Planet Mad

I've been at a dinner party this evening, and should by rights now be at Jeremy's flat, drinking whisky and listening to contrapuntal music from the Baroque era. However, he's gone out, leaving me alone to do that most dangerous of pastimes: late-night blogging. There are many things I could write about - how much I'm enjoying the CD currently playing; how badly I'm singing along to the aforementioned CD; the glass of bourbon sitting next to my keyboard - but instead I'm going to write installment three in the whole internet dating saga. This ranks as number three on the list of "Ill-advised Actions Carried Out in 2004"; I shall probably have to edit this severely in the morning after school chapel. However, not being one to choose the sensible option, I shall press on regardless...

The problem with internet dating is that at some point it has to move off the screen and become a face-to-face meeting. This is - to say the least - nerve-wracking. Exchanging emails is harmless fun, but eventually one of you makes that first move towards a rendezvous, normally disguised as a throw-away comment that can be ignored without serious loss of face. You agree a time and location and then... well... Robert's your father's sibling, as they say.

If only.

In my case, you discuss the theoretical meeting over email ("Mmm, that would be lovely"), then are forced to make decisions about when and where. You then prevaricate, spend some time researching the options, looking up locations on streemap, faff, and eventually talk on the phone. This is the moment when you realise that their accent is wrong, or they sound like an accountant (which, to be fair, he was). Nonetheless, you agree to meet, in a "well, it's better than a night by myself and maybe he's not a bunny boiler" sort of way.

The first trauma is what to wear. For a bloke, this might be less of an issue, but it's pretty near impossible for me. Should it be normal casual clothes, or something a bit more, well, special? Personally, the first option involves jeans and Doc Martens, which are often enough to put a bloke off before I even speak. On the other hand, my next smartest set of clothes is more accurately described as a suit. The compromise was my smartest pair of jeans, a girlie-ish top, and no docs: close, but no banana.

The drive to the date's location is a time to worry about everything from appearance to conversation gambits. It's like a job interview: you've done your background research by re-reading their emails, so you plan questions that might be relevant; you prepare answers that you think are witty, yet reveal further depths; you decide what you're *not* going to reveal. What makes it worse is the fact that you've only ever seen a couple of photos of them, if that: how will you recognise them? Luckily, the Madmobile's a good way of being found - none of that "I shall be wearing a blue top, holding a rose and carrying a copy of The Economist"; instead, telling them to look for the blue beetle is an easy option.

When (if?!) you manage to meet up, you then have to make the decision about what to drink. Is a pint too manly? G and T too expensive? J2O too girlie? And then, the conversation....

On Tuesday evening, I was lucky enough to discover that he'd done his degree where I'd done my teacher training. An innocent university-related question turned into a 20 minute saga of how he found his house in his second year. At that moment I realised with certainty that it was not to be. It was a pleasant evening, but not one with any sparkle or chemistry; I cut my losses and went home.

The evening, however, was not a dead loss: I spent most of the journey home, and much time afterwards, talking to Mr Pancake Party. I've never mentioned the internet once to him, and perhaps that's the way it should stay....