Tongue-Tied

Sometimes, however hopped up, prepped, caffeinated, boozy or buzzing you are, you're lost for words.

This doesn't happen to me much. I can talk a lot of talk, even when someone is really hard work, even if I want to be elsewhere, even if I've had NO sleep and just want to be alone. There's always stuff to say, and say animatedly, even if it's just about the weather.

So I found myself a little dumbstruck yesterday when, at a good friend's wedding, I joined the other people seated at my table in wilting silence on a couple of occasions, unable to muster even the slightest unique comment on the enervating weather. It had all been said. It was hot. Very hot. We were eating soup and perspiring. It was really nice soup.

More and more I wonder if it's just the apathy of age that inevitably makes you far too comfortable with yourself to bother in such situations?

Unlike when I was perhaps 23, I am more than happy to embarrass myself in front of a stranger I'll never meet again. I know what I can get away with, and I know where I stand in terms of charm and looks on the social scale. I'm not the hottest, but I can switch it on when I want to get away with stuff. I have so far learned this simple approach when impressing someone new:

Appearance:
1. Groom / pluck etc. (hair needs to see a brush more than once a day)
2. Flatter. If, you're a woman, no leggings unless you're 12. If you're a man. No leggings. Ever.
3. Hold yourself like you absolutely intended this ensemble to work and you're pleased by it
4. Take your time and don't fumble / drop stuff (this continues to be my biggest challenge)

Manner:
1. Eyes. It's all about the eyes. Hold them just a little longer than you want to, not quite long enough to be cheeky. Just enough to make a moment, and make it about them. Pick up on the clues they give you and refer to earlier parts of your conversation for double listening points.
2. Smile like everything is just about to be funny.
3. Combine these two with as much animation as you can muster for the boring subject
4. Do fun things with your voice. Deep means serious. Lots of inflection for the lighter points. Keeps them interested. Don't talk too quickly - it gives the impression you don't even think you're worth the time.
5. Speak properly. Like your mother always wanted you to. Like my mother always wanted me to.

Now sometimes, all of this, perfectly executed, still just isn't enough. Usually I find it's when I genuinely fancy someone and ultimately feel at a disadvantage. But I reckon it's worth going through the motions anyway, if they're fanciable enough. I just always make the mistake of being unable to execute any of the above with aplomb when I believe someone 'must know' my feelings and 'must therefore see right through me' and 'am therefore up to no good' Can't help it, but we're all the same, right?

Now, in a few years time I'm sure I will be looking at this and telling you my simple approach is to be sincere and honest, and not to bother with the silliness of it all. However, this is only for when I have a nice husband who knows who I am and doesn't mind me as a person at all.

Ultimately everyone appreciates sincerity in others. On the other hand, it just doesn't seem very nice if your sincerity manifests itself as 'I'm comfortable in my life and do not require you for anything. I don't know you and we probably won't meet again so I probably won't bother talking to you'. I do TRY not to give this impression when I've just met someone, and hopefully you do too.

Everyone just has to put a little work in, to think about what they're doing. This just doesn't have to extend to ANYONE you happen to pass on the street.

Perfect examples of my latter 20s radicalism manifests itself in my habit of wearing clothes I've long outsized, smearing eye makeup whilst performing urgent contact lens care on a train or perhaps revealing one days worth of underarm growth in the partaking of a big stretch. Please don't take me for a slob. I just know what I can get away with. I know what I did not know when I was 20 years old: that not everyone is paying attention to my underarms all the time. And frankly if they are, wouldn't that just make them a twat, anyway?

So, frankly, back to the wedding and our lacklustre, overheated dinnertime discourse... there I was, wilting next to an equally overheated schoolfriend and the taciturn older brother of my friend, the bride. Perhaps it was the prosecco making me paranoid, but I couldn't shake the feeling that the silent gentleman was on the verge of hysterics at my futile attempts at small talk. The man is in the habit of climbing European mountains on his weekends. He understands mortality in it's most basic form, racing through ravines notorious for sudden rockfalls, scaling sheer cliff faces in ripping cold winds.... he needs no words. He needs no small talk. He is endowed with an insight into the true nature of things....

Or at least, this is everything my little mind assumed, as I knocked back wine like water and felt the perspiration blooming off my peers. The fact of the matter is, I had no idea what was going through his head, but it's highly likely that it was a) nothing or b) a similarly frantic search for sophisticated conversational material. You see this is the problem with weddings. You bump into some people and make the most remote connections. But when you are put next to people, they've already been assumed for you, and this makes the whole reward of random connection and banter that much less satisfying, and that feels much less worthwhile.

I thought this might be the case with a set up date. I've joined an online dating site. Please don't judge me, but I'm 27 years old and it's been nearly a year since my last date, over two since I last got intimate with someone. It's time I stopped moping over a long-lost lover that wasn't right (and is now marrying someone else) and forced myself into a few more situations! The connection here - and not converse to the wedding seating plan - is that you take away the uncertainty of a chance meeting and do your damnedest to hit it off with someone in a night. Then, if one of you never calls, it's utterly clear what they thought of you. Because that's the unspoken agreement.

My first date was on Tuesday, but unfortunately I think I liked the chap far too much to consider mucking him about. This may also prove a problem with the three more dates I have lined up this week, provided none of them are planning on acting like pigs. This has however, already put me in the mindset where I'm framing for the next romantic encounter around every bend, whether I know it or not. Consequently, when innocently giving my telephone number to a fellow wannabe journalist last night, the atmosphere went a little bit odd the moment he saved it into his phone. I went red and started jabbering - lost for words again. This was mostly because I'd thought he was married and had a sudden horrified moment of feeling very inappropriate. I made my excuses and scarpered.

I suppose what I'm trying to wrap this up with is that you can find yourself in any situation, and by and large people will do their best to make you feel comfortable. When they don't, it's utterly disarming and can throw you completely off your stride - and is yet a poignant reminder that this isn't a game. Socialising is not a formula, and the moment you treat it as such, you lose the very vulnerability, sincerity and enjoyment human encounters can afford.

As I left the wedding party last night, the radiant bride nudged me and asked if I'd been talking to a certain chap. He was single, apparently, and VERY nice. I shrugged blankly and said I wish I had come across him, but never mind. It was then I realised her gesturing across the room to the man she'd been wafting my way.

It turns out he wasn't married. I'd just given him my number.