The Philanderer

(Belatedly, apologetically) from yesterday’s Times:-

Is it flattering to be being chased by a philanderer?

I suppose that philanderers are attracted to even more women than are your average fellows and so are, by definition, less discriminating.  But when a leading philanderer turns his attentions a plankton’s way, it is hard for her not to feel a wee frisson of, well, pleasure, I guess.  Still a player after all!  What I cannot decide is whether it is more, or less, flattering to inspire the interest of a philanderer as opposed to any other type of man?

More, maybe, because he sleeps with many beautiful women and is supposing to count you amongst them; less, probably, because you are destined to become just one more notch blended on a bedpost with more notches across it than a dungeon wall carved by lifers ticking off eternal hours.

I don’t know, but one thing that can be said for the Philanderer is that he doesn’t muck about.  He gets in touch within hours of meeting you and when you respond he doesn’t disappear for good into the bloody undergrowth like a nocturnal woodland animal.  He replies and suggests meeting forthwith and makes his intentions as good as abundantly clear.  None of the tedious dissembling and mixed messages and emotional palaver gone in for by the ludicrous Smidgens and Surprise Twinkles and Long Shots of this world.  Straight down the line.  Notably refreshing and beguiling.

But dangerous.  Potentially properly dangerous.

Have some fun, for God’s sake, everyone tells me, “Unless,” one friend laughs, “you no longer have a fun gene?”  I promise I do.  I do!  And yet, is it seemly at my age?  And he is a famous shit.

“No, he’s not,” another girlfriend reassures me, “because he makes it absolutely clear from the outset where you stand.”

Well, that’s something I suppose.  Though it is a pretty grotty choice the plankton faces: the emotional incompetents who reside on some weird spectrum which would seem to preclude grown-up relations with women, versus the well-balanced, straight-forward shits so suave they can schmooze any number of vulnerable gullibles into bed just because they have grasped the crudest basics of communication.

The Self-Preservation Department has issued a warning to proceed with All Due Diligence and I agree I could probably do without the fall-out head destruction which, though not inevitable, could be said to be fairly likely. On the other hand, the Have Fun Brigade has delivered a statement to the tune of Bring it On, What are you waiting for?  And part of me thinks, yeah, right, what?

But the jury is still out.

Watch this space.  Which at the Philanderer’s rate, mightn’t be all that long.