Mr #2 - Stand Me Up, Buttercup

The preamble:
Mr #2 came about from t'interwebs, natch. But given my past experience in online dating, the email exchange from Mr #2 was brief to say the least. It went as follows:


Mr #2: Yeah you'll do. Now are we gonna mess about on here for weeks and gradually then upgrading to texting one another or are we just gonna meet up and go on a date?
Me: Well I was hoping with a little more small talk than 'you'll do' to be honest. Come on, give it at least half a decent shot to let me know you might be vaguely interested in more than just my picture...(which looks nothing like me, I stole it from someone else's page)
Mr #2: Impulsive. Spontaneous. Where did it go? Listen up, your pictures look hot, your wording is clever, you have a chops that likes to cheek - why deny yourself a date?!
Me: Fine. Be like that then. Just tell me your name, what you do, and where in Central London you'd like to meet next Monday.
Mr #2: Mr #2
Primary school teacher.
Anywhere central from 5pm next Monday.
0770 **** ****


And so texting commenced, including some rather bizarre picture messages involving rice cakes, origami birds and him being, well, topless. At one point I feared for the date after I managed to drop the ultimate clanger via text: 'so, is that why you're single then?' 'no, it was her breast cancer that is why I'm single'. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit! Fortunately he saw the funny side of it and was pleased we'd got that out of the way before we met. As was I! I am ashamed to admit that despite his brutal honesty, cavalier attitude to picture messaging and bull-in-china-shop flirting technique, my hopes were up a little on this one. He sounded like a lot of fun. And he seemed to rather like the sound of me too. Cue butterflies. Big ones, ones with wings so thick you might've mistaken them for moths if they weren't so colourful.


The man:
Age: 35
Profession: Primary school teacher and full-time Welshman
Random factoid: Last year he took a photo a day of random challenges, one of which was to wear a bra. Any excuse...

The date:
Monday rolled around, a couple of texts of anticipation exchanged, venue planned. Then an hour beforehand, he texts to cancel. Oh. The reason being a bad day at school, which later turned out to be disclosure on a pupil's parent. Fuck. That really IS a bad day at school. After considerable apologies accepted, the date was rescheduled for Thursday. The texting ensued again, the time and venue arranged, a knight in shining armour promised, and I had to dig out my second date dress of the week. An hour and a half before the date he rings to confirm everything, and then texted to tell me how lovely I sounded. Zoiks! He's keen! So I headed off the venue, ordered a drink, and waited. And waited. And waited. An unanswered text and an unanswered phone call later, I shame-facedly left the pub on my own and went home. In my 30 years on this earth I have never been stood up. And I won't lie, it didn't feel very nice. Someone I don't even know went and squashed my butterflies with their size nines.

The verdict:
All in all, this was a bad date. And it does still count as a first date because I turned up. It's just a shame he didn't...

Update:
In the last couple of hours my date has got back in contact with almost indecipherable painkiller-induced texts. It turns out I'm not a dreadful judge of character, nor is he a devious manipulating man-bait sort sometimes found lurking about on the internets, as I'd possibly thought. He managed to snap some cruicial cruiciate ligaments in football training and wound up wounded in A&E whilst I sat nursing a warming lime-laden beer. So tomorrow he goes under the knife, and I feel oddly smug that he hadn't spotted my idiocy early and bailed. But give him time, I'm sure if the date does finally go ahead, he'll work that out then. But until then, I'm golden...