The French Connection

The format of this particular blog is specifically designed for a non-English friend who says she’d be awfully grateful if I put myself out and wrote in the Queen’s English once in a blue moon. So, Svetlana, my dear priatelka, I've done this for you. Click on the words for idiom explanations, you lazy krava. 

I’ve just come back from a coffee date that I really didn’t want to go on. Earlier in the week, I almost kicked the guy into touch  because I was sick of the ping pong two liners (four each way and I’m guaranteed to be bored witless), but he was persistent in a (relatively) charming fashion, and in the end, against my better judgement, I agreed to a meeting. To be honest, the photo didn’t inspire me much either; he had the look of a beaver about him. 

We'd messaged very little information to one another, and I knew nothing about him other than his name which indicated somebody foreign. So, totting up the potential issues:

1. The one/two liners - possibly shy and I’d have to adopt my person-centred-counselling persona - you know how much I love that!
2. Perhaps English not first language - I might have to do all the talking.
3. Not drop dead gorgeous - I probably won’t fancy him. 

All in all, not a lot going for this encounter really.

With me so far?  Bear all that in mind and I’ll tell you I just about managed to smear a bit of slap on and give myself two squirts of deodorant, so keen was I. Pushed the boat out, like. Not. 

We’d already decided where we were going to have this rendezvous, so when I got a text from him asking me where we'd meet I thought it a bit strange. It’s something I have to learn to understand. There are some women who are uncomfortable going into a place alone, and there are some gentlemanly men who know this and make it easier for the woman by meeting her outside. I used to think it was peculiar, as if the latter part of the 20^th century hadn’t happened, as if men thought there was something wrong with women who went into places alone; now I realise not every female is as independent as I am, so I’ve stopped being snotty about it.

Anyway, the person who turned up was pretty much like his picture, but animation adds so much warmth and lips do occasionally stretch over teeth during plosive consonants (such a blessing!); plus, he was very comfortable in his own skin. We decided to begin at the beginning, having agreed there'd been nothing but mindless drivel in the messages on the website.

Well! Let me tell you I really must listen to Stella more often! I shouldn’t be so picky. Nice guy! Well, you know, since it's mainly just us gals in here, I mean 'nice guy' given that all men have their minor vast limitations… (I might have just lost a few followers... Come back, lads! I was only teasing!) And the best bit of all – he had lived most of his life in France, so we had a good old chinwag en francais. As to another date – if he asked me (which I don’t think he will – there really was none of the elusive spark between us), I’d probably say oui just for opportunity (to) bavarder in the mother tongue for a couple of hours. But a proper romance – no, I don’t think so.  Sorry to disappoint.

If I haven’t completed Stella's (formerly known as Lyn) shag-project by the end of the year, I shall be re-entering the convent, or selling up and buying log cabin in a forest by a lake. I’ll buy a shotgun, install the internet and write blogs on a million and one things to do with a wild mushroom and deer dung. I should have got the hang of it by then. 

So, yeah, anyway - next!

Oops. PS While I've been writing this, I’ve received two texts from him - wants to see me again. Shall I go for the craic, or is that leading him on? And don't forget he's Gallic - might necessitate a second-date snog - brrrrrr!