Bind Dates and Dating Disasters

Get Fresh for the Weekend!

Why is it that the moment we feel we have finally met our perfect match, we begin to harbour suspicions that he/she is not fully committed?

The thought sometimes creeps in that all is not well. Surely, at this point, the sensible course of action would be to step back and see how matters pan out or have a frank and open conversation about your concerns with him and not just with your flirty girlfriends.

If you think a bit of amateur sleuth detective work would be more fun/productive, we strongly urge you to restrain yourself from the following Inspector Clouseau type investigations.

1. The money trail!
Bank/credit statements reveal much about someone’s life but identifying the tell-tale meal with a beautiful blonde/brunette/redhead is going to be difficult. Most likely it’s dinner with the serious male 14 stone client from Hartlepool he was chaperoning last week.

2. 1471.
There are only so many times you can dive for the phone before he smells a rat. Anyway, what exactly are you going to do when you find out that the voice of the mature woman on the phone you have called back turns out to be his mum - not a minx from Manchester?

3. The gate is shut.
Forget about trying to extract info from his loyal secretary under the guise of a general chit chat about restaurants near his office. Firstly, she won’t be fooled and secondly, you stand as much chance of her revealing secrets as you do of becoming Queen.

4. You ain’t Bill Gates.
So, you think of yourself as some sort of computer whiz? Think again. Even if you do finally work out what his computer password is (it’s probably Everton or Arsenal) don’t stoop to checking his e-mails. If you delete one from his boss - no amount of grovelling apologies are going to rescue you from the chop.

5. Don’t be a Cling On!
No, not a Trekkie being from deep space but one of those girls who sticks like glue to their boyfriends except when they go to the gents.* Men don’t like being stifled.

*Exception: if you are six foot tall and fantastically beautiful then he won’t mind preening continuously with you clamped to his side, within reason.

6. No glasses, stethoscopes needed.
No eavesdropping or spying through the keyhole when he is in conversation with his mates/on the phone. What makes you think they are talking about you anyway? Men don’t dissect relationships with the same professional thoroughness as us girls. They are probably talking football/money/truck racing. Also, unless you are particularly supple, what would you say to the osteopath when he asks you how you managed to get your neck frozen into an angle of 180 degrees from bending over for half an hour?

7. Deep cover.
So you want to snoop in his desk drawer for old/new love letters/photographs of your predecessors? Ask yourself why and where will that get you? I (Penny) emptied the contents of Stephen’s desk drawers into a black bin liner when we were being redecorated and someone threw it away mistaking it for rubbish. So, so sorry darling.

8. See the light.
If you hold up those window envelopes to the light – and some ordinary letters too - we are told (!) that you might just see who the sender is. However, when you bend the letters (so we are told) you could also discover they’re invariably much less exciting then you thought. They are bills, invitations to invest money he hasn’t got and reminders to join some Owl or Badgers Protection group.

9. Cross-examination.
He is not going to tell you immediately why he did not marry any of his long term exes and nagging him about it will only be like a red rag to a bull. You may in fact discover that the reason he did not marry them was because they nagged him about why he had not committed to any of his previous long term exes. Leave him alone. The past is precisely that.

10. Deep pockets.
Oh. We nearly forgot. I once chanced upon a letter from one of Stephen’s exes in the saucepan cupboard where he had obviously shoved it in haste whilst reading it in the kitchen. Naturally I glanced at it but only because it was open and it might have been an important letter from a lawyer about a missing legacy or such like. OK, not being type-written I realised it was not business - but it wasn’t as if I had been delving in his pockets for incriminating material. The only reason to inspect a man’s jacket pockets is if you are about to take it to the dry cleaners (and you would do this only if he asks really nicely).