A Book To Read When You've Become A Nun

Posted By Daisy

 

He looked just like this guy.
www.marcjohns.com

 

LAST WEEKEND, I was chatted up. For the first time in four months. It’s been so long, I didn’t even realise it had happened. To my bemusement, my work colleagues got very excited for me, telling me he was lovely.

‘Go for it. That never happens here,’ said a girl, from Northern Ireland, urging me to go back for further conversation. But it was 11pm and I had to leave the Upper St bar to get two tubes and a taxi home.

And therein lies the rub. In London life, there are two barriers to meeting potential suitors.

1.       Not being able to stay out long enough to actually chat to anyone other than the people I’m out with because I’m usually too far away from home to get a taxi (£50 is too much).

2.       English men don’t do idle chit-chat and banter like Irish men.

 

Case in point: Standing by the bar with my friends in the (shockingly cheesy) Bunga Bunga bar in Battersea (where everything is Berlusconi-themed – there are mugs with his face on them, portraits of him on the wall, and cocktails named after him), I made some neutral conversational opening gambit to two men standing beside me. Without even reacting, they formed a protective V shape with their bodies, and closed ranks by turning in towards the bar.

The only other male interaction I’ve had is in a Shoreditch hotel when my friends came to stay for the weekend. Drinking wine and eating burgers in the hotel lobby at 2 a.m., three drunk men came and sat beside us. Being Irish, we chatted to them happily, until each of them picked up our wine glasses and started to drink out of them. On the way upstairs in the lift, two Americans on holiday invited us up to their room for drinks. At 3a.m. We declined.

There have been a few offers of blind dates, but none have come to fruition. And I’m not ready for London internet-dating yet, after being freaked out by this story. Although two people I’ve met recently met their boyfriend and husband online.

Probably the longest single-state of my life, it’s been surprisingly refreshing not to have even thought about it since I arrived in August. 

Although I now have a fresh worry – what if I’ve forgotten how to chat to men in general? Looking forward to testing this theory at home in Ireland over the Christmas holidays.

'Londoners' by Craig Taylor

I've decided that short stories are just the thing for the tube.

From the artist who collects hair from train station floors (horror) to create an art piece, to the female nightclub bouncer who watches people vomiting outside the club before trying to get in, to the Voice of the Tube, who says her ex-boyfriend is haunted by her every time he gets the tube and hears her saying ‘Mind the Gap’, this is a brilliant collection of features about London living.

And speaking of London, below are my two other most useful London apps:

Citimapper: It tells you how to get anywhere (including how to get to the bus stop, and when to get off the bus), has a handy pre-programmed 'Get Me Home' button for when you can't remember your own postcode, and even tells you how many calories you'll burn getting home. I couldn't live without it.

O2 Tracks: If I never hear Ed Sheeran +, Now That's What I Call Running, or the Amelie soundtrack again, it'll be too soon. With no internet access underground, that's all I've been listening to for the last few months. Until I discovered O2 Tracks. For £4.99 per month, I can download the weekly Top 40 and listen to them wifi free. I can't wait for tomorrow morning.