Smile like you mean it.

… go on. Do it with your mouth.

Is it possible to have a dreadful first date and get exactly what you want anyway? Yes, gentle reader, last night I had a date with ‘A’. Arranged online a while ago, I decided to go despite all that has occurred in recent times. I met him in Town as arranged and he arrived (a fashionable 10 minutes late) just as it began to snow.

So we walk down the road, him taking the lead because I suggested we could go somewhere he knows, the snow falling and small talk being had. It could have been a bit more romantic if I hadn’t been ridiculously under-dressed, thus freezing, and thinking “oh crap; snow. The hair! The hair!!” (this is the point where anyone who knows me falls about laughing).

We eventually find a pub and he sits us down right next to the toilets – nice! – before we proceed to chat about this and that and slowly, slowly, discover we pretty much hold opposite views about every little thing and that we don’t really get on.

The irony is that for all of this I found myself having a pretty good time. Here he was, someone I was not ‘clicking’ with on any level, and with whom I was under no circumstances going to sleep. Yet for all the dour cynicism of the Scotsman named ‘A’, for all his inability to have a nice word to say anything, and for all his inability to keep his eyes off the other guys in the bar (oh, and for all I was thinking “26? Are you sure?”) I did enjoy myself.

Why?

Because this was exactly what I needed. I want to date, and I had me a date. A couple of hours, a couple of drinks, a chat, a realisation that it wasn’t going anywhere, and us parting on good terms - me to go home, him to get chips apparently (you can take the boy out of Glasgow…). Yet strangely exceedingly pleasant!!

And for the next time, I’m going to the gym more, buying new, better clothes and being a bit more circumspect about picking up men online. Yep, going to do at least two of those things...