So, a few days after he was supposed to come to my new house for the weekend, but in fact was a day late, and left before breakfast on Sunday (I say ‘breakfast’, but all I had to offer him was black coffee and six lychees), he called me.
‘I’m in Edinburgh. Do you want to meet for a coffee?’
A coffee! A COFFEE?! Meeting someone for a coffee is the dating equivalent of saying, ‘Do you want to meet on the top of a heap of landfill just outside Canvey Island and search through old supermarket carrier bags?’
Asking someone you have had sex with to meet you for coffee is the dating equivalent of burping in their mouth, or saying, as they give you a dry peck goodbye, ‘You take care.’ Both of which have happened, of course they have, to me. Meeting for coffee is noncommittal. It proves you have someone more interesting to meet later on. In short, this sort of behaviour is likely to send me into a mood, a rage.
‘I don’t drink coffee after midday, as you well know. It makes me nervous.’‘Everything makes you nervous. OK, a drink in a bar, then?’This was far too little, far too late. ‘You don’t drink alcohol, remember. Going for a drink with someone who doesn’t drink is like skiing without snow, snorkelling without colourful exotic fish, tennis without a racquet.’I heard him take a great big breath: he is either smoking, or annoyed. ‘Dinner, then. There is a great veggie place near the Grassmarket.’‘But why did you say coffee?’
‘When?’
Meeting for coffee proves you have a more interesting date later on
This is what it is like dating someone your own age (OK, marginally younger, but bear in mind I am very well-preserved) rather than a decade and a half your junior. Like shouting down a trumpet at your ancient nana. ‘Just now. On the phone.’
‘Did I?’
‘Yes!’
I suppose I could drive up to Edinburgh. Two of my nieces live there, and I love my nieces to pieces. I once had a date in Edinburgh, so it is high on my list of Favourite Cities in the World; it should have World Heritage status. The date didn’t go well, though.
I’d gone up to the Festival (I saw the world premiere of ET, so you can do the sums yourself about what year this was) on the night train, and a young man chatted me up (incredible, I know). Me and my friend Bridget (ex-friend; the world is littered with them) arranged to see him one night at his rented-for-the-week bedsit.
I was yet to get contact lenses and, later, laser eye surgery, and didn’t want to put him off by wearing my awful cheap glasses, so when we all sat down to watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on his TV, all I had to go on was the sound (this was before I went deaf, thank goodness). I think he thought I was a bit weird, as I sat there, unblinking at any amount of gore, like a soulless automaton. I never heard from this young man again. This brief encounter, though, with no sex, no kissing, no follow-up, I don’t even think he told me his name, is still significant enough to loom large for me, which tells you it was pretty much downhill from there.
So why, I hear you asking, is she (me) being so sniffy about coffee with a stadium legend? Well, the short answer is, despite evidence to the contrary, I am not desperate. I have decided I am not going to do the running around, for any man. He has to make an effort, or I am just not interested.
‘I want you to come to mine after, so I can play you a new song. It’s about you.’
‘Is it as good as ‘Wonderwall’?’
‘It’s better.’
I grabbed my keys. Happy New Year!
Catch up on Liz's diary entries Liz Jones: What I have lost so far Liz Jones: In which he makes me wait Liz Jones: In which he asks me out on a non-date