Columns – Love Factually
Authored by Fred Hatman.
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Love Factually
Capricorn vs Scorpio for Pisces
“Ah, here’s a man in a red hat! It must be Fred,” chirruped a lady with a to-dive-for cleavage at the door of Sinns restaurant. She turned to the seven AstroDaters seated blind-datedly around the dinner table and announced my very late arrival. “Look, everybody! It’s Fred Hatman, the man we’ve all been waiting for!”
I apologised profusely to Babett, the statuesque organiser of “8@8” (eight love-seekers dining at 8pm, if you’re wondering), for my being late for eight but couldn’t help noticing that “The Sinns Seven” didn’t appear to be waiting for me at all. They looked like they were already on Planet Lurrrve, chucking back the merlot and smiling shiny-happy smiles at each other with sparkling eyes.
Love Factually
Dating Strategy from General Lofty
“Hatters, pass the chalk. The white one.”
“Lofts, we’re in a bar. A cocktail bar. What are you doing with a blackboard?”
“Shut it, Hatman. I’m trying to help you. Be grateful. People are passing the sick bag all around town after reading your pathetic column every week and wondering when you are going to get a date and, Jesus wept, finally get yourself lai…”
“Lofty, I’m waiting for the righ…”
“Yeah, that’s what all the losers say. You couldn’t even skewer that peachy Portuguese diva when she swanned into town like a ready-marinaded sex-on-a-stick. I’m working on a tactical approach for you tonight that will leave you no option but to get it right, right?”
Love Factually
Date with a Diva
The phone rings. But it doesn’t sound at all like my telephone. Brrrrring… brrrrrring, it goes, like one of those old Bakelite jobs, and it’s echoing around a distant, dusty office where cobwebs gather far more often than people.
I realise I am dreaming. The thought that it might be Sophie Marceau on the line has me clinging to this dream with a steadfast refusal to wake up. Or it might be Rachel Weisz, asking if I’m free to share sushi and Cristal with her as she’s unexpectedly turned up in town on the pretence of posing in a bikini for Sports Illustrated when everybody knows that it’s simply a ruse to see me again.
Love Factually
Loftysaurus gets Metrosexual
Thunnnk. My jaw hit the floor.
For once it wasn’t my automatic response to a sublime vision of angelic womanhood walking in the door. No, this was far more unexpected.
Lofty was walking towards me with what seemed to be a cocktail in each hand. I blinked again.
The lighting was rather low here in the rarefied loungey atmosphere of Julep, our new hangout. But, no. They WERE cocktails. And they WERE attached to those massive mitts that are always attached to Loftysaurus.
Love Factually
Loftysaurus goes Online Dating
“Hatter, you’re a sad loser who’s been on dating sites, can you help me?”
“Lofty, I’ve had a bash at…”
“Look, you need to show me how to put my profile on one. I seem to have run out of barmaids.”
“Run out of barm…”
“You won’t believe it, Hatter, they’ve ganged up on me. There must be a Barmaid’s Union or something and they’re coming over all militant. They won’t even serve me a cold one, never mind go home with me.”
Love Factually
Literary Love
Love was in the crisp autumn air, as I strutted jauntily towards the City Book Fair.
Books summon up romance in my mind. More specifically, the image of a woman with whom I instantly fell in love as she pored over a textbook in the university library, way back when.
Way back when, round John Lennon glasses were big. And round. And she was wearing them, thus completing a vision of delectation which encompassed ebony ringlets falling forward over her flawlessly creamy face, a few freckles, a beauty spot … and a purple tie-dyed t-shirt with pink-paisley-patterned trim which, damn, I just cannot seem to edit out of my mind’s eye.
Love Factually
Sucker Love
I saw her. As I hurried along the passage to enter the room, I saw her and her alone.
The restaurant was full but it was as if nobody but Iris was there. She wore a crimson-red shawl of rich texture and her oh-so-delicate face was framed by auburn-black curls.
Her face didn’t so much light up as it was aroused in recognition of my red hat. Caveau was abuzz and we needed somewhere quieter to talk of broken wings and love lost.
Love Factually
Tangos and titillations
“Yo,” Lofty half-whispers , “you’d better get your sad ass down here. It’s wall-to-wall women and they’re asking after you.”
Love Factually
Mr Bean of the flirting fraternity
I am a loser in love. The Mr Bean of the flirting fraternity. And a dating disaster. I’m just not cut out for trotting out the cheesy lines seemingly required to, as a woman friend so quaintly puts it, “instantly moisturise a girl’s eyeballs”.
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