THE SPRING LOTHARIOS ARE OUT TO PLAY

On my way to work, I hear someone running close behind me…

‘Do you know you are leaving a trail?’

I turn around quickly, thinking I must be dropping stuff out of my bag.

I lower my gaze to take in a short plump version of Syed from the Apprentice, and squint as the glare of the sun reflects off his freshly pressed white shirt and matching teeth.

‘A trail of perfume…’ he continues eying me up and down ‘I just walked through a cloud of it.’

‘Can’t be me,’ I try to laugh him off; ‘I don’t wear perfume.’

‘Shampoo then?’ he tries, as I speed up.

Even though I am not attracted to this man in any way, I can’t seem to break it to him that I haven’t washed my hair for days. Shame really, as that could be the ideal turn off.

We reach a red traffic light and he catches me up.

‘Is that walk natural or do you practise it?’

This guy has tenacity.

‘Just me, trying to walk in heels’ I retort, contemplating throwing myself into the oncoming traffic: I am already ten minutes late for work and have an important meeting that I’m now regretting wearing the aforementioned heels for. Maybe there is truth in the theory that they were invented to impede women’s ability to get away from men after all.

‘Perhaps I should try heels sometime then I’d know how it feels’ he shouts, bizarrely, after me as I weave my way through the peeping cars, across the road and into the safety of my office. ‘Good idea matey! Then I’ll set a dog on you and you can try to outrun it while tottering across a busy road,’ I muse.

After work the same day, I meet my housemate, Emma, for dinner. She tells me that she’s been chatted up earlier in the day too: at a hospital appointment about her wisdom teeth, the teenage boy sitting behind her wouldn’t leave her alone. Not wanting to be rude to him in front of the entire waiting room, she’d uncomfortably tolerated him and was just beginning to think he must hang out there in the hope of meeting someone with teeth as bad as his, when they called his name. The elderly man in front of her then took much pleasure in telling her that the young lothario had been trying it on with countless others before her. She’d felt strangely disappointed.

We wonder whether the other victims had given him the brush off more effectively that her. Had the entire surgery been marking each of the victims in their heads? How would she have scored? Does the optimism of Spring bring out the lothario in all men? Were women across the country late for work this morning after similarly ridiculous and unwanted conversations endured out of politeness? We deliberate on why, although there are thousands of classic chat up lines in existence, there are hardly any known put downs. The only one we can think of is from either Pretty Woman or Working Girl: ‘Do you see sucker written across my forehead?’ We each vow to use this line the next time we are chatted up by an over presumptuous lothario.

On our way back from dinner we are accosted by a gangly man on the Hungerford Foot Bridge.

‘Excuse me ladies, do you know where Villiers Street is?’ He shouts, as unfortunately for all of us, he’s stopped us right in front of a trio of buskers playing tin drums.

Something about the look in his eye and the way he said ‘ladies’, makes me doubt the authenticity of his question, but I resist my urge to be rude to a complete stranger on a hunch. We both take him at face value, and between us we start giving him directions.

He cuts in half way; ‘Wow; your accents – where are you from?’

Here we go again…

‘Scotland’ Emma snaps ‘Anyway, just straight over the bridge and through Embankment st…’

He cuts in again – ‘Guess where I’m from?’

Emma and I look at each other. ‘Timbuktu.’ Emma shouts while rolling her eyes at me.

‘No, come on, guess again….’

Through gritted teeth I hear myself responding; ‘Poland?’

He finally admits ‘Australia’ to a resounding silence, all bar the tin drums. I’m not sure what reaction he was expecting from us. Like my early morning lothario, he clearly wasn’t going for quality of conversation, more quantity.

‘But you guys don’t have much of an accent…’

At last a get out opportunity: ‘Well I hope you understand us well enough to know where you’re going.’ I blurt out quickly as we walk off.

In that moment, I realise that my anger is not strong enough to justify the sucker comment; it’s more a mild irritation, sometimes mixed with minor amusement and perhaps even a slight feeling of flattery. Emma agrees; she couldn’t bring herself to say it either.

A little later, as we walk through the streets of Brixton, the Jamaican guys who hang around at the bottom of our road call to us ‘Yur lookin fiyne t’nite, laydees. Ya cant deny yar gals are lookin goad too-day.’

Emma looks at me ‘It’s a sign that Spring has arrived in London. We can’t kill it.’

Two peeping cars go past, and we laugh.

She’s right. I think I’ll wear my heels again tomorrow…

Posted 09:39 AM on Thu Apr 16 2009

By Wedding Belle

2192 views, 0 Comments