This is part II of a three part Christmas feature about Rosana trying to combat loneliness and find romance just before the big holiday season hits. If you missed it and would like to, you can read part I here.
I take a few deep breaths to expel Tim and the general sense of speed-dating-anger from my system because there is no time to waste.
The next man has already taken a seat at my table. It is a Glaswegian man called Peter.
Peter is, objectively speaking, the most symmetrical-faced man at this night’s speed dating event. He’s one of those men who have the confidence to stare at you with a cheeky smile unaided by speech, taking his sweet time with the pastime act of goggling.
He stares at my face, and as he makes his way down, I’m convinced he’ll stop smirking when he gets to my flat chest, but to my surprise, my flat chest does not make him stop smirking. He’s a flat-chest man or, potentially, an any-chest man. Interesting.
For a moment, I consider if this makes me like him more or less.
I imagine him leaning against a pillow, looking at me.
‘I actually prefer them smaller.’
A smile spreads on my face, and I bite my lip to quelch it.
‘What’s funny?’ he asks.
‘Something’s funny?’ I ask back.
The smirk drains from his face.
‘Yeah, you were grinning.’
‘Was I? Oh, that’s odd.’
I swear I wasn’t, but maybe I was.
‘Yeah…it’s a bit odd.’,
He follows that up with, ‘Are you a little odd?’
He talks exactly how I imagine he would talk.
‘Well…I don’t think of myself in the third person…’
I lean in to read his name tag.
‘...Peter…but I suppose it’s up to people who speak to me to decide for themselves if I’m too odd for them or not?’
‘Wow, that’s too deep.’
I want to blow Kyle’s whistle. Next, please!
‘Would you consider yourself a deep person, Rosana?’
He asks this in such a disarming, matter-of-course way that, for a moment, I actually want to indulge in an answer which surprises me a little and annoys me even more.
Of course, what I really want is to deliver a biting, sarcastic repartee to introduce this man to what is clearly the foreign concept of self-consciousness, but instead, I simply repeat his question back to him.
‘Would I consider myself…a deep person? Well, Peter, again, what is the parameter here? How about this? I would consider myself as deep as an odd bowl of soup.’
I realise then that Peter has managed to catapult me into the throws of an identity crisis.
Initially, I disliked Peter for completely understandable reasons such as his smirk, his chest staring and most importantly, his symmetrical face.
Now, I dislike him because he’s unveiled in the time frame of 2 minutes how perfectly capable I am of being an ass.
Peter, to his credit, does not see it this way.
‘Rosana, you’re a funny gal, aren’t you.’
I notice that when he's not grinning or smirking, his eyes are open, gentle, almost translucent. The guy certainly knew how to disarm a woman. I couldn’t help but feel that a small part of me didn’t actually mind Peter that much, or perhaps at all.
Is it the Scottish accent? Why do I not hate this man?
There is something astoundingly simple about his observations. He’s a man who knows how to break things down to the most basic building blocks, and as a woman who constantly stumbles over self-induced problems, perhaps this is what I needed.
You’re a little odd, too deep, and funny…Yep, makes sense.
This man could see through people, that was for sure. He was like a grinning, chest-goggling Buddha from Glasgow.
I found myself a woman at the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand, I dislike Peter and want to chase him around the room with a flycatcher, but on the other hand, I want to cast him in the role of my therapist and see him every Friday at 2pm.
I imagine him leaning back in a velvet armchair next to a tiny Olive tree, legs crossed.
‘Right, right, let’s take one step at a time. Why do you think you repel men, Rosana? What is it about you that repels men specifically? Because what I’m getting from this speed dating story is that you are actively trying to repel them, aren’t you, Rosana?’
Maybe this man could fix me.
‘What are those flaps at the edge of your glasses?’ he asks.
‘Oh, they’re silicone flaps. They keep my eyes moist.’
‘You’re wearing silicone flaps?’
He starts grinning.
On the other hand, maybe not.
Kyle’s whistle blows once again.
‘Alright boys and girls! Don’t forget to jot down the name of the person so you can remember who is who in the morning when you’re making your matches!’, Kyle shouts.
I write ‘Peter’ on the slip and next to his name, I draw a set of tiny breasts.
The next man who takes a seat on my table is not much taller than the chair. I don’t mind this as much as I mind the hard, set expression on his face and the fact that he’s apparently an accountant.
The profession of accountants has a negative reputation in England of only being beset by the most tedious of souls so at first I think this is some sort of a speed dating joke, but it’s not.
‘Yes, I’m sure I’m an accountant.’, he responds with a raised eyebrow.
He has brought his own water bottle which he keeps resting on his right leg. He opens the cup with one hand and tips it slowly towards his mouth in between my questions.
He has the kind of face that gives nothing away. After 2 minutes of using an open questioning method devised to crack open the toughest egg, all I get from him is that he’s an accountant who goes to the gym.
Still, the most striking thing about this man is his absolute commitment to not ask me a single question. He will answer my question as quick as a flash, then sip some water and wait for my next question. Does he think this is a game show?
‘So what do you do when you’re not…going to the gym?’ I ask.
‘I like going for walks.’, he says.
‘Where do you go for -?
‘I’ve got a nearby park.’
He actually cuts me to answer the question.
A nearby park. Who doesn’t have a nearby park, I wonder.
He opens the water bottle, turns his head back and takes several sips, and I watch his Adams apple move up and down.
‘You drink a lot of water, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do.’
That was it, right there. It was like kickstarting a dead engine. I started wondering what drove this man to be so defensive from the very second he sat down.
Clearly, he’s decided that I’m either completely inappropriate for him or that I would never date him, a short man, because I’m tall, and so he’s saving his facial muscles and vocal chords for a different table, ideally seated by a woman shorter than the chair.
I want to tell him that I have actually dated a short man before, thank you very much, and the reason I’m not going to match with him isn’t because of his height but because he’s an accountant—an accountant without a single distinguishing feature, except for a surprisingly large Adam’s apple.
When Kyle’s whistle blows, I realise that I don’t remember his name, and I need to jot it down on my list of potential matches.
He’s already gotten up and moved to the table with the jug of water at the back.
‘Hey, what’s your name?’ I shout across the room.
He looks back with the same expressionless face.
‘I need to tick you or cross you on this list. What’s your name again?’
I can hear Shannagh’s stifled laughter next to me.
He holds a hand up in my direction then turns around and takes his seat on a different table.
I turn to Shannagh.
‘Did he just dismiss me with a hand gesture?’
‘Yeah…he did.’
She laughs.
The next man to take a seat on my table is Vladan. A man with a scar on his face and a few rings on his left hand lending him a Mafioso sort of look.
He clonks back on the armchair, throws his head back and delivers a long sigh.
‘Pfffffff…I am fucking never doing this again.’
These men aren’t really showing us other men in a good light 😂.
Hahahaha. Please, please, is there any information on the success rates of these modern dating strategies? The scientist in me needs something tangible to measure the torture/worth ratio. I am hugging my husband extra hard tonight. Actually, let me do it right now.