The Kindness of Friends (From The Argus)

The Kindness of Friends

2:39pm Monday 6th April 2009

• Print
• Email
• Comments(10)

By Jennie Wallace - the dating dilemma »

We have all been single at one stage or another and have uttered the immortal words, ‘When will I meet someone?’ and some kind friend has said they ‘might’ know someone who you ‘might’ like to meet.

Excited at the idea of being able to share those lonely take away nights with someone other than your hamster (I have never done that), you enquire further and before you know it you are married.

Okay. That is not how is happens but if you have met your perfect other-half through a friend, then I would like to applaud your choice in friends.

Now, I am not saying that I don’t have brilliant friends, because I do. In fact I would be the first to say that I have the best friends in the world (bold statement, but really, you have to meet them), but I would say that the judgement that some have displayed when trying to fix me up with supposedly ‘eligible chaps’, has been somewhat lacking.

The last occasion that a pal tried to find me ‘Mr Right’ was a few weeks ago and I have to say that he would have been perfect and I take full responsibility for it not working out.

One of my wonderful friends spotted a guy that regularly came into her shop and over the course of his visits she got to know him and decided that he and I were perfect.

Dubious, I asked the usual questions and found out that he had a good job working and worked in a local care home. This gave him instant brownie points. My pal then went on to explain that he called Tom, was tall (around 6ft) and handsome, in that ‘boy next door’ way that we all can’t help but like and that he played the guitar in a band. She then regaled a story that he had told her involving a midget and a quiche, and I was sold. He was funny, had his own teeth and hair and didn’t live with his mum.

After some persuasion (read: gun to head) the fateful day arrived and I was going to accidentally, on purpose, bump into him. Simple. However, just as I was about to leave I received a text message. And I quote: “ABORT. ABORT. Tom is gay. I repeat, likes boys and not girls.” And with that my marriage to Tom was off.

The most memorable time that a friend decided that I was long overdue a boyfriend, ‘you-know-who-you-are’, introduced me to Dan. My thoughtful, albeit misguided friend, worked in a local Brighton pub and felt that Dan, a regular, was the perfect match for me.

Where I do not consider myself to be alike any of ‘Girls Aloud’ looks wise, I am equally not ‘Jabba the Hutt’, so on meeting Dan I was confused.

Dan was nice enough. He was tall (but this isn’t hard, when you are only 5ft2ins) with messy brown hair and an infectious laugh but very quickly it became painfully obvious that this was going to go nowhere. Dan was around 15 years older than me, admitted to having an alcohol abuse problem, and as my pal smiled proudly over the bar at what he perceived to be a blossoming relationship, I noticed that Dan was in fact missing most of his teeth.

Unbeknown to me, my dear friend had already given Dan my number thinking that it would be a given that I would fall head over heels for him and in the weeks that followed, I dodged calls and texts and received these pearls of wisdom from the would-be Cilla Black.

“You could do a lot worse Jen”

…and for as long as I am single I hope to do a lot worse, just to give me something to write about.