Cornford and 'The Model'

Believe it or not I was not always this smooth...

Although still a couple of sonnets short of a Romeo, you may be alarmed to know that I have actually got a lot better at meeting girls.

When reading that last sentence please appreciate where the 'pulling' goal posts were first positioned. I was awful...no really awful. Amongst friends it's easy to be outgoing and confident but making that intial approach to that stranger in a bar is a completely different proposition. Praise the lord for alcohol, you probably won't find a passage in the Bible that will help you to do this (too busy banging on about the poor and the needy) but try and praise him regardless.

Alcohol is the all important social lubricant and without it you would not have been born. Take a look at your Dad right now, chances are he's not exactly the Fonze. Can you imagine him confidently swanning up to your mother without 8 pints of special brew bubbling away in his gut? And this was all in the days before Internet Dating and text messaging, so no sodding way is he meeting/talking to your mother without a skinful of Dutch courage.

That's why Jesus turned water into wine, so we could all get laid. And thank God, quite literally in this case, otherwise I would still be reading my 'How the Body Works' educational book (thanks for that Mum, way to parent).

Still Alcohol does have one or two minor, minor flaws. According to top scientists it has been known to affect judgement and decision making. This usually results in one of four scenarios when approaching a mademoiselle:

1. You approach someone way out of your league - she surprisingly says no (may use words other than no, but essentially it will amount to the same thing).

2. You somehow manage to find and approach someone in a lower league (think the Macclesfild Town of lady folk) and she says yes. You try and laugh it off the next day by saying something manly like, 'every dog has her day and it was her turn', but really inside your crying. Also probably wasn't a great idea to swap numbers, you know your going to text her the next time your out.

3. You somehow manage to find and approach someone in a lower league, she says no, you think oh dear, your onlooking friends think oh yes... tomorrow you are going to be their banter bitch.

4. Possibly the worst, your punching just above your weight but hanging in there until the full extent of how much of a drunken twat you really are becomes painfully apparent, she walks/runs/evacuates away out of the building.

Everyone has a few number 4's in their locker, let me tell you about one of mine.

We were in Bar Med in Guildford, for those of you unfamiliar with this particular brand of chain bar, it is a popular hang out for Smirnoff Ice clutching underage drinkers, sporting their latest 'Mad House' purchased Yves Saint Lauren shirt.

My friends and I frequented it regularly.

Several Reefs, Red Squares and the afformentioned Smirnoff ice's later, I was taking one of my every '15 minutes' alcohol induced toilet breaks. However, en route to the powder room I found my path blocked by a beautiful young lady. Having politely asked her if I could get past, it turned out that this block was intentional and she did in fact want to talk to me...oh dear.

My alcohol intake was worrying high in light of the task ahead. The almighty confidence that alcohol had giving me, was unfortunately at the expense of general speach and mobility.

Focus, must focus, these opportunities don't come along too often. We talk, the simple stuff to start off with. I ask her name...three times, in fairness the music was loud but I think she is starting to suspect.

Nevertheless she invites me to sit with her, probably more for my own safety as it probably looked like I was going to collapse. I'm losing the battle, my lack of speach is only inturrupted by mindless drunken jabbering. I just about manage to get a sensible question in by asking her what she did for a living. She replied that she did a bit of modelling work, probably a lie, but who cares I would never find out the truth so as far as I was concerned a model was interested in me.

This only doubled the pressure and in response I started to drink more to give me that 'killer edge', surprisingly this resulted in disaster. The facade was broken and it was clear that I was a drunken idiot. Luckily for all concerned it was the end of the night.

I give her a peck on the cheek and in a moment of unbridled optimism ask for her number. 'Unfortunately' she had only recently purchased the phone and did not know the number off by heart so it was best that she took my number instead.

So I woke up the next day and in the cold light of sobriety realised that I had royally messed it up with a number 4. It's moments like these that you vow to 'never drink again' and instead devote your life to helping people. No way was she going to call.

All of a sudden a text comes through, it was her and she was asking how I was. This is cruch time, in one text I need to rectify all of last night wrongs and prove what a funny, great, good guy I am. This is what I wrote:

'Hey was great to meet you last night, you know I went out with a model once, that was until she fell apart!'

This was not the best text to send.

This was not the text that would encapsulate funny, great and good guy and I realised this very quickly. Amazingly she did not get back to me.

A few days later a whole load of us were going round a friends house, this whole episode was behind me and I was to learn from these mistakes and grow as a human being.

As we all sat round, one of my friends asked if I had heard anything from her. I explained that I had not. He persisted, 'really you havent heard anything, nothing at all?'. I reiterated that I had not and asked why he was being so inquisitive? Surely it was no real surprise that she hadn't been in touch. 'Oh nothing', was the reply and then he beckoned his little sister into the room.

She came in clutching her mobile phone and proceeded to read a text from her phone out loud,

'Hey was great to meet you last night, you know I went out with a model once, that was until she fell apart!'

Yes you've guessed it, the text was never sent by 'the model' but was instead sent by my friends little sister.

So there I was with this 12 year old girl ripping it out of me thrilled that she was part of this wind up. It was bad enough thinking that I had sent the worlds worst text message to some girl I would never see again, let alone effectively sending it my closest friends.

This was to open up a whole new world of piss taking and I was to be reminded of it often...