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?”

“Yeah, right.” We’re sitting in a corner of Julep, happy hour Mojitos in a disorderly queue before us, and Loftysaurus is chalking up all sorts of lines on his playschool chalkboard, only lifting his head to observe the four … well, three peaches and their friend at the bar. Between us and them are three sharp-as-a-razor young blades with their body language shouting lustily in moronic monosyllables at the three musky deers.

“Right, pass the purple chalk, Hatters. Okay, this is how it works. These three purple circles here. These are our targets. P1, P2 and P3. This is our Peachy Grail. P4, the pink circle on the far right, is ‘The Friend’. 

“Now, she is very important. Normally, you would content yourself with talking tosh to her all night in the hope of getting somewhere. Not tonight. She is simply the conduit through which you work your way to P3, one of our three prime targets.”

Lofty uses the white chalk to draw a curvy arrow from my position to P4 and then another shorter arrow from P4 to P3.

“Operation Depeach Mode will be executed with military precision,” barks Sergeant Lofto, sounding worryingly like old Stormin Norman from Desert Storm.

“Nothing will be left to chance. Zis vill run like ze German Railway timetable, yes. Yes?”

“Lofty, why don’t we just go over and say ‘Hello’?”

“Because you have enough ‘women friends’ who call you up to take them to see Sex In The City while their blokes large it up at Mavericks, aka The Russian Ballet, whenever payday comes along. Hatters, you need some real action and it looks like I have to deliver it to you. So pay attention…”

“So I get the job of chatting to the less attractive one…”

“The ugly one, Hat, the ugly one. Okay? That’s part of your problem, your politically correct attitude to wo-men. They’re seeing you as some sort of feminist bloke, one of them. You’re not being taken seriously. Next thing you’ll be getting invited to their book club, if only to pour the chuffing chardonnay. Anyway, yes, you chat up Miss Ugly (P4). But only because you need her as an ‘in’ to the Peachy Grail. Her peachy friends will wonder why you’ve moved in on their ugly friend, who no guy ever bothers with, and will be curious to know why. They’ll start shifting over to pick up on your vibe and I’ll corral them in from the other side in a kind of pincer movement…”

“Corral them in? That sounds like some line from Bonanza…”

“Hey, I think you’re getting the hang of it, Hatters. Exactly it. Same thing. Given your track record, you might well need a lasso.”

“Erm, aren’t your forgetting someth…”

“What?”

“Er, the fact that there are three young men who already have them squeezed up against the bar?”

“Oh, those lightweights. No contest, Private Hatman. They’re all about 24 in the shade. Don’t have a clue. But, just to be thorough about this, I’ve chalked them in as a small obstacle. Here. The pink Xs. E1, E2 and E3. The Enemy. They’re not exactly the Taliban, mind. More your get-smashed-and-grab artists. They won’t know what happened. Those poor kids will still be wittering away to the bar counter while we’ve got the Peachy Grail firmly embedded on our sofa. Sans Dodgy Doris, of course. She’ll have retreated to the loo in a huff .”

“So, how are you going to pull off your pincer movement, Lofts?”

“Leave that to me, Rookie Romeo. I’ll engage P1 and, when her little Johnny tries to edge his way back in, I’ll tell him his mom is waiting for him outside because he forgot he was on cooldrinks duty at Scouts tonight. That should shut him up. I’ll then bring P2, my actual target, into the conversation and play one off against the other until P2 is ripe to be plucked and packed in on the sofa. We’ll hold P1 hostage on the bench, as a fallback position just in case the unthinkable happens and P2 somehow resists my magnetic charm and, should you have executed my orders to the last detail, P3 should be in the bag.”
Sergeant Lofto looked at his 1988 Swatch watch, licked one end of the purple chalk, drew a warpaintish line under each of his gimlet eyes and necked a whole Mojito.

“Straighten yourself up, Hatman, we’re about to go over the top!”

“Um, Lofts…”

“Too late to go to the little boys’ room now, soldier, we’re going in,” and with that Lofty marched over to Peach One, placed a great mitt on her delicate shoulder and whispered something in her ear.

I weak-legged it over to P4, did up the top button of my cardigan and said; “Hi, um…”

“It’s through that door,” said Ms Aesthetically Challenged.

“Sorry?”

“It’s through that door. You men keep asking meto point out the loo. It’s that way.”

“Oh, thanks,” I spluttered, peeling off from the two-man platoon in order to seek relief and reinforcement.

I looked over to check on the inroads made by the left flank of Operation Depeach Mode. Still clutching his blackboard under his right arm, Sergeant Lofto was now holding his left ear, as if it had taken a short burst of enemy fire. I thought briefly of staging a daring rescue attempt but before I could regroup, I saw him retreat into a safe zone and start chatting up one of the waitresses. Human League were filling Julep with the opening bars of a very familiar old tune… “You were working as a waitress in a cocktail ba-aar, when I met you...”

With thanks to the Weekend Argus