Stop reading, get out on the town

You may not like me being so bold, but if you’re reading this and you’re single – and if you don’t fully enjoy being single – then really you should do something about it. Right now, in fact.

Put the newspaper down, have a nice hot bath and get your best threads on!

You’re going out tonight, in particular this evening since as we’ve griped in earlier columns, us single folk always seem to encounter the ‘wrong sort of people’ when we’re out and about.

Tonight (Friday Sept 27) however, there are two things going on in Oxford which you need to attend and both of them will have fabulous people in attendance. What’s more, both are right in Oxford City Centre so you can have no excuses about them being tricky to get to.

The first is at my Disco outside the Big Bang, to commemorate the end of Purple Flag week, the celebration of Oxford’s and the nation’s nightlife (and on a sad note, the event will also close the Oxford Beach for 2013).

It’s a Hawaiian Beach Disco, so you need to come dressed in a ghastly Hawaiian shirt, but the music, the drinks, the company and, needless to say, the food, will be sublime.

2013 has given us the most fabulous Summer and the beach will be back as soon as the temperature hots up again in 2014, but, like a harvest festival, this evening is a celebration of what we’ve been blessed with and frankly, it should be a hoot.

The second, rather more fitting event is at the Ashmolean. It’s a celebration of a worthy tome entitled The Oxford Times, and they are turning the whole museum into a celebration of the newspaper – there will be a motoring section, a live music section, a theatre discussion and many more distractions.

However, the most interesting is the Classified Ads section, not least because I’m hosting a speed dating event to celebrate it.

We’ve set up the Museum’s Money Gallery as a speed dating room where you can mingle and make contact with other people who have like-minded interests. I keep thinking that the whole dating lark should be ever so easy – oodles of single ladies want to find the right fella and oodles of single chaps are similarly intent, so why don’t they just get on and meet people? What better way to encounter the ‘right type’ in Oxford than in a museum crammed full of beautiful people.

Tests can lead to real respect

It’s said that boat-owners are required to earn the respect of their boats before they can fully get along together and it’s the same sort of thing with a male-female relationship.

I often question whether maybe we’ve all been guilty in the past of putting too many tests in the way of a relationship rather than just letting it happen.

What’s more, as we get older, it seems that an inclination to test just gets more and more embedded within our foundations; that we’re having a perfectly charmed existence, without having to change and adapt to someone else’s behavioural quirks.

This week, after a night sleeping in the shivering cold while the heating stubbornly refused to turn on, Nina the Narrowboat sneered at me as I read and reread the instructions, scratching my head at how simple they seemed, yet complicated in their execution.

She refused to help as I had to remove and replace the battery which started the engine, but once the new battery had been fitted, at around 7am, she held out a hand, gave me a nod of respect and we agreed to be friends.

I’ve agreed that she’s boss, but she’s agreed to let me co-reside, in peace, for the time being...

It has so many echoes in real life and in relationships.

I’m lucky enough to have remained good friends with most of my ex-partners, and many of them have said that the male tendency to impose tests is one of the reasons that a relationship doesn’t work.

My advice to anyone who has found a partner they want to retain is to seize the initiative, to surpass a test that your partner wasn’t even going to set.

I have to say that two partners who I’ve always regretted losing are those who have done something completely unexpected, even silly, for which I have no response but to nod in appreciation. I remember the relationships warmly, not for the months we spent together but for the single stunning thing they did which spoke of their real qualities – one in particular was a particularly delicate flower who trekked through swathes of mud before swimming in the cold waters of a Pembrokeshire river. That was ten years ago, and I still remembered everyone sitting gob-smacked with respect as she did something that none of us had never imagined her doing. Another unfortunate girl ended up engaged to me after just one week, so recurrent were her surprises and so unusual her approach to life – and the most exciting (if painful) rollercoaster six months of my life ensued.

I’m lucky to have always been drawn to females who delight in whimsy, who approach life a little differently and I’ve had some amazing experiences because of it.

It’s so rare for someone to truly do something which astounds you, but we could all do it, so I’d recommend everyone to do something stupid next time they have the opportunity.

Pack a picnic on a rainy day, book a holiday somewhere you’d never envisaged going, buy a skateboard, adopt a weasel, take up the piano, anything in fact that’s completely out of character, but suggests to a partner that there’s still a chasm of stuff that they don’t know about you. It’s sure to make your relationship more exciting, even if they momentarily think you odd.

We have to recognise that the tendency these days is for people to marry the ‘safe pair of hands’, the partner with a reliable job and an adult approach to life, who’ll not do something silly when a sensible decision is required. But each and every one of us has a sneaky desire to spend our time with someone who makes life fun and who augments our own enjoyment of life. I have to say that the tests are exhausting and emotional, but they are ideal ways to ensure you aren’t going to end up with a life of mediocrity.

If a partnership is really meant to work, such as hopefully Nina the Narrowboat and I, then the testing phase will soon pass and you’ll be left with a strong relationship, fully versed in the ups and downs that life will throw at you.