We're moooving on up, we're mooovin' on round, time to break free...noooothing can stop us, yeaaah

(Or something. Not really sure why I've named this post after an M People song from the 90s, but I hope you enjoyed it anyway)

 

Since being back on the prowl (aka back on the scene, back in the game, all that business) which I'm not really, not properly anyway - I indulge in a bit of harmless flirtation in bars when the barmaid takes an absolute AGE to get down the line of waiting alchies and I end up swapping 'claims to fame' with the bloke next to me, and by the way, making a well known pompous TV presenter's microwave dinner royally trumps being related to Morrissey by a distant cousin's marriage, mate - but apart from that, it's all been rather tame on the man front. However, there has been enough interaction with le sex opposite to realise that things have moved on somewhat from the last time I was scouting for potentials.

 

I remember back in the days of M People, before there were mobile phones and swapping house numbers was the done thing (Hello, is Michael there? This is Jo. "Michaeeeeeel, there's a giiiirrrrrrrrrl on the phhhooonnnnnee!"), then there were Nokias the size of bricks with a 'write message' function but no capability to send them, but at least you could avoid calling the Mother Ship and skip straight to the boy in question. Then there were pagers, which I never really understood the point of but I had one anyway, then texting came in to play, then up popped the internet and email, MSN messenger and slowly all these ways of speaking to a love match after that first drunken meeting expanded into infinity.

 

Skip forward to last weekend, a newly single girl is out and about for the second weekend in a row (WAH!) and once again the three of us get chatting to another group and end up making friends like kids in a sandpit. The end of the night comes and our new mates are heading home. One bloke who I've had my eye on comes over to say goodbye and as we're hugging, says "Add me on facebook!". I say ok, then realise that actually, despite spending a lot of the night messing around and chatting, I don't know his name. Yes, this seems to be a common theme - names and me don't go. He tells me it and above the music, I'm sure I mishear. That cannot really be his surname. I get my phone out to write it in a message to clarify, and ask him to spell it to be sure. That's your surname? Seriously? Are you joking? "It's awful, isn't it?" he grins, before bounding off into the night with his friends.

 

In the taxi home, and the question comes "So, did you get his number then?". Hmmm, no. I got his name for facebook. His surname's....his surname's.... and I tell her. She cracks up. "Oh dear. Well, better to find out now then, eh? Ha! Wicked. Marriage not on the cards, then?"

 

So things have moved on and the traditions of number swapping are dying fast...but sometimes, in very rare situations, the ability to sniff out details which back in the day would have remained undercover - this can only be a good thing.

 

Saying that, he was hot. I added him anyway.