Love and marriage

AFTER almost five decades, Mr Can’t Attach, Won’t Attach has decided life is indeed too short, and he is attaching in the most momentous way possible.
The death of a close friend has spurred him on to live life to the full, so he has bitten the proverbial bullet, and asked Juicy Lucy from pilates class to be his wife.
No one is more delighted for him than me. Well, apart from my mum.
Knowing him as I do, I can completely understand why he wasn’t taken seriously when the subject of marriage first came up.
So, I can imagine how Juicy must have felt when, on a visit to his mum’s memorial bench in the middle of the city, he got down on one knee and proposed. It’s just as well she had somewhere to sit.
Before this story, I was finding it to hard believe there was a single romantic bone in his body. He was definitely in contention for the ‘least sentimental man I know’ title by his own admission. Considering the first thing I heard about this girl (and when I say girl I mean only five years older than me) was that her flat was on the same road as his beloved football ground you can see why.
Now here he was describing a scene straight from a Richard Curtis movie.
He’s currently preparing for a ‘Meet the Tuckers’ style weekend, where he will not only meet her parents for the first time, but will ask her dad for permission to marry her. I’ve told him not to get involved in any scenario which involves an antique vase full of grandmama’s ashes and grumpy looking cats; and to make sure that her dad isn’t actually an ex-CIA special agent with a polygraph test waiting for him in the basement.
The wedding date has just about been set, pending this weekend’s outcome, and I have offered my services as bridesmaid/usherette/guest. Somehow, I think it’s his turn to not take me seriously.
Talk about life imitating art — I always considered him to be most like the Sex and the City’s Mr Big of my life. One of my friends even turned a bit ‘Charlotte’ and exclaimed that could have been me — then pointed out the parallel of when Big married Natasha. This ‘Carrie’ will not be crying over this wedding announcement.
I know it would never have been me; there will never be the moment on a Parisian bridge where he tells me it’s always been me.
And he can relax to the the news that there will be no ‘Graduate’ style wedding hi-jack either. I wish nothing but the best to both of them, and can only hope that his new-found romantic tendencies last long enough to cover the impending nuptuals.
I’ve been surprised over the last fortnight at the reaction to my last column. I thought I was on to a new thing with the whole internet dating thing — but it seems some close acquaintances are already on the case.
After a false start, with my profile being rejected, I chose love at ‘second site’.
This was my latest message: “Alan, Andy, Barry, Chris, Craig, Danny, David, Frank, John Paul, Kenny, Kev, Kevin, Mike, Raj, Rob, Simon, Steve, Steven, Stuart and Trevor have viewed your profile in the last 24 hours. 67 people have viewed your profile in the last week”.
I haven’t actually done anything about it — I’m just sitting back smugly, lapping up all the cyber-attention my ‘not-too-dissimilar’ profile has been generating.
I’m fascinated at what people write about, and what they genuinely think will attract people.
Example one: “I thought all my Christmases had come at once when I read your profile.” Lucky me!
Example two: “I’m happily married but am looking for some discreet friendship anywhere in Scotland, can travel.” What a catch — and he can travel!
Example three: “I walk up to a woman and she says hi. I then say I am having a bad day and well the rest is history.” I was never very good at history at school, but I think he is fighting a losing battle.
My friend is enjoying continued success with this selection process, so I figure it can’t be good for both of us.
I’m actually really enjoying being single just now. I’m learning to like my own company again and I think I need to do this before I expect anyone else to.
Mr Can Marry, Will Marry and his news has completely shaken me to the core.
It got me to thinking that life is too short; that you will meet the right person if you just relax and enjoy life; that you can deserve to find happiness regardless of past mistakes; and most importantly that you can’t change what’s already gone, but you can make changes for what is to come.
Sometimes you just have to let people realise things for themselves.

Love at first site

 
I’VE got a new spin for you, said my friend. Try this internet dating site, she said. I’ve had lots of replies, she said
Buoyed by her success story, I entered my details (or at least details not too dissimilar to mine), pressed ‘submit’ and waited.
While I was online I had a look at the potential suitors, offering their ‘not too dissimilar’ profiles for my perusal. I’m a ‘go for a nice personality’ kinda gal, but I must admit I only looked at those with photos.
I’m thinking because she lives in a larger area, she had a bigger bunch to pick the best from, so I wasn’t too surprised by the selection offered up to me.
I am a great believer that a man should approach a woman, so despite seeing a few that took my fancy, I quit the site and waited once again.
It was with delight that I opened my e-mailbox the following day to find a message from the site. She had said it was good, but not that good.
Believe me when I say I am used to rejection. To be rejected from an online dating site before my profile was even featured is taking the biscuit.
Reading on, I found it was because I’d made a grammatical mistake writing my own name (well, my assumed name for this experiment). After the humiliation, I couldn’t bear to reapply, playing the ‘it’s only for desperate people’ card, while still keeping it close to my chest, and quit the site.
I’m back to the whole ‘there’s no hope for me’ state of mind. I’m all for fate, and coincidences and love at first sight, so when I stumbled across another site on my way out of ‘dating for the desperate’, my bubbles started to rise to the surface once more.
“By learning about the personalities and love lives of our inner goddess, we can be more intuitive about our own romantic relationships.” Apparently.
After taking the ‘Which Goddess are you’ test, I’ve discovered I am Demeter, goddess of agriculture and fertility, with a little bit of the love, beauty and sexual rapture of Aphrodite thrown in.
According to expert Agapi Stassinopoulos, this means that while I feel the need to care for others, my own needs often are not met and I must learn to say no. The Aphrodite part means men are drawn to me (no mention of them being the wrong ones!), however I tend not to form permanent attachments to lovers.
To me, this means I need to find either a farmer or a gynaecologist, but no — a Hermes man is my best bet — ‘charming, childlike and seductive, rather like Hugh Grant’.
Again, I quit the site, after reading the ‘childlike reference’. On a night out in a city of about six million people, the first person I met was hotty young boy from last year — you know the one who throws drinks at concerts? — a little too childlike for my liking.
This is the second time I’ve just happened to bump into him. It wasn’t fate so much as my past coming back to haunt me. If it had been Hugh Grant I wouldn’t have minded as much. The thing is he seemed EVEN younger this time, which is silly as he was almost a year older. Unfortunately, so was I.
One thing I am a strong believer in is love at first sight, having been witness to it on several occasions.
One such magical moment was seven years ago, sitting on a tumble dryer in communal drying room at college, when my favourite ex walked in.
Another was when I met someone fairly recently, who shall remain nameless, who I’d only previously spoken to on the phone. That wasn’t so much love as a potential love.
But it does exist — and researchers at Ohio State University have the proof.
Professor Ramirez says: “Earlier research had assumed there was a cumulative effect that happens in the first days of meeting that helps determine how relationships will develop. But we are finding that it all happens much sooner than that — literally within a few minutes”.
They didn’t mention anything about a cumulative effect lasting seven years, but there’s still hope. He is a Hermes man after all.
Findings of a compatibility report: “These two make a delightful duo. They have distinctive understanding of each other’s dreams and desires. You don’t have to dig too deep to see why this relationship is so right. Cancerians believe that home is where the heart is and Scorpios need loyalty which they can get in masses from their Cancerian counterparts.” It’s written in the stars.