Oh joy! Another excerpt from T. Desp.

It's old, but it'll do...

-----------

I sit in the pub and nursed my griefs. What with everyone finding love all of a sudden, things seem terribly unfair. I start thinking about Caryn, even though it's been almost a year since we split, and that just depresses me further. It occurs to me that sat here by myself with just a pint for company I look a bit pathetic. I look around and decide to get one of the newspapers from a rack on the wall. I walk over and as I stand there choosing I notice out of the corner of my eye a woman at the bar looking at me. I turn to look at her, and she suddenly looks away, a playful smile on her lips. Blimey. I grab a newspaper, and go back to my table, mind a-whirling. Could it be? Just as I reach the depths of despair a chance meeting throws me a life line. I sit and look at the newspaper but don't take anything in. I'm too busy working out how to approach her, and my probabilities of success.

As I sit there 'reading' I'm delighted to see that she (and her friend - another woman) has chosen to sit at a table near me. Ha! A definite signal! She must like me if she wants to sit near me. Mind you, the woman who smiled at me is sitting with her back to me, but I rationalise this as being because she doesn't want to appear too obvious. I open my newspaper and pretend to read page two, even going to the lengths of nodding in agreement at some article or other. Meanwhile I try to work out how to start a conversation from cold. I try and guess what she'd be interested by how she's dressed. But a jumper and jeans really doesn't give much away. Her friend's wearing a bright red jacket. Hmmmm... bright red... hmmmm... Nope. No clues there.

How about the direct approach. "I saw you at the bar just now and... " I'm stuck for the next thing to say. Other than "... and I'm a bit lonely, you see... " Honest, perhaps, but not wise. Suddenly the whole situation changes as the woman in the red jacket gets up and heads towards the toilet. The woman's on her own. This'll be my only chance. Without thinking about it, I get up. Okay, now I've stood up I'll just look stupid if I sit down again, so I have to walk over to her. Which I do. I'm still not sure what I'm going to say. I stand beside the table.
She looks up at me, and then looks away again, half smiling. "Hello," I say. Fantastic opening, I trust you'll agree. "I saw you at the bar just now and... " I can hardly believe I'm saying this. "I just wondered - " She interrupted me by saying "Um, I think you might want to, er, check your nose." and she rubbed her own nose by way of a prompt. I wiped my nose with my hand and was horrified to see a great big lump of snot come away. "Oh, um... " I said as I fished around my pockets for a tissue, even though I knew damned well I didn't have one. (Actually, luck smiled on me for once. I had one in my back pocket. It had gone through a wash, but it would do.) "That's okay, you've got it all now." I stood there wiping my nose, hugely embarrassed. All of a sudden it made sense - the glance away, the smile. Of course it was because I had something hideous hanging from my nose, of course. What else could it be? "I should have told you at the bar," she said, in a noble attempt at shouldering some of the blame. "No, that's okay," I say. I start to walk away, and I find myself repeating "I just wondered... "

I sit down at my table. All of a sudden I really don't want to be here, and certainly not when her friend comes back from the toilet. I quickly drink up and go to put the newspaper back in the rack. As I do I see the red-jacket woman go past. She looks at me, and then raises her eyebrows as if she's thinking "Oh, so he finally blew his nose, then." I leave the pub by the side door.

I get home and tell Fauzia about it. She sympathises, which is what I needed. After I tell my story, I ask her what's happened in her life. She laughs and says "Well, compared to you, nothing."