Losing Battles: A novel evening of speed-reading men

Published on Tuesday 16 February 2010 20:19

I'D BEEN warned there might not be enough men for all the women who'd signed up, but when the time rolled around for last week's Literary Speed Dating event at the Rutland Hotel, The Edinburgh Bookshop came up trumps. There weren't quite as many boys as there were girls, but very nearly.

Women remained fixed, each of us "identified" by the name of a famous author, while the men were meant to circulate in an orderly fashion, proceeding from number one on their list to number 15.

None of the women reading this will be remotely surprised to learn that this did not occur. Early in the proceedings one fella – he knows who he is – broke ranks by walking over to the next nearest woman, not the next numerically. After that it was like watching dominoes collide, as the men wandered around in a daze, occasionally clumping up at a hot prospect, until order was restored.

I say we adopted the names of famous authors, but that didn't stop one frustrated bloke from collapsing in a heap in my spare seat, and saying, "At last! Someone I've heard of!"

I was Jane Austen, you see.

Who else had he visited? Consulting a wee sheet he said, "Marian Keyes, Andrea Levy – ever heard of them?" at which point I chortled indelicately.

I think it's fair to say that in literature's house there are many rooms…

I had a great time, but on balance, it's lucky that I attended in the spirit of entertainment and research and not in the hope of finding true love. (I've given up on that, at any rate.)

Perhaps it was an omen that I was masquerading as the world's most famous spinster.

I'm fairly certain that I was the oldest person (of either sex) in the room, and on top of that, it transpired that the most delectable bit of eye candy was a man I'm already acquainted with – though not, I assure you, in the biblical sense.

Of course only a shallow person judges another on the basis of his or her looks, and if there's one theme I've tried to hammer home in this column over the past year and a bit, it's that such behaviour is ignorant, unfair, and extremely shortsighted.

Whoever invented speed dating was dead clever. You can put up with anything when you know it'll all be over in three minutes. (Though I did notice that one's perception of how long three minutes actually lasts has a certain flexibility.)

At half-time I was sorely disappointed to find some of the younger ladies shrieking in the loo about the quality of the male talent. I heard a loud tut of disapproval and realised it emanated from my very own mouth. They weren't entering into the spirit of the thing, I felt, though I did resist the strong urge to burst out of my stall and spank them.

It's frightening to think that I might be mellowing in my old age – I have my heart set on cantankerous – but I thought the men who came along were courageous. This is Edinburgh, after all.

And kudos to the Bookshop. A themed dating event makes heaps of sense. It allows for the sensation (if untrue, as I was to discover) that we were a room full of rabid bibliophiles. That's a big deal if you're like me, and can't bring yourself to swoon over anyone who doesn't read.

Though many of my mini chat-up sessions covered unbookish ground – what do you do, where are you from, what do you mean you've never heard of Andrea Levy? – it was comforting knowing that any pregnant pauses could be filled with questions about what was on the nightstand waiting for the next chapter to unfold. Plus I was able to recommend some of my favourite writers to people who had never heard of them. And maybe that will spark a love affair of another sort entirely!