Diamond Geezer

Last Thursday I went to a singles night arranged by www.LovestruckLondon.com with a few of my girls. I had been to one of their singles nights before in June at Jewel bar in Covent Garden. It was ok and since the bar was open to the public a straw system was in order to differentiate singles from ordinary punters : red straws for daters and white for everyone else.

We got there ordered our drinks and wee told that the bar had no red straws so we had to use white ones. The place was absolutely packed so we ended up standing on the stairs which proved to be an ideal place to meet guys walking through the bar. A few of our number dropped out and went home because they couldn’t see many black men in the place, but I stayed with three others and were quickly approached by a couple of guys. One looked like a Bollywood heartthrob with his muscular frame, tight t-shirt and startling green eyes. The other was a good looking black South African guy. We had a pleasant conversation, but there was no real attraction.

We continued to languish on the stairs and a tall white guy with a shaved head approached us and asked if we were here for the dating night. We said yes and he informed us that the straw system had changed to white straws for daters. He was a charming guy and his charm was increased by the fact that he looked exactly like the French actor Vincent Cassel, from Ocean’s Twelve. I have a massive crush on Vincent Cassel and this guy even had the accent (even though it was Belgian rather than French, but it still worked for me!). We chatted for a long while, exchanged numbers and I met up with him for a drink. Although there was a mutual attraction there was no grounds for a relationship, so we just stayed as friends. (He’s still cute though!).

Therefore I had very high hopes for their event last week, but I was severely let down. The pub in Soho where it was held, was too cramped and nowhere near as nice as Jewel Bar. We left after a round of mojitos and discussed where to go on to. We decided to go to Jewel Bar, Soho and one of my girls went home – what a mistake to make.

Teetering past the burly bouncers in my after-work finest clobber, I sauntered into the bar and knew instantly how Lucy from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe felt when she first encountered Narnia...the route from the door, past the bar and right on through to the private function room was littered with attractive men of all hues.

We found a seat and went up to a bar, but before we were even served a good-looking black guy approached my friend and offered to purchase our drinks – that was more like it! We got talking to him and found out that he was at the bar with a group of workmates on their company Christmas party, and we went and sat with them. I got chatting to his friend who on first glances looks like he only needs a pair of black braces, Doc Martens and a Ben Sherman shirt to look like an extra from the film We Are England, but he was totally cool to talk to. He was a proper East End geezer (who doesn’t but we had a great conversation and found some similarities : both seen Eminem and 50 Cent in concert at the same venue, similar attitude and sense of humour. It was refreshing after the litany of dates that I have been on this year to find somebody who I could get along with and understand with little to no effort.

We were attracting men left right and centre, like this one guy that took a shine to my friend, but did not approach her. His favoured tactic was to walk past our table, stand around for about five seconds and then scurry back to his friends. After the eight time, he bought a mate along for company but they both just looked awkward as my friend continued to ignore him, he really just should have said hello.

It was well after 11pm before we made a move, but numbers were exchanged and various meetups were arranged. He had even texted me by the time I woke up a few hours later! So far we have texted a lot and have a date booked for later this week, which I will update you on, but for now I definitely recommend checking out Jewel Bar , where you might find your own diamond in the rough!

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge

So I checked my match. com account and besides a couple of messages, I had received a wink from a guy that I had met on there and dated earlier in the summer...

I initially winked at him because he was an attractive professional black man in his mid-thirties, and we talked on the phone and I arranged to meet him for after-work drinks on a Friday at a bar near Bank station.

After a bit of confusion about which entrance to meet up at, I saw him and was surprised that he was better looking than his profile picture. We went to one of the bars, ordered some drinks and decided to drink them outside because it was such a pleasant evening. Since dating is somewhat a hobby of mine, I was not very nervous, unlike him because he had finished a long-term relationship at the start of the year and I was his first internet date because he dates only black women but has lots of interest from white ladies on match.

I knew exactly which of my dating anecdotes to tell him to put him at ease. I have one very simple philosophy when it comes to dating, be the most fun version of you that you can be – then who would not want to hang out with you? Then I asked him to ask me some questions and he asked me what can only be described as psychoanalytical interview questions:
Him: Think of a box. What colour is it?
Me: A box? Why a box? Erm (looking down at my top) Electric blue?
Him: Interesting (scratching chin like he’s Sigmund Freud). Now imagine that you have a ladder, where would you place it in relation to the box?
Me: (in my head, I can think of one choice place to put it, but it might make your eyes water) The left side?

Gladly we were interrupted by a mate of his who was meeting some people in the bar. He returned about 5 minutes later and announced that he was going to hang out with us, which my date agreed to. So much for an intimate date for two. In fact he didn’t even tell his mate that we were on a date (a first date at that!). The three of us had another drink at the bar and moved to Abacus, which had a massive queue outside it. So the friend decided that he would try to argue our way in by telling the bouncers that they had forgotten to stamp our hands when we were in there earlier. Obviously we did not get in and this was not my idea of romantic first date etiquette.

They asked me where else we could go and since it was Friday night I said Madam Jojo’s in Soho for the deep funk night. (This is my favourite club in the whole of London and I love funk music). They agreed to go and said that it’d better be good, but of course they didn’t offer any other suggestions. So off we went. Bear in mind I was dressed in three inch heels that I could walk along gracefully but hiking up the escalators was a one-way ticket to a sprained ankle in my book, so I chose to stand demurely on the right hand side clutching the hand rail while my date and his mate jogged up the left hand side. Obviously they complained that I was too slow but I was shocked by the lack of gentlemanly courtesy.

We got to there earlier than I usually get there and the basement club was a bit empty but the deep funk reverberated across the cavernous depths of the dance floor. I was grooving to the music, while the guys looked a bit surprised. His mate made his excuses and left and I was left with my date who had visually shrunk into the pleatherette seating around the edge of the dance floor. After about twenty minutes he said “I thought that this was going to be a black club”. Now his behaviour made sense. To me it doesn’t matter about the makeup of the people in the club so long as I can throw some serious shapes on the dance floor to my preferred type of music. I can assure you, that if I was into bhangra I would frequent West London bhangra spots without a second thought. But my date, he liked the music but could not get over the fact that most people in there were white (there was nobody scandalously drunk or acting like chavs – it was full of trendies and professionals out for a good night out). I just do not understand that mentality from somebody living in multicultural London.

I danced by myself because I was not wasting all the good tunes, and he sat stoically looking at the dance floor through the bars as if he was watching a turn of the century exhibition entitled ‘the lesser-spotted white funk music aficionados.’

I went back to sit with him while I polished off my Bacardi and Coke and he announced that he had a headache and had to go home. Seriously. We had been in the club for about 30 minutes and he faked a headache to get out of it. Funnily enough when he had thought that it was a black club, he had been prepared to dance until the 3am closing time, but he hadn’t even made the effort to step on the dance floor.

All the way to the tube station he kept going on that he was surprised that everybody was white and he didn’t know that white people liked funk music too (?!). He seemed culture-shocked and not very adventurous which is the exact opposite of me. Hmmm.

Anyway I gave him another chance putting the first date down to nerves and agreed to meet him in Brixton for a drink before going on to somewhere else. Since he was living in Morden, I called him when I left home so that he could meet me outside Brixton Tube station at 8pm. I arrived a bit early and called him and he said that he was just leaving the house and would drive up. I took the opportunity to walk around the Tesco Metro next to the station but after flicking through Heat, Closer and Look magazine, I thought that I’d better make tracks because the security guard was giving me funny looks. I waited outside of the train station and dodged the advances of various local men. By now I had been waiting for over 30 minutes and called to ask where he was, stuck in traffic he said. An hour and a half later, he turned up. I was mightily pissed off and cold so when we went to the Thai restaurant/ bar I quite rightly didn’t even fake that I was going to get my wallet out (you know what I mean girls).

So after one drink, he said that he wanted to take me to a club in Walthamstow called Soul Bar that played funk music. This pissed me off further because 1) I live in the East, travelled all the way to the South and spent an hour and a half waiting for him and now I’m going to travel all the way back to the North-East; 2) I had suggested The Soul Bar for our first date with dinner in a local restaurant which my friend had recommended, but he had refused because he had food at home (yup he’s that cheap).

So we went up there and obviously it was an all black club, and surprise, surprise, no headaches! It was ok, but I was blatantly the youngest person in there at 29 and I was getting some attitude from some of the women in there. He dropped me off at my house and I politely pecked him on the cheek like the French do but he lunged in for a full-on snog which was ok. I had a couple of texts from him after that but wasn’t really bothered because I was not really into him and I was dating other guys at the same time, so he was no loss to me.

...so I was very surprised to receive a wink from him on match. So what, he’s dated a few people on the website and things are getting dry since winter is just around the corner and he’s decided to try again with a woman that he last spoke to over 5 months ago! Nah man. Besides which he has my number so why didn’t he just call? I clicked the button to send the standard match response of ‘thanks for the interest, but no thanks’. I need to go because I need an aspirin - I think I have a headache coming on.

Workshop review

Hiya. I know that it’s been a little while, but I have been so busy and inundated with stuff, but I am ready to catch you up on everything that’s been happening.

First of all, last weekend – the I Can Find You a Good Black Man workshop run by dating coach Des O’Connor. The room was packed with over sixty black women, and was located next door to a bridal dress sale with a queue of exclusively non-black women stretched the length of the corridor. It was a jam-packed day filled with interesting information, practical tips to change your s-mindset and above all a panel of ten good black men that answered our questions. If you weren’t there, you really missed out. Des’s delivery was slick, smart and professional – I do not envy the man for having to keep 60+ black women in check for over 6 hours but he managed to do it with charm and humour.

Apart from the panel of men, there was a fantastic presentation by Sonia Brown of SistaTalk.co.uk, on Personal Branding. A pertinent question that she asked was, are you a Lidl or a Fortnum and Masons? I would personally have to rate myself as an Aldi – surprisingly good quality, unusual products and affordable to all. The exercises that Sonia took us through helped me to realise that I really need to work on my personal branding and the way that it can help to attract the right kind of man. So I’m planning to step up my game, get my personal branding sorted and work on my image. My deadline, is January 15th the first Des O’Connor all-black event. By then I will definitely be a Harrods – classy, opulent and desired by all.