Dalrymple Dates

Posted on May 19, 2010 by Christina Kenny

I’m back. Did you miss me? My apologies for the long absence, but I’ve been terribly busy since my return to the UK; caught up in a gay whirl of work, socialising and romance which rather unfortunately has eaten into my traditional hours of bloggery.

The new job is a stop-gap measure, but pretty good all the same: Executive PA to a very senior member of the local mental health NHS Trust. My new colleagues are a blast and my boss a pleasure to work for; so much so that I am seriously beginning to consider abandoning the copy ideas to become a career PA.

For now, though, I’m lucky that my workload is fairly manageable, otherwise I would never have time to fit in all the events filling up my diary. It was nice, but – and I know they won’t mind my saying this – a little embarrassing when I realised just how much all my friends missed me while I was away. Some of them were positively pining – Anita‘s lost over four stone – and few and far between are the brief moments of respite when I’m not being telephoned, called on, taken out for drinks and generally fêted.

And romance? I’m fighting them off. It’s hard to judge whether it’s my sexy, sun-kissed new figure or general air of travelled sophistication that’s attracting all these admirers – but they are terribly persistent.

The above is almost all true.

I do have a job as a PA, although it’s part-time and until fairly recently I was able to spend most of it reading the Guardian online. My boss really is a fantastically senior member of the Trust, but he is also a high ranking idiot-hole whose most valuable life’s work appears to have been perfecting a subtle mix of arrogance, superciliousness and condescension in both his professional and therapeutic relationships. He doesn’t like to see or talk to anyone unless absolutely necessary, a preference shared by most of his patients and colleagues but one which makes the role of Personal Assistant decidedly tricky. I have taken to gazing at a print-out of Judi Dench taped to my printer and asking myself ‘what would M do?’ whenever I receive a particularly rude or unreasonable communication. The answer is frequently ‘have him eliminated’ but, luckily for Dr Dick, my NHS-issue stapler tends to jam. My mother suggested recently that I have a problem with authority. I am beginning to feel that she may be right.

I have been socialising, though: Canticum and Voce have started up again, and there have been after-work drinks (though obviously not with any of my work colleagues), country walks and bike rides, gallery visits… and gin. (So much gin.) Yet there are papery gaps in my diary aching to be filled with further outings and reasonably-priced cocktails.

And now for the topic you’ve all been skipping ahead to read: ro-oh-oh-mance. True to form, my love life is currently as full and rewarding as a sprung mousetrap missing the cheese. Having been largely single since 2008, and mostly back on the heterosexual market since 2009, I’d come to the conclusion that most attractive, intelligent, pleasant and socially ept* men my own age were all attached, snapped up at university; gay, or had some kind of deep-rooted personality disorder that resulted in them not fancying me. No problem, I thought, having heard that the average university relationship lasts five years (the duration of your degree, plus another two to work out exactly how much you’re not right for each other). I turned 25, and sat back to await the new year’s crop of lovely, ever so slightly emotionally-scarred bachelors to materialise.

They have yet to appear, and I’m growing tired of waiting for the objects of my affections to notice me, or the person of my dreams nearly-but-not-quite knocking me off my bike on the Uxbridge Road (an event that happens so often as to make it a statistical likelihood that at least one of these drivers is my soulmate). So in recent weeks I’ve turned to my good friend The Internet for assistance.

I’ve dabbled before with internet dating, signing up for free profiles that allow you to use sites voyeuristically but with no obligation to commit to actual contact; a kind of anonymous, vaguely sexy Facebook. Nothing ever came of it. The relationships I ended up deleting my profile for were with friends of friends, fellow musicians, and checkout assistants, all of whom I met in person through normal social channels and/or the cashback process. While I’m not exactly ruling out the possibility of this ever happening again (in fact, meeting that special someone in person would be rather convenient), I’m taking the internet thing a little more seriously this time around and to this end have purchased a monthly subscription to a well-known dating site**. The paid-for subscription means that I can send messages to people I like the look of, and they too, if they feel so inclined and have a subscription (read: are similarly desperate), can e-mail me back.

In the spirit of getting my money’s worth, the first thing I did was write a proper profile, which was harder than I’d anticipated. Building a profile can be at once liberating and oppressive. At first, it’s a chance to to present yourself to the world as you’d like to be seen – nay, as you should be seen. In practise, however, it’s easy to be pressured into ruthless self-editing as you attempt to mould yourself into an attractive product to be scrutinised by myriad anonymous unworthies. The parts of your character that so endear to your friends are invariably transformed into deeply unattractive personality defects when displayed on a screen, and it is a strong internet dater who can resist the lure of the generic profile.

A quick look at the most popular women’s profiles on my chosen site reveals a selection of attractive Caucasian women in their twenties and thirties, most with longish straight hair, coyly smiling at the camera from below. Their ‘tag-lines’ (a single line of text under a photo that you can use as added clout should your visage disappoint) are variously kooky, witty or profound. The profiles themselves follow a formula that’s pretty easy to crack:

‘Hey! I’m (insert name). This is my first time internet dating (insert raised eyebrow on part of reader) so be gentle with me! I love my job in (media/the arts/charity) but also value my free time and live life to the full! I love going out dancing with my friends, but I also enjoy quiet nights in snuggled up in front of the television. I’m looking for a ‘partner in crime’ to explore London with: you’ll need to be as passionate as I am about (insert anything – literally, ‘anything’) and be willing to try new things! Looks are important, but not as much as chemistry! Thanks for reading – message me if you like what you see.’

I tried a draft along these lines.

‘Hey! I’m Christina. This is my first time using internet dating, although I suppose the more I relentlessly edit this profile, the more untrue and redundant that statement becomes. I enjoy my job as a temporary PA – if you can call recreational self-harm in the workplace enjoyment – but also value my sessions of ritual humiliation in the gym afterwards. I love going out with my friends, but can only really let my hair down on the dance-floor when I’ve had quite a few drinks, so you’ll need to keep an eye on me when I start flailing! I also enjoy quiet nights in watching television – so much so that I sometimes do this up to five times a week. I LOVE living in London and am looking for a ‘partner in crime’ to explore it with, perhaps on bicycles. You’ll have to be patient, though – I like to pull over every 300 metres or so to check my A-Z as I have a poor sense of direction and limited spatial awareness. You’ll also need to be passionate about something (because, quite frankly, I’m not), and a willingness to try out new things is important, as my stapler isn’t going to fix itself. I would ideally like you to be attractive, although at this stage anyone whose appearance doesn’t make me physically ill should be in with a chance. K THX! E-mail me!’

My real profile is slightly less accurate. My photo is fairly representative of what I actually look like and I’ve tried to resist the urge to homogenise my profile text, mostly because I think it only fair to give potential dates advance warning of what I’m really like (relentlessly and defensively flippant). Most of the top twenty women state that they value a sense of humour in potential partners, while a lot of the men cite their own sense of humour as a selling point. I’m not convinced: in my experience, anyone who has to state that they have a GSOH generally doesn’t. In any case, it further reinforces my belief that many men like women to laugh at their jokes, but to make few themselves. Perhaps this explains my relatively low hit rate so far: after all, why would you respond to the friendly jokey lady with the chubby face when you could e-mail that total hottie who likes TV?

Perhaps my jokes are shit.

Coming next: D For Dalrymple goes on a date…

* the opposite, of course, of ‘inept’
** No, I’m not going to tell you which one. Yes, it probably is ridiculously easy to find me. No, please don’t.

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On Exercise

Posted on April 26, 2010 by Christina Kenny

Today’s post concerns exercise. I spent much of yesterday observing sections of the London Marathon from Jo’s Whitechapel balcony, where, cup of tea in hand, I was humbled and inspired by the sight of the nation’s top athletes and their more wobbly amateur counterparts variously thundering, jogging and waddling past. I seriously entertained the idea of running next year for, oh, at least fifteen seconds, until I realised that any serious attempt would necessarily entail the rapid loss of around a quarter of my bodyweight. More importantly, when you really scrutinise my motives, all I’m really interested in is dressing up and being cheered by strangers.

Strenuous physical activity did not feature prominently in my life – at least on a voluntary basis – until January 2009, apart from a brief period in 1992 when it was of paramount importance to be able to run faster than Anna Firstbrook in the playground. At school, I enjoyed rounders (king of ball games!) but spent winter PE lessons from 1997 to 2002 dragging my almost circular adolescent form around the edge of the hockey pitch due to my sullen refusal to purchase a mouthguard. (Any sport that routinely requires players to protect their faces from an opposition side wielding sticks is clearly not worth the effort.) At university I enjoyed a brief period of slenderness due to heartbreak, but as my self-confidence returned, so did the delicious pounds and, brief flirtations with the university gym aside, I was committed to a life of blissful sedentariness.

This all changed in early 2009 after a disastrous New Years Day walk in Wales. Tom suggested that we should take a gentle stroll to England, ending with a lovely pub lunch; naturally, the gentle stroll turned out to resemble a hellish route march. On reaching the crests of the various mountains, I was embarrassed to find not only that my face matched my raspberry pink woolly hat, but that my companions were almost entirely unaffected by the exertion. Perhaps walking with Anita – who thinks nothing of scampering barefoot over hot gravel carrying twice her own bodyweight – was not the best basis for comparison. Nevertheless, my embarrassment was complete. It was time to go back to the gym.

On returning to civilisation, I signed up to my local Virgin Active and averaged two to three visits per week over 2009. The results were palpable; not so much in terms of weight-loss, but I became fitter, and felt better in myself than I had for a while. Sadly, the gym proved (and continues to be) a source of pain and anxiety. Before starting, I had been impressed by articles in newspapers and women’s magazines suggesting that exercise would create a rush of endorphins and provoke a sense of euphoria and wellbeing. Well, I feel those things every time I step down from the cross-trainer at the end of an hour of cardio, but am fairly sure that it’s down to sheer relief rather than endorphins.

The worst part of the gym is other people. I particularly dislike how the building’s interior seems to have been designed with the intention of enabling you to peer into the eyes and crevices not only of yourself, but of strangers, from every conceivable angle. When navigating the gym floor I try to avoid making eye contact with others but especially with my own sweaty, flushed reflection. Others make no such effort. It’s hard to concentrate on maintaining a pace when the oiled muscle-man three feet away is grunting bestially, intent on making intense, bloodshot eye contact with his mirrored counterpart. Worse still are the changing rooms.While at the beginning of my gym career I was nervous around the idea of public nudity (weird? revolting? sexy?) I’m now quite happy to nip through unclothed save for a towel – which, happily, now fits around my hips. What I do still find disturbing is the bronzed, naked Amazons who, with one leg propped up on a bench, conduct loud conversations with their similarly burnished friends while slathering their inner thighs with unguent.

Anyway. One year on from my raspberry-coloured failure, a New Years Day walk in the snowbound Roaches proved so enjoyable that I bought myself some boots. My first pair of proper walking shoes were a revelation and with their purchase came the realisation that it is possible for feet to be dry, warm and comfortable – all at once! Prior to this point, I had thought it possible to experience only one, or perhaps two of these states at any one time. Then came thermal trousers, a proper compass, fleeces. Overnight I had morphed into something I never thought I could be: a Walker.

When I say Walker, I don’t mean your average moocher, one of your pedestrian pedestrians who relies on the alternate forward motion of their feet to get from A to B. No, I mean a Walker, with the mentality and accoutrements that such a title entails. I recognised the warning signs (in my case, the acquisition of equipment and a certain unhinged enthusiasm for uphill treadmills) from Bill Bryson‘s description of Walkers in Notes From A Small Island. Bill – for I feel sufficiently close to him to call him by his first name – writes brilliantly about the phenomenon of the British Walker and of the strange community to which he or she belongs. He, like me, was initiated into Walking by friends who dramatically underplayed the lung-busting, leg-burning, head-pounding strenuousness of a really steep uphill climb, but was brought around by the camaraderie of the converted and by the sheer beauty of the views that invariably await at the top.

Bill’s memories (like mine) of first expeditions aren’t distorted by subsequent walking triumphs. One of my favourite parts of Notes is the description of Walking companions, who ‘toyed with my will to live in the cruellest possible way; seeing me fall behind, they would lounge around on boulders, smoking and chatting and resting, but the instant I caught up with them with a view to falling at their feet, they would bound up refreshed and, with a few encouraging words, set off anew with large, manly strides’ (Bryson 1995, p. 282. I note this because I want to make it VERY CLEAR that the genius Bill Bryson, and not me, wrote the above).

All Walkers are like this. I know, because I’ve become one, and I do it too. Walking, no matter how it’s capitalised, isn’t the most athletic of pastimes. You have to be fairly fit for the scrambling parts and full of stamina for sustained climbs and descents, but compared to running, cycling, or cage fighting, it’s fairly tame. You wouldn’t know it to talk to Walkers, who have a peculiar ability to sense weakness in a novice and a universal desire to profit by their pain. For all their downplaying of tough climbs, Walkers are show-offs and delight in heaping subtle misery on those outsiders foolish enough to attempt joining the pack.

Let’s take my dad as an (by no means isolated) example. Daddy Kenny’s nickname on family holidays is ‘Man Mountain’ due to his tendency to STRIDE IN and TAKE CONTROL of any given situation. Even so, during the opening days of our recent amble along the West Highland Way he had quite a bit of trouble with his feet. There was even the suggestion that he might have to drop out for the longest section of our walk on the third day. By the close of the day two, however, it was clear that Dad’s feet were as nothing compared to Uncle Jim’s feet, knees, hips and left eyebrow – all of which he had hitherto managed, manfully, to conceal.

On day three, Dad miraculously perked up and fairly jogged the 19 miles to Kingshead. He says he has no idea what occasioned this rapid turnaround in foot health, but I know. It was Walkers’ one-upmanship. Every few miles, I would stop and wait for the grown-ups to catch up (there’s nothing so good for self-esteem as walking with the over-55s). Dad would be first over the crest of the hill; wheezing, cursing, and plonking himself down on the nearest dry-stone wall. Minutes later, when Uncle Jim limped into view, Dad would be on his feet again, ready to go, a cheery ‘bit of a steep one, wasn’t it, eh, Jim?’ on his lips as he bounded off over the next hill.

My dad is by no means alone in this behaviour. He simply can’t help it, and Walking with young folk is no different. They toil up using the steepest gradient possible, taking unnecessary detours to climb over enormous boulders, breathing stertorously through blocked noses while trying not to betray the slightest hint of being out of breath, and surreptitiously mopping brows in anticipation of group photos. I tried this approach for a while in New Zealand but realised, while climbing the Tongariro Crossing Devil’s Staircase, that the only way I would make it to the top in one go would be to pant as openly and unashamedly as an obese, asthmatic inner-city eight-year-old. Perhaps, in this respect, I’ll never be a true Walker. Still, I’ve got my compass.

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Day 59: Dubai

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Christina Kenny

(8 April, post-packing, pre-going out)

Today was my last day of freedom.

Tomorrow I fly to the UK – true, to a week of walking in Scotland and not yet the cast-iron reality of finding work, somewhere to live and a purpose in life – but a place far realler than many of those in which I have found myself over the past two months.

I would have loved to present the world with a thoughtful, witty and entertaining summary of my feelings on returning home, but writing time was unfortunately eaten into by the following demanding schedule, which has occupied me for most of the day:

1. Sit outside in sun in 34° heat.
2. Become too hot; jump into pool.
3. Stand waist-deep in pool reading book.
4. Repeat.

Regular readers may be interested to learn that the chestal tanzone has achieved an almost uniformly exotic hue,which, while not quite matching my face, or, indeed, any other part of my body, means that the ‘geological strata’ effect is now at a minimum, which can only be a good thing.

Tomorrow morning I report to Dubai airport at 5.30 in the hope of being allowed to board a flight to Glasgow, currently completely booked up. In the event that I am unable to cosh a booked passenger in the loos and assume their identity, I’ll loiter in the airport until able to board my scheduled flight to London, which will entail a brief and traumatic return to the family home.

For reasons almost entirely related to unpacking, I am super keen to catch the Scotland flight, and to this end have already completed my packing ahead of schedule. This has prompted the following review of my possessions.

Items packed but not used:

– A shirt two sizes too big that I have carried through three continents on the grounds that it might come in handy if ever I am called upon to go to a party dressed as a cowboy or lumberjack (number of times this has been the case: 1)
– Travel insurance. No thefts, no accidents, no maimings; even my enormously expensive doctors’ appointment and medication didn’t cost enough to make up the medical excess. I may have to involve myself in some terrible accident en route to the airport in order to get my money’s worth.

Items not packed but which I was compelled to acquire:

– Going-out dress and shoes. When packing, I was apparently under the impression that my every waking moment would be spent either climbing a mountain or wandering along a beach, with the result that I packed nothing suitable for any kind of social occasion. I survived New Zealand, where everyone wore the standard uniform of hoodie, shorts and Havianas, but Sydney was less forgiving.
– Clothes in general that fit (namely; one vest top, five tops; one dress, one pair jeans, one pair shorts, one pair cropped trousers; one hoodie; one pair flip-flops; one pair Converse; 2 x necklaces). OK, so I lost a bit of weight while travelling. Still, I’m not sure why I thought it was a good idea to leave the country with jeans and trousers already on the loose side.
– One stuffed sheep purchased in fit of contrition by Tessa, whose dog viciously mauled its predecessor.
– One stuffed penguin (Tessa on a roll).
– One skydive DVD (pathetic).

Items jettisoned:

– One pair jeans (two sizes too big).
– One pair flip-flops (buggered).

Weight of pack on leaving UK: 12.6 kg. Weight of pack on return: 16.7 kg.

Pretty good. Perhaps they’ll make a traveller of me yet.

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