Guys and Dolls

"Call it sad, call it funny. But it's better than even money, that the guy's only doing it for some doll."


It is a well known fact that most men are just on the pink caribou side of crazy - not quite entirely sane but quite amiable and capable of holding down jobs, mortgages/rent and suchlike.

They generally manage to hide their freakish and mad behaviour- which usually manifests itself in forms such as possessing freakish numbers of childish collectables (whether it be comic books, football programmes or pot pigs - believe me I met that guy) or being able to speak fluent Klingon - and can wear a respectable mask of normality.

But throw women into the mix, or rather women they fancy, and you find yourself dealing with a horse of a different colour...

I only mention this because I saw a guy I've known a while this weekend, for the first time since the new hair, at a Christmas party back in the area in which I used to live.

Now Jonny is a strapping 6-plus footer, cute with a slightly wonky smile, who didn't show much interest in me the last few times I met him.

So come last Friday I was surprised - nay stunned - to see him demonstrating line dancing worthy of Nashville to the strains of 1990s horror hit Cotton Eye Joe, mere seconds after revealing the embarrassing fact that his parents forced him into line dancing classes in his teens.

Now it is a well known fact you cannot make a man dance at the best of times, never mind humiliating dosie-dos, unless he is trying to impress or drunk - and dear Jonny was quite coherent...

But the episode got me thinking about all the crazy things men do to get women to like them.

I've heard all sorts of strange reports from female friends of things men have done to impress them - ranging from comedy oversize floral bouquets, to having their name tattooed on an arm in huge gothic lettering, from buying £300 books of the girl's favorite poetry, to starting boozy fights over a lady's honour and dance floor six pack demonstrations - all in the name of impressing the ladies.

My current favourite tale is from Paul who, aged 13 and in his pre-Isabelle days, tried to woo a 12-year-old girl in his class by taking part in a river-borne-raft race, despite his extra-ordinarily bad swimming capabilities (The boy risked death!!)

And as we chatted Paul revealed that in his current "Isabelle days" he also traveled (on public transport) over 150 miles to reach Issy for a surprise rendez-vous, and talked a florist into giving him a lily-of-valley plant so he would always have an out-of-season supply of France's traditional romantic flower for French Valentine's day (not February 14).

It then dawned on me that the reason men do many of the crazy things they do may not be as madly motivated as they might seem, and that - in spite of their enormous potential to say absolutely nothing in a passionate fashion - men have an innate but quirky sense of romance.

In conclusion it is clear - for men actions really do speak louder than words and sometimes you have to trust what a man does, not what he says.

Suze x

Ps I did give Jonny my number - c'mon I'm not an ice queen - the man did a tush push...