31^Days

VALENTINE’S DAY

So after thirty-one days of manic dating mixed with sheer insanity – did I have a date?

Put simply, “yes!”.

But who? You might have guessed from reading about the adventure that I took a bit of a shine to Number 13 – a.k.a Stuart. He’s the guy that I chatted up in a noodle bar.

Today there was a Valentine’s message printed in the Guardian to officially announce my choice. It was tacky as hell, but it made me smile:

“For thirty-one days, the search was on
And now I've found my number one

The one I want for Valentine's,
Stuart, "13" - will you be mine?

See you tonight - Kate Silver xxx
www.thirtyonedays.com”

I was due to go in and talk to Matthew Bannister on 5Live about how the project went after Valentine’s Day but I had had a call from his producer saying that he’d demanded I come on the show today to give them an update. So if a national newspaper wasn’t good enough the announcement was on national radio too. Either way, it did the trick and Stuart seemed pleased to have been chosen.

I agreed to meet him and he booked a table at a nice Italian restaurant new Tower Bridge for 9.30pm. Exciting!

The discussion on 5Live was all about the pressure of Valentine’s Day – people feeling that they need to splash-out on overblown romantic gestures just so that they don’t get in trouble for “not caring”. I’m not really a pink hearts and teddy bears kind of girl, I much prefer something a little thoughtful and meaningful.

I love making my own gift cards and in previous years have spent vast quantities of time designing and then making very intricate Valentine’s cards. Okay, so they usually got sent to boys that I never stood a chance with, or my mum, but I enjoyed making them. I didn’t have time to do anything like that for Stuart so I had to think of something else. Then it came to me. After watching the Bond film and getting excited about it all he decided that he wanted some white braces. I looked all over the place and finally found some. Perfect. A little gift that shows some thought and isn’t the average VDay tat.

When it came to getting ready to go out I found myself just feeling completely exhausted – the 31 days were catching up with me. Then I got in a flap because I couldn’t find the necklace that matched my dress. I turned my room upside-down to find it and then set off to meet Stuart.

I wasn’t really nervous like I would normally be going on a date with someone I like, I was just tired. In some ways that was probably a good thing – I could have just ended up suddenly coming over all nervous and shy.

I brightened up once I’d left the house and was back in dating mode again. Stuart met me at the station and we went back to his for some champagne before dinner. He’d bought me an amazing bunch of flowers – white roses, snap-dragons and a lily, backed with some exotic looking fronds. (“Fronds” – what a nice word!) He said he didn’t normally like to do cliché things like flowers on VDay, but it seemed like the right thing to do. Awww.

I felt a bit strange being all dressed up and talking to Stu’s older brother in the flat whilst he got ready – he must think I’m mad! They both knew that I’d been talking about all this on the radio in the morning and you just can’t get away from the fact that the way I met Stuart could never be described as “normal”. For the last couple of weeks I’ve been meeting lots of new people and sharing the experiences online and on-air, and Stuart’s office-mates have been following the tale online – asking him each day if he wants to know what I got up to the night before!

I felt a bit bad about it all really. Everything got a bit out of hand toward the end! Apparently his boss forwarded the radio link to everyone in his office and they were teasing him about wanting to be Bond. Ooops. Ah well, I was sure that the white braces would make up for that.

We went down to the restaurant and had to stage our meet-up for the camera before being filmed walking into the restaurant. Having a camera is certainly a good way of guaranteeing good service! We were offered a couple of “off-menu” things to eat, which was especially good for me as I can be fussy with my food as well as my men!

The meal was delicious. Really very tasty indeed. Stuart liked his braces and the evening was all really lovely. The only slightly odd thing was that being serenaded with cheesy love songs by a professional karaoke singer. “That’s amore” was first on the list, then he moved on to other such cheesy classics as “Evergreen” before getting the whole restaurant to join in on a rendition of “Happy Birthday” for his wife who was sitting down the front. It was quite surreal, but certainly provided some comedy value for the evening. I think Stu was a bit embarrassed – having told me how the restaurant has normally has really good singers in. It made me laugh.

I think I made a very good choice in Stuart, he was the perfect gentleman and I had great evening.

So what happens next? Who knows! I’m sure I’ll be seeing Stuart again – so perhaps all the madness was worth it!

I think I’ll have to write a de-brief when I’m less tired and I can share some thoughts on the whole thing. I now feel like a dating whiz-kid and I’m so pleased that not only have I had fun and met some great people, I’ve also introduced a few people along the way. I’ve got new friends, a new confidence in myself and apparently inspired a few people. My tales of madness have encouraged a few of you to get out there and be a bit more daring too – admitting secret crushes, asking people out and trying some of the modern dating techniques. Good luck with it all – and do let me know how you get on.

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VALENTINE’S DAY!

Well here goes.  I’m feeling pretty grotty – over-tired, tummy ache and a bit stressed.  Not really the best way to start a romantic evening, but I’ll do my best to sparkle.

Just getting my glad rags on and then it’s time for the off!

Wish me luck!

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DAY THIRTY-ONE!!!

It is day thirty-one of thirty-one days. Goodness. Phew. Wow.

What an adventure it has been! There are still a few things that I need to try out properly, or follow up, but today I’ve spent having a little rest, doing my washing, oh – and flirting.

Now I’ve been single for two years, which is fine – I love having my independence and doing whatever I want to do whenever I want to do it. The worst thing for me is not being single, but not really having anyone it was worth flirting with. I used to have "The List ™" when I was at uni. It was just a few names of people that were fanciable and nice and I’d then end up obsessing over whoever was number one on the list. If that all went pear shaped I could flirt with the others on the list.

I’ve not really met many/any people in the last few years that I would consider having on my list, and the one guy left on it since university has been seeing his girlfriend for far too long for me to flirt with him even in a friendly way.

In the last 31 days though I’ve found a couple of people who I’d happily put on "The List ™" – and therefore I have people to flirt with. It’s great. Today I’ve been texting a certain Welsh architect and emailing a guy that I almost got set up with once. Why that didn’t happen I don’t know (and what a shame!), but timing is all important and mine is generally shocking!

Flirting wasn’t meant to be the task of the day really, but I couldn’t *not* do one. I was too tired to go out and find handsome strangers to hand out my "You look nice – fancy a drink?" cards to. It’s a very simple concept – which my good friend Stooz refers to as "The Golden Ticket". You get some business cards printed up with whatever message and contact details you are happy with, and then you can give them to people you like the look of, be it on the train, in a bar, in the street – wherever. I think the idea is that you do that and then scuttle quietly away to a) prevent embarrassment and b) create an air of mystery. People seem to like mystery.

I got my cards printed out and put my email address and the website address put on them. Perhaps if Valentine’s Day is a wash out I’ll start using them to find me a replacement!

I was pretty sure who I was going to invite out for Valentine’s Day, but there was still a small matter of dinner with my eBay man. I was very pleased that he didn’t sound like a mad person from his emails, but still deeply suspicious of anyone willing to bid over two-hundred pounds to take a stranger on a date (even if money was going to charity).

I asked him how I should recognise him and he came up with an idea that would make me work for the money. I had to go up and ask people if they were Mr Right and if I found him he would recite a little ditty so I knew I had the right person. Had life been running along normally I would have flatly refused to make such a fool of myself, but seeing as I was meeting him as a result of an eBay auction it seemed strangely appropriate.

I didn’t know what I should wear for the date. I didn’t want to wear my potential Valentine’s dress, but pretty much everything else was in the wash! I found my summery "going out" dress and put that on. It was pouring with rain as I exited the tube at Green Park and I began to regret the clothing choice.

Being trailed by Heather with TV camera (I’m doing a piece for Current TV – a new station that launches in March), I proceeded to ask random guys whether they were Mr Right. I got some very strange looks from people – I guess that was to be expected. I met Mr Wrong, Mr Left and a few other people who didn’t have the foggiest what I was talking about. I didn’t find Mr Right though.

I started getting cold and verging on grumpy. Perhaps I’d been stood up. Someone else would have the last laugh.

I got a tap on the shoulder and someone asked if I was looking for Mr Right… I ask "Are you Mr Right?" and then came the poem:

"If you’re looking for Mr Right,
He may not be that bright,
And yes he may be polite,
But will you think that after the Twelfth Night?"

Not quite Shakespeare, but at least it meant I’d get in out of the rain! I was quite surprised at Rishi, he was young and looked very normal. Not the axe-wielding psycho that I had half been expecting to meet - or the sleazy desperate old man that I thought was the other possibility.

We had a coffee and then headed to the restaurant – also a Jazz Club. Excellent choice. We agreed that we’d spend less on dinner and give more to charity and proceeded to be serenaded by a jazz trio as we ate a lovely meal.

When we got to the restaurant there was a red gift bag on the table – I thought it must have been something to do with the restaurant (having a camera following you sometimes makes these things happen) but Rishi said that he’d brought it in earlier for me. I’d told him I was a bit tired after everything in the last month and he’d bought me a gift to cheer me up. Bless him! I was a bit shy and embarrassed to open it until I left him later on. He’d bought me some perfume and a card which had the classic opening line "I don’t know you so I don’t know what to write" and went on to echo the 31 Days theme with thirty-one chat up lines that should be banned! Brilliant!

The place suddenly got packed out with blokes in dinner jackets. I spent 5 minutes talking to one of them trying to find out where they had all come from. The conversation went something like this:
"How come you guys are all in black tie?"

"We’ve been to a black tie event"

"Right – but what was it for"

"You have to wear black tie at the Grovsenor Hotel"

"Not all the time – so how come you all are?"

"Because you had to tonight"

"But *why* - what is the event?"

"The ECA dinner"

"What’s that stand for then?

"Electrical Contractors Association – him over there – he’s the Electrical Contractor of the year"

I proceeded to tap the guy on the shoulder, shake his hand and warmly congratulate him, whilst he looked rather bemused. None of them cracked a smile.

Normally I love a guy in a good suit, but they have to have a nice smile to match. Electrical Contractors seem to be a miserable bunch – even when they’re on the jolly!

It was a really nice evening – I was genuinely surprised. I didn’t think realistically that I’d ever meet anyone nice through eBay, and yet here I was spending a lovely evening with a very down-to-earth guy. At 11pm my chaperones (the lovely Greg and George) turned up to check that I hadn’t been sliced into little pieces – which thankfully I hadn’t been. They stayed whilst I made the most of the live band and extolled the virtues of Cuban rum.

Please note that although I have done silly things during this project I have been careful that I don’t put myself in danger. Please do think carefully about meeting someone from the internet and make sure you always let people know where you are if you meet someone new… even if they seem normal. Be careful. Sorry, just feeling a bit mumsy and protective there.

So – a last minute entry on Day 31, but he doesn’t push my other guy off the top spot… I’ll reveal all tomorrow.. in fact, there should be a little note in the Guardian’s G2 section that will do that for me!

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