Cottage pie

Dating. It’s a minefield. What is it that makes us turn into indecisive squibbling wrecks when the mere thought of a date occurs? Picture the scene, you’ve known a guy for a few months, get on great, have a pretty simialr sense of humour, like the same music, know the same people and realise ‘hang on!, maybe this could be the ‘One’. The fact that you’ve known them and spent every saturday afternoon down the local with them goes out of the window, suddenly they are a whole new person.

A light shines down and warns you that everything must be done correctly or else, you may miss the chance of a lifetime. So along you trot for your first date, possibly the first time said man has ever seen you in a skirt and you scare the life out of him. He is no longer friendly frankie from down the boozer, he’s a Possible Mate. Conversation goes out of the window and you both stare at the menu like it’s written in Japanese, backwards, and in invisible ink. Nervousness gets the better of you and before the main course you’re both sloshed, which is ok, you’ve been drunk together lots of times, you feel on safe ground, but the next morning you realise the last thing you remember was flicking pasta at the man obviously wearing a syrup across the room and picking asparagus out of your teeth with a breadstick, or at least, trying to.

If you’re lucky you get over the embarrassing incident and go on a few more dates, even start ’seeing each other’ as casual relationships are so politely put. Not that you have your eyes closed when not seeing each other, but it’s the perfect phrase for ‘I’m shagging so-and-so so everyone else can keep their hands off him/her BUT we aren’t actually boyfriend and girlfriend so I still have my options open.’ Plus once you get past primary school age it’s not quite as easy to pass love notes under the table with tickboxes asking if the potential mate will be yours, so actually broaching the question means possible rejection TO YOUR FACE, which will never do.

Around about now you hear it. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. Nope, not your biological clock, or your fake omega watch, it’s the 3 month countdown. Every relationship has to pass three months before it can be classed as Serious (boyfriend/girlfriend territory). The first few weeks, great. Then you start to notice the odd habits, like painting their toe nails or collecting ring pulls. But that’s fine, they are easy enough to cope with, at first. When you’re stumbling around for a glass of water in the middle of the night and step on said ring pulls you’ve found it……………………..

…………..Point 1 as to ‘Why It Didn’t Work’. More of these Points come up weekly, daily if you’re really unlucky and by the time you get to about ten it’s time to start thinking about pastures new. But how to end it? How do you really end something that no-one is willing to acknowledge has even started? You can’t dump someone you’re just seeing, can you? If there is no real relationship, there are no real arguments so it can’t be a wonderfully tempestuous row as you storm out of the door into the rain never to be seen again, oh no, it has to be much more subtle than that.

Step 1. Cancel all arrangements, all of a sudden your best friend/sister/neighbours cousins dog needs you so you won’t be able to go out this weekend. Also the person that needs you, needs you at their home so you won’t be in. Phone will be unanswered most times because either A)Left in your car or B)Battery has died and you forgot to take your charger, texts will be answered, but short and sweet and at least two hours after they have first been read. This way there are no nasty avoidance issues you’re just drifting apart.

Step 2. When home, block them on MSN/AIM/Yahoo only to unblock the temporarily for about an hour a day, but don’t message them first, wait til they message you, then be ‘just off out’ after ten minutes of conversation, and re-block them. Still drifting apart.

Step 3. After about three/four weeks of not actually seeing them anywhere go where you know you will see them and act as platonic as possible, plus flirt with the barman. This shows everyone you are on the market again without showing up the guy you would’ve dumped if it had gone past three months.

If you’ve done it well you’ll still be friends with said bloke and he will probably not think anything of it, because in his mind it was just something casual that ran it’s course. Unless he is a drip. This is slightly harder, because he will constantly phone you, text you, message you, turn up at your door and bombard you with crappy teddys and helium balloons shaped like love hearts. If this occurs you’ll have to have ‘The Talk’. This is where you explain that although he is a really nice guy you just don’t have time for a relationship right now, and then snog his friend. Harsh but straight to the point.

So how do you know if the three month timer is going to go off?

Simple, it’s like Cottage pie. You never really desperately want it like a curry or a pizza, but at the time, it’s all that is there. So you eat it, and actually quite enjoy it, but after an hour or so you need something tastier, some chocolate or a glass of wine because Cottage Pie is great to fill an empty stomach/time but once you’ve eaten it a few times you realise it just isn’t satisfying and go on the look out for a Big Mac.