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.

And he had a grin on his face. “Hey, Hatter, now that we’ve upgraded to this trendy spot, I thought we would stand more chance of pulling if we looked the part. So I got us ‘chickdrinks’… I thought that clutching cold ones is sooo June. And we’re now in September, right?”

“Thanks for the calendar update, Mr Metrosexual. What are they?”

“They’re called cocktails, according to Candy, that barmaid with the massive…”
“Yes, I know they’re cocktails and I also know Candy. She’s very sweet and…”

“Sweet? Hey, what did you just call me?”

“What?”

“Mr Somethingsexual?”

“Oh, Mr Metrosexual.”

“What’s that mean? It sounds dodgy.”

“It means you wear a colourful scarf and lounge around drinking cocktails and looking so cool that a hottie would need an icepick to get close to you … instead of you leaning over the bar trying to get your nose vice-gripped in the barmaid’s cleavage…”

“Riiight,” furrow-browed Lofty. “I’ve noticed young blokes mincing around in scarves. Perhaps I should invest in one.”

“Perhaps you should… and perhaps Osama bin Laden will give himself up and perhaps Robert Mugabe will step down graciously and accept def…”

“Hey, Hatter, you’re confusing me. You said you wanted to talk about something. What’s up?”

“Er, yes, you know about Facebook?”

“I’ve heard about it. Apparently you can become a ‘friend’ of really hot angels and then send them flowers and stuff over the internet in the hope that they might drop what they’re doing and come over to your place, right?”

“Well, it could be a bit like tha…”

“Maybe now that I’m swinging it on the dating site, you should put me on Faceb…”

“No, Lofts, you’re not quite ready to be unleashed on Facebook. Anyway, let me tell you what happened with Sonia…”

“Who’s she? I’ve never heard you mention her.”

“Well, exactly. I’ve not met her either. I’ve been chatting to her on Facebook…”

Lofty snared a piece of mint from his teeth, inspected it with visible disgust and flicked it into the ashtray.

“There’s bits of plant in my drink, Hat..”

“Yes, Mr Metrosexual, it’s mint and it’s probably organic too. Get used to it. Can I finish my story?”

“Go on. What do you mean ‘chat on Facebook’?” Lofty asked with a look that would have prompted the casting of aspersions on the IQ of a particularly stupid nightclub bouncer.

“Well, it’s kind of messaging, like you are trying to do on the dating site, except it’s more immediate.”

“Oh,” said Mr Not-So-Metrosexual, still wearing his “Gorilla In A Thick Mist” look.

“Anyway, somehow Sonia and I started chatting. She’s an actress. She’s really funny, great sense of humour and so sharp…”

“What you’re trying to say is that she looks like the back of a bus,” observed Lofty. “Well, actually, no. She’s a complete cracker. Portuguese stock. Black hair, flashing eyes, olive-skin…”

“Body?” came the droll enquiry.

“Unbelievable. Slim, very sexy.”

“So what’s she doing chatting to you, then?”

“Shut it, apeman. So after chatting for about a week and really making a big connection, the phone calls start and it gets even better. She’s having some trouble with an ex who keeps hassling her but she’s clearly warming to me.

“Then, one night I get home late to find this message from her, saying that she’s been drinking loads of merlot with a friend and she’s feeling very lonely and she was so happy to have found a message from me, that I’m her ‘new addiction’, that she ‘wished she was living with someone she loves’, that it was ‘attraction time’ and how much she wished I was with her in real-life form…”

“Whoa, slow down, Loverboy, this is sounding like Mills and Boon. Bottom line is she wants to shag you, right?”

“Well, YOU would put it like that. So I thought, that’s it, I’m going to tell her how I feel…”

“Big mistake, Hatter, you NEVER tell a woman how you feel.”

“OK, Lofty, I think you have a point. Because I replied to her with a humungous seduction scene, saying something like this:

‘…brown skin and delicious dents in lower back just above a perky bum. Not to mention Mediterreanean mane and dark, flashing eyes and cheeky smiles. I won’t even venture into the territory of the tummy (without almost passing out with pleasure). Add a titanic twist of humour, an artistic streak, a husky voice, big IQ and an even greater EQ, a sheer cliff of feistiness moistened with a drizzle of vulnerability and I’m done. May you awake to a brave new dawn and not feel alone. Because you aren’t.”

“Bejaysus, Mad Hatter! That’s Barbara bloody Cartland malarkey. What happened then?”

“Well, I get on to Facebook the next morning and she’s sent me this apologetic message, saying that had she had been drunk and she was embarrassed about what she had written and then she come over all light and fluffy and cracking jokes and pretty much ignoring my poetic declaration of undying love.”

“Sweet Mary, you cocked up there, Hatter. You see where your romantic bollocks gets you? You’re soft in the head, mate. Look, here comes Candybabes with our cocktails… watch me work her, Hatter, watch, learn and weep.”

I watched. And, deep inside where nobody could see, I wept.

With thanks to The Weekend Argus