by Dom Price
After 20 minutes of monologue, with an occasional break for air, Dave was done. He’d presented all his findings to the client and was awaiting a response.
Tony was stunned, not only from the honesty that Dave had clearly spoken with, but also with the nonchalant and almost cold manner in which he’d presented. It unnerved Tony.
“Are you for real? Like this is all true yeah? I’m not saying you are lying or anything, but I felt like I was in one of your workshops for the last 20 minutes, but that the topic was women instead of ‘process efficiency’. This is genuine stuff yeah? You really want me to help?”
The ‘help’ word startled Dave and very nearly took him off track. “I’ll go grab us a refill each and then you can assist me, OK?”
Returning to the room, it was Tony’s time. Dave had asked Tony to assist here, not only because he was an old friend and married to his sister, Anne, he’d asked Tony because he was astoundingly safe and overwhelmingly average, so wouldn’t come out with any radical ideas. He’d been the perfect sidekick as a teenager, and was the ideal person to marry your sister. Socially, he’d never set a room on fire, even if he was armed with matches, kindling and some super dry wood. A man who’d excelled at being mediocre would be ideal for the challenges that Dave had just presented, because ultimately, these ideas had to work. They couldn’t be extravagant. They daren’t be too daring. They certainly couldn’t be risky. They couldn’t rely too much on looks. They had to be practical, workable and preferably have a chance of success. Tony could provide the practical and workable, and Dave’s task was to make it a success.
Tony’s message was impressive, and Dave listened as he would in a workshop, taking the key points and summarising them on the wardrobe in short bullet points.
Phrases now adorned the door, such as “be yourself”, “put yourself out there”, “compromise”, “shared passions” and “compatibility”.
In typical Tony fashion, he’d played it safe and stated the blatantly obvious, even to someone as inexperienced as Dave.
Dave paused. If he was able to provide Tony access to the only door that currently remained closed, then maybe it could provide him with the context to really help. Counting to three slowly in his head, the decision was made. That door HAD to remain closed.
“Tony, I agree completely. But where I really need your assistance is what can I actually do to get these women. It’s all well and good giving me characteristics to look for, but where do I look. Where do I start? And how do we do this quickly...the clock is ticking buddy!?!”
“Yeah, yeah, fair point. First up, I think you need to understand things from a woman’s perspective.”
“Tony!” Dave hadn’t shouted, nor had he merely spoken, but that one word was delivered with such precision that it halted the entire conversation whilst their eyes met.
“Tony” continued Dave, in a calmer tone, “I haven’t got time to understand. I know exactly where you are going, but with the time pressures, I have to treat this like a client challenge. I’ve learnt from my years at CEC Enterprises and dealing with my clients, that there is one thing more important that understanding and that is getting it right. This is one of those cases. We need to get this working and get it right, and then I’ve got the rest of my life to try and understand how it happened and why. We don’t live in utopia mate, and this situation requires urgency. So can we agree for the sake of this discussion that understanding comes a close second to getting it right?”
“OK. It’s gonna make it harder mate. I mean, real relationships are built on foundations of trust, respect, honesty, love, appreciation, admiration and shared values, which all take time to build. So assuming that we haven’t got time, we need to work on something else?”
“Agreed. Let’s start with a longer term strategy and then we can drop down into individual short term tactics?”
“Dave, you honestly have to just be yourself. The first principle here is that they must like YOU. Do you really talk, think and feel, in tactics and strategies?”
There was a milli second of reflection that Dave escaped from as it stank of depression. There was no time for emotion here, as it would slow down solutions.
“Sadly yes. I have a finely trained business brain that has evolved, possibly before it’s time. My skills are honed and they are who I am. When you say ‘trust, respect and honesty’, I hear ‘ambition, focus and determination’. We’re poles apart, but we can figure out a middle ground where you ideas will work in my world.”
“I think the answer might be more obvious than either of us could have imagined.” Tony exuded a confidence that got Dave excited.
“What...tell me? Quickly. What is it?”
“Get your laptop. I have a plan that fits in perfectly with your Phase 2 and with everything on your white board. With some careful tweaking and cunning, this could really work. Get your laptop, and two more beers. It’s time to be creative.”
Dave ran off to collect the tools for the job, with a twinge of fear dripping into his bowl of excitement. Tony seemed assured, but with each failed endeavour, Dave knew that his confidence would take a knock. They had to get this right.
***
Chapter Putting Yourself Out There
***
It was past midnight, and there hadn’t been a single bite. Tony’s idea hadn’t exactly resonated with Dave at first, but he sold it so well. In fact, what had impressed Dave the most was how similar to his own style Tony’s idea had been. He’d clearly learnt a thing or two from their interactions which made Dave proud.
But there was no time for pride, when it was results that mattered. It had taken just over an hour and five more beers each for the profile to be created and tweaked into the optimum message. It combined large elements of the truth, but just as Dave liked the truth, it was presented in a manner which would lead the viewer onto something of grandeur. It perfectly hid his frailties without ever defending them. It was a work of art.
By the time the beers were finished, Tony had passed out on the couch with a relaxing snore that showed content at a busy nights work, and spoke little of the soreness his head would be entertaining when he awoke in the morning. For Dave, the adrenalin of the battle had overtaken the power of the many beers that they’d raced through on this exciting evening.
Impatiently, he hit F5 once more and refreshed the screen on his laptop. With no changes, he double checked his internet connection. Surely there was something technical that was holding back the progress.
Nervously, Dave went back to the first site that they’d added his profile too and re-read the words that they’d mustered up between themselves, to make him sound sufficiently appealing without being so brilliant that he seemed unobtainable.
In total they’d added Dave to three dating websites and invested the princely sum of £75 in registration fees. A small price to pay for what they both hoped would be handsome results. There had of course been a fourth site that Tony had found that showed promise, but Dave reminded Tony that some things come in three’s!
F5...F5...F5...nothing.
Dave decided new tactics were required, so he pretended not to be bothered. It had always worked in the past.
“I’ll just go and clean my teeth, then take out these empty bottles” he informed the computer, expecting the freedom from his constant glances to result in an abundance of messages to appear.
The return from his chores merely confirmed that the computer wasn’t playing games, and hadn’t delivered. With another busy day ahead of him, Dave conceded that instant gratification probably wasn’t going to occur and that it would take a few days for the right lady to truly appreciate the fine words and inspirational comments that adorned his three profiles. Internet dating was now on the list of things that Dave had done, and he planned to be bloody good at it. He’d put the bait out there and was now just waiting for a bite.
“Ding” beeped the machine as Dave exited the kitchen.
“Tony, I’ve got a messa
ge, I’ve got a message. It says ‘1 message received’! This could be it. This could be her. Though I am a little concerned at what she is doing online at this time of night. First impressions are that she appears a little desperate if she is trawling the internet for men at 1am on a school night. Doesn’t say much about her ambition. But maybe it does...maybe she has just put the finishing touches to a presentation or maybe even better, she has just signed off from an important international conference call. Oh I hope so. Oh, and I hope she isn’t overweight. My experience of people who stay up late is that they eat far too much and don’t digest properly before they sleep. Fingers crossed.”
Tony stirred on the couch and groggily awoke to the drivel that was streaming from Dave’s mouth. “Well how about you read the bloody message before you propose to her because of the conference call and then divorce her for the late night eating!”
Dave was momentarily embarrassed by his little performance, and reached instinctively to click on the message. Sods law dictated that at that exact moment, every other living waking soul on the planet was on the internet and his computer went painfully slow. Eagerly watching the screen with excitement that made kids at Christmas look neutral to the receipt of gifts, Dave could barely breathe with anticipation.
“Welcome to adultmatching.co.uk and thank-you for registering with us. Your profile has been approved. Good luck with your dating experience.”
Dave’s eyes angrily closed together as he turned to a weary looking Tony. “It’s a friggin welcome message!” He slammed the lid on his laptop shut. “I texted Anne and said you were staying here. I’ll wake you in the morning. Night.”
Before Tony could encourage, empathise or console, the lights were out and Dave was gone. But the apparent failure of this venture wasn’t bothering Tony, as he knew that the construction of Dave’s profile would lead to some interest, and that one of the sites that they’d registered on also ran singles events, which was all part of the Phase 2 plan.
Dave had insisted on having a timeframe in which they could ascertain whether Phase II was providing any traction, and had muttered something about “Plan, Execute, Measure.” Tony didn’t always get Dave’s corporate speak, but had agreed to the suggested structure.
Phase 2 had 7 days to deliver some results and Tony had his own plan to maybe help this on his way. Dave was still deep in slumber when Tony had made his exit from the Marsdon pad, and several text messages had been sent to friends that him and Anne knew who were single. There was at least 2 of them that he knew were on the sites Dave was on, so he was merely aligning their worlds a little. Not interfering and certainly not sharing anything of the emotional discussions that they’d shared that night. He was planning on keeping to his word, but he was also planning on doing whatever he could to make this a success.
***
Chapter Factual Flirting Foray
***
“Morning Nick.”
The distractions of a busy morning of important business had been welcome for Dave, and provided him with a chance to get back on track. The unfamiliar circumstances of the night before bothered him slightly and he not only felt like he was heading into unchartered territory, but he definitely felt ill equipped to do so, like a canoeist heading for the waterfall.
Work was progressing, although little traction had been achieved with Food United Group that had a real potential to be a major hurdle in his push for promotion. It was essential that he didn’t take his eye off the ball, and Big Nick had reminded him that morning about the importance of things.
“You know David; you need to make sure your house is in order at all times. The scatter gun approach can be very dangerous you know, especially as the devil is in the detail...”
Dave hated pet talks from Big Nick, not only because he was slimy and useless, but more so that they didn’t really make any sense. Dave often silently admitted that he used his fair share of corporate lingo to stun and woo a few unsuspecting targets, but Big Nick just oozed the stuff. Like a homeless person acquires cardboard, Big Nick effortlessly collected useless one liners and combined them to a point where they made no sense and defied all logic. He’d famously claimed at a Leadership Function once, where Dave had been invited to intend, that “I’ve always said that I am the man who put the ‘me’ in team”, which bamboozled even the most intellectual of brains in the room.
Sadly though, on this occasion, despite not intending to, Big Nick had got it right. Dave had to keep one eye on the challenges that the new Executive could give him at Food United Group. There was no point him getting a date for the ball, only to find that the ball had been cancelled. And if he didn’t secure the work for CEC for next year at Food United Group, there would definitely not be a ball. In fact, there would more likely be a funeral and a wake, where people would reminisce about the time Dave Marsdon had a flourishing career and it had seemed so lively until its untimely death.
The lunchtime venue of choice was a new pick for Dave, not because of any desire to try somewhere different, but more for the anonymity that he wanted as he checked the updates on his dating profiles. Nowhere on any of the profiles was his name, occupation or any other information that could connect him to this alias. Dave had a reputation to maintain, and he couldn’t risk being found using such tactics. The knock on effect would be horrendous and didn’t bare thinking about. For now, his concentration needed to be on any messages that had come through in the last 12 hours.
With all 3 websites open and logged in, it was time to digest the results of the online venture, along with his toasted Panini and freshly squeezed mixed juice.
As a numbers and stats man, a grin instantly spread over Dave’s face as he counted a total of 10 messages between the 3 sites. Good start, and great odds.
Dave was a man obsessed by process and planning, and he was approaching this challenge with the same mindset and rules. Step one was to look at each of the profiles before reading the messages. Just because the chosen medium was the internet, didn’t mean that first impressions don’t count.
Within a minute, the 10 profiles had been reviewed, and with the same unforgiving decisiveness that had helped him climb the corporate ladder so quickly, there were 7 messages left to read. For the 3 that didn’t make the cut, Dave did not afford them any condolence or explanation. In his mind, they didn’t fit the bill on first impressions, and so there was nothing that he could read in their messages that would rectify that initial impression. His reasoning was simple and honest from his perspective, but to a layman it resembled some serious racial, fiscal and physical profiling that would definitely rule him out of the running for a Nobel Peace Prize. One girl was a maybe, because Dave deep down didn’t consider himself a racist and knew that he wasn’t, but he also wasn’t religious and wasn’t prepared to have that be a big part of his life. 7 became 6.
6 quickly became 4 after the first read through of the messages. One girl had written her entire message in capitals with an offensive overuse of !!’s in places that really didn’t need it. He was no punctuation Nazi, but the capitals made Dave feel like he was being yelled at. From Dave’s perspective there was only one woman in his life who was allowed to shout at him, and that was his mother. And according to Derek, Jane’s shouting had significantly decreased “since the change” whatever that meant. Dave hadn’t enquired and was glad to be ignorant of the understanding as to why.
The other lady who missed the cut had what could only be described as comical spelling. It wasn’t that Dave wasn’t compassionate, and nor was he an educational snob. Well maybe a bit. One of the failures from the original 10 had listed ‘secretarial’ as her occupation and ‘tertiary education’ as her greatest achievement, so maybe he was a bit of a snob. His rationalisation here was that people who have similar levels of intellect socialise and interact better. Anyway, he needed someone who he could take to client events and who could survive an evening with the other Partners from his office, and in all honesty, he wasn’t convinced at a high
school dropout and glorified typist would quite cut the mustard on this one. Shame though, as she was quite cute.
The spelling on the message was hilarious, and cheered Dave up no end. It was like a cross between teen speak and text speak, and it took 4 readings before Dave had got the full gist of what she was trying to say.
“Hey, GR8 prof. If u wanna catch up for a coughie @ sumpoint and sea if we hit if of, tht wud be kewl. I am carear minded and is super keen to hang out’n’stuff. I also do hook-ups, if that is ur scene? Keen? (Ha, that rimes doesn’t it) Catchya ;-)”
Having deciphered the message, there was only one section that didn’t make sense, so Dave opened the trustworthy Google website where all answers lay, and did a search.
“Definition of hook-ups” and hit Enter on his keyboard. Dave’s eyes were instantly the size of snooker balls and nearly departed his face. 17 million results and they were all suggesting the same thing. Did she really just offer me that? Tempting, but maybe a little too easy.
“Thank god I didn’t click on images” he quietly thought to himself, taking a healthy swig of his fruit shake.
Having culled the obvious “No’s”, it was now a wholly new challenge and one that Dave wasn’t quite ready for. He started with the one of the four that he liked the least, with the knowledge that you never perform best on your first attempt.
“Hello there,
I was extremely grateful to receive your message with regards to my profile. Having considered both your profile and your message, I am of the opinion that it would definitely be worth proceeding to the next stage. I was particularly impressed by your comments about education and your requirement for a high achiever with ambition. I am confident that I surpass all your requirements.
Should you be interested in discussing matters further, please get in contact and we can arrange a mutually agreeable time to meet.
Kind regards,
Mr M”
It hit Dave just like a boulder, at the exact same moment as he’d hit the send button on the message. He was looking for a companion, not a client. His face cringed as it pained him to do this for the second time in 24 hours, but it was that time again. Dave reached for his blackberry, and sent the message that would hopefully get him out of this mess.
