josh
They always put curry, the blokes. The really macho ones put ‘vindaloo’ – like that was something to impress a woman: sitting there with a scarlet face, eyes watering from the chillis . . . yeah, dead sexy, that. Why was nobody honest enough to come out with good old shepherd’s pie, or sausages and mash with onion gravy? The latter would have been my meal of choice, no questions asked, although I had to admit that, in the past year, I hadn’t bothered to cook a single sausage or spud – or any proper food when it came to it – very much.
Sadly, lots of the women ignored the ‘favourite food’ section of the questionnaire. Too scared of looking greedy, I reckoned. No man liked a porker with her nose in the trough, did they?
It was probably why all the clients felt comfortable with me. As a larger-than-average woman (as I was these days), the men saw me as a safely unattractive type – not intimidating, and not someone worth lusting over. And the women didn’t feel that they had to compete with me for blokes. They looked me over and felt better about themselves, and that was that. I was cool with it. Most of the time, anyway.
But back to Andrew:
In a woman, I look for: sense of humour, long hair, a nice smile and a sexy bum! Slim, sporty figure essential.
If they hadn’t already disappointed me with their predictable food choices, I tended to go off the male clients at this point. I mean, how shallow could you get, specifying that your perfect woman had to have ‘a sexy bum’ and be slim? What happened to beauty being in the eye of the beholder and all that? What happened to personality ?
I wasn’t feeling too obliging towards Andrew Preston any more – I felt sorry for his ex-wife, to be honest, for ever having been married to such a superficial shit – but uploaded his profile anyway and sent out an alert to all the female clients who might be interested. More fool them.
I was a cynic, yes, but that hadn’t always been the case. Just two years earlier, I had been giddy with excitement about getting married myself, believe it or not. I spent every evening poring over wedding magazines and websites, deliberating for hours about my dress and the menus and the table plans, practising walking in my high silver sandals without going arse over tit, the works. It was as if a mist had descended on me . . . a pink, sparkly mist, filling my mind with a temporary madness.
Oh, I thought I was happy, I thought I was headed for the big, loved-up fairytale with my handsome prince, Brendan Davies, I thought I was the luckiest girl alive. And that was why I took on the Love Hearts franchise in the first place, because I wanted everyone else to feel the same way I did – to find their so-called perfect partner and to ride off into the sunset with them.
How wrong could you get. Six months into the marriage, Brendan Cheating Davies had only gone and got the pink sparkly mist for somebody else . And if that wasn’t enough, she was a colleague of mine, too, who I’d met when she came in to put her details on the dating database. She’d been so capable and assured that I’d ended up giving her a job as my assistant, as well as her own Love Hearts web profile. Ruth McGregor , looking for love and friendship. Should have looked a bit further than my bloody husband, Ruth.
So that was why I was off love. For good. Oh yes. I’d resigned myself to the single life ever since, with just my cat Eddie to worry about. Things were a lot easier that way. You didn’t have to do all that legwork, trying to impress someone else, trying to charm them, trying to kid them that you were Wonder Bloody Woman.
But hey ho. A job was a job. And sometimes the Love Hearts agency did make people’s dreams come true. Occasionally a couple was mad enough to get married. In fact . . .
I turned on my swivel chair. ‘Patrick, when are Damon and Francesca getting hitched?’
‘What, Dumb and Dumber?’ he shot back. ‘First
They always put curry, the blokes. The really macho ones put ‘vindaloo’ – like that was something to impress a woman: sitting there with a scarlet face, eyes watering from the chillis . . . yeah, dead sexy, that. Why was nobody honest enough to come out with good old shepherd’s pie, or sausages and mash with onion gravy? The latter would have been my meal of choice, no questions asked, although I had to admit that, in the past year, I hadn’t bothered to cook a single sausage or spud – or any proper food when it came to it – very much.
Sadly, lots of the women ignored the ‘favourite food’ section of the questionnaire. Too scared of looking greedy, I reckoned. No man liked a porker with her nose in the trough, did they?
It was probably why all the clients felt comfortable with me. As a larger-than-average woman (as I was these days), the men saw me as a safely unattractive type – not intimidating, and not someone worth lusting over. And the women didn’t feel that they had to compete with me for blokes. They looked me over and felt better about themselves, and that was that. I was cool with it. Most of the time, anyway.
But back to Andrew:
In a woman, I look for: sense of humour, long hair, a nice smile and a sexy bum! Slim, sporty figure essential.
If they hadn’t already disappointed me with their predictable food choices, I tended to go off the male clients at this point. I mean, how shallow could you get, specifying that your perfect woman had to have ‘a sexy bum’ and be slim? What happened to beauty being in the eye of the beholder and all that? What happened to personality ?
I wasn’t feeling too obliging towards Andrew Preston any more – I felt sorry for his ex-wife, to be honest, for ever having been married to such a superficial shit – but uploaded his profile anyway and sent out an alert to all the female clients who might be interested. More fool them.
I was a cynic, yes, but that hadn’t always been the case. Just two years earlier, I had been giddy with excitement about getting married myself, believe it or not. I spent every evening poring over wedding magazines and websites, deliberating for hours about my dress and the menus and the table plans, practising walking in my high silver sandals without going arse over tit, the works. It was as if a mist had descended on me . . . a pink, sparkly mist, filling my mind with a temporary madness.
Oh, I thought I was happy, I thought I was headed for the big, loved-up fairytale with my handsome prince, Brendan Davies, I thought I was the luckiest girl alive. And that was why I took on the Love Hearts franchise in the first place, because I wanted everyone else to feel the same way I did – to find their so-called perfect partner and to ride off into the sunset with them.
How wrong could you get. Six months into the marriage, Brendan Cheating Davies had only gone and got the pink sparkly mist for somebody else . And if that wasn’t enough, she was a colleague of mine, too, who I’d met when she came in to put her details on the dating database. She’d been so capable and assured that I’d ended up giving her a job as my assistant, as well as her own Love Hearts web profile. Ruth McGregor , looking for love and friendship. Should have looked a bit further than my bloody husband, Ruth.
So that was why I was off love. For good. Oh yes. I’d resigned myself to the single life ever since, with just my cat Eddie to worry about. Things were a lot easier that way. You didn’t have to do all that legwork, trying to impress someone else, trying to charm them, trying to kid them that you were Wonder Bloody Woman.
But hey ho. A job was a job. And sometimes the Love Hearts agency did make people’s dreams come true. Occasionally a couple was mad enough to get married. In fact . . .
I turned on my swivel chair. ‘Patrick, when are Damon and Francesca getting hitched?’
‘What, Dumb and Dumber?’ he shot back. ‘First
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