Baldyman

I think it is safe to say that as sequels go, the popularity of Lockdown 3 is up there with that of Jaws: The Revenge, Home Alone 3 and Police Academy 7 (Mission to Moscow). Stella has replaced orange juice at breakfast, Weetabix and baked beans are apparently now an acceptable meal combination and the highlight of my weekends has been trying to guess the identity of a singing celebrity dressed up as a giant sausage. Jo Wicks has resurfaced, a trip to Homebase to buy paint is once again classed as ‘essential shopping’ and a return to home schooling has seen NASUWT, The Teachers’ Union, forced to temporarily overturn my previous lifetime ban. At least the recent announcements have given us something to look forward to with the “303 more sleeps until Christmas” countdown now replaced in most households with “46 more sleeps until the pubs reopen”.

The big news I have to bring you is that after 15 years I am once again a single man and I’ve no doubt that your immediate first thoughts on this will be, “He’d better get on Amazon quickly and buy himself a giant stick to beat back the hordes of hysterical women that are more than likely already forming a gigantic queue.” All those women who went into mourning on 28^th April 2014 when George Clooney announced his engagement will undoubtedly rejoice in the knowledge that they will once again have hope and a purpose returned to their lives. It’s a very big responsibility to shoulder but nonetheless a burden I’m willing to selflessly undertake for the happiness of countless others.

Back in my youth the search for love was by far a much simpler and less complicated quest.

• Put on your best lumberjack shirt and administer a generous combination spray of Joop & Lynx Africa.
• Drink Kronenbourg and Sambuca like your life depends on it until the very final seconds of happy hour.
• When Enrique Iglesias signals the beginning of the end of evening ‘Erection Section’, drag the closest unaccompanied girl onto the dancefloor for a slow dance.
• At throwing out time reassess your next move when the lights come on and the true severity of your current predicament is revealed.

The simplicity of it all was epitomised by the then prime time TV dating show ‘Blind Date.’ Cilla would introduce 3 eccentric women with differing personalities, on would come a burly fireman, heavily scripted innuendos would be made about his helmet, large hose and sliding down his pole before one was chosen for a date windsurfing in Torquay. A week later they return to recount details of what was almost certainly a disastrous match up and in the best case scenario, slag each other off. Done and dusted, nice and simple.

The modern day dating game however has changed immeasurably and has now followed the lead of music, banking, shopping and pornography (so I’m told) by moving online. When I was young;

• ‘Match’ was a weekly football magazine.
• ‘Tinder’ was something I used in the cubs to help start a fire.
• And ‘Plenty of Fish’ was just a mandatory requirement for a decent chip shop.

In fact the only time that I’d ever swiped left or right was in 1984 when I had my mum’s white dressing gown belt tied around my head pretending to be Ralph Macchio in the ‘Karate Kid’.

If you do decide to dip your toe into the pool of modern online dating you have to be aware that it is full of strange rules and incomprehensible terminology. One minute you’re downloading a misleading 2 year old profile picture from when you were a lot slimmer, the next you are being ‘ghosted’ by a non-binary, demi-sexual catfish who had previously slid into your DMs (in my day these were shoes?). Apparently ‘Netflix and Chill’ isn’t when you turn off the central heating to counteract the cost of paying for an online streaming service and if someone texts you an aubergine emoji they’re definitely not after a recipe for moussaka.

You might think that looking for love during a pandemic would be a disadvantage but if you have a face like mine, being forced to cover it with a mask in public actually dramatically increases my chances. In what can be a very cutthroat selection process, your only hope is that you encounter someone with far lower standards than Shania Twain, who despite being pursued by a car owning, Brad Pitt lookalike rocket scientist, still wasn’t much impressed.

If you are looking for a compatible online match, they say you should always be as honest as possible when you write down your profile. Unfortunately ‘grumpy, flatulent, pant wearing biscuit addict’ didn’t have the desired affect that I was hoping for so I was forced to go in another direction. I settled for ‘Grant Mitchell lookalike who likes cooking, writing, Abba and musical theatre’ but now having read it back I’m beginning to think that my best chance of success might have been on Grindr?

Women these days are confident to openly state their exact expectations and requirements for a potential partner but this can on occasions lead to contradiction. One wrote “Must be truthful, honest, up front with nothing to hide” when her own profile had no photo, while another declared that she was ‘Sapiosexual’. This means that she is sexually attracted to intelligence rather than looks, with the greatest irony being that I had to look it up because I wasn’t clever enough to know what it meant.

I have also always been intrigued by the ‘and maybe more’ that women often tag onto their profile descriptions. “Fun loving Aquarian seeks smart, funny, generous man for meals out, conversation, long walks and maybe more.” Maybe more what? More long walks? Because if that’s the case I’m not sure I want all my weekends turning into some kind of continuously extended hiking expedition. If I wanted to spend all my free time walking, I might as well try to get in on with Ian Botham. His moustache might tickle a bit but at least we could talk about cricket on the way round and raise some cash for charity at the same time.

All conversations are now on line or done by text with the art of face to face conversation practically extinct. Chat up lines that were once part and parcel of every man’s romantic armoury are now sadly becoming a thing of the past. Although in reality my favourite, “Here’s 10p to ring your Mum and tell her that you’re not coming home tonight” would probably now have limited success because;

1. 95% of people now own a mobile phone.
2. The UK now has less than 40,000 working phone boxes.
3. Given the age bracket of the women I would be likely to try and chat up, a reasonable percentage of their Mum’s are likely to be dead (“lock up your grannies” doesn’t quite have the same ring as “lock up your daughters”).

So I am now looking to modernise my new ‘go to’ romantic icebreaker and after much thought and research have narrowed it down to either;

1. “Do you have the number of the Ordinance Survey offices as I need to report a new site of natural beauty?”
2. “Excuse me is your name Google? Because you’re everything I’ve been searching for.”

…or my personal (but less PC) favourite.

3. “Are you a drill sergeant in the army because you’ve certainly got my privates standing to attention?”

Whilst walking recently with my 9 year-old son, he looked me up and down and confidently commented, “Dad I think you will be single for a long time.” A bit harsh perhaps you may think but it is becoming increasingly difficult to build a convincing case for the contrary. So as I leave you, I find myself somewhere in between “single and ready to mingle” and as a good friend of mine swears by “stay single and your pockets will jingle”.

For those of you interested in my book, it was recently entered into a national competition ‘The Wishing Shelf Book Awards’. Judged by children in a variety of schools it was awarded a 4 Star rating (out of 5), received some really positive feedback and was just one point short of being a finalist in its category. Given that I was competing for the first time against far more established authors, I was both delighted and encouraged by this outcome.  I have also been approached by a school in Northants to do an online reading and Q&A session for this year’s World Book Day which I am really looking forward to.

Stick to the rules, make sure you stay safe and before you know it we’ll all be back in Primark with a new haircut, no mask and a hug for anyone that wants one.

Thanks again for reading.