Blog 22 Rappers Wardrobes Yellow Dumping and Moshpits

RAPPERS, WARDROBES, YELLOW DUMPING and MOSHPITS

What is it about dating that does the head in? By its nature dating is a short term activity - so why does the effort it demands outweigh the actual time it takes?

It’s not just the grooming and planning…it’s like being on high alert at an air force base! You just can’t kick back and say…whatever…then roll with the punches… NO… you have to play the emotional equivalent of a high roller game of poker.

Like it’s not enough trying to suck your tummy in, have your best assets visible and never like NEVER be caught in your slouchies, you have to be totally aware of everything you say in case it sends your date running for the hills. You are constantly making decisions as to which card to reveal, which to keep and which to bluff about. If you or they don’t play the game… things that one of you thinks is normal suddenly become a sign of total madness and the other is freaked out…BIG TIME!!!

I should know… I must have created dust storms the size of Texas as I speed out of dates where someone just tells me a little TOO much… TOO soon.

Okay, you need to see my credentials… I’m sure you must think I am commitment phobic. Actually nothing could be further from the truth.

Having been in relationships that last longer than most peoples marriages – I returned to the wonderful world of dating 5 years ago. Not that I really ever dated… having done the usual footballer/club dj thing in my teens… my first real relationship was a college romance continued for many years. That ran back to back with the next relationship which ran for centuries also! I hadn’t planned to be that girl who does long term without forever, it’s was just the way it panned out. But the end consequence was my entire adult life was gobbled up by two relationships… until no 2 faded out.

Therefore in all but the literal sense I was practically a virgin to the world of dating. And I was sure that somewhere out there… was the one.

I shall use the saints to provide names for these gentlemen – as this blog seems to be getting far too many hits to be just my friends and family…and I sooo don’t do court cases.

Okay Number 1: - who we shall call Matthew.

I met Matthew at a prior workplace. We’d always flirted as you do to pass the time at work, but we were both in committed relationships – so it never got beyond that. However, there seems to be a telegraph that goes out to all men of your acquaintance when you become suddenly single – and out of the blue he rang. Turns out he was also suddenly single and in possession of tickets for the U2 Vertigo tour… would I like to go? Um… who would say no? Here was a good looking man that I got on with… obviously have documented prior chemistry... and a band that we both were into. Hell yeah!

Arrive at said venue. He is very pleased about our tickets… right at the front he says… well what he actually said was we could pull Bono’s nose hair from our ‘seats’. Now you expect guys to big things up on a date... nerves and the desire to make an impression do that to a fella. But I ask the question…WHAT SEATS??? We filed through into the arena... and absolutely no where in our area were any form of seating… just a crush barrier and a stage. Matthew grabs my hand and runs dragging me towards the barrier. He settles in a spot dead central to the stage. “Told ya.” He beams “Bono’s nose hair”. Okay I’m feeling a bit thrown by the lack of seats (and looking longingly at the raised seating area) BUT... what the hay… we are gonna get to pull Bono’s nose hair!

The gig goes well. U2 are after all U2… though tip for the top Bono… take off the friggin sun glasses – we were INDOORS!!! The area we are in surges violently forward and to the left and to the right at the slightest turbulence. I swear when Elevation was played I was doing the pogo without actually personally moving a limb! I also found myself covered in beer slops, everyone else’s sweat, and had my entire body used as a boost when someone took it upon themselves to try to storm the stage. For several minutes of the gig I had lost Matthew altogether such was the force of the movement in the area I now know to be called The Mosh Pit. However, I had heard Beautiful Day, Sunday Bloody Sunday and Where the Streets have No Name live so why should I complain that I was a sweaty beer mat with a footprint on my Nicole Farhi top!.

I seemed to have lost Matthew again as Sometimes you can’t Make it On your Own came on. Then I heard it … above Bono’s rendition, I heard it… the sound of a cat being strangled and then suffering hiccups. I looked around… no one at height level was making the sound… then an inner voice said…LOOK DOWN. There curled into a ball on the floor of the mosh pit… was Matthew…. Crying like a little gal.

I won’t go into the drama that ensued to get him upright, but the long and short of it was THAT SONG was THEIR SONG. Him and his ex. To say he wasn’t over her was an UNDERSTATEMENT… from that point on he just cried. He cried through the rest of the gig, three encores, and a cab journey home. He was still crying when the cabbie and I deposited him on his sofa and left his flat. That was 5 years ago this year…so I do hope he has stopped balling by now.

Number Two: Mark

Like dating Matthew didn’t teach me enough about making connections through old jobs, Mark was in the same rugby squad as the financial director of a company I used to work for. I ran into him whilst I was on a hen night – he remembered me - but I must say he had slipped below my radar as I couldn’t place him.

However, we arranged to go out, and I ensured this time we were NOT going to do anything with a music connection…just couldn’t get a bag big enough for the kind of tissues Matthew demanded… so plumped on a restaurant. I also checked that Mark had no recent break-ups…just in case.

The restaurant was one which had a bar that you supped a cocktail or two in whilst your table was being prepared. Lovely… a chance to lubricate any nerves before the intimacy of a meal begins. Clearly Mark was a little more nervous than I was as he guzzled two cocktails before we walked through to our table. He was carrying number three as the waiter showed us our place. Whilst he awaited me being seated… he promptly split it all down the back of the gentleman on the table next to ours. Now this could have been a disaster… BUT being a charmer by nature he no only managed to appease the gentlemen and his date and buy them a drink – he managed to convince them to join us whilst we awaited our starters. We got on well as two couples – turned out they were on a first date two – and there was a lot of laughter from our table. As our starters arrived they were ready to leave and wished us well for the rest of our evening.

Well it all went swimmingly. We had a lovely meal, enjoyed dazzling repartee and went out dancing to finish the night off. He came in for a coffee…ended up staying the night as he passed out on my couch… but made it up by taking me out for breakfast the next day. We parted saying we’ll defo sort out date 2.

So there I am at work and PING! E-mail from Mark. And I quote:

Dear Jax – I think our date was the best date of my life, really enjoyed myself and hope you did too. We left it that we should definitely go out again and I think that was the only conclusion from such a fantastic evening…as I said best date of my life. However I have a lot on at work, am not ready for such a massive commitment and feel we should leave it there. Yours sincerely Mark.

Now at this time I had a friend working as a producer on an early morning breakfast show. He asked me about my date and I read him the e-mail and asked him to explain what the f@ck was going on in the man's head. He just laughed heartily at me and told me I don’t half pick em!

Then the little git used it in his show! He didn’t even change the names! For two whole days all of London is discussing ‘yellow dumping’ which is the phrase he coined to describe people who dump people remotely. Needless to say Mark got to hear about it and sends me another e-mail. Dear Jax – It appears you are now ready for date 2. Where would you like to go huni? Love Mark

WHAT??? He had the cheek to tell me that it appears I am now ready…. I thought HE was the one with commitment issues? Needless to say I hit send to junk - immediately.

I had better luck with Number 3. Luke.

Luke was a city banker I met when celebrating a girlfriends Birthday who also worked in the city. Unfortunately Luke loved to talk about his job. And I was the idiot who asked him about it. Oh boy did Luke love to talk about his job... “In my line of work there is a large component of micro and macro-economic analysis, and also fund management. You see I’m involved with the creation and preservation of wealth. To you it may seem I just assist firms or corporations in raising funds in the capital markets ….but…” Yaddah Yaddah Yaddah Yaddah. In fact Luke liked talking about his job sooo much that he didn’t let little thing like ME ordering the food I wanted to eat disturb his flow. I tried but mid flow as the waiter appeared Luke hand gestured me to silence, continued with his diatribe and pointed to selections on the menu then pointed at me, then pointed to selections and pointed at himself and sent the waiter on his way.

The only chance I got to talk was when finally Luke’s motor mouth was full of food. “SO” I said loudly but as seductively as I could… the guy did rabbit on about work a lot, but my GOD was he hot, this would have to take a little cunning on my part. My mother always told me that a man can never resist talking about his passions… which (she said) being the limited creatures that they are will always boil down to SPORT, CARS or SEX. She told me as long as a girl is versed in all three she’ll be able to save herself from the boring work conflab. And as luck would have it, I quite like a bit of footie, cricket or (at a push) rugby, I have watched EVERY episode of Top Gear (by choice), and have no objection to conversational erotica. Time to take control I thought. “SO” I said seductively “Enough about work..tell me what are YOUR passions…”.

Now this seemed to work. His eyes twinkled as he finished his mouthful. “I am so glad you asked that” he practically purred.

He reached under the table for his man-bag and pulled out his

Blackberry. “Here…. Have a look at these” he said “Now this baby is my true passion – I built her from scratch… tell you working in the City.. you just wanna get back to basics, feel like a base man… spit and sawdust..you know what I mean?”

Oh THANK YOU Top Gear! Ready to be appreciative of flowing lines and classic style I could understand a paper pushing mans desire to build one. I could totally get why a vehicle so unusual and the satisfaction of having built it himself could fuel a mans passions. (To say nothing of the thought of how fabulous I would look in the passenger seat of a NG FT Sports!)

I prepared to enthuse about his baby’s rear engine plate, crankshaft/ gearbox spigot bush, flywheel and clutch. I was remembering to ask if he found that a universal clutch alignment tool was not "universal" as it never works on a MGB… then having lured him into my web sort out where we could drive to in it… I was half way to Leeds Castle for a picnic in my head as he slid the Blackberry over to me.

“There are rather a lot of photos” he smiled apologetically but very sexily at me.

I made up my mind there and then that when we go out in the car we are SO having sex in it!

So you can imagine my surprise when it turned out that the 144 photographs lovingly stored on his Blackberry…. were of a wardrobe.

Yes you read that right… a WARDROBE.

He was building his own version of a French Baroque Louis XV Style Walnut Carved Armoire.

“Oh Jax, you can’t buy these late 19th century, ones with a triple section consisting of a narrow centre closet with a hinged mirror mounted door flanked on each side by wider sections hung with double doors.. to get the door embellishments right I had to hand carve those raised panels…”

I had to go through EACH photo. There was a narrative for EACH photo.

My Lobster Risotto congealed on my plate as the narrative went on…. And on.

In the end I had no other option but to fake a phone call… I pretended I had just been advised of a small fire at my house and had to leave… IMMEDIATELY.

So that brings me onto John. Now the old adage of opposites attracting has usually lead me to be in the company of someone I want to strangle. So what better than to go on a date with a fellow writer.

John had read my novel, actually liked it and (as an urban poet) had plenty to say about the written word in the 20^th Century. So.. we went to dinner… being a great reader he had read Marco Polo’s writing about food being prepared by Mongolian warriors on upturned shields. And actually found a restaurant that does this. Now for any of you guys reading… this is a great first date… very touchy feely as you both help prepare your dinner. We had a great time.

So much so we had a second date, and a third… and a fourth.

If second is usually the outdoors/sporty date and third is usually the theatre/ cinema date then the fourth date is traditionally the ‘put out’ date.

Obviously aware of this, John booked into a fabulous restaurant which just happened to be in a lovely hotel…to take the pressure off (or to make it easier to put the pressure on)…

Well I need not tell you that it went so swimmingly that there was no pressure required for me to skip merrily up to the room and ‘put out’ with a view over a pretty fountain in a courtyard.

Lying back in bed sipping our now rather warm champagne, John asked me if I had heard his broadcast on local radio that morning. Due to the fact I was in the bikini wax from hell that morning (4^th date where the hell did he THINK I’d be??!!!) – I had to confess that I had in fact missed it. He then asked me what I thought of his style of poetry. Which was when I had to confess that I hadn’t read any… I actually don’t particularly like poetry it has to be said… give me novel or short story anyday! He seemed to take this well as he laughed.

“You are so ironic sometimes you do it so well… so dry!” he says.

It was at that point where I knew things weren’t quite right… but I didn’t know just how far I was out of MY comfort zone. This man had actually taken the time to read my chick-lit offering and I hadn’t even bothered to find out a thing about his style of poetry. What the hell was Urban poetry anyway? I looked across the sheets and all I could see was a tall, white guy from semi-rural Kent… actually that bothered me … what the hell was URBAN about where he lived… it was all farms and thatch roofed cottages. I had an idea… I could just ask him to tell me the piece he performed on the radio. BRILLIANT… Good save Jax!

So I asked him.. and he was only too happy to perform it for me.

I can’t quite convey the horrors of what followed…

He jumps out of bed… naked as a jaybird… starts making the noise of a human beatbox and bouncing up and down whilst shrugging manically, swinging his arms and occasionally cupping his gentiles.

“WORD! Laydees revolve around me like the sun round the Earth

Becuz I rock da rolex and cuz fifties fill mi purse

Do not disrespect me, I hot ducking from the hood

My twelve trax is GGGGG good…

ON THE MIKE UH_

HUH- ya- UH-HUH

YO!

ON DA MIKE UH!!”

Apart from the OBVIOUS geographical faux pas… WHAT THE F@CK???? I think I may have lost consciousness after that ‘performance’ so deep was my shock… I don’t recall anything further other than being home again quite soon after.

There was really one WORD after that: TAXI!

And yet given this colourful history – believe me this is but the TIP of a dating iceberg… I found myself thinking of doing it again. I met a lovely man recently and we’ve done the exchanging numbers thing and are currently in the pregnant pause before date one is arranged. But all I can think about is what on earth is he gonna reveal… true I did check and find that he has no issues with wanting to be vanilla ice, building 19^th century closets, crying in gigs or dumping people in person… but dating is like poker. You just don’t know WHAT they’ll reveal… till they do.

Oh well… I guess we have no option but to watch this space!