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.

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!

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!

DAY THIRTY

My goodness. Day thirty. Almost there.

This project/month of madness has been such a lot of fun – I’ve tried things that I would never have the guts to do normally, and on the whole I’ve really enjoyed them – BUT – I am exhausted. You’d think that doing one thing every day would be easy to keep up, but it really isn’t, especially when you are dating people on top of the daily tasks. My advice to you is try some of the things I’ve done – by all means try all of them – just don’t try and do them on 31 consecutive days. It is not good for you!

So I’m in the home-straits now and it has suddenly dawned on me… what if I ask out the guy I liked most from the 31 days and he is busy on Valentine’s Day already? Or worse, he’s just not interested? I could end up being the ultimate in Valentine’s Day losers!

I can’t let that sort of thing happen without having a back-up plan in place – and what better than a night off, relaxing and eating toast?

You have probably gathered by now that I have a bit of an obsession with all things Dualit, their toaster/DAB radios especially. I can’t help it – I just really appreciate good design, and these things, as inanimate as they are, are definitely sexy! With this in mind, and the fact that toast is great sulk food, I decided that my back-up plan should be an evening with a Dualit toaster.

I drooled over their website before finding out who does their PR and then wrote them an email explaining the situation and asking if they would consider sending over a toaster for me to “date”.

It wasn’t the most professionally written email, but that just makes up for all the times I’ve taken a daft PR call just as the show I’m producing is going live to the nation.

A few hours later, I got a reply:
“Thanks so much for your email. It all sounds very interesting and I hope you are successful in your search for Mr Right. Although I’m sure you’ll find a Dualit toaster more reliable and much more fun.

However there are millions of Dualit fans out there (like you and us of course) and we’re just not able to provide ‘dates’ for all of them. Perhaps ask one of your Mr Right’s to buy you one of the funky red ones for Valentine’s.

Sorry we can’t help out this time. Good luck and have fun.”

Heart break. I’ve been stood up by a toaster. With no back-up plan I will have to ensure that “Mr Right” is free then… for the record, I would never ask anyone to buy me anything – especially not something *that* expensive. I’ll just have to keep drooling until I’m earning enough money that spending over £100 on a toaster doesn’t bother me. I’m a little way off that yet – no matter how shiny they are!

Today was the culmination of the eBay auction… would anyone outbid the (ridiculously high) £176 pounds and save me from the guy with the pink knee high boots and leopard print gimp suit? Was clicking “list item” on Friday the worst idea of my life? “Hopefully” and “Probably” in that order.

I had some questions from people about the “item” and so I logged on to answer them. The first wanted to know whether more money could go to charity seeing as the bidding had gone so high. “Of course!” was my reply – I couldn’t conceive of spending half that amount on a meal. The next question simply said “this will get pulled what a slag”(sic). Perhaps it is just because I am so tired, but it really upset me. I wrote back and said that she knew nothing about me and hinted that she shouldn’t really pass judgement, before wishing her a good day. The next one was in a similar vein “do you think pimping yourself on eBay is a good way of finding "Mr Right" or are you an attention seeker?”. Had my thinking not been impaired by lack of sleep I would have just replied “Yes, I am doing it because I’m an attention seeker. Many thanks for giving me yours”. Ah well.

eBay is almost certainly not the way to find Mr Right – but I said that I would take suggestions via the website and a number of people said I should I give it a go. Not everything I try has to work – I just have to try it and see what happens. Think of me as a Guinea Pig for dating techniques. I do all the things that don’t work so you don’t have to!

Just before the end of the auction I had a look and found that another girl is selling a date now – she’d dropped me a line. I checked out her page… 6 bids, 90p. The sequel is never as good! ;)

At 6.05pm I was very very nervous. The auction had 3 minutes left to go. I was now apparently worth £200!!! It was the same highest bidder. At 7 seconds to go the bids had gone up to £205! A new high bidder. Then at 6.08pm the auction finished, and the cyber-gavel came down at £210 – a late entry from someone new. It was the guy that wanted to give more of the money to charity. I liked him already.

I sat for a few minutes feeling perplexed, amazed, giggling and feeling a wave of disbelief wash over me.

Can I just say it out loud… TWO-HUNDRED AND TEN POUNDS!!! Two-HUNDRED and ten pounds. That is properly insane. I didn’t really think that a) anyone would take it seriously, and b) anyone would bid more than a tenner. Oh my goodness! I’m really quite excited about writing to the charities and saying “In a fit of madness I auctioned myself eBay and I’d like you to accept this cheque for £xxx”. I’ll hold that thought tomorrow when I head out for dinner feeling a bit like a mail-order bride or something.

So all that’s left for today is to say “Pinkyprincessey-whatever your eBay name is… if I maybe be a slag*, but at least I’m not cheap!”

* For the record though, I’m not.

DAY TWENTY-NINE

Another busy day for me – it is so close to the end of the project and there are more and more ideas being suggested to me. I am running out of time to try them all out, so today I did two things. This morning I walked a dog, this evening I attended the inaugural FlashDate. More on that in a moment…

When I worked on the Lovelines, a late-night love show on the radio, we often told people that walking a dog is a good way to meet people. Think 101 Dalmatians.. it worked for them, so it must be true.

I actually have a bit of a phobia of dogs, but I thought I would give it a go anyway. Of course being scared of dogs generally precludes you from owning one, and indeed I don’t. A grovelling phone-call to a good friend from school and I was all set with a dog. I wouldn’t have to hold the lead because she knew I was probably going to be too scared – I just walked beside her.

So, two lovely ladies, a dog and a bright Sunday morning – surely that would make us unstoppable. We had a stroll around the village and it was all very quiet. You can’t use a dog as an ice-breaker if there is no-one around to break ice with. A guy came towards us – we could be in luck… no, we weren’t. He actually moved out of our way – probably scared of dogs like me. Perhaps he was the man of my dreams and the dog stopped me meeting him. It dawned on me that I was more likely to meet a dog-lover this way, and that would surely cause problems when it came to buying family pets down the line.

Some small children smiled and talked to the dog – they were cute, but in a small child way rather than a dashing young gentleman way. We walked past a man in his front garden who shouted out something about walking the rabbit. I pointed out it was a Jack Russell not a bunny. I think he was drunk.

Buster – the star of the show was behaving very well and I decided that I’d try and find the courage to give him a little pat on the head. I managed it, felt really proud of myself, and realised that the most eligible guy had just walked on by. Damn. Walking a dog only works if you keep your eyes open to those walking past!

I can see how it would work though – a couple of dog-owners strolling with their beloveds. The dogs go and investigate one another and then you have to talk to the owners really. If you’re a dog person then give it a go.

I’m still tempted to see what would happen if I got a toy dog and walked that in the park – I’m sure someone would talk to me, but probably for all the wrong reasons. I could just explain that I wanted to meet people and I’m scared of real dogs though – it might work…

Dog-walking done with, it was time to start worrying about FlashDate. I did a quick interview on LBC News 1152 this morning and the presenter was really positive about the whole thing, which made me feel good, but then I started to panic. What if I was the only one to turn up? What if it was only boys who came along? What if a TV crew showed up and there was no-one there? What if it was a roaring success and I got arrested for causing a public obstruction?! Okay – the latter would just be funny and I would be so excited that I’d got enough people to cause the obstruction in the first place, I wouldn’t really care about being arrested.

I set off in my “little red riding hood” coat with film crew in tow (another long story!) and saw a woman with a fabulous red coat on the tube. She couldn’t possibly be part of FlashDate, but it was *such* a good coat that I almost went up an invited her anyway!. We rocked up at Trafalgar Square pretty early. I was nervous. Very nervous. I kept looking out for signs of people with pink or red… there were a few. That was cool.

10 minutes to go. A few people hovering.
5 minutes to go. Is it too late to run away?
4 minutes to go. Wow – look at those choristers – their red smocks are awesome. Perhaps I can persuade the hang around for five minutes.
3 minutes to go. Oh my goodness – they were here FlashDate. Amazing.
2 minutes to go. Ooh – look – some of my friends have come out to give me moral support.
1 minute to go. How do I get this started? We’ll go by Big Ben…
0 minutes to go. Good friend with good shouting voice “FLASH DATE!!!”

People. Wow. There were actually people. People wearing red and pink! People with chocolates. People with flowers. People with bananas. Eh? Bananas? Okay, whatever – they are here for FlashDate!

It worked.

It bloody worked!

Cue very very over-excited Kate. There were lots and lots of people, chatting to new people, FlashDating!

I looked around in awe. 100-200 people there. I did that. WOW. How amazingly cool! Oh my word – that woman with the amazing red jacket from the tube – she was there in the middle of it all! Wow. I had to ask how she had found out about it – it was the interview on LBC this morning.. that had persuaded her to come out and be a part of it – and she was having fun! I did that! Wow!

I felt a bit like a hostess at a party – I wanted to ensure that everyone was okay and talking to someone new. Giving out their flowers and not being too nervous. It was great!

We even had a police van come and see what was going on… ah the power of CCTV eh! Wow. We didn’t get in trouble either. Brilliant.

I was given some chocolate and a banana. I bemoaned the fact no-one had given me a flower and was instantly tapped on the shoulder and given one. Amazing! I felt quite proud really – especially as I heard that people had swapped numbers and made new friends.

It was so lovely that I didn’t want it to end, so I dashed around and told everyone to come to the pub. They did!

We piled into the local place and the evening continued. My friends who popped along to support me had got phone numbers of cute girls! The choristers came and had a drink with us. One of them works at the Guardian and she is going to try and get a little space for a Valentine’s message for me. I think that might be the way to officially announce who my Valentine will be! Classic!

People were asking when I was going to hold the next one! The next one? Goodness! I didn’t even know if this one was going to work. Amazing!

I was a very very happy little Kate. My hostess-ing (if such a thing is possible at an event like that) prevented me from really talking to anyone at great length, but 13 popped along to say hello and see how it all went, so I still got to feel special amongst the madness.

I am amazed, touched and excited by the number of people who came out to play this evening – the only thing that’s even better than the sheer numbers of people is the fact that it actually seems to have worked on the romance front too! I already know one person has a date this week as a result of it! You couldn’t ask for more could you?

Very pleased, very proud, very excited and with a grin wider than the Cheshire cat. Perhaps I should go into business match-making people…