Single White Failure

by G. J. H. Sibson

  ‘Dahrrling, my parents will be over in London next weekend, I would like it so very much if you would have dinner with us.’ Maria Jose shatters my reverie. And yes, that was the sound of my bowels giving way. It’s the last thing I was expecting at that moment, revelling in the sun and the post coital bliss. I almost scold myself choking on the blue mountain.

  ‘It was the candle wasn’t it?’ I mumble despondently.

  ‘Sorrry, what d’you mean?’ Poor Maria Jose doesn’t know what the hell I am on about.

  However, if Dirty was here he’d be agreeing wholeheartedly. But I had played the bastard role hadn’t I? Then I realise at that moment that I had done no such thing. She had been in control all evening. Maria Jose had seen through any type of guise I was trying to create. What I didn’t realise then that I appreciate now is that some men are bastards, and probably always will be, guys like Dirty. And believe me he would be the first to admit it. Others of us are the romantic types (or at least we make some sort of effort). Most importantly women can spot each type a mile off. They know which flames will burn them and which ones won’t. When I looked back I hadn’t done anything bastardy all evening, I was just my usual self. Foolishly I was expecting her to say ‘thankee very much,’ grab a cab and fly back to France – not to be seen until my next trip to Paris when I would undoubtedly give her a call. But I suppose if she had wanted the full bastard treatment she would have chosen Dirty. But she didn’t make a play for Dirty because she wanted more, or at least the probability of something more, and so she had chosen me.

  From then on I decided to leave the bastard routine to Dirty, who is the master. There is no point pretending to be something I am not, more than anything else it is too bloody difficult. It would just complicate an already complicated situation. Besides, what’s the point of hiding in the shadows of bastardom when women have infrared goggles that let them see into your deepest chasms. At the point of intercourse I would always light up a candle, Dirty would always forget their names. That’s just how things are.

  11

  Losing the ability

  You know the feeling, you’re sitting at a bar in some trendy establishment and some goddess, a veritable Aphrodite, is sitting two stools away, sipping her Cuba libre evocatively. As she sups, her eyes peer up from behind the rim of the cocktail glass, lingering more than long enough for you to register her interest. You know that she is there for the taking but you can’t do Jack Shit about it.

  You dream of moments like these, where an attractive (or even moderately passable) girl offers herself up on a plate. Of course, in the dream you breeze over brimming with self-confidence, a veritable Lothario. Clutching the Dom Perignon and two flutes, you coolly pull up a pew. You take the gold-tipped Sobranie Black Russian from the cigarette case and, without looking at her, you light up, letting the mild smoke fill your lungs before blowing dollar sign smoke rings. You give her a sideward glance as you crack open the champagne. The cork comes with ease, sighing like a satisfied woman, rather than an exploding bullet that takes out the barman’s eye, and gets froth on her frock. You pour the ambrosia with an air of sophistication that comes only with birth. Before you have spoken a word she is delirious with enthusiasm.

  But dreams have a habit of pissing on reality. Instead, you look up meekly and give a pathetic smile, chuckling nervously you tip your glass in her direction. Fuckwit. That’s it, you’ve ballsed it up – a serious loss of cool points with absolutely no possibility of recovery. You are now your own worst enemy. You know that you have boo-booed. The more that you think about going for it regardless, the harder the notion becomes. Why can’t you just get up from the bar stool and waltz over to where she’s sitting? Can you buggery. Even though, for some reason (probably out of pity), she is still giving you the eye, you are glued to that chair. Your arse is made of lead and diving weights have been attached to your ankles. To prise yourself out of that stool would be a feat akin to launching the Wright Brothers’ plane from the surface of the Sea of Tranquillity. You are going nowhere.

  So why is it I can make a play for women that I have no hope in hell of pulling and yet fail to get anywhere with Miss Congeniality? It would take just 10% of the effort employed in the first instance to succeed in the second. Perhaps it is because I like the chase, after all there’s no point in hunting a lame fox. Nope, I would like to believe it is because of such manly reasons, but the reality is much more deprecating. Plain and simple, it’s because I am shit scared. An assertive woman, a woman who knows what she wants can be a frightening prospect. I mean, if you never expect to pull, and I don’t for the most part, but on one occasion in ten the gods are looking favourably upon me and I should actually score, then wow what a rush. The unexpected success makes the whole experience even more pleasurable. I live for that moment. That’s why I carry on going to these godforsaken meat markets. It’s precisely because I never expect to pull the girl that makes pulling her so pleasurable. Imagine getting a hoop over the £20 note at the funfair. There’s nothing dishonourable in losing because we all know it’s fixed. But there is every reason to celebrate if you should actually hit the jackpot. Being half-cut helps. But when I am stone cold sober and a pull is guaranteed, well I’m sorry, that’s just unfair. Such a thing can make my bowels dissolve. Knowing that knocking bones is a foregone conclusion puts a hell of a pressure on us men, you know? It’s just not right. It’s bad enough thinking about foreplay, clitoral stimulation and premature ejaculation at the moment prior to intercourse, but forcing a man to contemplate it before even exchanging forenames is simply sadistic.

  Getting women is like becoming a millionaire, the first one is the hardest. When you’re desperate, women know it. Nothing will attract other women more than a beautiful girl on your arm.

  ‘It’s a popularity competition, women like men that have women. I suppose the knowledge that you don’t have to pull also gives you a confidence that women can find very attractive,’ says Raj.

  ‘You mean compared to the desperation that I have been undoubtedly displaying over the past few weeks,’ says Ed, despondently. He has been in a perpetual trough for the last month or so – ever since ‘Britney’ realised he wasn’t a bastard after all. She wasn’t looking for a nice guy.

  ‘I just don’t seem to be working the banter as I would normally. I can’t even pluck up the courage to go and chat to a girl I like the look of in a bar. I feel doomed before I take the first step.’

  ‘That’s your problem, buddy. When you’re seeing a girl it’s like some kind of pheromone you emit, “odour d’I-have-a-woman-already”, come get me if you’re good enough. It’s not arrogance, it’s totally subconscious, a kind of self-confidence that you’re unaware you possess. And boy, does it make you desirable.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right. If that’s the case I must have bathed in the pheromone equivalent of Old Spice.’

  ‘And the worst thing,’ I say, not meaning to make things worse, ‘is that it’s an ever-deteriorating state of affairs. Great, so the only way that I’ll score again is if I have a woman already. I think there’s a flaw in that plan.’

  ‘Don’t worry, mate,’ says Raj, more positively, ‘a solution has been provided for in the grand scheme of things. After a while, you won’t care anymore.’

  ‘That doesn’t make me feel any better, how is that a solution Raj?’

  ‘Because not wanting a woman, having that aloofness, can be just as attractive to them as your confidence when you already have a lass.’

  ‘He’s right,’ I nod in agreement, ‘and once you start getting more female attention, you’ll start to get interested again.’

  12

  Losing the desire

  No.

  It’s a simple word, a small word. But it is a word with amazing power and mystifying effect. There’s a flipside to the coin that is the upfront woman; the man who doesn’t give a rat’s arse. As we, at times, are overcome by a woman who is openly keen, so a woman can be bewildered by a man who
turns down sex. I mean, why would he? It goes against both natural instinct and social conditioning. And he’s not saying no because he is intimidated, or shy. He is simply not interested.

  The man just sits there like the dog being pawed by the cat, coaxed into playing but having none of it. Yet, it goes against all the rules of nature. If she shows enough cleavage, pouts to the point of resembling Leslie Ash, brushes her leg against his and slaps his knee as they share a joke, then he’s bound to be interested. I mean that’s giving him a pretty clear picture, right? That’s following all the rules set out by Girlie Nazi magazine, isn’t it?

  The woman has followed Cosmo’s advice to a ‘t’, she has taken heed of all the pearls of wisdom set out in that awful American book The Rules. Sure she has, but she could flash her knockers at him all day and it would be as enticing as a Vanessa Feltz centrefold.

  It’s not that the woman is one of Dirty’s cast offs. Far from it. She might be attractive and sexy and witty, she might even tick all the boxes on his anatomical checklist. It’s irrelevant.

  A man goes through the cold turkey that is ‘losing the ability’ to attract a person of the opposite sex. It’s a low point. It is the ultimate dip in a man’s dating peak and trough cycle. Then he comes out the other end and he gets catapulted to the opposite emotion. He’s no longer failing in the hunt, he’s not remotely interested in the quarry. And the less interested he becomes in the sport, the more the fox finds him attractive.

  Sometimes we’re just not interested, not in the mood. But we’re never allowed to vocalise our lack of interest, it would be blasphemy. It’s the chaos theory to end all imbalances within society.

  ‘Guys, you know the other week we were talking about Ed not getting anywhere with women,’ says Raj one morning after the night before.

  ‘Thanks for reminding me. But you were right, I haven’t been interested since we spoke about it. I’ve been feeling quite liberated actually.’

  ‘Well I’ve been the same, but not liberated, more bored,’ Raj admits, ‘I met this cute chick in Funky Buddha. I felt pretty indifferent but I had to pull her.’

  ‘Oh no, one of those moments,’ I say.

  ‘Yep. And she suggested going for a drink at mine. I just wanted to go home and go to bed, but I didn’t feel I could say no.’

  ‘Of course not!’ I declare.

  ‘So, we get to chez Raj. I’m making chat with her but I really can’t be arsed. She starts snogging me and then she makes those come-to-bed eyes. Before I know it, I hear myself asking her to stay the night.’

  ‘We’ve all been there, mate. You want to kick her out, but you can’t.’ I think back to the times it has happened to me. I once walked a girl around from one bar to the next just so she’d get tired and bored and want to go home. Her home. I wanted the comfort of my own bed and to wake up alone. The thought of making small talk about bollocks until midday the next morning wasn’t a price that I was willing to pay, just so I could sleep with her. In fact, I didn’t want to sleep with her at all. But it was hard to say no.

  ‘It’s fucking awful,’ Raj continues. ‘I think of all the foreplay I’m going to have to go through, the sex itself and then the worst bit – remaining affectionate and enthusiastic after having shot my load.’

  We all chuckle knowingly.

  ‘I know the feeling,’ says Dirty, who had decided to join us on our beers. ‘It’s when masturbation goes from the obligatory substitute to the preferred alternative.’

  Everyone laughs again.

  ‘But I still couldn’t say no,’ says Raj. ‘What if I had asked her to leave?’

  ‘Buddy, it just wouldn’t compute, she wouldn’t understand, we’re men after all and apparently all we ever want is sex,’ Ed laughs.

  ‘Can you imagine the look on her face if you said, “Okay, I’m going to bed now, I’ll call you a cab”.’

  ‘Mate, I wanted to but I couldn’t. It’s happened the other way round, plenty of times. It’s almost like I’m expecting the girls to tell me to sling my hook. But I couldn’t ask her to leave, to deny her sex. It would have been such a huge insult.’

  ‘Gentlemen,’ Dirty puts his penny’s worth in, ‘sometimes it’s just easier to do it and get it out the way, than not to do it.’

  As ever, he’s right. In a way. But why should Raj feel like he has to let her stay. If the tables were turned, it would be verging on a criminal act. It’s a hang on to the archaic rituals of a society that we are supposed to have left behind long ago. It makes as much sense as offering a woman your seat on a crowded tube train. I do it because I feel the pressure to do so, it is expected of me, but there is no logical reason for me doing so. That is aside from politeness. Raj slept with her just to be polite.

  Just as you have some women stare at you contemptuously on crowded trains, while you enjoy the comfort of your seat, or you have looks of indignation at a crowded bar when you get served before them, the greatest insult is to refuse their advances.

  ‘I was chatting to this girl once, in a bar,’ I reminisce out loud, ‘and I had been going through one of these phases, I think she mistook it for an alluring arrogance. We got on really well, I liked talking to her, then she suggested we went to hers for coffee.’

  ‘Did she actually say coffee?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I laugh, ‘but she wasn’t drunk enough to be blatant or obvious, she was trying to be subtle. Although she did put on a slightly theatrical butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth look. And then I said, “Ah, I’m okay, thanks though, perhaps another time, I’m kind of tired”.’

  ‘What did she say?’ Ed asks.

  ‘I don’t think she believed what she was hearing, she sort of put her head on one side, like she was on Ricki Lake, squinted, looked affronted and said “fine”, like a bloody toddler. And then, she got up and walked off.’

  ‘They don’t like it,’ Dirty explains, ‘you see it’s the one thing they have over you. The woman is the one who decides whether you’ll be having sex tonight or not, not you, she always has the upper hand. When she actually offers it and you say no, you’re beating them at their own game.’

  ‘Awesome,’ say Raj, ‘that’s what I should have done.’

  ‘You know the other thing that seems to put them off?’ Dirty continues, ‘It’s a put-off rather than an insult. But it’s all tied in together.’

  ‘No what’s that?’ Ed asks.

  ‘Your confidence.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, for us it’s a numbers game. Try it on with ten women and you’re bound to get one. But women aren’t used to being refused, whereas we are. Whenever we get knocked down, we take it in our stride, we have to.’

  ‘Yeah, the other week,’ says Raj, ’with a different girl, who I did like, she came up to me and we started dancing. Anyway after a while I kissed her…’

  ‘Cute,’ I joke.

  ‘Shutthefuckup. Anyhow, we got talking, and I bought her a drink. She suddenly says, “You’re quite a bit shorter than the men I normally go for”.’

  ‘Shit,’ Ed says, unimpressed.

  ‘Yeah, well I would have been offended, but I’d already pulled her and was thinking to myself “Sweetheart it won’t mean dick when I’ve bent you over on all fours and you’re screaming my name in about an hour’s time”.’

  Dirty roars with laughter and slaps him on the back, ‘That’s my boy!’

  ‘But of course, if you’d told her that her arse was larger than the girls you usually go for, you’d have been wearing her drink,’ I say, smiling.

  ‘It’d have been true as well.’

  ‘It’s almost as if she is trying to bring you down a peg or two because your insecurities play on you less. Why else would you be so personal and rude about someone you’ve only just met and whom you fancy,’ says Ed. ‘It’s as if she’s levelling the playing field after having shown her interest.’

  ‘You’re right,’ says Raj wearily, ‘I’m tired of all this. I’m tired of feeling like I�
�m doing something wrong just because I go up and chat to a girl, I feel like they resent me for it. It’s as if I’m committing some sort of misdemeanour, the dating world’s equivalent of jaywalking. And if I do get lucky, I feel like they’re acquiescing rather than embracing my advances. It’s dispassionate. It’s more like a submission with consent. I find it so disappointing and draining. I need a holiday!’

  13

  Offshore

  When you have failed to find a nice, normal, sane girl at home, what is a man to do – reach for his keyboard and sign up to Thai-brides-R-Us? Nearly, but not quite. We had hoped that we hadn’t reached that stage just yet (granted we weren’t far off). I have no prejudice in buying sex, we all buy it in a way, regardless. I don’t even have a major problem with purchasing the spouse of your choosing, but out of the three billion women on the planet (and still in my youth) I would like to think that I can form a relationship with one, without financial consideration changing hands and still on my terms. Raj and I decide that it’s time for a vacation.

  We sit in a souk bar in Farringdon called Bed Bar, notebook at the ready to jot down ideas for the perfect holiday destination; we need a break from hunting British quarry.

  The waitress brings us our drinks, her glumness is infectious. She’s young and pretty, but dressed in a predictably frumpy fashion, some sort of greasy residue has left its mark on her white blouse and her unkempt hair is scraped back, revealing pallid cheeks. Seeing her miserable face just makes me want to get away for a week all the more.

  We console ourselves by knocking back the Pimms, like monks on mead at Michaelmas.

  ‘So where shall we go?’ I ask Raj.

  ‘Well it has to be somewhere hot’

  ‘Yes, hot,’ I scribble it down.