Speed Dating Events

Girls spend years building up the know-how necessary to handle this monstrous regiment of men on the make. Luckily most of them turn out to be squaddies from the Brigade of Gunners — they’re gonna do this and they’re gonna do that, but they’re all flash and no bang because there’s not enough lead in their pellets to make the stub of a blunt pencil. But that still leaves enough men who are licensed to injure if not kill a lady, and a girl’s education in self-defence against these 003¹/2s starts at an early age. There used to be a skipping game at my school of Mixed Infants which built up to the triumphant rhythmic climax of little females chanting in unison:

I WOULD if I COULD

But I WANT to be GOOD

And I’m NOT that KIND of a GIRL!

Girls need to perfect their no-how, because men have so many different methods of trying to get them to say yes:

There are nine and sixty ways

Of constructing tribal lays —

And every single one of them is right!

Wrote Rudyard Kipling. This number must indicate the total of possible variant passes per man, not per tribe, race or nation. Women are reminded that nine and sixty represents an option, not an obligation — if you don’t like it, leave it alone. And they can’t all be right — or not all the time. A chap has to expect to get it wrong now and then . . .

She started to cry on his shoulder and he held her very tight. He took a long chance.

`Sleep with me.’

`No, baby,’ she said sympathetically.

`Please, please . . . just once.’

`I can’t, honey. I don’t love you.’

Who said anything about love? Our hero, from Nathanael West’s scorching portrayal of low-life Hollywood, The Day Of The Locust, is not after any such high flight. Not satisfied with this bungled pass, he tries another throw. This time he hits right below the belt, in reminding the unfortunate object of his attentions that she has worked as a call-girl:

`You worked for Mrs Jennings. Make believe you’re still working for her.’

She didn’t get angry.

`That was a mistake. And anyway that was different. I only went on call enough times to pay for the funeral, and besides those men were complete strangers. You know what I mean?’

`Yes. But please, darling. I’ll never bother you again. I’ll go East right after. Be kind.’

`I can’t.’

‘Why . . .?’

`I just can’t. I’m sorry, darling. I’m not a tease, but I can’t like that.’

`I love you.’

`No, sweetheart, I can’t.’

See what some girls have to put up with? First the insult, then the phoney sweet-talk and emotional blackmail, and finally the thundering lie, ‘I love you’. Somehow it’s not quite enough when he breaks his ankle at the end of the story. Poetic justice requires that the injury really ought to be sustained to his middle leg.

As this shows, making a good proposition is no easier than making a good proposal. When propositioning most men are blissfully unaware of what a funny figure they cut, with one foot in their mouths and the other on the banana skin. Being a king-sized lady-puller doesn’t seem to do a lot for a man’s technique. Did anyone ever tell Richard Burton, for instance, seen here through the eyes of Joan Collins . . .?

`Did anyone ever tell you you look pretty with short hair?’ he said, casually moving his hand down lower.

`Yes,’ I said, firmly removing the roving hand, and squinting up at the gorgeous greenish eyes, now a foot from mine . . .

`Why don’t you relax,’ he whispered, his hand fiddling with the ties on my bikini top. ‘None of the crew can see us.’

`I am relaxed,’ I said gaily, ‘relaxed and lying in the sun and thinking about my boy-friend ARTHUR!’

He looked at me and we both smiled.

get you yet, Miss Collins,’ he said lightly, and then proceeded to tell me vivid details about his seductions and conquests of the actresses he had worked with — on stage and screen!

However did he get a reputation for charm?

Less crude but still corny was Clark Gable’s approach to Carole Lombard on their first date. He asked her back to his flat for coffee after dinner. Gifted with a wicked sense of humour, Lombard took her cue to say, ‘Who the hell do you think you are, Clark Gable?’ The discomfited King of Hollywood sat there fuming, and couldn’t think of a thing to say. But then, as Ava Gardner once said, he was the kind of man that if you said ‘Hello, Clark, how are you?’ he’d be kinda stuck for an answer.

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