Mr #37 - Dinky Dollars

The preamble:
I'd been messaging and texting Mr #37 pretty regularly for a month or so now, and he really piqued my curiosity. He was a man who worked for the big bucks, but in his spare time loves to cook, collect art and do work for charity. He had a good sense of humour on paper, didn't even attempt that irksome text speak, wrote well and sounded like an all round good egg, so I was all too happy to meet him for a beverage or two.

The man:
Age: 34

Profession: Investment broker

Random factoid: Has a phenomenally mixed heritage of English, Italian, Tunisian, Maltese, Sicilian and Spanish.

The date:
This was one of the rare dates where he chose the venue, always instant Brownie points since I've been running a little short of ideas of venues of places where the staff wouldn't start to suspect I was some sort of serial dater (and of course they would be correct). He chose a posh-sounding wine and cocktail bar on Brick Lane which on first glance looked like an excellent choice. I was the first to arrive, and whilst I perched at the bar trying not to look like I was meeting a stranger from t'internet I realised that actually it was a bit of a misguided choice of venue, given that the football was on on mahoosive screens all around the outside of the bar, and the place was starting to fill up with Manchester City fans. 

Ten minutes later, my date arrived. I knew he wouldn't be very tall, as he'd put 5' 5" on his profile. Turns out, he'd fibbed a little. As he walked through the door, I was struck by how petite he was, and thought he was a good couple of metres further away than he actually was. When I stood up to meet him, he was a good inch shorter than me, making him over-ambitious by a good 4 inches. It still baffles me why men lie about their height, it's not as if I'd never find out! 

Anyway he was very nice-looking, well-turned out, polite and rather chipper, so we got cracking with the date. We covered all sorts of topics, his art collecting, archaeology, his  roots, museums, that time he ate too much meat in America and ended up with gut rot (nice!), writing novels, films, pedigree cats, chocolate and kids theme tunes (a topic which seems to crop up on many a date - I think I may be trapped in my 9-year-old self sometimes). 

Mr #37 was quite a character - he had a myriad of interests, and archaeology was a big one, to the point that once a year he goes mud-larking (google it, I had to...) and has his own metal detector which he uses to find old bits of Roman gold. He also recently spent £500 on a giant fossil for his flat, would regularly spend £100 a week on an obscenely posh box of chocolates, owned a very expensive coffee machine and was starting up his own investment business. Money, it seemed, was a big trump card for Mr #37 which I have to say I found very bit off-putting, more so than the fact that he let it slip he was both newly-divorced and a dad (funny how this all comes out on dates and people forget to include on their profiles and in the preamble). 

On reflection, he spoke about himself a lot, and told me that he was writing his own autobiography because he thought he had a really interesting life, which did leave me wondering if all of his interests were manufactured just for the purpose of bolstering the biog. I also couldn't help noticing how he kept flitting his eye line between the football on the television and my chest. Note to self - don't wear this dress on dates again. A few drinks later, we were both showing signs of weariness and mutually agreed to call it an evening.

Memorable Quotes:
'When I was in New York I had a tongue sandwich, have you tasted tongue before?' Are we really gonna go there? Stop it, stop it now...

'I used to want to be Indiana Jones when I was little. I used to bury all my toys in the garden'

'Yeah, girls do like sparkly things don't they?' Yeah, me and glitter...such a girl, I LOVE that shit...

'Your dad used to fly Tornadoes in the RAF? He's my hero, I'd love to meet him...' Uh oh, flashback to Mr #18...

Events of note:

Mr #37 trying to explain what hedge funds ACTUALLY are. To the most financially inept person on the planet. I'll be honest, it didn't go well, and I'm still none the wiser. It's still people selling invisible shit to me and getting paid fucktonnes for it.

The Verdict:

Yes, he was shorter than me, skinnier than me by half, and had smaller hands than me. On physicality alone, I struggled to fancy him as he did make me feel like the Miranda Hart to his Frankie Dettori. Actually, he could have been Frankie on looks alone. And yes, yet again I'm doing what many women do when it comes to dating gentlemen of diminuitive stature, and I do feel for them, it must be so hard as we really can be a tough crowd. But ask any straight woman you know and I'll wager most prefer men who are bigger than them purely to allow for their own insecurities. I know, because I am one of them.

Mr #37 was a really interesting guy, and I really liked the fact he had so many interesting things to talk about (bar the finance crap). But the fact that he held money in such high regard was the real deal-breaker here, and literally every anecdote did boil down to dosh in some way. I'm not looking for someone with a shed load of cash stuffed under the mattress to buy me great big sparkly thing, nor someone whose sole purpose in life is to earn money. 

All in all, it was an entertaining evening, but we didn't have a tremendous amount in common even though we found common ground to talk about, and as much as I'm not sure I want to see him again, I think he probably feels the same.

...although my tits are expecting a text any minute now...