Re-reading the passages that I have written so far, it is becoming clear that as a younger man I suffered some sort of complex regarding the fairer sex. Indeed, one might easily argue that this is a complex which has survived to this day. (Just ask my wife!) Part of this must be due to the fact that I attended an all boys school. Another reason must be that I was the youngest in the family and was, naturally, protected like the most precious, precious of jewells.
The rest can be accounted for by the fact that while growing-up, I was a bit of a twat!
There was a strong tradition of debating in our school. On certain Friday nights the school theatre would fill with the high pitched voices of girls. We never debated against boys schools; we never talked to the girls in attendance. Given the choice of delivering a speach to an hormonal audience of sixteen year olds or speaking directly to a small group of girls, one always chose the easier option of addressing the crowd. At least when one addressed a crowd, the speech was prepared and there was always a natural finishing point.
I can not descirbe here the buzz of excitement that existed in the school on the day of the debates. Those in the know (the guys who had talked to girls, claimed to have girlfriends or who simply used hair-gel) would start the day by feigning disinterest. They would casually mention a few names of girls they knew from the visiting school while laughing at the thought of attending the debate. The cool girls didn't debate, they told us, and for some reason we believed them. A lot of the cools were rugby players. Girls liked them. They had cauliflower ears and liked rolling around in the mud on cold wet wintery days. These were very manly things to do and girls liked that. That's what they told us, and who were we to argue; they were, after all, much, much bigger than we were.
By lunchtime the excitement had reached fever pitch. The cools were slowly deciding to go because she was going and she was gorgeous. She liked rugby players with brains and it was a well known fact that anyone attending a debate had brains. She also had a special interest in the night's motion 'That this house would send all men back to Mars'. Yes indeed, she was a tough nut to crack but it could be done, they reckoned, so they agreed to go to the debate en masse. The rest of us were the lucky ones. We got to watch the cools at work. There was absolutely no doubt that the cools would crack the case and another young lady would be initiated into the society of Rugby Players with Girlfriends.
The reality of course was much different. As the hour approached, she was nowhere to be seen. The cools were suddenly at a loss regarding what to do with themselves. Here they were, cool but at a debate, which was totally uncool and yet, if they walked out, they would look even more uncool. While the rest of us cast a cold eye over the young ladies who had been nice enough to attend the debate on time, the cools walked in and out of the hall repeatedly to make sure that they had been seen by all. By the time the debate started, they had positioned themselves along the back row nearest the door. The plan being the same as it was for every debate; stay long enough to be noticed but leave early enough to be cool.
The lights would dim, the chairperson would call for order, insult a friend and get the debate going. One by one the speakers rose to pasionately argue their case. They engaged each other in rousing points of order and eyed each other up in a manner that suggested that the debate would not end at the bell. Time whispered by among the audience and the surrounding darkness highlighted those who filled our world with reasoned rhetoric.
Oblivious to arguement, the time neared for those with the hair gel to leave. One by one their seats whispered relief at their departure and with the determination of cat stalking it's prey they manoevred their way down some steps to the door. With one final look to the crowd, they shoved open the door exited.
That was when she walked in.
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