Mr. Sugar Allergy: The Sickly End

Music: Spin Spin Sugar - Sneaker Pimps

The date from hell continues...

With Mr Sugar Allergy's lecture on the absorption of sugar in the small intestine drawing to a close, I drank from my bottle of beer whilst he sipped on his pint of tap water in an awkward silence.  As the bar we were in was a diet coke free zone (other sugar free drinks are available, just not here) we decided to move on and go to one of my favourite bars, The Reform.


Bar 2

The Reform is a small bar with big leather armchairs and sofas, that specializes in selling continental beers of all descriptions, my favourite being cherry beer so this is what I order. Happily for Sugar Boy they also sell vodka and diet coke. It’s pretty quiet, and we get a seat on one of the sofas near to the back of the bar.

Things are getting better and conversation is picking up as we start to talk of our mutual love of music and rugby. I realise that I’m actually starting to have an OK time. I wouldn’t say that I felt a spark or much chemistry between us like I did on the night we met, but I put that down to the vat of alcohol which I’d consumed. Still, Mr. Sugar Allergy, or Stephen to use his real name, is quite good looking.  Not drop dead handsome but not ugly either. Plain I suppose. He’s about 6ft, has a shaved head (I think because his hair is starting to give up the ghost) and has a nice, open face. He smiles a lot, but I think that’s partly down to nerves. I admit that before we met I was nervous too, but as the conversation starts to flow on topics wholly unrelated to the colon and sugar absorption I start to relax, and dare I say it, enjoy myself.

We’ve been in the bar for just over half an hour, and have been laughing at each other’s taste in music, when I start to ask Stephen a bit more about his job and what he actually does. I am literally half way through a sentence when out of no-where and completely unprompted, Stephen lunges across the sofa, sticks his tongue down my throat and attempts to suck the enamel off my teeth. I’m in total shock, and I make no effort to kiss him back. In fact, I think my hands are raised and I’m just about to push him off me when he stops. The look on my face must have said it all (WTF?) as the smile on his face quickly drops and is replaced by the look of a two year old child who’s just been caught taking a dump in the paddling pool.

The date is now officially a total loss.

Our conversation dries up completely and I down my cherry beer so quickly a bit of sick comes up into my mouth, which I almost cough all over him. I make my excuses about catching the last bus home and I’m out of there, speed walking like an Olympic athlete rounding the final bend to claim the gold, except in my case all I’ve gained is a sore tongue and a massive dose of humiliation. I hope no-one I know saw that full frontal assault.

He emails me a couple of times the next day. I ignore him completely and never hear from him again.


Points to note:

• Alcohol is never to be trusted. EVER. I’ve often wondered since that date whether Stephen actually talked about his fascinating sugar allergy on the night we met, or if he lunged his tongue into my mouth from about 40 yards. Maybe he did and he thought that I liked it. Winning formula.

• Dates like this really make me appreciate the good ones, and even the mediocre ones.

• Some dates are a total loss and don’t deserve a second chance.

Mr. Sugar Allergy: The Centre of Splenda

Music: Slow Night, So Long - Kings of Leon

As I stood at the bar I kept glancing over to our table and saw Mr Fit's friend looking over at me.  Beth and I downed a couple of shooters each before returning to our table, and almost immediately Mr Fit's friend came over and started chatting away to me whilst Beth went to join Louise. Unlike his Ferrari-driving cockhead of a mate he seemed pretty nice, and we had a good laugh talking about anything and everything from sport to music to how his friend, Mr Fit (who wasn’t actually his friend just someone he used to work with) came across as a bit of a twat. Now please remember, I’d been mixing my drinks like a wino and therefore my beer goggles were firmly affixed to my eyes. Not sounding promising now, is it? Anyway, we had a bit of a kiss (which was very nice as I remember) and swapped numbers. He was called Stephen and worked a project manager in the next town.

Over the coming week Stephen and I played text message ping-pong and swapped email addresses, so my working days were filled with the excitement of waiting for an email and carefully crafting my reply. Should I be flirty or just friendly? Was he flirting with me? I couldn’t tell over email…. It didn’t matter, as we arranged to out for a drink that Thursday so things were looking good.

Thursday evening came, and as I approached our designated meeting point I could see the solitary figure of a man waiting there and I knew straight away that it was Stephen. Even though I’d consumed enough alcohol on the night we’d met to kill a small herd of buffalo I was pleased that I recognised him, and even more pleased that when he spotted me he didn’t try and leg it. However, I was soon to wish that he had actually done an impression of speed King Usain Bolt and made a run for it, as this was quickly about to rank second on the Worst Dates of my Life leader board.

Here is a brief overview of our date:

Bar 1

We walk up to the bar.

Stephen: “Can I get you a drink?”

Good. Nice and gentlemanly.

Me: “Yes please, I’ll have a bottle of Corona”.

Nice barman gets me a bottle, opens it and puts it on the bar.

Barman: “Anything else?”

Stephen: “Yes. A vodka and diet coke please.”

WTF? A bloke drinking vodka and diet coke? On a date? Is he gay?  OK, don't judge him too quickly Kate...

I smile.

Barman: “Sorry mate, no diet coke at the mo’. Is regular coke OK?”

I’m still standing there, smiling awkwardly now. Just say yes so we can go and sit down. Surely you’re not so bothered about a few extra calories in your drink? You’re a man for goodness sake.

About ten seconds pass whilst Stephen umms and ahhs and shuffles from foot to foot, all the while drumming his fingers on the bar. It feels like ten hours, when finally he sighs and sounds really downcast as he says:

Stephen: “Oh. Er, no thanks. Can I just have a glass of tap water instead please?”

At least he’s polite I think to myself, but WATER? Not that I’m an alcoholic or anything, but that’s a bit weird.

A pint of tap water it is, and we sit down.

“So, er, water?” I say, somewhat bemused.

I’m glad we’d managed to get a table as this was the last input I had into the conversation for about half an hour, apart from the odd umm and “Oh, that’s interesting”. You see, good old Stevie baby has an allergy to sugar, and in what I can only class as possibly one of the most tedious thirty minutes of my life he explained to me the intricacies of his affliction in graphic detail, what he can and cannot eat/drink, what happens if he has more than 1 gram of the stuff (you really don't want to know), and that Splenda is apparently the best thing since sliced bread and has revolutionised his life (I kid you not). 

OK so I know that he was probably really nervous but seriously, what a topic of conversation.  Did he not realise this is something he really shouldn't talk about on a first date?

So only 0.5 hours into the date and I’m losing the will to live.  This isn't looking good...

Mr Sugar Allergy: A Sour Start...

Music: Alcohol - CSS

A few weeks after my minor dalliance with Mr Sexy 20yr Old I went out into town again, this time on a Friday night after work. I met up with my friend Beth, her boyfriend Rob and my other best friend Louise for a few post work drinks and a bit of a catch up. Rob was meeting up with a few of his mates and he left us pretty early on, so we headed to one of our favourite bars to get a table before the evening rush started.

Prohibition is one of those bars that is always dark inside due to the thick red and black curtains and wall hangings that flank the ceiling to floor windows. The tables and chairs are made of dark mahogany, and the bar is partitioned with plenty of tables and big red leather sofas for you to sink into in hidden corners. It always gets busy after about 9pm for a number of reasons: It’s filled with some of the more beautiful people that go out in town but manages not to be overly pretentious, and whilst drinks are quite expensive there’s always a really chilled out atmosphere and sometimes you get a bit of live music.  Failing that they play a mixture of indie and classic dance music from yesteryear, you know, just to remind you that you're slightly older than you'd like to admit.

Having secured our table, Beth, Louise and I started to chat the night away with table service handily removing the necessity to queue at the bar.  As the sky darkened outside, we sat back and started to unwind over a few glasses of wine. Wine soon degenerated into vodka and after a couple of hours Louise had convinced us that pitchers of cocktails were an excellent idea.

Fatal.

By now my man-radar was working overtime, and I was getting into the swing of quickly scanning a room for any half decent specimens and giving them the once over, which generally went something like this:

Face: Good looking.

Body: Average. Nice jumper.

Hair: Good. Not ginger.

Height: Tall – excellent.

Mates: Don’t look like cocks.

Girlfriend: Can’t see one.

At about half ten the bar was pretty full, and we were getting ready to make a move and head on somewhere else.  Just as we were about to leave, Beth got talking to a bloke who was standing quite near to our table. He was pretty foxy, quite the Mr Fit, but he was one of those men that knew it. He was out with a group of three or four friends who were now all looking over at Louise and I.

Here we go...

Beth beckoned me to go over and join her conversation with Mr Fit, and I thought well why not? After all my confidence was being fuelled by vodka and several mojitos and he looked like he'd been put together rather nicely. The fact that I was now sitting on my own as Louise had wandered off to go and chat with one of her work mates sealed the deal. I stood up, tottered on my heels ever so slightly and wandered over to introduce myself to Mr Fit, with Beth winking at me conspiratorially all the while.

What a disappointment. He was a total knob.  Our brief conversation went something like this:

Me: "Hi, I'm Kate. Are you having a good night?"

Mr. Fit. "Nah. It's shit in here."

OK. Lovely to meet you too.

Beth: "He was just telling me about his job. He works as a..."

Mr Fit (butting in): "I'm an entrepreneur. I buy stuff. I sell it for a massive profit. Last year I turned over £3 mill. Bit of a bad year. You know how it is."

Me: "No I don't."

And quite honestly, I couldn't care less.

Mr Fit: "Yeah well I still bought a new Ferrari."

Woo.

Me. "Great".

I stifle a yawn.

Me: "Anyway, got to go.... to the bar. Beth?"

I grabbed Beth by the hand and despite the table service still being in full flow I dragged her to the bar.

Talk about someone bigging themself up. Mr Fit might be good looking, and possibly quite rich (if he wasn't spouting a load of bullsh*t) but he was so full of himself it was unbelieveable.

Moron.

As Beth and I stood at the bar I glanced back towards our table where I noticed that one of Mr Fit's friends was giving me the eye.  Maybe it was worth staying a little longer...