Speed Dating
Fiction Friday: 20th September 2013.
Today’s prompt: After getting out of a serious relationship, you get talked into going speed dating. What happens? Maybe your ex is there? Write in the first person. Write for five minutes and then keep going. Once you’ve finished, don’t edit, just post.
by 
I'm Laura. I started Novel Kicks back in 2009 as I wanted a place to discuss books and writing - two loves of my life. As someone who has anxiety, these two things give me, and I am sure countless others, a much needed escape.
There is a monthly book club, writing exercises, prompts, reviews, author interviews, competitions and guest posts. I cover many genres and I hope there is something for everyone.
I grew up by the sea in Dorset and currently live in Poole with my husband, Chris and three cats. I love writing and have a BA (Hons) in Creative Writing from Falmouth University. I am writing my first book. If only I could stop pressing delete. Chris has threatened to stop it from working. Haha.
I have always loved creative writing since I was in first school and would very much like to meet my teacher, Miss Sayers, to say thank you for all the encouragement she gave me then.
When not writing, I love reading, cats, Disney, singing (I can't sing but this doesn't stop me,) and falling into a good TV show or film. If I could step into any fictional world, it would be amongst the characters in ABC's Once Upon a Time.
I love reading many genres and discovering new authors.
There is a monthly book club, writing exercises, prompts, reviews, author interviews, competitions and guest posts. I cover many genres and I hope there is something for everyone.
I grew up by the sea in Dorset and currently live in Poole with my husband, Chris and three cats. I love writing and have a BA (Hons) in Creative Writing from Falmouth University. I am writing my first book. If only I could stop pressing delete. Chris has threatened to stop it from working. Haha.
I have always loved creative writing since I was in first school and would very much like to meet my teacher, Miss Sayers, to say thank you for all the encouragement she gave me then.
When not writing, I love reading, cats, Disney, singing (I can't sing but this doesn't stop me,) and falling into a good TV show or film. If I could step into any fictional world, it would be amongst the characters in ABC's Once Upon a Time.
I love reading many genres and discovering new authors.
5 Responses to Speed Dating
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Book Club
Helen, yours was brilliant – I don’t think it suffers from a lack of description as much as you think it does. And it was deliciously meta-textual!
Laura, I love how you pick names – you always seem to get the right sounding name for the right person; it tells us a little more about the character, like a supplement to the dialogue and description. I wonder what’s going to happen about the lack of men(!!) Have you gone any further with it?
I think I may have spent a bit longer on mine (roughly half an episode of Friends) but I really enjoyed this prompt.
—–
Oh my God! This is so going to happen for me!
There are, literally, loads of people here. I can’t believe there are so many single people in this village! I swear, every time I go to get a pint of milk or post a letter I see couples, couples, couples with babies, families, old couples, teenage couples, gay couples straight couples blah blah blah couples.
Some lady – I think she’s the head of the St Walforth’s PTA Association or something, I know she’s got a teen daughter with the same sideways swish of treacle coloured hair – gets up at the from of the hall and bangs zealously on a little gong, jumping and laughing merrily as it clatters around on the stand.
“Hello, ah, hello everyone!” she tinkles. “I hope you’re all enjoying the nibbles.” A man in grey corduroys and a brown blazer raises half of an hors d’oevre in the air and brays enthusiastically though his mouthful. I can’t help but smile. The hostess laughs back. Gosh, everyone is so happy here! My mum was completely wrong about singles nights.
My mind wanders a little bit while the hostess explains the rules, and I scour the room like a tracker dog. There’s the gent with the hors d’oevre, who has now finished his mouthful and is wiping filo pastry crumbs down his cords. I giggle again. He’s with a group of friends; one that looks like he might be an older brother, with a very slight balding patch, one chubby one with big sideburns and a red face, and another man with a flat cap that he appears to be trying to hide under, like a hopelessly overgrown mushroom. On the other side of the room are two men in stonewash jeans and shirts with colourful jumpers over the top. One is holding a pint of ale directly underneath his chin. A glance around the room reveals that the boys and girls have split in half, just like at the school disco. It’s kind of cute.
Suddenly women start sitting in chairs, so I join them, pulling out a rickety old chair and plonking myself down. I sneak my skirt down over my knees, savouring the warmth. It’s so cold out, and I forgot my mittens again.
“OK gents, if you’d like to take your places,” says an older man up on the podium. The seat in front of me swings around at the command of a hand the size of a boiled ham, and the chubby guy sits down on it backwards, folding his arms over the small bar at the back. He extends one of the hams to me. I shake it, feeling my bones grind. At least his hand is warm.
“Hi,” he says, in a voice as big as his sideburns. “Bill.”
“Joyce!” I exclaim.
“Joyce,” he repeats. His brow wrinkles and he unravels a finger to point at me. “Haven’t I seen you at the Post Office?”
“Probably,” I say. “I’m there daily, at about three-ish, posting the office letters.”
He nods and clicks his finger. “Thought so. Last week, you wore a tartan skirt.”
I rack my brains for my library of last week’s outfits, and find that he was correct. I wore my favourite red tartan skirt on Tuesday last week. “Yeah, I did!”
“Scottish?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I just like tartan.”
“Thought not,” he says, slapping the table. “Thought you weren’t a Scot. For starters, I could understand you.”
I giggle nervously, before remembering my manners.
“So what do you do, Bill?”
“I’m in the landscaping business,” he says slowly, just as I notice black lines of dirt under his fingernails. “Up at the country park at the moment. Bloody tough job this time of year.”
“Yeah, I bet,” I say, shivering empathetically. Bill is craning his neck slightly to see somewhere behind me, probably looking for his friends. Suddenly the gong goes and he is up out of his chair. He towers over me and holds out his hand again.
“Joyce,” he grunts.
“Nice to meet you Bill,” I say truthfully. As he pulls his hand away, I realise he has left a card in it. How cool! I thought only James Bond could do that. The card has slightly bent edges and a few dirty finger marks, but it reads Bill Thwaite, Landscape Gardener and Horticultural Maintenance.
This was great. 🙂 I love the overgrown mushroom line. Are you going to keep going?
‘Go on, it will be fun.’
She had tried to convince me to go along before. I had managed to come up with a variety of excuses – working late, friends coming over.
‘You need to meet someone new. When was the last time you went out on a date?’
‘Craig and I used to go out all the time.’
Kara raised her eyebrows, ‘i didn’t mean with him, I meant other than him.’
She spits out ‘him’ as though it’s going to hurt her. There was no love lost. She never really liked him and the feeling was returned.
I watched her pour hot water into the teapot, stirring as she did so. The truth was, since Craig had left, I’d not seen anyone. I’d not been out with anyone else. The last date I had was with Craig and that was nearly six months ago. When he first left, I was heartbroken. I didn’t want to see anyone and the longer I left it, the harder it’s been to admit that my life isn’t just work, meals for one and the X Factor on Saturday nights.
‘I’m not asking to to marry anyone, I just thought it would be a fun night out you know, get to meet new people, have a drink. A few laughs. You remember laughs. You used to have them once.’
I winced, ‘I’m not that bad.’
‘Prove it. Come speed dating with me. Please, I don’t want to go on my own.’
Kara lent forward in her chair, her palms pressed together in a pleeding arch.
‘OK,’ I relented, ‘OK, I’ll go.’
As with anything that you’re not really looking forward to, the evening rolled around at breathtaking speed. I had spent a good two hours preparing myself. I wasn’t going to find anyone but I also didn’t want to look like the ugly sisters either. After pretty much dragging out everything in my wardrobe, I’d settled on a simple, black shift dress that sat just above my knee, my little black cardigan and my sleek black jimmy choo’s – the ones Craig had spent many hours complaining cost too much. I didn’t look like Cinderella dolled up for the ball but as I adjusted my clothes in the mirror, I knew it would have to do.
I waited outside for Kara, not wanting to walk in alone. As usual, she was running late. The bar, The Wanderer, where the event was being held was not one I’d been to before. Nestled in between a hotel and a newsagent, it looked nothing special from the outside – long grubby windows lined the exterior. A grumpy looking bouncer stood in front of the swing door at the far end of the windows. He held his hands down in front of him and his gaze looked off into the distance. He looked as though the last place he wanted to be was there.
‘Why didn’t you go in, it’s freezing,’ announced Kara as she walked up behind me.
‘I was waiting for you.’
We air kissed each cheek.
‘You’re such a scardy cat.’
I smiled awkwardly as she grabbed my hand and pulled me inside, Grumpy standing aside without even looking at us.
The bar was bigger than it had looked from outside. Small, round tables had been dotted around the room, all numbered from 1-15. A crowd of people had already formed near the bar that took up the entire space along the far end of the room. The lighting had been dimmed, I assume to create a romantic atmosphere. At least they were trying I suppose.
A squat, rotund lady in a emerald green dress and kitten hills, carrying a clipboard broke away from the crown and marched toward us.
‘Ah, you must be Miss Hall and Miss?’
‘Jackson,’ I quietly replied.
‘Yes, well, I’m Lucinda. Thank you for attending our little gathering,’ she giggled.
She made no secret of appriasing us from top to bottom. She was quick to gloss over me but a small smile omitted when she saw Kate who, at 6 feet tall with long, blonde hair and dea green eyes had modelled to pay her way through a law degree.
‘Well ladies, now you’re here the evening can begin,’ she said, flatly.
She floated back to the crowd by the bar, leaving us temporarily standing by the door before we followed, awkwardly joining the rest of the evening’s participants.
I swallowed a lump in my throat. Having a look around, there seemed to be many women but only a tiny group of men were present.
I was engrossed. I want to know more. 🙂
A great start especially if you’ve not written fiction for ages. Keep writing. x
I would never have said at first that speed dating would ever be my thing. I legendarily never go on first impressions. I can admire a good-looking bloke but give me time to get to know someone and they’ll soon become the most beautiful man in the world to me, even when I can’t explain why.
Anyway, my oldest friend, Clare, started it. I had to get out of the house more. Even by my normal introvert standards, she thought I was becoming a recluse and she decided that just wasn’t good enough. There was no point in my grumbling that I was lonely if I never got out there to meet anyone new. I could see her point so I eventually caved in.
If I was the main character in a chick-lit book, I’d now go on and on about the shopping trip to find the perfect dress and shoes and then rhapsodise at length about the effort it took me to straighten my hair. But I’m not. I’m a thinly-veiled author avatar in the comments section of a blog, so I won’t. New mascara was purchased but because the old one had gone off. A black dress more normally worn in the office got dressed up with sparkly makeup and and a necklace that hadn’t been seen since last year’s Christmas party and I was good to go.
The speed dating event was taking place at the independent coffee shop on the high street. The usual layout had been changed somewhat for the evening. The tall tables had been pushed together to make a kind of reception desk staffed by the owner of the coffee shop. Despite not having a clue how such events were supposed to work, I was still somewhat confused to see that all the other chairs and tables were arranged in huge great groups. I had assumed that you’d be talking to only one other person at a time. People were milling around.
(Argh! I’m going to have to leave it here, I know where I want this story to end but I’m also aware that fiction should probably contain both description and dialogue, neither of which seem to flow easily for me after years of writing technical documentation at work! It’s taken me 20 minutes to get this far and the whole point of my day off is to decorate the spare room, not to try and write fiction for the first time in far too many years. {Is the phrase “work avoidance” spring into anyone else’s brain at this point?})