Dear St Valentine, “Ride Me, Bitch!”

For many years I have been under the illusion that I am (in my own words) an “excellent” matcher-upper of people. Today, I have had the illusion shattered and my days of setting people up are now over. My friend kindly but firmly pointed out my successive failures in the match-making industry.  

The thing is, I don’t know the etiquette of match-making. Where does my role stop exactly? At what point do I issue a disclaimer? What exactly can I be held responsible for? Because as far as I’m concerned, I think my part is connecting the two people, end of role. This is not so apparently. I have found myself organising peoples diaries, suggesting suitable restaurants, arranging the meeting places, giving directions, exchanging phone numbers, issuing instructions, confidence building, assisting in facebook stalking, reassuring, cajoling and chasing people up. This is followed by; checking during the date that no-one has been murdered and nothing untoward has happened, providing a get-out option if the date is not going well and ensuring the datees have made it home safely. I then listen to a blow-by-blow account of the date and find myself apologising for the behaviour of one party or the other, (one particular time I even apologised to the parents of the ‘injured’ party), giving out advice on emergency contraception, making appointments at local STI clinics and somehow ending up wholly responsible for the sorry mess that it inevitably turns out to be!

I mean, how heavily do I need to ‘vet’ these people? I am shallow and tend to find people either attractive or not attractive, and feel that is a good basis for starters. Does it really need to be any heavier than this? Apparently so. I think what gets my goat the most is the sheer amount of dishonesty, on the male part. They are a bunch of toads and quite frankly, NONE of them deserve any time with my gorgeous girls, damn all the boys to hell!

Boys are/ were one of my most favourite things but the more of them I meet, the less I seem to like them. Lets take a look at my track record, with sincere apologies to those unfortunate victims along the way. (Note* some names and identities have been changed in order that dignity may be maintained).

The most recent disaster was with Marcus*, a man I met once, at a party in January and my dear friend Amelia*. In hindsight, I think perhaps it wasn’t ideal, after a few cheeky tequilas, to judge someone as ‘awesome’, so maybe I was viewing him through beer goggles rose-tinted-glasses. The upshot was, the shy psychoanalyst from a little village overlooking the ‘green’ turned out to be a health & safety officer from high-rise flats in Bumstoke and the only grass in his view is at the end of the dual carriageway on a roundabout. He went on to confess that due to low self-esteem about his small penis, he suffered from erectile dysfunction (can’t get it up, in other words). He could have mentioned this before the date ffs. I have since heard he had been on no less than FOUR dates with different women last week (did they all get told about his tiny, flacid cock? Is it part if his ‘seduction’ routine?). So much for his shy-guy persona, he is a chancer and a cad. What utterly disgraceful manners.

I set up an incredibly beautiful girl with a cute friend of my boyfriends. The first date went well, they were discussing a second, then she turned in to a total bunny-boiler; I was held responsible for the saga, which continued for several weeks with parents and various business associates becoming involved.

I arranged a date between a male friend of mine (who said he was ‘desperate’) and a lovely work colleague. He viewed her via facebook, gave the go-ahead and they met. The date lasted ten minutes, when my friend told her the picture he viewed of her on facebook, was one where she was in a group of three girls, and he “thought she was the other one”.

There are of course some girls who absolutely refuse to listen to my worldly advice when it would be wise to do so. Keith*, a bit of charmer, has urinated on no less than 4 of my friends. Each one of them was warned beforehand that he isn’t ‘house-trained’, none of them believed someone could be that disgusting. He is.

I set up my friend Diana* with a guy I knew called Adam. I assured Diana that Adam was not a ‘pig-dog’ and that although he was quiet, he had good manners and would be the perfect gentleman. The night came, they met, they went out, they went to bed together. Diana called me the next day, outraged that during the hanky-panky, Adam had slapped her hard on the bottom and shouted “ride me, bitch!”. At no point during the setting up of this arrangement did I suspect he might be capable of this sort of behaviour.

Conclusion: you can never tell!