Back in the day

Flatmate C has been going on a lot of internet dates lately. Around two a week seems to be her average, some good, some average, none truly appalling yet. She's trying to convince me to get involved, telling me that it's fun. It offered a good excuse for some shopping on the weekend - I didn't have any date clothes before, but I do now. All I need is to find the date.

Part of her argument was a discussion about how impossible it is to meet a guy these days. We sounded just like our parents must have sounded when we first started going out to pubs, clubs and bars, saying that it was no way to meet someone. I conveniently ignored my friends who met their now husbands in just that way. But the nostalgia did get me going as I remembered what it was like when I had just turned 18, in the days before you could slip a mobile phone in your pocket, and when you had to pay cash at the bar or go thirsty.

Back in the dark ages - the late nineties, at any rate - I owned a mobile phone, but it was too big to fit into the tiny bags we all carried. And the outfits we wore out to the local bar, involving a short skirt, strappy shoes and a nice t-shirt, didn't exactly allow for stashing anything in pockets. A big night out with the girls was the only time I ever carried a bag, though. And not once did I ever pile it on top of my friends bags as we danced around it. In fact, I have vivid memories of laughing at the people who did that; they were old, they had to be almost thirty, what were they doing still going out? Now, of course, I understand more.

It was pretty much a given that by the end of the night, at least one of us would have caught the eye of some eligible hottie (in pub lighting, on a dance floor or propped ever-so-coolly against the bar, they all looked hot). And so a ritual would commence. After chatting for a while, friends would decide it was time to go and numbers would be exchanged. It was far more involved then, of course. We couldn't just whip out mobile phones and dial each other's number. We could give false numbers without fear of caller ID dobbing us in. But in order to do the deed at all, we required pen and paper. Somewhere at home there is a box of torn off scraps of paper, coasters, any available writing surface, with a boy's name scrawled above a number. Some of them don't even start with the '0' of a mobile number. And if he was hassling you, or you decided you didn't want to see him again, the number you wrote down for him was a digit or two off what your real number was. Or, like Elaine from Seinfeld, you spelled out things. Elaine's spelt "no Elaine" - I always wanted something like that, but the best I could come up with was switching the zeroes for sixes, and changing my name. Somewhere out there are some guys who think they met a girl called Katie. A few more think they met Anna.

It was a simpler time, in some ways, but I wouldn't be without caller ID or my mobile phone, or even email, for all that. The ability to screen is too precious!