The Diary of a Bunny Boiler

PHILIP — September 1998

Philip arrived on time, his pink face scrubbed and shiny. He came bounding up like a new puppy. He didn’t have desperate tattooed on his head but he might as well have. He was effusive and slightly sweaty. Obviously not an exponent of the “less is more” ethos as he had had a run-in with several bottles of aftershave. Once we agreed that we would “go Dutch” for the drinks we settled down for an evening of stilted conversation and long silences.

I think you know straight away if you ‘click’ with someone and, as far as I was concerned, it was ‘clunk’ and not ‘click’. He was obviously yearning for a relationship but I didn’t feel flattered as I think that King Kong would have been in the running if he was available and wore lipstick.

For some reason, Philip thought he would shorten my name to Ro. Every question started with “Well Ro...”. It was irritating and I found myself looking at my watch whenever he went to fetch a drink or answer the call of nature. It was only a couple of hours but it felt like weeks. The only positive thing that I could say about the evening was that, eventually, it would come to an end. As soon as was politely possible, I made movements to leave and he wanted to walk me home. I didn’t want him knowing where I lived so I said there was no need is it was only a minute’s walk away.

I said that it had been nice to meet him and he lunged forward and planted a wet, sloppy kiss on my lips. I made a mental note to wipe my mouth once he was out of sight. He obviously felt satisfied with this and started to talk about a second date. I smiled, thinly, and said that I had a hectic social life and couldn’t make any plans at present. The penny dropped and he ambled slowly away concentrating on his mobile phone. Maybe he was looking for Kong’s number — if Kong liked aftershave they could waltz away into a happy future together. On regaling a friend with the details she said I should have told him that my name was Rosie and not Ro. To be honest, I knew I would never eat breakfast with him so it was unimportant.