Mr #3 - Revolutionary Socks

The preamble:

Once again, Mr #3 was from the wicked world of the interweb. Although unusually, for once, I was Mr #3's first dabbling into the dark arts of online dating, which made me feel oddly better about my whole pre-date nerves...mainly because he told me on no less than 5 separate occasions how scared he was. Scared? Of me? Has he read my blog already? And anyone who ends their dating emails with 'with kind regards' does evoke a certain formality which, quite frankly, I was having none of...

The man:

Age: 28

Profession: Stage crew in the West End
Random factoid: He knew where Bram Stoker got his inspiration for Dracula. A suicidal tramp jumping off a bridge in London apparently. Good skills.

The date:

Thanks to a hectic end-of-work day I pitched up a tad frazzled to a poor drowned rat of a boy who'd neglected to bring a brolly. Fortunately his first date nerves were worse than mine which, as mean as it sounds, made the whole thing a thousand times better.  

Okay, so Mr #3 wasn't the tallest man in the world, nor did he bowl me over with his astonishing good looks. However, he humoured me with my fear of very yellow wines within the first five minutes of meeting, so I thought it was probably well worth a shot. Well come on, who likes a Chardonnay that looks like the byproduct of too much Berocca? Didn't think so...

To my complete surprise, he'd brought me a little first date giftette...three balls of wool in the colours of the Tricolour, to commemorate both my love of knitting, and his job on Les Miserables. Genuinely, an unfeasibly sweet gesture. Within a very short space of time, we'd managed to establish that brown sauce was, in fact, the brownest substance in the entire universe, why the Lion King musical is actually for adults only, the fact that beef jerky tasted like cat food-flavoured shoes and finally, utterly annihilated the abysmal singer/pianist combo making the entire evening considerably hard to hear. 

He also dutifully endured my breakdown of knitting the royal wedding, but blotted his copybook when he controversially offered up the word 'retarded' in conversation not long after disclosing he had a disabled brother. A brave move. And although he did seem to  manage to turn every conversation round to knitting, 'would eating wool be acceptable to vegetarians?', presumably for my benefit, which was oddly endearing. 

I think, however, after I found his first little comedic vignette amusing, he did go on a mild humour-bender, which was all very nice but perhaps a little try hard. I also pretended not to notice the subtle-if-not-virtually translucent way he slipped the phrase 'ex wife' into converstion, knowing full well he'd just got it out there for his own peace of mind rather than mine. 

Nonetheless, it was a surprisingly mirth-filled and partially-educative evening. When it emerged we were walking separate ways, he decided his route would take him along with me, which  I'm  pretty sure he later regretted once he wound up on the Blackfriars Bridge, as my bus soon arrived, and he had to perform a complete 360. I have to say after missing the first bus, the fact he surreptitiously inhaled a Smint did give me some cause for concern - he was a nice boy, but I was neither keen enough nor drunk enough to tolerate a snog, but that said, he was every inch the gentleman, and every iota grateful that his first experience of an internet date didn't chew off his head like some sort of praying mantis.

Memorable Quotes:
'Dirty Dancing is one of my favourite films'
'Have you ever tried knitting vomit?'
'I wouldn't be so bold as to insert an Oxo Cube into the anus of a tramp...'

Events of note:

My date managing to convince me he knew everyone in the bar...until he got to 'Jane, served four years for inappropriate acts on a goat...'

The verdict:

Mr #3 was a total wild card, and after the whole Mr #2 debarcle, I didn't enter into to the evening with my all. But he was fun, surprisingly funny despite being delightfully well spoken, like he was breastfed RP, and I had a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Perhaps he needs to work on his hard-to-get technique, because after five minutes on the bus he'd suggested we met again, and although at this stage I can't see myself as the future Mrs Oxo-Tramp-Anus, I would definitely see him again. We shall see...