Version

Both these accounts of my weekend are 100% accurate.

Version 1:
"I hosted a party on Friday in Brixton. Lots of lovely friends came, including a few people I'd not seen for ages. I've lost a bit of weight recently and wore one of my favourite dresses and one girl said I should apply to join the Playboy Mansion, which I think she meant as a compliment. The music was fantastic, people mingled and I am pretty positive that everyone present had a good time. I got home late and went to bed. When I woke up on Saturday morning, I had no plans but Sarah suggested I join her and a couple of others to go for a pub lunch in Westbourne Park, followed by a trip to some studios nearby that were holding a Christmas market. She also invited me to go to a classical concert that night. I went for a run, did yoga, had a bath and then set out to join them for lunch, noticing while sorting out my bag that I had spent a whopping £9 the previous night - £7.50 on a pizza and £1.50 on a cranberry juice. Not bad given that I drank Prosecco pretty much solidly for six hours. Clearly my lovely friends had been very generous with the hostess beverages. At The Enterprise, I had delicious bangers and mash and felt very festive. Her friends were lovely and we laughed a lot. Then we went to the market, and I bought a gorgeous drawing for my flat that I know I will have for the rest of my life. Midway through the afternoon, my friend Fi texted and said she had a spare ticket for a musical in which my friends Anna and David were performing, and did I want to come? I was pleased to be asked, and felt like I should support Anna, so I said yes. An hour later another girlfriend invited me to dinner at her house but I'd already committed to Fi so I turned it down. Felt briefly popular. Fi and I had a lovely drink in Bourne & Hollingsworth, met the others, watched the (brilliant) show, which was based on Diary of a Nobody and was hilarious. Then we had a drink or two with the cast and I went home. On Sunday I did some writing and some laundry, ate nice food, lay around, watched the X Factor and went to bed."

Version 2:
"I had a party on Friday night. As I have decided will be my epitaph, it was "Nothing like I expected but still quite fun." The venue had reserved me a large area with sofas and big, heavy, Henry VIII style tables. A few of us sat round the head of one of the tables, chatting and waiting for the other guests. One girl came in, saw a notice on an empty table saying "Reserved for Jane", scrumpled it up and threw it on the floor. I took some pleasure in telling her that I was Jane and that she was welcome to sit there until we needed the table later on. But I still felt a bit discombobulated. Most of the early arrivals were my school friends and their associated men. They all know each other and joined us at the big table. By 9pm, others filtered in, but there was nowhere for them to sit and I didn't know if I wanted to make a scene by chucking off a group of eight strangers from the other reserved table so that two of us could sit down. I decided to leave it. Eventually, all my newer friends were standing squashed by the radiators mingling away, and my school friends were having a nice catch up with their old friends around the massive wood table. Mixing the two groups would have been contrived and unwelcome, so I decided to stay with the new friends since the old ones all knew each other. And then, suddenly, just as the music was hotting up, everyone came over to say goodbye, and by 1am, it was over. I hadn't danced a step. I went home feeling a bit flat, reassuring myself that parties aren't for the host's enjoyment, but couldn't stop focussing on the fact that one of my favourite people hadn't been able to attend as she had been in Rome on a third date. Yep. A third date. In Rome. The boyban's going well, but even I will happily admit that I was pretty darn jealous of that one. On the walk back from the nightbus to my flat, I slipped on the ice and banged my elbow really hard.

On Saturday I woke up feeling post-party-anti-climaxy. I then went for a run but pulled a muscle in my leg so badly after 20 minutes that I had to hobble home feeling really self-conscious that people would look at me and think I was really unfit because I was injured. Piled on the pounds with fattening lunch in a gastropub and then haemorrhaged my savings on a drawing that I love but that everyone else will think is a complete rip-off. Felt like a bit of a dick but the girl who'd done the drawing was so lovely and I didn't feel like I could change my mind and back out. I do really like it but I could have bought a flight to somewhere hot for that money. I don't know what came over me. I think it was the shopping equivalent of comfort eating. Silly, silly girl. Then Ses and I had a cup of tea in another pub and we started talking about online dating, and I realised that I am still a long way off being ready to face rejection, and that unless you are prepared to be rejected, you shouldn't sign up to online dating. So I'm single, a bit lonely, and yet can't do the one thing that could possibly change that: go on a date. Which sucketh somewhat. Then I went out for a lovely evening as Fi's afterthought because her husband couldn't come, and we sat with Ed and his boyfriend and David and his wife, and then afterwards talked to Anna about her husband. I was pleased to have been asked to the show, and to the dinner that I'd had to turn down, but I was clearly a last-minute choice. And I felt blue. :(

Yesterday I did nothing of any significance. I was invited (as an afterthought but still pleased to be asked) to play football in the afternoon but I couldn't because my leg was still hurting so much that I could barely walk, let alone run. Despite having the heating on all day, my feet never warmed up. My phone didn't ring until the aforementioned lovebird returned from Rome and called me. I did my best to be loving and supportive and excited and then hung up the phone and failed to sleep. This morning was unfun."

Guess which version gets stuck in my head? I've long been aware that life is just a game of selective editing - we all have many stories we can tell about ourselves. I can easily put on a brave face and project a positive narrative to the outside world if I have to, but the Jackanory going on in my head isn't quite so much fun. Shut up, SHUT UP, internal Jackanory!

And she all lived happily ever after.

I'm a legal alien

Faithful readers may remember previous trips I've taken into the depths of the countryside to visit my friend Nicole, she of storecupboard fame. What has surprised me is that my visits don't seem to become any more normal the more frequently I make them. In fact, gorgeous though our chats are, I feel less like a friend when I'm in her house and increasingly like a beloved yet curious Martian. She meets me at the station in a four wheel drive. Often, there are child seats in the back, dachshunds at my feet and a Labrador in the boot. On arrival at her home, there are squawks of excitement from her adorable brood who LOVE me because I always bring them a strong assortment of hairclips from London. There is a lot of kissing, giggling, hiding behind legs, cajoling, tickling and eventual clambering. Then we have dinner. This has been prepared in advance in gargantuan batches - dauphinoise potatoes, fish pie, stew, soup - all made and frozen like the truly organised thing she is. In London, I eat home cooked food, no joke, about once or twice a month. Breakfast is cereal at my desk, lunch is bought at Pret or similar, dinner is restaurant or more cereal. It's lovely: we're separated by pretty much everything but friendship.

Occasionally Nicole invites people over to dinner while I'm staying. This weekend I was privy to a few gems including someone describing their prospective new vehicular purchase as, "an Audi probably, nothing flashy, nothing like one of those small Mercedes... nasty hairdressers' cars." And I heard the following (male) response to the question "How are the kids?" which I SWEAR I have transcribed verbatim. You won't struggle to imagine the accent:
"Oh they're fine... Actually, I say they're fine... barely seen them... was out shooting all day, came back, they run towards you shouting Daddy, Daddy!, it's very sweet, and then they go to bed... Ideal!"

The man in question is absolutely charming, handsome and lovely, but freely admits we live on different planets. Weeks go by when he doesn't see anyone who's not white - and when it does happen, he always notices that he's a bit startled, like "Oh! A black man!" I told him that there are times when I'm the only white person on the bus and he looked a bit concerned.

He was also sweetly forthcoming about Muddy Matches, a dating website I discovered this weekend for country singletons: a photo on the homepage shows a man and a woman in matching tweed flatcaps, and if you don't want to post a photo of yourself you can upload a picture of your wellies. I expressed surprise to my dinner companion (married, four kids) about the website, suggesting that it would be of interest to my urban friends as a countryside curio. He was adamant that it's normal that like should be attracted to like, which is of course unarguable. He couldn't see what the problem was - and another dinner guest asked what was the difference between looking for someone who likes hunting on Muddy Matches and going onto Guardian Soulmates and looking for someone who likes going to gigs and the cinema. Gingerly, I suggested that there's a slight difference in accessibility between going shooting and going to the cinema, and that perhaps Muddy Matches and its ilk meant that the lack of demographic variety in the countryside probably wouldn't change any time soon. He happily agreed. In short, they know they're in a bubble, and they're very content there. And honestly, I don't have a problem with it, as long as they treat everyone else as equals.

Then I found out that, of the 12 people at dinner on Saturday night, two were Catholics and nine were on the Alpha course. And here I hit a slight wall. Now, I can totally understand someone wanting to live in the place they've grown up, particularly if they've had a happy childhood. I can easily see how unpleasant city life must seem if you're used to a village existence. And it's clear why the simplicity of village life lends itself to Christian evangelism - no Muslims or gays to mess with the 'logic'. But just because I understand it, doesn't mean I have to like it.

In my ideal world, there'd be no religion: I object on principle to any faith that promotes their path as the right one (which rules out pretty much all of them), as I believe this inevitably creates divisions and thus conflict among followers. I don't like the suggestion that there's one route that's better than any other - and for that reason, I'm annoyingly not able to be a humanist either. I just want us all to be good, kind, generous social citizens, respectful and tolerant of difference. I simply cannot see how that's compatible with evangelical Christian evening classes, which teach that homosexuals and non-followers are destined for hell. Anyway, since my faithlessness prevents me from crusading (as I'm not arrogant enough to think that my way would be better for you than the one you've chosen), this is one battle I'm certain to lose. In the meantime, I'll generously allow people of faith to do just as they please, so long as they're lovers, not fighters. Fighters can go jump.

Despite all the feelings of foreignness (and let's be clear: these people are happy, and I'm not - so who's losing out? I have no illusions), I did enjoy my 48 hours on Planet Rural, with the exception of a couple of altercations with Alice who is fascinated with the fact that my thighs are at least twice the girth of her mother's, and who suggested that I should cut bits off them "with scissors", her small fingers helpfully indicating the strips where I could start my self-mutilation. She and her younger sister also asked to see my bottom about seven hundred times. But it was truly ace to hang out with Nicole, great to walk in the crisp autumnal air, delicious to gorge on her incredible crumble and wonderful to be lain on by her three warm offspring while we watched Stuart Little. I came back to London yesterday evening, studied Take That performing together live on The X Factor results show, felt the familar teenage obsession levels bubble up again, noted Robbie's panicked eyes and refusal to talk to Dermot about the future, worried about Mark's visible need for Rob's presence, saw that Gary, Jay and Howard are still rightly suspicious, and then remained concerned about my own sanity for a bit before it was time to hit the city hay.

Let the self-pity begin

Be gentle with me, Faithful, for I am feeling well fragile today innit. If my eyes were plugholes, the tears would burbling up through the U-bend and heading for daylight.

The almost-four-month boyban has been amazing in illustrating that I was pretty much obsessively judging my success as a woman on whether or not a man was telling me I was attractive and good company. With dating forbidden and no flirtatious emails to distract me, I can clearly see the error of my way: I was doggedly pursuing a goal, thinking it would bring me a sense of self/satisfaction/fulfillment, when in fact we all know that getting a boyfriend is not really the answer to any of the above - and if it is, it shouldn't be. So it's been good, I've got a new sense of perspective and I am sincerely glad of that.

However, it probably won't surprise many of you clever readers that, if you take away someone's raison d'etre (however unhealthy it was) without lining up anything else to replace it, an existential crisis is fairly inevitable. And so, ta da, here I am, no career to speak of, no babies, in a society where having one or the other is pretty much essential if you're going to have any sense of self-worth. Oh, and I'm an atheist, so the world's best psychological crutch isn't an option for me either. You're left with a verbose hedonist with no sense of purpose, just night after night of pleasant, middle-class pasttimes. I am one big fat hobby.

In the meantime, Grania has spent the last several months dedicating almost all her time to preparing for some of the toughest exams I've ever known, learning a zillion planning laws and documenting her every waking action, turning down countless fun events to pursue her goal. And Sarah's been promoted, and Sara's started a new role helping people, and Kate is bursting with job satisfaction, and Olivia's been promoted and got pregnant again, and Mills has had her second child, and Lucy's dealing with her existing two, and Em and Erf are on honeymoon, and Marina, Justin and Lucy G are changing the media world, and Lilly's going freelance, and Charlie's had Gabriel, and Nick's doing his writing course and an internship while being Deputy Editor, and Georgie's directing, and Hatta and Astrid are engaged, and two other friends are trying for babies but it's all hush hush, and Don's making a feature film, and Ed's having intimate dinners at The Wolsey with A listers.

And I know, I know, everyone can take this kind of highlights-only snapshot of their friends, filtering out the quotidian, ignoring the fact that everyone has down days and everyone panics, but it's human nature to compare ourselves to our peers.

I can only see three ways to cope with this kind of barrage of achievement:
1. Persuade myself that I'm still valid, but in some different way. I am finding this difficult.
2. Find new meaning elsewhere under some previously unturned rock.
3. Accept, as my mother suggested, that my time will come, and right now just "bob along" (her words).

I love my mother so much it hurts, but 3. makes me feel like self-harming. It is excellent, measured advice and I desperately wish I could take it; being carried along like a brightly-coloured rubber duckie in a burbling countryside stream, letting the current take me where it will, well, it'd no doubt be good for me, relinquishing control, enjoying the view, but... well, I can't help but feel that time is running out. Not to have kids, necessarily. But to do something. I'm 33. I'm never going to be any younger than I am now, or have any fewer responsibilities. I was already feeling like I was a bit of a wasted opportunity. Then I watched Jamie's American Food Revolution.

That guy, annoying though his perpetual "bruvva"s unquestionably are, is an extraordinary and inspiring force for good. He's married with three kids, and he clearly loves his family dearly, but he has realised that he has a position in society that can change a lot of people's lives for the better. He has a clear mission - to encourage people to eat more healthily; to make cooking from scratch appear easy enough that people turn to it instead of ordering a pizza; and, ultimately, to save lives. It's an amazing goal, and he's already pretty damn rich, owning assets worth tens of millions - but he's still pursuing his mission, heading out to spend three months in Los Angeles early next year to film a second series of his Emmy Award-winning show. He is attacked and ridiculed wherever he goes, but he doggedly continues, spending precious time away from his loved ones, because he believes in what he's doing, and because he is sure that he can make a difference.

I am jealous of his mission. I want one.

And then, as a nailgun in the face to any specks of optimism I'd salvaged, last night, Luke and I saw The Social Network. Bloody hell, where do these people get their drive from? Their certainty that their ideas are valid? Their optimism and confidence, that sense of entitlement, that if they think it's a good idea, it obviously is? The determination to stop gassing about it and actually sit down and fucking do it? I just whitter on, it'd be nice to do this, that'd be brilliant, but I never commit, I'm terrified of failure, and moreover I fear the claustrophobia of being trapped. What if my idea was good? Then I'd have to do it and I'd miss out on doing other stuff. Plus I'm already really tired.

So I do bob along, but resentfully, doing nothing except inhaling as much of this beautiful city as I can take in, and waiting for my Facebook, my Food Revolution, to hit me square between the eyes so that I can start work. Problem is, I know that that's not how reality works. Meaning is often only visible in retrospect. Life missions aren't always obvious at the time. They creep up. They need leaps of faith. They need hard work over long periods of time. They need blind commitment. And they don't always end in positive results. I'm categorically rubbish at dealing with every single one of those things. Need someone with a short attention span who'll tackle a high-profile project, complete it to her own absurdly high standards in two weeks and then, with a rush of 'problem solved' satisfaction, move on in a flurry, never to give it another instant's thought? I'm your gal. Need consistent, shire horse effort over years to lovingly create something that lasts, often for little reward, someone who doesn't let failure get her down, who doesn't crave recognition? Move right along. Nothing to see here.

That book you think I should write? Two years on one project that will be criticised by strangers? Not my idea of fun. The presenting work I could maybe do? I look too fat on camera and I stop being funny because I get too nervous. Politics? MPs have to work too hard and they get criticised. Lobbyist could be good but I can never find an issue that sustains my interest more than any other. I'm not academic or enough of a brown-noser to get into a thinktank or any massive corporation. I hate sucking up to people. I hate toeing the party line. But then I got extremely depressed when I was freelance: irregular hours, irregular funds, irregular job satisfaction, having to be pathetically grateful for every commission and never knowing if the next paycheque would be the last. And with a mortgage to pay, I can't afford to be skint. I want regular hours, recognition for hard work, a sense that I'm contributing to a greater good, a salary that will cover my pension (thanks for the terror lesson, mum), and my evenings and weekends free for wine. It's the blight of an only child: I'm not sufficiently gifted to excel, but I'm too full of myself to bear being average. And I am appalling at compromise.

Don't worry, my weekly therapy session is in under an hour. I'm sure absolutely everything will be solved then.

Windrise

About six weeks ago, something potentially amazing happened to me. It was potentially so amazing that it didn't bear thinking about, since the chances of it moving from an amazing potential occurrence to an amazing actual occurrence were smaller than a fat man's desire for wheatgrass. And, indeed, it did not come to pass. So it was lucky that I didn't get excited when the Halifax accidentally paid over £5000 into my account twice (instead of the once they should have), because I'd be sorely disappointed now that my bank just phoned me up and told me they were giving the money back. Despite my lack of disappointment or outrage, I do feel objectively a bit perturbed. Forty two days, it took Halifax to realise they'd made a mistake. Forty two days. I'd say any person or organisation who takes forty two days to notice they've lost five thousand pounds clearly doesn't deserve it in the first place. But anyway. That's that solved. My control freakery is such that I'm actually slightly happier knowing that I don't have the money than I was when I wasn't sure whether I did or not. Now that is mental and no mistake.

What's also slightly perversely good about today is that the one guy with whom I was halfheartedly ebantering has announced that he is going on a date next week. I am humbly assuming that the date is not with me, since he didn't contact me to agree a night, so once I got over the vague smack of disappointment that he asked someone else for a date but not me, I realised that this means that literally every single one of my possible flirtatious routes has now been blocked off, and I am, after a week of procrastinating, finally actually Doing This Thing. The catchily-monikered Operation Take A Break From Thinking About Men Or Relationships So That You Get Some Perspective And Hopefully Realise That You Are Not A Failure For Not Yet Having Found The Right Guy For You But Are Actually A Roaring Success At This Game Called Life And Don't Let Anybody Tell You Any Different has begun.

Dating dating dating dating dating dating dating dating dating dating dating dating. Gah. Talk about elephant in the room. I wonder what else I'll think about now. Hmmmm. I literally feel like there is tumbleweed in my head. I suppose the idea is not to think about anything. Just enjoy the Now.

Dating dating dating. Stop. Tumbleweed. Whistling wind. Tumbleweed. Dating. Tumbleweed. Whistling wind.

God. Maybe I will have to go to the gym. This really does suck.

What's the alternative?

Hahahahahaha, goodness me, wasn't yesterday's blog HILARIOUS! Thanks to everyone who texted and emailed (and there were, genuinely, many) to say how FUNNY my FAILED LOVE LIFE IS. Sigh.

OK, I admit that I was slightly playing it for laughs. But it was a bit like going 'I'm fat' and then everyone else going 'Yeah, you are.' I guess what I find troubling is that it's not even remotely exaggerated. The facts are there. I have been rejected by a lot of men. Sure, I've knocked back a few too, along the way. But that doesn't really make it hurt any less when it happens to you.

So why does this keep happening to me? I genuinely don't think I'm even doing anything wrong. I'm not too picky. I'm not waiting for a man without flaws. I am not unattractive. I'm not thick. Of COURSE I don't let on that I'm actually just as much of a mentalist as any other girl. I don't show them my cellulite. I don't tell them about the time I blogged about wanting to wear an engagement ring. I don't coo over nearby children. I keep quiet about the fact that I like the towels in my bathroom to be folded in a particular way so that they fit properly on the towel rail. I tend not to mention that I'm on anti-depressants, or that I am likely to turn to fat. Instead, I ask them lots of questions, and we talk about music and theatre and film and yoga and travel and all that other stuff, and I laugh at their jokes, and I keep the conversation light and fluffy, and we goon around and it's all good. And they enjoy themselves, dammit. But then they go home, and they think about it, and they think, 'Yeah... actually, no.' And then they evaporate.

I know, it's only got to be right once. And actually, my therapist and I decided that I wouldn't be pro-active about boys for the next ten weeks. So I'm taking down my online profile and all men can get stuffed. And then I read this in the Graun this morning and I thought, 'Hmmmm, maybe...' And then I thought about never having heterosexual sex again and I thought, 'Yeah, that's not going to work.' The quest will continue... but not 'til October.

Two years in the life

Yeah, OK, OK, anyone who knows me can probably guess the reason for my sluggishness to write. Stupid, stupid XY chromosomes and stupid, stupid me for being stupid enough to be optimistic.

Let's recap. My last serious relationship, i.e. where both parties were happy to call the other their 'boyfriend' or 'girlfriend', ended in August 2008. My first date after that weighed approx. 28 stone. The next one kissed me on date one and then vanished. The next one kissed me on dates one and two, said he really liked me and then said he wasn't looking for a relationship. The next one dumped me before he'd even met me, by vanishing on the day of our proposed date. I wasn't so much stood up as sat up, in that I didn't even need to leave my sofa to find out that he wouldn't be there. Then I started regularly seeing a guy whose commitment-phobe tendencies were so glaring as to make it stupid of me to even kiss him in the first place, so unlikely was I to convince him to commit. After three months or so, we called it quits. Then I didn't date because I was sad. Then I met the Glastocrush, but let's be fair, that was never going to last. And it didn't. Then I went on the ridiculous date with the guy from Clapham, just to appease my mother that at least I was trying to be open minded. Then there was the date with the Lying Dutchman, the guy whose fictitious ex-girlfriend kept updating his profile, and others so boring that they didn't deserve an anecdote. Early this year, I met another commitment-phobe, which kept me mental until late March. Then there was the weird German, the guy who designed weapons and the penis guy, all in one week, the guy who kissed me in May and sent me a text afterwards saying "Next time, let's...", inferring (I think you'll agree) that there would be another date, and who then vanished. And the magician, who also did a Houdini. And the posh guy who I went to a pub quiz with, who never texted again. And the education journalist who said he'd love to see me again and then disappeared. And the beautiful teetotaller when neither of us felt any chemistry. And the lovely OCD picnic maker. And now this guy, who asked me out for a third date by text message on Sunday night and hasn't been heard from since.

And, you know, it's fine, and I'm fun and gorgeous, but god it's hard to keep perky. I don't think I know anyone who's been knocked back as many times as I have. I feel like the world's shittest boxer. ANYWAY. What was amazing was the incredible massage I had on Monday, given by this adorable and amazingly powerful Japanese guy, and the giggles I got when I turned over and my boob popped out from under the towel and both of us tried to cover it up. When I say 'popped', it was probably more 'flopped' but this isn't the time for negative body images. Got to run.

Tales of the unexpected

I had arranged to meet last night's date outside Detroit, the Covent Garden bar he'd suggested. I arrived about 46 seconds early and saw a quite sweet little dog outside (with its owner). I went over to talk to it and then, noticing a vacant seat nearby, sat down. The dog ran over and got quite frisky with me. I tried to calm it down but it kept jumping up and then, at the precise moment my date arrived and stood opposite me, the dog burrowed itself underneath my maxi dress and jumped up and down in some sort of frenzy between my legs, trapped by navy jersey fabric. I was giggling hysterically, bright red of face, blonde hair fully awry, as Steve stood opposite me, smiling. It was quite a greeting.

Sadly, in spite of the fantastic material I'd already accrued for the Best Man's speech, the date never got any funner. It was an odd one. He was absolutely charming, interesting and interested. We had a lot in common and chatted easily, and he was kind, humble and thoughtful. Additionally, he was empirically attractive - tall enough, a gorgeous face, a good T-shirt and excellent trainers. But - and this is a totally new one on me - I just didn't fancy him. Not one part of me wanted to kiss him. When I say it's new, of course there have been boys I've not wanted to kiss before. Many hundreds of them. But not one with all those boxes ticked. It was extremely odd. I'm guessing he felt the same because when we parted ways at the oh-so-familiar Northern/Central Line split at the bottom of the escalators at Tottenham Court Road, he held out his arms straight, perpendicular to his body, fists loosely clenched, shoulders hunched, a big toothy grin on his face. As invitations to romantic, lingering kisses go, I'd give it a zero. I played my part in the quick hug, which was about as sensual as a burp, and headed home.

The one extraordinary thing about this guy was that - and I'm aware that the Faithful will immediately conclude that this is why I didn't fancy him but I SWEAR it wasn't - he doesn't drink. Of course, I assumed that he was AA, but he quickly explained that he just doesn't like booze. I was, it is fair to say, utterly gobsmacked. The guy has never once in his life been drunk. He tried to do it in his late teens, and got through half an alcopop before deciding he'd rather be drinking apple juice and gave up. Initially, I'll admit, I thought, 'Well, that's that then.' It is true that me going out with a teetotaller would be like Roseanne Barr going out with an anorexic. But as I talked to him a bit more about it, I knew it didn't have to be a dealbreaker. He just didn't drink. It didn't stop me drinking. That said, knowing I don't have to go out with someone who doesn't drink is a bit of a relief. I mean... No boring, poncey discussions about wine? No getting pissed together and behaving badly or having drunken rows? Every restaurant bill meaning an extra £15 for me while he gets away with juice? No shared hangovers? Hmmm. It's not how I imagined my future.

As far as I'm aware, I don't know anyone who doesn't drink out of choice. I know people who don't drink for religious reasons. I know people who don't drink because they are alcoholics. And I know people who don't drink because they don't like the effect booze has on them. But to have never got pissed, not even once? When everyone around him is drinking to excess and (seemingly) loving it enough to keep on doing it week after week? What kind of person resists that sort of unspoken peer pressure? What kind of person is so uncurious that they don't even try to see what everyone else is going on about? I mean, I've never tried heroin. But that's because it's heavily addictive, massively bad for you and illegal. I know I'd love it, and that's a slippery slope I'd like to avoid. Alcohol is addictive too - but psychologically rather than physically, and it's absolutely unhealthy in large quantities. But it's legal and the majority of adults in the Western world have, at one time or another, enjoyed its effects. And anyway, Steve didn't say he wasn't drinking because he was worried about the health impacts. He doesn't drink because he never has and it's been too long to take it up now. Plus he likes being able to drive everywhere.

I found it intriguing and, ultimately, a bit weird. If he'd tried it (and by 'it', I mean the effects of alcohol. Not just taking a sip of Hooch, but actually drinking enough to experience the buzz), and for some reason not liked it, then I could understand. But to have never tried it... That's a lonely path, surely? An odd path. If pretty much everyone you know is saying something is brilliant, and you don't even try to see what they're experiencing, isn't that weird? Respect is due, perhaps, but it won't come from me.

I really do swear that wasn't why I didn't fancy him though.

Pfff.

So the kisser from Sunday still hasn't been in touch. Not that I'm paranoid or anything, but I think this is the third consecutive date I've been on where the guy has seemed extremely interested, mentioned meeting up again, told me how attractive I was and what a fun time he'd had, kissed me and then vanished. My mum will tell me it's only Tuesday, but as anyone normal/under 60 knows, these days if a guy is properly interested he doesn't hang about. It seems that internet dating breeds this kind of maybe-the-next-girl-will-be-even-better inability for men to stop looking and say, "This lass is fantastic," but given that in the last approx. seven years, 98% of my romantic liasons have been with guys met online, I struggle to believe that signing off the website altogether is the answer. Anyway. He was a bit old and fat anyway. Unless he gets in touch. In which case, wisdom and breadth is exactly what I've always been looking for, and let's face it, I'm no Cheryl Cole.

Not much else to report. A girl from choir is a social worker, and at our rehearsal last night she said that one of her colleagues had been round at a case family's house, helping them out and doing assessments or whatever, and while she was there, she saw another one of her case families on Trisha. Brilliant.

Still not dead - but definitely closer

Sometimes I lie. Most of the time I don't plan it in advance. They just slip out, like newborn calves, all shiny and wet. Last night I was on a date, and for some reason I told the guy that I don't get hangovers. I have no idea why I would suggest such an absurd thing; it is about as rooted in the truth as Scientology and the idea that the fashion world's labelling of beige as 'nude' isn't inherently a bit racist. I think I wanted to emphasise my youthful resilience to such a curmudgeonly problem. Weird lie to tell though, and I think today's aftermath has been markedly worse as a result. The Lie Detector karmic fairy saw me coming and made sure I suffered. I have debilitating cramp in my frontal lobe and my amygdala is weeping softly. It has not been a good day for my (let's face it, never particularly impressive) productivity levels. Yesterday's nine hour date began at a pub in Mile End and ended with a brief kiss at Old Street tube station, the brevity due not to either of us wanting to cut things short, but to the fact that I was slightly inebriated, up on tiptoes with my eyes shut and lost my balance, veering off to the right and very nearly staggering barefoot into a tramp. Not my finest hour.

On Friday I had birthday massages and fun with Em, who is now 33. For dinner we went to Fakharldine or something spelled a bit like that - it's a swanky Lebanese place on Piccadilly and it was delicious but overpriced. On Saturday I went out to Colchester where my tour guide, Oliver, showed me around his neck of the woods. We went to Frinton and paddled in the sea, before we got annoyed by all the ball games so stropped off to Walton on the Naze where he found me a shark's tooth that is between 40 and 60 million years old. It's now wrapped in a New Look receipt in my wallet. Not really sure what to do with it but it's freaking cool. On Saturday night I went to see The Prophet in Bermondsey. Like Audiard's A Bout de Souffle, this was hard going. I watched about 40% of it with my hands over my eyes and was tempted to walk out at one point as it was all so stressful and razor blades and not what I felt like after my day by the seaside. But I'm glad I stayed - an amazingly dark portrait of youth and guts. Impressive how he manages to make one root for such unsavoury characters. On Sunday Kate and I did the next segment of our Capital Ring walk - Crystal Palace to Streatham and slightly too hilly for my liking. Then I went home, had a bath, went on the tube, got impossibly painful blisters from my shoes the INSTANT I reached Mile End, and shortly afterwards began my steady descent into my definitely-very-present hungover state today. I am dying. Perhaps a Kit Kat will help.

The omens

I had a couple of hours to kill after work yesterday before I was due to meet my date. Normally I would go to the gym, or shop, but yesterday I was ex-freaking-hausted so I went home and had a nap, like the true hipster I am. When my alarm went off, I got out of bed with resentment, made myself look as pretty as I get, and set off for the agreed place of rendezvous: a pub in Battersea.

I took a seat on a bus. After another couple of stops, a man got on and tried to buy a ticket with a five pound note. The female bus driver said she didn't have enough change so she couldn't let him on. He said it was OK if she didn't have change because he was going to take the bus to its final stop, and that somewhere in between here and there, she'd get some change from another passenger and could give it to him then. She said no, that she wasn't allowed to do this. He said that was ridiculous. She stood her ground. At this point, I was kind of on the side of the guy. It was his risk to take: if she didn't get change, he'd lose out, not her. But then he got angry. In a strong West Indian accent, he started shouting, "Why you gotta treat me like dis? Make me embarrassed in front of all dese people? I got money! I'm a grown man. I'm givin you dis money. Take de money and you give me change later. I'm married. I got six children. Don' make me look bad here. I ain't gettin off dis bus, lady. I got my money." I took his point, but he was being a bit too shouty. The driver turned off her engine. Clearly, we were not going to move. Another bus pulled up behind us. I dinged the bell, several of us disembarked and we got on the bus behind. The joys of a travelcard.

Moments later we arrived at a bus station from where I was planning to catch another bus. I walked to the appropriate stop. There was a huge crowd there. I looked in the direction they were all looking. The entrance to the bus station was cordoned off and an ambulance was parked there. No buses were going to get through. I started wondering if these signs were from Cupid, telling me to turn back.

Then I saw a guy I'd dated last year. It was unmistakeably him, standing there with his same arrogant, self-satisfied face on, still urgently requiring a slap. He had his iPod on and was carrying an overnight bag. I was immediately staggered that I'd ever thought, even for a milisecond, that he was attractive. I mean, he was breathtakingly not good enough. The power of my brain to tell me I fancy someone when I patently do not will never fail to amaze me. All because he'd had a few poncey articles published in Time Out, one of which said that some element of a shit play we went to see was 'Lynchian'. I am a dick. It made me cringe and then laugh. Meanwhile I hurried to hide behind a bus stop partition, desperate for him not to see me. He clearly saw me: I was wearing a huge yellow flower in my hair and clippy cloppy high heeled date shoes. Thankfully he ignored me too. God even thinking about him now makes me feel a bit sick. Yuck.

The first bus had had to stop unexpectedly. The third bus was not able to reach the stop and collect me. And a hideous spectre from my past had reared up to haunt me. Plus the boy I was meant to be meeting had only ever been borderline appealing over email. The temptation to run home, don my velour and eat popcorn was stronger than a tightly-woven rope, the thickness of a giant's neck, made of steel threads and coated in superglue, but I knew it would be terrible to cancel at such short notice. Bravely, I tottered on towards the next stop, where we had been told we'd be able to pick up a diverted bus. Suddenly the 344 was visible in the distance. I knew I had to sprint. I took off. And then I saw a distinctive overnight bag beside me, and realised that I was, momentarily, engaged in a race with Mr Time Out. In his so-last-year battered Converse, he easily overtook me, but we both made it onto the bus. I went upstairs, he stayed down. And that was the last I saw of him. Until we both got off at the same stop, stepping down onto the pavement in unison. I can't imagine two people wanting to acknowledge each other less. I've never walked away from anywhere so fast.

Heart still in shock after my Olympian sprint, Beyonce-style in stilettos, I entered the pub. I couldn't see my date. I scanned more thoroughly. There was a guy in the corner I hoped was him, but knew it wouldn't be. I texted my date. "Either you're not here, or you are here and look nothing like your photos." A few minutes later, I heard the door open. He looked exactly like his pictures. And he was late. His excuse was that he'd come from his parents' house where he is 'staying temporarily' and they'd left him a note saying 'Please feed the cats and tidy your bedroom.' This was not the most erotic start to an evening. Then he suggested cheating in the pub quiz. The last time I saw someone cheating in a pub quiz - in fact, they weren't even necessarily cheating, they were just using their phone, possibly to send a harmless text message but also potentially finding out an answer - I shouted out "CHEATING!" and pointed at the cretin across the bar. The people I was with wanted to murder me, so intense was their embarrassment, but I didn't care. That's how much I don't like cheaters.

He was a nice guy though. On the list of Things I Want To Kiss, he was probably above 'The Pavement Outside Tottenham Court Road Tube Station' and some way below 'Louis Walsh'. Doubtless he felt similarly unmagnetised by me. Nonetheless, despite a total lack of chemistry, we spent a happy evening together, came fifth in the pub quiz and went home our separate ways. I am tired today.

Breath of fresh air?

It's been an unforgettable few hours for British politics. The pendulum of public opinion has swung from left to right for decades. Now we have a bit of both, and frankly, no one knows whether or not it'll be a fantastic experiment or a hideous mess. So I'm going to hold fire with my opinions until we get some fallout - at least for the next hour or so, anyway. I will say that I do want it to work, even though that may mean that I one day have to praise members of the Tory party. But we'll see.

In the absence of a gripping liveblog updating me on the coalition discussions every six seconds, I now have almost nothing to do [see doodle]. In my personal life, the snake has beaten a retreat along with Gordo. I got up this morning, did yoga and washed my hair, a series of actions that have a similar level of signifcance to a perfectly normal, healthy person going on a weeklong intensive detox in Bali. After two days of no make-up, greasy hair and no exercise, I now feel like a new person. A new person who still hasn't heard from the short guy but who's now deleted his number and stopped worrying about it. I'd texted him yesterday morning telling him he wasn't flirting nearly enough and then, when I didn't receive a reply, texted him again yesterday evening saying, and I quote, 'Meh. Lame. I'm replying to the magician.' Pathetic? Sure, but it made me feel better.

Now I'm sitting here researching the Chinese visa application process and trying to distract myself so that I don't go back to the vending machine for a second packet of crisps. Nothing funny is happening here, although it may amuse you to hear that, in a vivid display of karma's sizeable powers, I (possibly unfairly) wiggled my way onto the rammed tube this morning, ukulele on my back, and then, smugly in position, had to endure the frankly unendurable morning breath of the businessman to my left for around 45 seconds. I wasn't sure whether I'd rather smell it or breathe through my mouth and then inhale the particles, but neither of us could move our heads due to space restrictions so I was forced to adopt a mix 'n' match combination procedure. He was presumably unaware of the solid bulkiness of his emissions, but they were eye-wateringly pungent, suggestive of a thick, yellow coating on the tongue like cranberry-flecked Cathedral City from weeks of coffee and dairy. I can't pretend to know his motives, but the man was unquestionably anti-toothpaste. Thankfully I was able to rotate approximately 80 degrees at the next station but I did notice that the hand that he was using to grip onto the safety rail was wearing a wedding band. Pity that woman, readers. If ever there was a justification for separate beds, he was it.

Thirty two year old dog; new trick

So it's very quiet in my office - all I can hear is the hum of Sky News next door, which has been reporting the BREAKING NEWS about the election, which is that ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAS BEEN DECIDED. Across the road, a pneumatic drill or similar has just started doing its thing on the Crossrail site works, but other than that, it's been pretty silent here all day. That said, I can hear something else: a soft moaning, interspersed with the occasional sob. At first, I couldn't work out the sound's source. It was so plaintive, so sad, and every time I heard a new moan, I felt a stab of pain for its owner, who was clearly in some discomfort. Eventually, I realised what has been making the noise all morning. My liver.

After a heavy night on Thursday, a relatively quiet one on Friday, and another major assault on Saturday, the last thing I should have done yesterday is headed out, fully hungover, on a date, which of course entailed compulsory Dutch courage from the moment we met at 15:30 hours until we parted company at around 23:30. How people can meet for the first time over coffee I have no idea. Anyway, it was fun, but today I feel like it would take a seven or eight year detox to give my body a chance to recover. To assist it, I ate a bacon sandwich for breakfast and a tuna sandwich for lunch - the latter included a healthy five slices of cucumber and is thus surely bringing me back up to prime fitness levels. Just to gild the lily, I drank a berry smoothie and now rival Usain Bolt for optimum muscular power. My internal organs, however, require some further work.

The guy I met was on his first ever internet date (allegedly), and basically slipped up at every hurdle with impressive panache, telling me that he'd lined up dates with other women (massive faux pas - although obviously everyone is seeing several people, and we all know that they know we are too, the great game is to pretend you are only interested in whoever is seated across the table) and, having examined the Popular List for the first time on my iPhone, asked if I would take a new profile photo of him to improve his chances. I reminded him that this was not ideal flirting etiquette. He agreed, but then a few minutes later said that one of the men on the Popular List looks like a guy he knows from Hull who was taken to court on a rape conviction. I said that, again, this possibly wasn't the best first date chat. Later, I was at the climax of my story about the guy who vomited all over himself on the tube, when our food arrived. So really, it was probably about even in the end. Ultimately, I did like him quite a lot - he is the first guy who's ever made me cry with laughter twice in one evening - but he has plenty of flaws I can focus on if he decides he doesn't like me too. Plus I was so tipsy at the end of the night that, en route to the loo, I saw a dark haired guy in a nice overcoat standing alone by the bar, holding a pack of cards. I asked him if he could do magic. He replied that he could. I told him emphatically that I hate magic. He proceeded to do some amazing amazing card tricks. I got progressively enraged. He gave me his number. I went to the loo. So that's a first: picking up a guy while on a date with someone else. I'd be disgusted with myself if I wasn't so impressed.

Curiouser and curiouser

A few weeks ago I started emailing a boy through the dating website I use. He was exceptionally tall and attractive and seemed unpredictable and hilarious, so I let him off the usually unforgiveable spelling mistakes in his profile. After a few messages, I agreed to meet him at some point in the future. Then time slipped away and I realised I owed him an email. To refresh my memory, I checked his profile again to make sure I really did want to spend an evening of my valuable time in his company. And at the bottom of the first paragraph, I saw a sentence I hadn't noticed before. "I'm not a believer in monogamy," it read, "so if that's important to you, be warned." I emailed him immediately. "Hang on," I wrote. "You don't believe in monogamy?!" A day later, he replied, his profile updated and the offending sentence removed. "This has happened a couple of times before," he explained. "An ex thinks I cheated on her, which I didn't, but she found out my password and broke into my page." He apologised profusely, said he knew it wasn't the best start but was pretty funny about it, and I saw no reason to disbelieve him - he said he'd taken the precaution of changing his password. We agreed a date to meet.

Then, the day before the date, I saw that his profile had been updated again - and this time, the changes weren't even in the meat of his description paragraphs, but rather in his headline, the first thing anyone reads about you. "Looking for an easy lay," it read. Charming. I emailed him again. "Fuck fuck fuck!" he wrote back. "I'm going to delete my profile. Do you have another email address I can reach you on?" I said I was pretty wary, and he said he didn't blame me. I emailed him my real email address. Five minutes later his profile was deleted. And I never heard from him again.

I think he deleted my email address accidentally when he deleted my profile. Grania thinks he is schizophrenic and was altering his profile himself to create drama. I'm unconvinced, but I do think it's fairly unlikely that if someone broke into your profile and changed stuff in a way you didn't like, and you decided to take action and change your password, that you would ever change it to something even REMOTELY guessable. Surely you would choose the most obscure combination ever? How could she possibly have broken in more than once? Then again, if it was him making the changes for a bit of excitement, why would he delete his profile, which he'd paid for? All very odd. And thus my list of incredible vanishing men increases by the week. I can't really be offended if they disappear before they even meet me, but still, I spent Monday afternoon half-waiting for an email that never arrived and it's annoying.

That said, he clearly wasn't my husband because he can't spell and has psychotic ex-girlfriends, and I would have had to cancel the date anyway, as it was meant to be last night, and last night I had to be horizontal in velour. I was asleep on the sofa at 7pm, having made 24 mince pies that looked beautiful before I baked them, and now could be mistaken (and used successfully) as orangey-yellow hockey pucks. The pastry to filling ratio that I was advised to maintain by Delia turned out to be erroneous, and I am left with hard balls of pastry containing a small pocket of mince within, like a rock solid, shrunken mince doughnut crossed with a festive gobstopper. That's not to say they're not absolutely DELICIOUS. They're just not mince pies. Whatever they are, I've eaten three of them - two last night and one for breakfast. And now I'm off to my work Christmas lunch at a steak restaurant. Drool.

Meddle of nowhere

About two or three months ago, when Christmas was a pale speck on the horizon and my energy levels were somewhat higher, I bought two tickets for Grania and I to attend a singles party with a twist. The idea was that, in a room full of singles, there would be people called 'Meddlers' who would help to orchestrate that first meeting with the handsome guy standing by the bar. It sounded quite funny and I was looking forward to it. Then I woke up yesterday morning and realised that I wanted to go to the Meddlers Ball about as much as I wanted to force rusty skewers under each one of my toenails.

Still, a promise is a promise, so Grania and I dragged our sorry asses along to the bar at the arranged time, went in and sat down. The lighting was pleasingly low and we bought some revolting white wine and sat in the corner with a plate of deep fried mezze. Around us on the tables were blank Christmas cards and biros for us to send a festive flirt to a fellow singleton. I examined our options. The crowd was ok and the music was reassuringly familiar, but more than that, there was something extraordinarily liberating about being in a room full of people like us, young men and women who still hadn't yet made the decision to settle down. Going to a bar on a normal evening is, of course, an exemplary way to spend a few hours, but there's little more frustrating than wheeling out your most winning anecdotes to a man who, after forty-five minutes of flirtatious questioning, casually mentions that he's also been to India, and in fact proposed to his wife in the gardens of the Taj.

We finished our food and stepped into the throng. I'd early identified a boy who looked a little like a mustachioed Heath Ledger, while Grania pointed out a lovely tall man with excellent jeans. Mr Denim was first, and I accosted him by the bar and we chatted to him for three minutes, which was long enough to make it perfectly clear to both of us that he was very dull. It's self-evident that not every gorgeous person one sees on the tube or in the supermarket is possessed of a wondrous personality, but it's always nice to receive hard evidence of this. We moved on feeling buoyed.

The next hour or so was spent chatting to several small clusters of uniformly unremarkable men, one of whom had said that he loved Jeremy Kyle and another who'd said that he'd come to this same event in April and met a Brazillian who had dumped him after five months, so he was back for another go. Honesty perhaps not the best policy there. Suddenly, one of the Meddlers ran up and excitedly told me that he'd found me a Guardian reader, as though all my woes were cured. He pointed out two men who looked quite nice, and Grania and I spent a bit of time chatting to them later on in the evening. They were indeed good company but not quite right, and we drifted off before too long, leaving them dancing to Bonkers by Dizzee Rascal. To be honest, I'm not sure my rapping along was doing me any favours although Grania seemed to be loving my work even more than usual.

Cut to an hour later. We are sitting down, chatting about nothing, because talking to boys is exhausting. Suddenly, a small notepad lands on the table in front of us. We open it and read 'Two girls talking to each other? That doesn't not fair on us lads!' We look up and see a small man who I know for certain that I will never love. Grania starts to write but I get impatient and take over, constructing our reply, which reads 'But you need to be cool enough to justify us standing up.' Grania changes the full stop to an exclamation mark because she's nicer than I am, and we send it back. Two or three more exchanges culminate in the pathetically depressing request, 'Stand up and give us a twirl' to which I reply 'I'm trying to be nice here, but that is LAME.' Grania does not alter my punctuation.

We spot another guy behind us, sitting on his own and writing intently. 'What are you writing?' we write, and throw the notepad at him. He reacts as if shot. Eventually we get a reply, 'I try to write the beginning of a play.' 'Can we be in it?' we ask, coquettishly. He ignores us. Grania starts chatting to Mr Give Us A Twirl, while my interest levels are waning. I pick up one of the Christmas cards and start writing a message to Grania's mother. Later, I go to the bar and find myself standing next to Heath Ledger, who tries to kiss me almost immediately. I look displeased and tell him I'd singled him out as a potential hopeful earlier, and now retract that. He looks crestfallen and mumbles 'Sorry' several times. A few minutes later I spot him on the dancefloor with his shirt half unbuttoned, rubbing his chest, seemingly in an attempt to arouse the two girls he's jigging with. To their eternal discredit, they appear to be enjoying themselves.

By the end of the night, Grania is talking to a guy who looks like he'd rather be sucking a vomit lolly than chatting at a singles party, while I'm trying to persuade his lank-haired friend that I don't want to sit down next to them and that I'm fine standing. Eventually we decide that enough is enough, and scamper back down to the tube, suffering an emotional parting at the Northern Line / Central Line junction at Tottenham Court Road. The boys may not have been up to the lowest of our standards, but it was an extremely fun night and I left with my self-esteem almost buoyed, which was odd given that I had started the evening saying 'There are going to be 100 single men in here. If you don't find one you like, you need to change your criteria.' If there were some nice guys in the throng, we didn't talk to them. Still, I'm glad I went.

And now, this.

Married to the city

Last night, I went on a date. On paper, it was pretty fantastic: he was handsome and funny, he asked lots of questions, laughed at my jokes, had booked a very romantic table in a really nice restaurant and insisted on picking up the tab. Also lovely is the fact that he really wants to meet up again. Not so good is the fact that I don't.

Despite being lots of totally ace things, he was... and I'm afraid there is no easy way of saying this... he just wasn't clever enough. Before you spit out your oatcake at my arrogance, read me out. I don't give a flying expletive where he went to university or even if he did or not, I don't care if he doesn't have two GCSEs to rub together. It's not about spelling or grammar or intellect. It doesn't matter if he spent his twenties living in a squat smoking pot and playing the bongos. What does matter is how he spends his time now. Is he reading and writing and thinking and growing? Or is he bumbling? Because if it's the latter, then I can try as hard as I like, but I guarantee I'll never fancy him.

The other day, someone asked what qualities my ideal man would have, and I repeated the line from my online profile about him being 'slightly taller, slightly cleverer and slightly quirkier than I am', and the guy I was talking to asked how I would know that he's cleverer than me. I said it comes down to whether he can beat me in an argument. If that's not possible, then the power balance is all wrong, and when the initial honeymoon period is over, I'll take him DOWN, motherfucker. Can't help it.

This guy was very kind and nice. But he doesn't read, he doesn't write, he doesn't vote and he couldn't agree that skiing is slightly elitist, justifying its prohibitive expense on the basis that it protects the environment and that it would be 'ruined' if everyone did it. This morning, he texted me saying he enjoyed the fact that I was so challenging, which, along with "I wish Sarah Palin had won" and "I prefer Strictly" is pretty much the quickest way to put me off you. Sure, it's OK for a girl to challenge a guy, but at least half of the challenging has to come from the guy. Them's the rules.

Saturday night got me worked up too. Kate and I went to the depths of Westbourne Park for Book Slam!, a monthly event that bills itself as London's first/best/only literary nightclub. I was hoping for a bit of original thought and we were both disappointed by the staggeringly conventional stand-up host, Robin Ince, and the performance poet whose name I've forgotten, neither of whom said a single thing that wasn't wholly derivative. Then there was music from a disappointing choir and a girl with a beautiful voice but sub-Alicia Keys songs who's never going to make it big. The evening's sole highlight was the fascinating Lionel Shriver, who read excerpts from two of her books and dealt with Kate's and my gushing praise with cold-faced disinterest. Normally I wouldn't dare approach someone like her at a public event, but she seemed to be hating the proceedings even more than I was, so I remain cockily hopeful that we were a welcome interruption. The evening was as suffocatingly prosaic as a BBC costume drama, and while I sat inwardly tutting throughout, I did at least feel vindicated that, while I will never feel like I truly belong among the hipsters of East London, I definitely feel more at home with a few weirdos than in the safe and sterile confines of the W postcodes.

I tell you where I was very happy indeed, however - at the Roundhouse on Friday night, watching this year's selection of cabaret by La Clique. Featuring nudity, juggling, comedy, acrobatics, crap magic, impressions and rollerskating, I laughed my tights off and would happily pay £22 to see the whole thing again tomorrow. It's on until 17 January so if anyone fancies a New Year pickmeup, give me a shout. Of course, it always helps if you're sitting there with someone fantastic, and Thom's cackles definitely kept me smiling. Throw in dinner afterwards at a delicious pub, and a couple of narrowly-avoided fights in a grotty Camden boozer, and it was pretty much my perfect night out. London: I love you.

They like it long

So last night a bunch of us were in the pub after choir, and someone said that my hair looked nice, and I said that I really like the fringe, but I hate the length. And they said (reasonably),
"Why don't you cut it?" and I said,
"Because I'm trying to maximise my chances and boys prefer girls with long hair." Immediately, there was a loud scoffing around the table as several of the tenors and basses hastened to assure me of the falsity of my statement.
"That's rubbish!" blurted one. "It looks great!"
"I LOVE short hair on girls... very sexy..." murmured another.
"Ah," I said. "You may like short hair on girls, but I bet you only go out with girls with long hair." Many pairs of male eyebrows simultaneously knotted. "I am always the cool, feisty girl with the funky hair and the excellent clothes," I continued, "and at every party, all the boys say I look great and laugh at my jokes, but then they end up falling for the girl with the long straight hair and the round neck jumper. You like short hair on girls, but not on your girlfriends." I spoke with authority, but even I was surprised at the speed at which the boys agreed.
"Actually, you're right," one conceded.
"You know, I've never been out with a girl with short hair," admitted another one.
"So this new hair," asked Aidan, "is your marriage hair?"
"I suppose it is," I said. And we all laughed. Hahahahaha.

Yes. I am growing marriage hair. Hahahahaha. What was yesterday a headful of long, blonde locks is today another symbol of my hope for partnership. Pragmatism or desperation? I don't think it's any different than my decision not to wear my all-in-one velour jumpsuit on dates or my choice to wear make-up rather than turn up with eyes like currants in a face full of unleavened pitta. We all do what we can to look attractive. I'm normal. Just abnormally open about it all. And you love me for it.

Same shit, different day

Embargo lifted.

So the guy who, last Sunday eve, suggested we meet for drinks, and then, having vetted me over beers, suggested we go on for food; who then kissed me, and told me I was beautiful, and said he wanted to see me again; who then texted me when I got home, suggesting we meet again; who then texted me again early the following evening, in full sobriety, saying he was a little busy this week but that he would drop me a line over the weekend to make a plan for the following week, and then added a previously-unused 'x': that guy? I never heard from him again.

I spent the week in my most hated state, that of feverish impotence, where someone is making a decision about me and I can do absolutely diddly squat to affect the outcome. The utter loss of control is, for an organised, capable, absolutely unspiritual individual such as myself, nothing short of torture. I would rather have spent the week being called ugly on successive days by a selection of lice-infested tramps. Ugly I can deal with. Ugly is in the eye of the beholder. Ugly is subjective fact, and can be altered. Waiting, on the other hand, is unbearable. Waiting affects me every second of every day. Waiting ruined my week and then it pretty much ruined my weekend.

I went away to the countryside on Friday afternoon, desperate for a change of scene having been in London for 55 consecutive days and, my diary informs me, in at home resting for only six of them. Lucy and Jake were in fine fettle and their two gorgeous nippers were bright of eye and bushy of metaphorical tail. The rain lashed against the windows and we snuggled in front of the fire, ate cake and watched The Thick Of It, and all would have been perfect if there hadn't been a silent iPhone on my bedside table, screaming 'HA HA HA YOU ARE STILL REJECTED' every time I checked it. The butterflies that had descended heavily into my stomach and larynx last Monday had grown fatter and angrier, and by the time I got back to the safety of my flat on Sunday afternoon, I so longed to be without the uncertainty that I engaged in an act of deliberate self-sabotage, and texted the guy. It was a bad text, utterly pointless with undesired yet completely unavoidable undertones of 'I reeeeeeeallllllyyyy liked you', but it had the desired effect - within five minutes, the guy who had avoided my phone for seven days replied, saying nothing of any import, asking no questions and typing no kisses. I sent back a sarcastic one liner smacking of unconcealed bitterness, and that was that.

Instantly, like clouds of bats swooping and screaming out of the Batcave, the butterflies departed. I felt my stomach calm and settle for the first time in a week and since then, I've been back to my old self. No joke. I barely care. I mean, obviously it smarts a bit. I'd rather he had found me irresistible, but I am old enough to know that not everyone will, and that is fine. They're obviously idiots, but it is fine.

None of the saga was about him specifically. I can hardly even remember what he looked like. I do remember us getting on really well, but I also remember that he was obviously fairly apolitical, and the fact that he basically got expelled from his school, and went to a rubbish university, and can't really string a sentence together on paper, and smokes like a chimney. I had not planned on spending the rest of my life with this man. All I knew was that I wanted to see him again, and that someone I fancied was weighing me up. The powerlessness was everything that I detested - the boy himself, and the outcome, seemed almost inconsequential. I didn't mind if he liked me or not - I just wanted to know which one it was so that I could adjust my mental abacus accordingly.

Normally, when I emerge from a grim experience, I can reassure myself that I've learned from my mistakes. There is an upside, I tell myself - I won't do that again. But in this situation, there's nothing I could have done differently. All I did was meet him, like him, and agree to see him again. I didn't screw up, so I can change nothing about my behaviour next time. The one thing I'd like to be different - the butterflies - are beyond my control. Believe me, I did my best. I told myself fifty times a day not to get excited, that he probably wouldn't call, that it would hardly be the end of the world, that he was too short anyway and that there are plenty more fish in the sea. But the butterflies remained, flapping their stupid fat wings and wiggling their antennae at all times of the night and day. I dearly wish I could meet someone fun, go on a great date, and then wake up the next morning feeling the same level of excitement as if I'd been to the supermarket. I'd love to wait until a boy has proved his worth to me before getting ants in my pants about him. But it is just not possible for me. If I like someone, if I think someone might have potential, it's exciting. The unpleasantness and the butterflies are inevitable. There is no way to trust someone straight away, and thus this stage of not knowing is an intrinsic part of falling in love. It is, surely, impossible to meet someone without it. So basically, unless I give up on love altogether, I will have to go through this again, possibly several times. Not a prospect I relish.

It is the first sign of madness to continue to do the same thing repeatedly but continue to hope for a different result. However, maybe, as my friend Sara pointed out, if the same action is repeated with different boys, then it is not quite the same thing, and therefore it is not madness, but merely hope, which sounds simultaneously better but sadder. For hope is not far from desperation. The fine line we tread as single women who ultimately would like a mate is barbed. Either you settle for second or third best - something I've tried to do and failed. Or you give up and buy a cat - something I don't want to do. Well, I want the cat. But not yet. So I carry on along the thorny path, hoping that against all the odds, one of the two remaining single men in London who aren't complete twunts realises that I am a ridiculously good catch. The last thing I want is to become one of those haggard old cynical cows who laughs bitterly in the face of any guy who dares pay her a compliment - but I do wish I'd stop having these disappointing experiences. Un. Pleasant. And it does get a bit depressing when the only thing my mum ever seems able to say to me is 'Keep on trucking.' It's good advice, but we all need a trip to the service station every now and then. Where is my Leigh Delamere?

Ah well, it's over again. Until the next time.

All play and no work makes Jane a... worse than average employee?

Ohgodohgodohgodohgod. Why do I insist on doing this to myself? I have such good intentions to be boring and sensible and then I start having fun and I just can't stop. Last night I went out to see Simon Amstell do stand-up at the Shepherd's Bush Empire and I laughed so much I actually pulled one of the muscles around my left ribcage. Towards the beginning of the set, as I let an enthusiastic 'haha' escape from my lungs, the guy sitting on my left loudly said, 'Shhh!' 'You're kidding,' I thought. I'm getting shushed for laughing at a comedy show? No way. Then a few moments later, he did it again when I wasn't even making a sound. And I realised that was his laugh. 'Shhh!' he went, every few seconds, like a steam train pulling away from a station. It was really quite disconcerting, but I got used to it eventually.

My favourite moment was when Simon said that playing hard to get was ridiculous and compared it to walking into a supermarket and thinking, 'Hmmm, I really feel like a potato tonight - I better not look at the potatoes in case they realise I'm interested.' I do think it's different for boys though. As girls, we really are told time and time again not to make the first move. Boys do like the chase. It's fine. I'm used to it. (She says, drumming her fingers impatiently, waking her phone up from sleep mode to check for texts, refreshing her Gmail every six seconds, tearing her hair out, not sleeping).

Then we went back to Grania's with a third musketeer and danced on the table and took a zillion photos and did diabolo and discussed sex and religion and all those other good things until we finally went to bed at half past three, when I listened to Bounce Out of Bed. Needless to say, I was about as bouncy as a car park when my alarm went off at 7.45 this morning but somehow made it to my desk on time and am very much looking forward to this evening, when Donald is coming over and the very most I expect to do is go to the cinema. Thankfully my boss is on holiday so my usually unmanageable workload has been reduced substantially. Tick tock tick tock.

In good news, my guy has dropped one place on the popular list. In bad news, he has been on the site almost constantly today. Hangovers are not good for my paranoia levels. Nor, let's face it, is online dating. I'm not renewing my subscription. For now.

Six degrees of separation

One of the worst things in the world, up there with cholera and Tesco's own mayonnaise, is the Guardian Soulmates popular list. The website apparently has over 130,000 active users, which makes us sound like energetic heroin addicts, and out of that unfathomably large online population, larger than the number of residents in Slough, the twenty girls and twenty boys who are a) made a 'favourite' by the most other users and are b) sent the most emails go onto a chart. The top twenty girls are listed first. Pretty much without exception, they are in their mid-twenties, very attractive, with long hair, a big smile and their head tilted slightly to one side. They all say they're happy to meet guys up to around aged 35, which means that the boys I'm interested in also have these lithe, uncellulited beauties to choose from. Not that I post photos of my cellulite on Guardian Soulmates, but, like the real story behind the moon landings and Tom Cruise's sexuality, the Truth Is Out There.

Then there's a list of the men. They are a handsome bunch, mostly in their early thirties, and not fans of the head tilt. Instead, they go for a rugged, wide smile, and stare straight to camera, indicating openness and honesty. Out of the twenty, only one has anything other than a full head of hair, which cannot be representative. And of course, like all truly awful things (spider plants, smallpox), the situation is horribly self-perpetuating. Once you're on the popular list, far more people see your profile, and you get far more emails.

Needless to say, I, with my mid-length hair and untilted head, have never been on the popular list. The closest I've come to it was going out on a date once with a guy whose sister had been at number three and was so devastated when she fell to number seven that she had to leave the site altogether. It's always seemed like the kind of webpage I should probably avoid unless I wanted a good cry. And, mostly, I was able to steer well clear. Until a few days ago, when I went on a date with a guy who's on the list - and I liked him. Very Katy Perry. Now I hover round desperately hoping for him to drop off the chart (and sadly he's in the top ten so it doesn't look likely), while trying to block out all thoughts of how many hundreds of coquettish messages he's getting each day from leggy, tilty-headed vixens.

Sadly, I don't see that there's much I can do, except campaign for this irritating section of the Soulmates website to be removed immediately. Singles of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but a small fraction of your terrible self-hatred! Join me in fighting to ban the popular list! Popularity stinks! Who wants to be popular? Not me, that's for darn tootin'! I want to be kooky and different and have only two or three balding men emailing me at any one time! Yes siree, that's why I pay my £22 every month. Yup. It's alllllllll good.

Title suggestions welcome

Last night I went home and sat on my sofa and, for the following two hours, read What I Loved by Siri Husvedt until I came to the end. I don't think I've done that since I moved into my flat. Reading is something that I do when I've finished everything else - or when there's nothing else I can be doing i.e. on the tube. What's annoying is that it now must seem like the book I was reading was especially remarkable, but it wasn't - it was smug and self-aware and irritating. But, in much the same way that I read The Da Vinci Code in a matter of consecutive hours, I wanted to find out what happened. A gripping plot is an amazing achievement, something that manages to fight through all manner of literary irritants. Also compelling was the fact that three separate friends had told me to read the book, and warned me that it gets quite dark in its latter stages. Pulse racing and compulsively determined to 'win' in some way, I spent pretty much every page trying to pre-empt the darkness, guessing and guessing and guessing, and then I finished the book. Turns out that what I call dark is a bit darker than what they call dark. Not that I thought it was a romcom or anything, but in my head I had the dad becoming a paedophile with his best friend's underage son. That didn't happen.

I sat on my sofa for a few minutes after I'd finished the final page and tsked my way through the acknowledgements, and I think I've pretty much decided that I will never write a novel. I just don't know or care enough about any one thing to focus on it for months of my life. I love the flippancy of a blog, the immediacy and the disposability. We all change constantly; at the moment I find it hard to be committed to these entries for longer than the few seconds it takes me to write them, and I don't allow myself to come back and edit them - they are truly immediate, normally produced in around a quarter of an hour, churned out and forgotten about. I like that rush. And certainly, the idea of pulling together the first draft of a novel is electrifying in a completely different way, a marathon as opposed to a sprint, but the truth that, even if it goes brilliantly, I will still be churning out rewrites in a year's time - well, the claustrophobia is so strong I can smell it. I can't promise I'll still like my shoes tomorrow morning, nor my haircut, my job or my friends - how can I possibly guarantee that I'll still be interested in the same story in twelve months? I posted a question about book writing on Twitter and Facebook, and had a gratifying number of encouraging messages from friends, but only one from a published author, who told me not to bother. I think she's right. I'll stick to the short stuff. Can't someone just publish this blog somewhere?

Meanwhile, in Matters of the Heart, I have been emailing (amongst others) a deeply unsuitable guy over the past few days. He sent me a message on Wednesday afternoon, babbling away perfectly happily and asking a couple of questions, as you do. I logged on to the site yesterday afternoon and wrote a (brilliant) reply, and pressed send. I was then taken to an unfamiliar page with a no entry sign on it, and an error message that read 'This user has chosen to block you. Please respect their wishes.' My jaw dropped. In a moment of uncharacteristic cockiness, I immediately concluded that he must have done it in error. The guy chatters away like he's on smack, I'm pretty sure that he is a likely candidate for accidentally pressing buttons on his computer that block people on dating sites. Still, my ego wanted to know, so like any good sleuth, I asked Sara (who is also on the site, and who he hadn't yet blocked) to email him and tell him that he had accidentally blocked me. She did. He unblocked me and apologised. Now, of course, I look like I really like him, which is annoying, because I don't. But I'd rather be emailing an unsuitable smack addict than be blocked by one for no reason. So all's well that ends well.

I'm off to sing beautifully and then watch 2012. Dreading it.