woman puts you on a timescale.  And I don’t want to pay £30 a month to ‘like’ gingers and bum myself with listed attributes.  (The truth is I am far, far from perfect: my face from the right is flatter than a pre Columbus world and my freckles are blending into a kind of orangey facial canvas).  But more than anything, I just want steamy affairs at the change of every season (whether they take place in Florence or in a bedsit that practices pest control).  And freedom.  I want to keep my E1 freedom please. 

Besides, kissing an Irish man (who will never dial your number), as the Groupon vouchers roll in at midnight and the beats lodge inside your loins, is surprisingly good fun.  And if I could do this for another decade without becoming a crazy barren cat woman, I probably, bloody would.