Greetings, bonjour, what’s happening
Welcome to Lager Time, my name is Paul Cree, this is my lager verse, where I share bits of writing, music and the occasional on thoughts on things.
Once again, this week I’m away from my home setup in Kent, been up in London last few days so please forgive the recording quality on this here intro – I’d pre-recorded the story on Monday so iy should be up to the usual standard.
I was up in a studio this week, in Wood Greem, recording a voice-over reel; had to read a few adverts, scripts from computer games, and a kids adventure documentary. I’ve been slowly trying to branch out into doing voice-over work for a while, and this was the next step along that road. I enjoyed it. I was always like being in a studio environment; I guess I like being in places where I know a lot of creative-type stuff gets done, I find it exciting.
I had some actual lager time with a good mate of mine; large up Rukuz T, despite the £7.10 pints in some spot in Kings Cross; it was good to see him.
I’m also back on duty with the project I co-lead with Dream Arts; who are an arts-outreach charity who work in Westminster. We’re in the early stages of putting a new show together for next year; hot on the heels of the Big House show, which ran this summer.
My little dog Freya is currently jumping on my legs, so before she breaks my laptop, I’ll introduce the next Young Unprofessional story, episode 4. Reece has taken the advice off his mate, Stuart and is trying his luck meeting some females on mid-2000’s all-in-one sight Gumtree. I’ve called it Melt-Tree
Enjoy
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Have a banging weekend
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Peas and taters
Paul
If you’re able to, these are some ways you can support my work
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Young UnProfessional EP 4 – MeltTree
There’s often a vast chasm between my what my imagination is thinking, and what I think is my reasoned, inner voice; a little bit like what Politicians think needs doing, and what the rest of us actually think. Put it this way, my reasoned inner-voice is a miserable prick, and my imagination is a raver, pilled-up, out of his face, in a never-ending hands-in-the-air trance breakdown.
I took that dickhead’s Stuart Simmons advice and started looking on the dating section of that Gumtree website. Worth noting that there was a part of me that was disgusted by this. Isn’t this what desperate nerds and weirdos do? And Nonces? The internet. Then the reasoned voice reminded me that I arguably am a desperate, weird, nerd; definitely not a nonce, though, but certainly a bit neurotic, with a pitiful relationship track-record. Even if my ego thinks I’m way cooler than that, I mean, look at my trainers, mate, geeks can’t pull these off? And they wouldn’t have the vision to see that sexy multi-coloured pair of Air Max and then have the carelessness to slap that straight on the credit card, and not think about it until months later. They’d rather buy a pair of 80% off Karimor’s from Sports Direct, and invest the rest in a high interest savings account. Mugs
And then there’s how my imagination takes to the dating section of Gumtree. Every chick’s profile I like the look of, it creates Oscar-winning romance scenes with me and whatever lucky-lady I’d conjured up in that particular scenario; because you don’t always see their pictures. What was always consistent in those imagined, quite ridiculous and lucid moments, was how those lucky females always discovered, to their sheer delight, how deeply profound, misunderstand, scared yet resilient, yet gentle, poetic, handsome and talented I was. And of course, how was it, that I’d been single for so long? I was a mystery? And why wasn’t there a que of beautiful, intelligent and cool women with sick trainers and a laid-back attitude bashing my door down? Or maybe there was, but I’d chosen them; making them feel so special.
So whilst my imagination was having the time of his life, chewing his face off, no longer even listening to the music blaring-out for the DJ, probably sweating in a corner somewhere; me and the reasoned voice got down to business; punching me in my stomach and telling me to liven-up. First off: accepting that dating is actually a thing, and second, that I no idea what I was doing, and getting females to respond on this website was as hard, possibly even harder, than trying to approach girls the old school way; or the only way I know anyway, getting smashed and trying to talk or dance with them at the bar, or in a pub; very low rates of success.
I think I messaged nine, maybe ten girls, all carefully selected, took ages, and I spent a good hour or so crafting messages to each one of them, trying to show them how much better I was than all the other wrong-uns sending pictures of their dicks; or worse, pictures of them from their travelling round Asia and volunteering-in-an-orphanage days, wearing beads with overgrown barnets.
I got precisely zero replies. Reason told me this was because I’m a useless cunt, regardless of how sick my trainers are. Or maybe that’s just what Gary said; after I told him what I was doing. He also called me a nonce, just because I mentioned the internet. Then He started calling me Melt Tree after that, especially when I told him Stuart had put me onto it.
But then one day, a couple of weeks ago, I get home from work, do what I do, and at some point, I nonchalantly switched the lappy on. Log in to Gumtree, expecting to see nothing in the inbox, yet, my screen is different, it’s telling me, ‘You have one unread message’ – Shit. I’ve got a message, mate.
Reason starts telling me it’s one of the lads pranking me, or it’s some spam shit trying to get me to send money to a pretend princess somewhere far away, or it’s my bank telling me something banal like a change in their terms and conditions, or some unpaid fines, or it’s Stuart Simmons wanting his copy of Spiderman back on the PS1. But I can’t deny it, I’m excited and a bit nervous. But I just look at it. ‘You have one unread message.’
Thing is, when I read it, it won’t be unread anymore and then I’ll be back to having zero unread messages. So maybe I just leave it as unread. Maybe that’s what this is, maybe that’s what the whole game is, mate. It’s not about meeting the love of your life, it’s just getting the dopamine hit from getting that one message. But then, what about all those people that get bare messages? Surely they can’t all be getting that same dopamine hit, every time? Especially if it’s like what my sister Siobhan was telling me, loads of sex-pests sending pictures of their wangers. My imagination can’t hack it, though, it needs something to feed off before it spins itself up into the stratosphere; hands in the eye and eyes rolling to the back of my head; reaching for the lazers. I had to open it.
‘Hi Reece, this is Alice. Thanks for your message, you clearly like writing! Lol, how’s your week been, lol?’
I vaguely remember messaging this chick. By time I did, I think I’d lost the patience for the meticulous research I was attempting to conduct; ie, reading through their profiles and trying to make an informed decision whether to message them or not; and how best to craft said response. Must’ve been late at night or something. She had no pictures on her profile, not much to go on; I think I thought she had a sense of humour, though, I can’t remember why maybe something that was written in her profile. Either way I still constructed a message.
LOL. Laugh out loud. Was she laughing out loud at me? Or with me? I don’t remember cracking any gags in there?! Maybe she was responding to the length of my message, it was only five paragraphs, or was it six? Is she taking the piss out of me? Is this one of those situations where she’s sat with two of her mates, sending teasing -messages to random geezers, for their own amusement? On some flipping Baise-moi internet-man-shaming-rampage? They want to humiliate a geezer, just because they can? Like what those girls did when I was at college; with that Becca girl, that never existed?! Telling me she fancied me; kept me going for months. Why would they do that?? Is there a word for women that hate men? Is this Alice one of them?
Alice, Alice, who the fuck is Alice? Who are you Alice, reveal yourself. But then, that reasoned prick said something reasonable: she did message me back, and asked me a question, an innocuous one but possibly curious one, does that mean she’s interested? Maybe she’s just testing the water? Seeing what I’m like? But they say chicks just know, and they choose you, don’t they? She wants to marry me, mate. I hope she’s fit.
So later that night, after typing, then re-typing, then going old-school, and pulling out a notepad and then writing, and then re-writing, and then transferring that writing back to the keyboard, and then typing, and then re-typing, into Microsoft Paint and then copying and pasting that into Gum Tree, and then editing, and re-editing; I finally hit send.
‘Hi Alice, nice to hear from you, my week’s been good, thanks, tiring, working at a boring job, lol, actually it’s not that funny, but there you go. How’s your week been?’
I felt even if she was genuinely interested, she was probably mugging me off a bit for writing a long message; I felt embarrassed, but couldn’t pass up the opportunity, so I kept it simple. And then two days later: You have one unread message in your inbox. Oh shit.
‘Hi Reece, yep, busy too, I’m a primary school teacher, so always busy! Lol. A little less words this time? You haven’t run out of things to say, already? What’s so boring about your job, then? You seem to have a sense of humour, I like that’
This was great. But kinda nerve-racking. I was in uncharted territory. I had to handle my next reply delicately, like doing the four-pint-carry in a busy pub. Messaged her back pretty swift this time.
‘Hi Alice. So you work at a primary school? How’s that? My cousin is a teacher; I live in her flat. I see her marking books all the time, stressed looks like a tough job, but a good one, I guess? What age do you teach? I hope you’re not marking my work? Lol. Sorry for my short message, I think I was compensating for the long message previously. It’s a bit like commuter trains. Direct ones and stopping ones. I work for an insurance company, doing clerical stuff, which is basically typing details into a system and checking to see if people are genuine. Just typing that, in and of itself, is very boring. I’ll spare you the even more boring details, involving the claims assessment criteria flowchart; unless that’s the kind of thing you’re into? The people in the office are nice enough, though; I work in Westminster and live in Streatham. Where abouts do you work then?’
I was a bit more ambitious this time; asking her where she worked, as opposed to where she lived. I didn’t want to seem to intrusive, not at this satge. She’d mentioned her job, right? So that was ok to ask, right? But then again, if I was one of these internet wrong ‘uns, isn’t that what they do? Turn up at your workplace? I didn’t need to know the exact co-ordinates, just a rough location, that’s all. Oh shit. I thought I’d blown it already. Reasoned voiced was shaking his head, imagination had me in jail on the sex-offenders wing; protesting my innocence to the nonce-bashers. I’d probably fucked it, already!
‘You have one new message.’
Shit, less than 24 hours.
‘Hi Reece; great to know you have a bit of sympathy for teachers. Most people just assume it’s an easy job with all the holidays etc (which don’t get me wrong, are great) but yes it’s very stressful. It’s 11.30pm and I’ve only just finished my lesson plans for tommorow and I’ve still got marking left to do; your cousin will know! I love the kids though, they’re great. I teach year 3’s, my class are lovely, and oh it’s in West London, near Notting Hill, you know it? So if you don’t like your job, what do you like?’
My imagination had been set-free from the nonce wing, with a pardon, a massive compensation package and a private jet with a literal boat-load of Charlie, this going really good, she actually seems quite cool; I read the message two or three times before I started to type a reply. But just as I was responding, in real-time, I see my inbox, you have one unread message.
It’s from a girl called Jessica, what’s going on? Who’s Jessica. Suddenly I’m a fanny-magnet. Must be the trainers.
‘Hi Reece, are you sexy man?’
Along with this message was four pictures of this Brazilian looking chick, on a sandy exotic beach, with big cans and bum, posing, provocatively, in a very skimpy bikini. These must’ve been from her travelling and volunteering-in-an-orphanage days.
I immediately abandoned my reply to Alice and started frantically constructing a reply to Jessica; imagination not only up in space, but pornographic, like Flesh Gordon, that seventies spoof version of Flash Gordon we used to watch round Big Del’s house; I think it was his dad’s.
I’d already forgotten about Alice, Alice, who the fuck is Alice? But then I stopped, and that reasoned voice kicks in to ring the doorbell just as you’ve sat down to have a shit; reminding me that I never messaged this Jessica chick, and the likelihood of this being genuine, was about as likely as me, seeing a chick who looked like this supposed Jessica girl, approaching her in a bar and successfully starting a conversation. And what type of chick, looking like that, just messages a geezer and asks me if I’m sexy? I mean, I am, but that’s besides the point.
Jessica then sent another message, then another, then another, all demanding to know why I had not replied to her; one after the other. The last two were all in block capitols with a number of grammatical errors, very slap-dash; like any piece of homework I ever did. This was all in the space of about fifteen minutes. She was very demanding, too demanding for a neoteric-yet-laid-back creative-type like me with sick trainers, she’d probably insist I wore loafers all the time or something; so I decided to stick with Alice. Lucky Alice. Sorry Jessica.
‘Hi Alice, I was meaning to message earlier but I got distracted. Sounds like you work very hard; I’m sure the kids in your class apricate you, or, I at least hope they do. Tanya (my cousin) tells me that half the stress these days is dealing with the parents? Sounds like there’s some horrible ones out there. Yes I know Notting Hill, sort of ties in to your other question about what I like doing. I love music, I go to the carnival most years. Hip Hop, jungle, dubstep I love all that bassey stuff, but I like other types too. Rock, even some Irish folk. I like to DJ sometimes and I make beats. Do you like music too?’
I wanted to meet this Alice girl, now. She seems cool, and I could feel it veering towards that bit when the relationship, if this is a relationship, it’s a relationship of sorts, I guess, takes that next step. Which in this case, would be seeing a picture of her and meeting up for a drink or a date, as that prick Stuart Simmons and American sitcom people would call it. I could feel it looming, a bit of a dark-cloud, as I’d been in this situation in real-life, on a number of occasions but could rarely ever close the deal, without it wanting to sound like a salesman, trying to sell a product. How do I even go about it? How do you say this stuff without sounding like a pervert, or too pushy, or too manipulative? But then reasoned voice kicked in again, like a shove to the shoulder, as I’d just revealed a bit about myself, and kinda lied a bit, or exaggerated, about DJing and making beats. I’d done a little bit of both, at Rickey’s when he was too stoned to do it himself. She might think, oh music kid, then I must be a flipping waster; I’ve revealed I’m in a dead end job. One of them skint, music-blagger-types. The worst kind of music head’ which was totally me.
You have one Read one-unread message!
Hi Reece. If you’ve been to the carnival, you would’ve walked right near my school. Do you know Trellick Tower? It’s near there. Lots of my kids have families involved in the carnival. Bit too crazy for me, I went a few times and was quite scard at points; I enjoyed it, though. Yea, I like music, probably not a massive fan like you, I like to have radio 1 on when I’m marking books? Does that make me uncool? I don’t know, lol. I’m a more of a sports gal; I play netball and run, but I also like to let my hair down over a glass of wine. So are you going to send me a picture of yourself? So I can see who this music-maestro is?’
Oh shit. She’d moved it on. This was going somewhere. Imagination already had us married with kids! But reasoned voice was telling me if she was this safe, in real life, she was probably a munter, or she really was buff, but not all impressed with me. It was driving me mad. Also, I didn’t have many pictures of me, at least not digital ones. Had an album full of inappropriate snaps from when me and the boys went to Cypress that time; the only vaguely suitable one being me sat on a balcony, sunburnt, eating a massive bag of Lays crips; but even then there were still loads of empty beer bottles and a jazz mag on the floor around me.
But then I remembered, I had a cd with some pictures on, that my sister Siobhan gave me, of Tanya’s wedding a few years back, someone must’ve had a digital camera. There was none of me just on my own, though. So I figured out I could open a picture in Microsoft Paint and then cut me out of it; it was well rough but I least I had a whistle on, it was gonna have to do; it was all I had. I realised this was now or never. And with reasoned-voice telling me this was probably over, and she was probably rough anyway, and imagination having us doing Ok Magazine shoots with our Twin children by the open fireplace, I at least had to try and ask her to meet me for a drink. Had to at least try and push beyond the comfort blanket of niceties in the conversation; where I’d rarely ever past.
Hi Alice, here’s a picture of me. Sorry I don’t have many in digital form, I know it’s a bit rough, but it’s from my cousins wedding (the teacher) a few years ago.
‘I hope this is not too forward, but you seem really cool, would you be up for going for a drink somewhere in town?’
I sent, then waited.
You have zero messages in your inbox.
I wanted an immediate reply, but was realistic. One day, nothing, two days, still nothing then after three days, I was loosing hope, four I was disappointed, then on the fifth I hated her. By the sixth I was humiliated, yet no longer hated her. I just analysed every message I sent her with the scrutiny of a Sky Sports premier league pundit, ripping apart the back-line, but ultimately, I was humiliated; again, havaing flashbacks to college with that mythical Becca bird. At least non one else know about this one, By the seventh day, I’d reverted back to a more general level of self-loathing; normal serbice resumed. Then I get home, on that day.
You have one unread message
Hi Reece, sorry it’s taken me ages to reply! We’ve had the internet cut off in my house (long story, lol) – my school internet won’t allow me to access Gumtree. I’m currently in an internet-café in Ladbrooke Grove (like my old student days!) trying to get this picture to upload! – hope you like it and yes, I’d like to go for a drink with you, maybe you can teach me about music, lol! Send me your number.
Alice xx
P.S Yes your picture was a bit rough indeed, clearly graphic design is not in your skillset, lol! But from what I can tell, you’re a not a bad looking chap, lol!’
I just stared at it. There was so much to unpack, so many questions. Didn’t even know where to start. But I was ecstatic. And confused. Shit, I’d got to the next level, this was maybe the coolest chick ever. I opened her photo, and she looked alright. Nothing special, but alrite. White chick, mouse brown hair, should-length, glasses, slim lips. Can’t say I fancied her straight away, but I can’t say was ugly. She looked like the sort of chick I’d imagine seeing in an orphanage, volunteering somewhere, but to her credit, she had a sense of humour, and she had a degree, which suggested some sort of intelligence, and I was holding onto that. She was alite, and I’m sure she was thinking the same thing about me. Nothing special. The meeting of the mediocrities; it was meant to be.
So between my cynical inner-rationale and my out of-control imagination; they were both wrong. Not even close. But then, as they both protested, I hadn’t met the chick; so I guess that was the next bit. This whole process was long, like the preliminary rounds for the FA cup; I’d made it to round 1 and I was knackered already. But I was in the draw, and the road to Wembley is long; especially for a lower-league, probably part-time outfit like me. But I was in the game, mate, and I had sick trainers in my arsenal, and for once, I could see between those two polar parts of me; both spinning their own convoluted webs. I brushed them aside, couldn’t see anything in front of me, but I guess that was the truth of it. Didn’t matter, though, I was in my twenties, in London, and going on a date. For a self-loathing cunt like me, I was doing aright. This might’ve been the best day of my life.
‘Hi Alice, no worries on the internet front. Sounds like a nightmare, thanks for taking the trouble to go to an internet café. You look great. Is next Thursday good for you? Could meet in Central London somewhere? Or I could come to Notting Hil?, I don’t mind. Here’s my number, Reece’
‘Hi Reece, yea Thursday is good for me. There’s a Be at 1 bar in Holborn, which does yummy cocktails, if you like those?
Here’s my number
Alice
‘Hi Alice, yea, sounds great, I’ll send you a text. Looking forward to it, Reece.’
Young UnProfessional Ep 4