When I was at University I had a good friend who always had a pretty girl and sometimes an older woman on his arm. He was of Greek extraction, and to be honest thirty years on I can't remember his real name, but I knew him by his nickname; Ado, short for Adonis, the Greek god of beauty.
Ado was not particularly smart. He flunked out of University after the first year because he was lazy and neglected to study. He wasn't well off. And he hated discos, parties, and loud music. He was good looking, well dressed, and confident.
Ado had a tried and tested technique for finding women. If he saw an attractive woman alone on the street he would walk up to them and politely ask them if they would like to go to bed with him. He reckoned he had less than a 1% success rate, and that nearly always they would wordlessly walk away. Sometimes they would rudely decline, and once he got slapped! Nonetheless he could ask ten girls in an hour on a busy Saturday afternoon, and in his own words,
"It was very cost effective."
Another friend James was from a well-off family, and lived in a rented well-furnished, semi-detached, urban house with a garden, with his red sports car in the driveway. This was at a time when most students lived in Halls of Residence or student (slum) flats. He was always taking one or another beautiful girl for dinner.
And yet another mate Laurie, was the master of the chat up line. He did it with such ease and fluency that I don't think the ladies knew what he was up to until it was too late. Laurie was poor, and average looking with a crooked nose, but it didn't seem to matter. What may have helped was that he didn't just target good looking girls.
I remember on one occasion we were returning home from a disco, were alone with no female company, and were sitting on the top deck of the nearly empty number 12 bus. Shortly after taking our seats Laurie excused himself and wandered off. When I reached our stop he was nowhere to be seen so I went home to bed. About 5 am in the morning he came home. Later in the day he proudly announced that he'd spotted a girl sitting on her own at the back of the bus when we had got on, and then chatted her up, taken her home, and "given her one." The only downside to this was that in his haste to leave her after getting what he wanted he had forgotten an expensive watch which had been a present from his parents. He was too embarrassed to go and pick it up from her house and didn't want to reacquaint himself. So, for three pints and the bus fare I went and collected it. Frankly, I was surprised she hadn't pawned it!
All these three were successful with the ladies albeit in different ways and with varying degrees of success, but the one thing they had in common was confidence.
And I had no confidence whatsoever.
I was six feet four inches tall, with a swimmer's physique, good looking, and desperate. I suppose if I had been willing to go out with a plain girl that nobody else wanted I could have been more successful. In the ignorance of youth, I didn't yet appreciate that even the plainest of us, man or woman, can have many other endearing qualities. Nonetheless, the result was that any pretty girl I approached could sense the pheromones I was giving off and promptly ran a mile.
Thankfully, with time things improved, and by the time I finished my master's degree In physics I had had a couple of long-term relationships although neither had lasted.
After 6 years of University and at the age of twenty-five I had to start earning a living and got a Job with a large multinational electronics firm.
And that was when I met Liz.
The Italians call it the "Colpo di fulmine." When love strikes someone like lightening, so powerful and intense it can't be denied. Liz was tall, five feet eleven inches in her stockinged feet. well-proportioned with a nice figure and was the most attractive woman I had ever met. She had shoulder length black hair, a pert nose, smiling lips, and round deep blue eyes. And when she spoke she had a soft Irish accent. I couldn't keep my eyes off her.
And she was married.
Liz worked in the secretarial pool and did not work for any particular individual and on occasion She would type documents and letters for me. And I worshipped her silently from afar.
Our relationship was entirely professional until the Christmas staff party. We were sat at the same table and at first she was quiet but subdued but after a few wines she loosened up and we sat together and talked. She was wonderful company and appeared extremely interested in my life and background but said little about herself other than she was married with no children, and when I asked about her husband she brushed my question away. When, after a little too much wine we ended up dancing with each other and as a familiar smoochy song was playing, she looked at me and for just a moment I thought she would kiss me. And then she murmured,
"I'm sorry. I'm not free yet. I must go home."
And with that she turned and a little later was gone.
