Too much, too soon
June 9th, 2008 by fieldus
Catherine Townsend: Sleeping Around - Catherine Townsend, Columnists - The Independent
…my passion for British men was reignited this week after I agreed to a blind date with an American. “This guy is a writer too, and he’s really emotionally aware,” my friend Victoria said.Tags: humour worldI should have known that this would be the death knell for our date. Much as I love dissecting my feelings over cocktails, I want to be fantasising about leaping into bed on a first date, not lying on a therapist’s couch.
But Ben was handsome and fit, and within 20 minutes he had clasped my hands in his. “So, Cat, tell me something you’ve never told anyone.”
Of course, this is really shorthand for, “Tell me a mildly embarrassing story that makes you look cute in the end,” so I told him a funny childhood anecdote and said, “Over to you.”
“Well, when I was a boy, I used to dress up as a little girl, and my dad would beat me with a wooden spoon until I bled.”
I looked for a punchline, but there wasn’t one, so I panicked, reached for the bar snacks and smiled. “Peanut?” I was trying to defuse an awkward situation with humour, which is probably why British men and I get along so well.
Ben probably would have been Canadian journalist Leah McLaren’s dream date. I read this week that she is cashing in on the portrayal of English men as drunk women-haters who are too polite and repressed ever to make a move by turning one of her pieces, headlined “The Tragic Ineptitude of the English Male”, into a television drama in Canada.
Maybe I’m the one with the problem. Ben understands intimacy and had no problem giving me his attention, but for me, it was too much, too soon.
Leah MCLaren has clearly not dated the guys I have!
Although from my limited experience of US guys (New York work colleague and internet dating in San Fran!) I tend to agree with Catherine - WAY too emotional, WAY too needy, and heart on the sleeve within 2 minutes of being introduced is NOT sexy; there is such a thing as too much navel staring/ therapy it seems!
For example: I met a guy through work over a week visit to NY - nothing physical happened (not even a snog) though we definitely had fun socially. He’d never met a mad English girl before and had been with the same girl for 10 years.
Once I got home I then had to endure hundreds of late night phone calls with him explaining he’d dumped this poor girl for me, wanted me to move in with him when I went over there to work (as a result of this I didn’t take the job!), the worst were the tearful phone calls saying he thought he was addicted to cocaine (he did it once a weekend - hardly Kurt Cobain!). My pragmatic advice to steer clear of his coke head friends and hang with the clean ones was way too obvious!)
So yes, we may occassionally complain over here about how impossible it is to read UK guy’s minds, but I’d far rather have a little mystery. It’s definitely a case of ‘be careful for what you wish for’.
Just for Ms McLaren’s benefit - the women hater’s she want to expoit do still exist in isolated pockets of society here, but are, fortunately, a tiny element of Brit Blokes (mostly from the North East of UK - if you want soppiness and emotion don’t date a Mancunian or a Yorkshireman! But they are sexy if you like them a la Heathcliffe!;)
Catherine, if you are ever over here let me know, have some fab friends you’d like from the sounds of it!!
Niki
Niki,
From my readings Catherine lives in London and is out and about more than enough. She documents her erotic explorations via a column and blog at The Independent…