Spending the evening with a bunch of people willing to bare their embarrassing and hilarious stories of their first dates sounded like a perfect night for me, so that is exactly what I did last night.
I obviously spent 20 minutes wondering around London lost as I do, but I did find Fleet Street and was quite excited to be milling around with all of the hacks.
I have just finished reading ‘The Diaries of a Fleet Street Fox’ by Susie Boniface. She came and gave a talk while I was studying at Brighton Journalist Works, so even though I was lost and stressed, in some weird way it felt kind of reassuring to know she had walked around the same streets. We were hacks together, ok so I can’t really call myself that yet. I am a hack in training.
After retracing my steps back to Farringdon Station, I re-read the directions. ‘Turn right out of the station.’ Ah the turn right was not the right that was straight out of the station but right and then right again.....riiiggghhhttt.
Eventually I found where I needed to be, it used to be a church which I found quite ironic as there was sure to be swearing and stories of an intimate nature (sex tales, lots of sex tales). Mind you the people taking to the stage knew they would be judged- in a nice way, well the audience would be nice but I couldn’t speak for the Almighty.
There were round tables with candles dotted around the room and I was filled with trepidation. Was this going to be a night full of couples and I would be sat sticking out like a sore thumb?
I found a seat at the back and ate my daily Crunchie, everyone has habits and a daily Crunchie is one of mine.
An artistic looking man came and sat next to me, we had a bit of a chat but I had food all in my teeth so I kept my mouth tight when I spoke and looked like I had some kind of problem.
I grabbed a glass of wine at the bar and was delighted to only be asked for £3.00, in London I expect everything to be about £10 so it was a turn up for the books and my purse.
I returned to my seat, swilled some wine around my mouth and asked the artist if he had been to one of these shows before because I didn’t want him to think I was a snooty bitch from down South who didn’t associate myself with Londoners.
He explained he has been to one a couple of weeks previously, he was a stand-up comic and was going to tell a story in the open mic section of the evening here. Satisfied that I had made him think more of me than just being a rude bitch, I returned to looking at my phone.
The first story was by Kit Harrington-no wait, he is that tasty looking dish from Game of Thrones or some similar program bare with- just need to Google....
Ah, Kit Lovelace. Think about that name for a moment....for me it conjures up an image of a voluptuous woman similar to Dita Von Teese, so when a very tall slender man stood up and started speaking without a feather boa in sight, I was taken aback and kept looking around for a Dita look-a-like.
Once I had got over my initial shock, I realised I had missed the beginning of his story. I focused and got the gist of it- a very, very drunk woman passing out. I was literally so distracted and annoyed at myself for missing the first part of his story that I nearly asked him if he could repeat it.
He left the stage and I made sure that I was concentrating fully, I am glad I did as the next story involved nuns, a Travelodge and period sex. I won’t go into it as I am sure you can dive into your own imagination, but the woman telling the story was very funny and drunk. Drunk on her first date I mean, not on stage, though she could have been. I would have had to have been to tell a story such as hers but it was bloody brilliant.
The next story was my favourite, the guy set the scene of being a 15-year-old boy, it was quite easy to imagine myself as a boy. When I was younger I used to believe that girls grew up to be boys and boys grew up to be girls, I was a very liberal six-year-old.
I digress. So, this boy had a foreign exchange student stay with him and his parents for a week and he fell in love with her as soon as she walked off the bus. They spent the week together and on the final night they kissed, awww. He gave her his email address and off she went back to Germany. (I think it was Germany, the wine had taken hold by that point in the night so my memory is a little fuzzy.)
A month after she left he got a email from Monica with a K, which is how she spelt her name- I imagine it is something like this...Kmonica.
For 7 months they emailed, he sent her poems, they spoke about their feelings, they spoke about sex, then one day she said she had got some money for her birthday and she wanted to visit him. She said to him in her email: ‘I don’t want to leave the hotel room.’ A girl saying that to a guy at any age is going to get him hot under the collar, but he was fifteen so he was soooooooo excited.
He arrange to meet her at her hotel, when he got there the receptionist sent him up to the room. He knocked on the door, no answer. He heard the shower running and tried the door, it was open.
There were German magazines and clothes thrown all over the room, he sat on the bed and waited for her to get out of the shower. Then thinking that was creepy, he knocked on the bathroom door to tell her he was there.
The shower was turned off, he heard sniggering then 15 of his friends fell out of the bathroom laughing at him.
He said to them: ‘Guys you have got to go, Kmonica is coming!’
Bless him.
I was in stitches, poor guy had been duped for 7 months by his friends, and to rub further salt in the wound they printed off every email exchange from all of those months. Poems, sex chats, romantic feelings. I didn’t get the chance to ask if he was still friends with any of them now.
There was another guy who told us about a girl chewing his face off and making him bleed, which was amusing, but then came the best part- the open mic part.
Anyone in the audience was allowed to tell their first date/ romantic misadventure story.
There were a few contenders, including the artistic looking comedian who I was sat next to. He told a sweet story about a girl and some cherries, but the best one was by a girl who sounded and sort of looked like Rebel Wilson.
Her story was about when she was house sitting, she invited a guy over but he became paranoid she was going to film them having sex and put it on a porn site. The full extent of the story is far too X-rated for here unfortunately, but she made me proper belly laugh and I could have listened to her all night.
But like all good things, they have to come to an end. I cannot wait to go and have another adventure with this group of people, luckily for me SPARK are holding another event on 8th February in Hackney down the road from where I work.
The theme is ‘Boldness.’
Maybe I could be bold and join in with the open mic section, then again maybe I will just sit at the back eating my Crunchie.
http://stories.co.uk/
(Picture is from @kitlovelace)
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