A few days after Adam, against all my advice, said he was going to ask Susan out on a date, Susan called me first thing in the morning (OK, Sunday at midday) and before I had even managed to say a word Susan was doing what she always does on the phone -- already talking.
With Susan the act of simply answering is enough of a signal for her to get on with what she needs to do, which is to start speaking. Despite the morning having completely passed me by, I was still groggy, causing me to speak in that only half-amusing blurry wake-up language ("wha? uh? ha?"), which I over-emphasised for Susan's benefit. She was not impressed.
"Gord, stop fooling around. I'm calling you with extremely disturbing and yet equally abysmal news."
Extremely disturbing and yet equally abysmal? It had to be about Adam. If only I could tell him quite how Susan described his efforts.
"Disturbing and and yet equally abysmal news?"
"Yes and it's all your fault."
My fault? I heard myself saying ("how can it possibly be my fault?") Yes, Susan told me, my fault.
"You're not still in bed are you?"
"Mmmhmm."
"But it's late."
"Well, Adam kept me up, so for me it's actually early."
"Well, you obviously did not keep him up as late as I kept him up."
Susan has done it again. She has lost me with one of her very confusing sentences.
"You've lost me. That was a really confusing sentence."
"How bad is your hangover?"
"So so. Background noise hum bad, certainly in no way pulsating, but that said I already see it getting worse any minute now. Anyway, what about Adam and your confusing sentence?"
"Well, a funny thing happened this morning. Adam called me."
Remaining quite casual, and giving nothing away, I said: "Oh really what did he say?"
Susan paused before she answered this and I just knew that she was sitting there with at least one arm crossed, tapping her foot.
"Gord, you know very well what he said. He asked me out. Not just out out, but out on a date. That's like out out out."
"Wow, there's a lot of outing there. You're not trying to tell me something are you?"
"Funny."
"Well, I try."
"And you are trying."
There's a little pause and I think that Susan is just going to tell me, but she doesn't she wants me to ask her. So I do.
"SO..."
"So what?" Susan said, still, I was sure, with her arms crossed and her foot tapping.
"Suze, what did you say?"
"What do you think I said? I said no."
"Wow, poor Adam, that's harsh."
"Yeah, big wow. I haven't said no to anyone for ages."
"So why is it my fault?"
"You know very well why this is your fault. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to turn someone down? Someone you know who is a friend of a friend? It isn't at all pleasant or fun, as you know full well that unpleasant and uptight social gatherings are sure to follow. You should have talked him out of it. I know he would have told you before he did it and you should have told him that there was no way I would go out with him."
"How was I supposed to know you would turn him down?"
"How long have we known each other?"
I told her that the two of us have known each other a long time.
"That's right and have I ever said to you 'I really like your friend Adam' in a squeaky girly voice?"
"Now that you mention it... not in a squeaky girly voice."
"Well there you go."
"Sorry, you lost me again."
"Sometimes I really worry about you. In particular, I worry that you don't know anything about women. If women like one of their friend's friends they tell their friend. It's that simple. We don't hang around. That is why you should have tried to talk Adam out of it, but you didn't, did you?"
I knew that right then it would have been really convenient to come out and say that I did, in fact, tell Adam that he should under no circumstances ask Susan out, but because Adam is a friend I'm not allowed to do this so instead I bite the bullet.
"Sorry. Next time, right? Let's say I owe you."
"Well you may not think so, after what I tell you."
"You're getting confusing again."
"Well I've done something a little rash."
"How rash are we talking?"
"Oh pretty damn rash."
"Well you know my friend who works at the Evening Standard?"
"Not really."
"Well you know they do that date thing? Well, she was saying they are desperately short of men who are willing to suffer having their picture printed and well, you know, go on a date."
"You're joking?"
"Fraid not. I volunteered you for social embarrassment, I'm afraid. I thought you deserved it. You have to write a few hundred words and send your picture in."
"Absolutely no way. Remember that time you volunteered me to appear in that feature about the last guy women date before they get married?"
"You were perfect for that -- you are that guy, you have dated about five people who immediately got married after going out with you. It's like some virus."
"But I said no. No to the picture taking and no to the volunteering. I'm not a volunteer. I'm just not volunteer material. Especially not for the social embarrassment variety."
"I'll owe you."
"How much?"
"Big time and besides you'll be able to write about it. It's perfect material. All you have to do is pick a girl and go to dinner. Almost like a regular date."
"Almost."
"Yeah, well almost."
I won't bore you with the 350 words I wrote for the Evening Standard selling myself, except that it seemed amusing at the time -- but if you want to read it, you can .
Social embarrassment aside, I should not have agreed on so many levels. For starters, I hate my photograph and hate having my photograph taken. The rest I'm OK with, but when the whole Standard date thing involves having your photo blown up to mini-poster size alongside your name and the fact that you're a 'Cancer (like on society, I think)' and then having your photo taken in a restaurant (in front of other diners) probably gives you an idea why it's not a good idea.
But hey? How bad could it be? Choose a picture and go on a date -- oh and then write about how it went. OK, so this is what I wrote, and this is how it went.
"I chose Lorraine in a small exercise in 'Matrix'-style counter choice. You know you should choose the blue pill, but instead you take the red one. Claire was easily the most attractive of the three, but instead of making the obvious choice I went for Lorraine, who looked interesting.
"I thought after having recently dated a straight , my dating experience couldn't possible get much worse. I can now amend that it can't get much worse than the plus-sized girl who works in the online pornography industry, prefers to be called Veronica and wants to get her entire back covered in one large tattoo.
"The thing was she looked nothing like her photograph, which was a sort of gothic urban trendy girl in black. When she turned up at the restaurant she was wearing a sort of fluffy pink top, pinstripe trousers and heels. It was like an experiment in compare and contrast. Bizarre.
"We had absolutely nothing in common and we both realised this within around four seconds on meeting at the bar. I was at least prepared to eat, but as soon as Lorraine/Veronica sat down, she said she'd been eating all day and wasn't hungry, which was totally cool. I thought we could do the Harry (met Sally) thing and order a couple of empty plates and leave.
"Sadly, the photographer took a small forever setting up and then shot gigabytes worth of digital film. If it hadn't been for the pictures I think we'd have been gone in 60 seconds.
"We ordered starters (but didn't eat them) and had a couple of drinks while the photographer snapped for elusive smiles ('laugh guys, it will look like you're smiling'). Smiling has never been so hard. I hate the camera (and I don't think it's all that keen on me either, to be fair). While he snapped, we were talking, but it was just really hard, conversation just petered out. We had less than zero in common and after the photographer had gone, we left. The best bit about the date was that my crazy (hands off off the wheel) mini-cab driver got me home in time to watch '24'. Jack is so bad."
OMG is what Susan says when she reads it.
"I can't believe how mean you were."
"I was being honest."
"Well, you know there is such a thing as honesty and 'honesty'."
"Oh what, I should have been 'honest', but not honest?"
"That's what I'm saying. I'd be expecting hate mail if I were you. And I wouldn't necessarily be expecting to date anyone else in the near future, maybe not even in this lifetime."
"Gee thanks."
"You only have yourself to blame you know."
"But it was YOUR idea."
"Gord, that's a lame excuse."
Susan can be so harsh sometimes.
Besides, it isn't really all my fault. Joan Didion is to blame. It's quotes like this one that I might have been more than a little influenced by.
And really if I'm blaming Joan Didion, I guess I should be blaming Lloyd Cole as well, because if it wasn't for Lloyd and 'Rattle Snakes', I probably wouldn't have read her.
I'll get to that next time in the first and last gig I ever went to in this demographic.
The Demographic Shift is a regular column on Brand Republic as Gordon MacMillan charts his own demographic timebomb.
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