LITMIR.BIZ

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knows the answer?” Came my incredulous reply to his dismissive comments, but it seemed he wasn’t going to be persuaded. I could already see cracks forming and we hadn’t even met, so I suggested he gave me a call so that I could ascertain if there was any point in arranging to meet up. He duly agreed and we set the time for eight o’clock the following evening.

      One advantage of modern technology is that you can have a broadband telephone and ensure that you keep that number for your ventures into cyberspace. This has two advantages; firstly that you always know it must be one of your online contacts who is calling and, secondly, with caller identification you don’t have to take the call if you decide they are a stalker and won’t leave you alone after you have clearly told them you are not interested. I felt quite pleased that I had this option of keeping them separate and that as the line was ex-directory there was no chance of them materialising on my doorstep at any point early on in the proceedings.

      The following evening I am waiting for the call, curious to find out what this man is really like and if he is as pedantic in other areas of his life as he is about the English language and is he as arrogant as he appears in his emails when it comes to his opinion versus that of the team at the OED.

      I let the telephone ring five times (I don’t want to appear too keen or needy) before I pick it up and say “Hello”.

      “Heeelloooo” comes the response from the other end of the line. My spine starts to tingle and not in a good way.

      “Hello?” I say again, wondering if this is some random pervert calling me.

      “Heeellooo” comes the voice again, with no indication as to who it is.

      “Geoff?” I inquire.

      “How did you know it was me?”

      “Lucky guess” I try to be witty and light but I am beginning to wonder how his company gets any business if he ever has to answer the office telephone.

      How do you deal with a man who has a voice that sounds like a serial killer from a slasher movie, and whose every utterance has you wanting to run for the door and check that all the locks are fully functioning?

      I really was at a loss to know what to do. I could barely hear the subject of his conversation as I was trying to work out if this voice was his real voice or if, God forbid, he thought he was being sexy by talking in this way.

      I decide to bring up the subject of the empathic/empathetic debate but he was absolutely resolute in his refusal to accept that he might actually be wrong, and that the OED did know what they were talking about and that his sister actually didn’t have the final word on this subject.

      Twenty minutes later and he still won’t budge and I am wondering why I am torturing myself with this conversation so I finally make an excuse to end the chat, but not before I have somehow agreed to speak to him the following Saturday.

      “I know, I know!” I wailed down the telephone to Erica having updated her on the whole conversation. “Why I agreed to another call I don’t know and I am just dreading the fact that he is then going to want to meet me.”

      “Well you are just going to have to say no aren’t you?”

      “How am I going to do that without having to tell him why? I can’t just tell him that he sounds like some psychopathic axe murderer and his voice really freaks me out can I?”

      “Jen, you don’t even know him, you’ve exchanged a few emails and spoken to him once; you’re not breaking off an engagement to him or anything.”

      “I know, so why does this seem such a difficult thing to do and what am I going to say?”

      “Just tell him that you’ve decided that you don’t think you have much in common and you have decided not to pursue this any further.”

      “Say that again, I need to write it down.”

      “Why?”

      “Because Erica I can then just say it to him and not panic and agree to meet up with him.”

      “Jen I cannot believe you are going to use my words; you’re in marketing and you more than anyone know how to express yourself.”

      “Yes, but on this one I have completely freaked out and I just have to use your words rather than worry about messing it all up myself and getting myself a meeting with him in an effort not to hurt his feelings.”

      And so, paper to hand, the following Saturday I answered the telephone and, verbatim with a delivery that would never have passed an audition for drama school, informed Geoff that I would not be pursuing this contact any further. I didn’t need to worry about explaining myself as he slammed the ‘phone down and that was the end of that.

      “So this one was a disaster before you even met him then?” Laughed Polly.

      “Crikey Jen you are not a good advert at the moment for internet dating.”

      I had to admit Polly had a point and I wondered where on earth I was going wrong. I knew the kind of man I was looking for and I was getting better at filtering out those men who really were incompatible early on in the whole process, so that I didn’t actually have to meet them (as was the case with Geoff and ok let’s forget the whole embarrassing scenario of me using someone else’s lines to get the message across, but we do all suffer from nerves). The thing that was most frustrating me at the moment was, that of the ones I had met, none had come remotely close to lighting my fire. There wasn’t even a candle burning, or come to think of it a match, in most cases.

      How could I change things to improve the suitability of the men I was meeting? It hardly seemed appropriate to ask them if they spat out their food or had halitosis or greasy hair. It was far easier to ask them about previous girlfriends and establish if that was going to cause a problem.

      On the other hand if I just decided to treat it all as a numbers game, then statistically, the more men I met the more likely I would be to meet the one who would, at last, float my boat and warrant a second date. Ah a second date….at the moment a second date seems about as likely as me having a first date with David Tennant. Now there’s a man that you wouldn’t mind seeing in a wet shirt.. Surely someone could include him in a future production of a Jane Austen novel? That would make so many of the female population happy indeed.

      But back to reality and the elusive Mr Right. How was that going to work out?

      The man from Northamptonshire seemed quite promising and he immediately wrote back to me. He was in early fifties with two grown up children and was divorced and so there seemed to be no significant emotional baggage. Or at least that is what he was claiming.

      Charles, also ran his own antiques company and seemed to be quite interested in theatre and ballet as well as being quite a keen runner from what he told me.

      I held my breath when he sent through his photo as that can really disappoint, but he looked quite pleasant with brown eyes and straw blond hair and he certainly looked younger than his years.

      Next we chatted on the ‘phone and he actually had quite a posh voice, which was due to being educated at Rugby and coming from a family that seemed, from what he said, to own a number of farms in Northamptonshire making organic cheese and other dairy products.

      We spoke for almost half an hour and he said that he was coming down to Hampshire the following week and perhaps he could meet me and take me out to dinner. I thought this sounded like a good idea and so we agreed to meet the following Thursday in the Town Square at eight o’clock. He said that he would book himself into a hotel rather than drive home so late at night.

      “A hotel room? You are kidding me?” Erica looked incredulous.

      “What do you mean? I thought that was actually

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