The occasional bout of flu is good for you. There are people who’d pay good money to spend two days in bed getting sweaty and delirious. I’ll wager that there are Tibetan monks who strip and run naked in the snow, hoping to bring on an extended bout of groggy self examination. Anyway, I’ve been doing what most men do when they’re forced to lie around, dosed up on Lemsip, with only their thoughts for company – I think about women.
The human mind is a wondrous thing and women of every description from early evening tv presenters (apologies Miss Bradbury) to silent film stars (apologies to the estate of Louise Brooks) to actual flesh and blood women I’ve actually met have been running through my paracetamol ravaged mind. Some I met quite some time ago. The girl who took my virginity at a Butlins in Weston Super Mare in 1995 always appears on these occasions. As do people I shared much more pleasurable times with…
Which brings me, in a roundabout sort of way, to the point of this ramble (well done for keeping up with me this far).
The late 90’s, if you can remember that far back, were a time when mobiles weren’t mandatory and internet dating was but a gleam in some Californian would be millionaire’s eye (if you don’t believe me, go and watch an episode of This Life. It’s another world.) Imagine if you will, a nineteen year old student, fresh from the shires, sitting on a tube train and flipping through TimeOut, reading in wonder of the endless delights of London by night… then getting to the back and idly scanning the personal ads.
One stuck out. I still the recall the wording, as for some reason which I still can’t quite explain, it sent a bolt of lightening into my groin (pardon the image, sorry, I’m a bit under the weather):
“A bit of rough? If you don’t mind that description and are between 18 and 25 then an attractive older woman would like to meet you.”
I’d never considered TimeOut classifieds to be a likely source of carnal adventure but, Dear Reader, not long had I retired to my crappy little flat in Stepney before I’d composed a reply and had posted it, complete with passport photo.
Whether the description “a bit of rough” adequately describes me, I’ll have to leave to others to decide. Frankly, if I looked rough at 19 then lord only knows how I must appear now. But in any case, the lady who’d posted the ad clearly thought I looked rough enough for her (well, it was a passport photo…) and replied.
Now, this being the late 90’s, things still worked via the actual mail. The post. The physical envelope type things which take a day or so to get where they’re going. So, when she rang (text messages would have made this all so much easier) well over a week had passed and it took me a minute or so to realise who she was and that the husky voice asking to meet me was not part of an elaborate wind up. Anyway, I clearly didn’t come across as rough or, indeed, lucid enough for her liking and she hung up. I don’t blame her.
Stung by this, I made a point of scanning the TimeOut personals for intriguing, salacious ads placed by randy older women. But, that ad had been something of a cleverly worded one off. So, I took drastic action and placed an ad of my own… which actually did lead to my first adventure in the company of a more mature lover, of whom I’d write more weren’t I so aware of having already spent a few hundred words rambling incoherently about being a bit of a prat at the age of 19. Suffice to say that Covent Garden has other associations for me beyond fruit, veg and human statues.
Anyway, my point really is that as I lie here ruminating on ghosts of girlfriends past, the one I never actually met is actually as fresh in my memory as the ones I had actual relationships with.
Funnily enough, I don’t look back at my schoolboy crushes with the same level of unrequited longing, even though I never got to find out what she looked like. But then that’s probably the reason. Those little hints I had: the intelligently worded ad, the urbane voice on the phone… tantalised me more than anything visual or physical could. Eleven years later, part of me’s still captivated by her..
(It occurs to me at this point that she might actually be on this site. If so, I’d like you to know that I’m much rougher than in 1998 and still available….)
By whitetaileddeer
