It turns out that Ed and I were not the only ones in London to come up with the concept of a singles dinner. It wasn’t long before I was invited to another similar event, which gave a whole new meaning to BYOB – bring your own boy. Specifically you had to bring a boy that was also single and that you didn’t fancy. Now, cast your minds back to the early days of the blog and you may remember my companion to the particularly underwhelming ‘Twelve Baes of Christmas’ – Woody. Woody appears to have been as unsuccessful in finding love as I have so luckily was still on the market and free.
The person organising this event seemed to have similar spacial challenges to those that I had faced so had sent all her guests instructions to meet for drinks in a pub round the corner from her flat as the entirety of her kitchen/sitting room had been taken up by the table. I arrived at the pub to find Woody already there so we ordered drinks and did a quick scout of the bar to find fellow singletons. There was a slight issue though; the whole point in organising a dinner to introduce new single people to each other is that none of them know each other before hand. If you don’t know someone how on earth are you supposed to recognise him or her in a pub? We gave up and settled down for a catch up instead. It was only at this point that I admitted to Woody that this wasn’t actually my party, I only knew the hostess and one other person there and could give him no more information. This did not make him feel any more comfortable.
It was at this moment that a good friend of my sister’s walked through the door – this couldn’t be coincidence; he must be part of the dinner party as well. My spirits lifted. Ol’s great so at least there was another reliable ally to ensure it would at least be an enjoyable, if not fruitful evening. Alas, it turned out that he presence was in fact a coincidence after all. Ol was joined by several more of Leo’s friends who proceeded to sit at the table next door. Ol found my situation hilarious and explained it to his group who all became deeply invested, eyeing up each person as they arrived and deciding whether they were involved in the dinner or not. As the dinner guests began to arrive, I struggled once again to keep track of the Hugos, Harrys and Ludos I was introduced to as I was painfully aware of the close scrutiny I was under from the table behind.
Eventually I was saved by the hostess who asked me if I would head back to the flat early with her to help write challenges that would be deposited on each place at the table. Everyone would then have to perform these challenges throughout the course of the meal without anyone noticing. This was not my first rodeo when it came to challenge writing but I was used to doing them with my friends who I knew well and could therefore tailor the challenges accordingly but I was now faced with a room full of strangers so decided to play it safe. I ensured my challenges were distinctly conservativet to match the assumed political affiliations of my fellow guests.
At this point the other guests arrived from the pub and Woody took it upon himself to write my challenge. I sat down and unfolded my piece of paper to read, ‘stroke the person next to you every time you laugh’. Fine, challenge accepted, let the games begin…
I must say, they had really pulled out all the stops with the food. Delicious baked Camembert with crusty bread was followed by chicken fajitas with all the trimmings. Once we had all been allocated our seats we sat down to feast and attempt to find love with those on either side of us. To my left I had Archie, who worked in insurance, and on my right, Marcus, who worked in property. Woopee. With one ear on the small talk, I cast my eye around the table to see how everyone’s challenges were going. There was absolutely no sign of people calling the person next to them the wrong name, eating off their plate or winking at the person across the table – tough crowd. I wasn’t sure what Marcus had just said but I giggled and stroked his arm. It turned out he had actually just asked me what I did, I had really timed that wrong. I apologised and told him I worked in advertising.
At this point there was an interjection from one of the Harrys on the other side of the table who leant over and exclaimed, ‘Excuse me, did you say you work in advertising? You were on my tube earlier and I recognised you because of your red glasses and I thought to myself, that girl must work in a creative industry’. I was slightly taken aback by his facial recognition abilities but similarly appalled by my own transparency. This did provide the perfect opportunity to escape the realms of insurance based chat. I retorted with ‘Wow, you were right. Why don’t we play a game of two truths one lie to see if we are all as obvious as we look’. I think the other people at our end of the table were running out of small talk by this point too so they all joined in. The fact that I now cannot remember a single one of these two truths one lie It goes some way to explain the calibre of the conversationalists I was with.
I would like to clarify that the guys on either side of me were not mean or nasty people, they were just well brought up and nice. By this point I had had rather a lot to drink though and ashamedly was not feeling incredibly nice. During a lull in conversation I turned to Marcus and exclaimed in a loud voice, ‘Bloody hell Marcus, we haven’t even finished the main course yet and you’re already trying to seduce me’. It was mean and I shouldn’t have done it, poor Marcus went bright red and started fervently objecting. It did seem to do the trick though, lowering the tone worked a treat to raise the volume around us as people became less inhibited and acknowledged the reason we were all there.
It was now time for pudding and our hostess made all the men move down two places in order to create the best possible chances of people finding ‘the one’ if they had not done so already. Woody had been at the far end of the table so I hadn’t been able to check in on how his evening was going and whether romance had blossomed. Maybe those around him were a little less tight laced and were embracing the challenges. It was during the seat move though that Woody actually got up, announced he was exhausted and made his exit – the bastard, now I was flying solo. Well, not quite. I had known one other person at the party and was relieved to find that due to the seat change he was now sitting next to me.
The combination of a friendly face that I didn’t have to flirt with and the arrival of a large plate of brownies perked me up no end. I know what you’re all worried about though – don’t worry, I didn’t abandon my challenge. I just changed my tact. Instead of suggestively stroking Alex, I repeatedly used his trousers as a napkin to wipe off my brownie crumbs. I had been right in my suspicions though. As talk turned to going out, our hostess stood up and asked everyone to reveal their challenges and whether they had completed them. One by one people stood up and confessed they had thought their challenge either too rude, too difficult or inappropriate and hadn’t even attempted them. My creativity had been wasted; I had been greatly looking forward to someone pretending they were an avid figure skater and performing a demo, or someone attempting to crawl under the table unnoticed. It also emphasised that although everyone at the dinner was incredibly nice, that was the issue, they were too nice. I just don’t think I could fancy a guy who wasn’t willing to put his trousers on inside out during a dinner because a girl he had never met before had told him to on a piece of paper – but maybe that’s me being unreasonable.
By this point I was pretty drunk though so we all headed out for a spot of boogying. As the night drew to an end and we realised several of us were heading back in the same direction and the delicious dinner seemed like a distant memory, I suggested they were all more than welcome to come back to mine for tea and toast but in my drunken state I was repeatedly sure to point out that this was purely platonic and was not a euphemism for nudity and penetration. They were rather taken aback but accepted. The manners and nicety of these fellow dinner-goers was confirmed the following day when I received a messenger request from a certain Harry. I opened it, only to read the most effusive message, possibly the only effusive message, I have ever received for a bit of soggy toast and marmite. This message perfectly summarised my fellow guests – exceedingly well brought up, very well mannered and far far too nice.