How I'm avoiding Valentine's Day

So. Dating. As I explained a few weeks ago, I’m still not entirely sure if I’m into the whole relationship thing. Of course this could just be because it’s so long since I met anyone for whom I felt even the vaguest spark of well, anything at all. Maybe if I was continually meeting men who interested me physically I’d be all over dating.

Still, I persevere. At the very least it’s amusing. At best I’m meeting people with whom I like hanging out. The night Mrs. Mad rolled into town I took her for an early supper in the West Village (we went to The Other Place as everywhere else we tried was full – it was Not Good At All), tucked her up in bed, and hopped it to a blind date down the road at 930pm, promising I’d be back in an hour or so.

Me & my good intentions. After two margaritas with a most amusing Scottish gentleman, I rocked up back home at midnight. Next day I got an email suggesting hanging out in the future. Fine by me: There was no romance a-burning from what I cld deduce. Most importantly, I have been so successful in my American integration that I have precisely two British friends left in Manhattan and I need to replenish stocks. (It’s important to have people in one’s life who understand phrases like ‘bun fight’, ‘dog’s dinner’ or ‘mad as a box of frogs’.)

So it’s Fight Night tomorrow and we have what I would describe as an anti-date. We are avoiding all places that are pink cupid strewn, and/or dark & romantic and heading to a cellar to drink sake instead. I’ve made him promise to hoick me back up if I fall off my bar stool in a sake stupor and he has vaguely threatened to pin a pink bow in my hair when I’m not looking.