Saturday 20 June 2009

I've just got home from a one-day writing course. Like every course I've been on, from Stop Smoking to Salsa, the women far outnumbered the men - 17 to 4 in this case.

Women: if you're thinking of enroling on a course purely in order to meet a possible partner, don't - unless you're a lesbian, in which case you may have some luck.

Men: if you want an opportunity to meet lots of women, without minimal competition from other men, join 4 or 5 evening classes. You're chances of success are much greater than hanging about in bars - though don't expect a shag after the first class. Plus you never know, you might even learn something at the same time.

The course turned out not to be particularly inspiring. However, my fellow course-mates were an interesting bunch and two in particular caught my eye.

First, there was a tall, slim, grey-haired woman, in her early 50s at a guess. She was wearing jeans and a vest top. After looking at her for a while it struck me that she had no bust. I thought maybe she was bra-less (an unwise move for anyone over 30) so looked for them further down towards her waist. They weren't there either. She actually had no breasts. This meant she'd either had a double masectomy or been born without any. Whichever, it was obviously not a problem for her as far from trying to disguise the fact, she'd worn clothing more likely to draw attention to it.
Good for her, though my morbid curiosity kept wondering what had happened.

The second person to catch my attention was also a woman in her 50's. She looked like Elizabeth Taylor, but not in a good way. She was very short with wild, back-combed hair, dyed a dark brown. Bright blue eyeshadow, heavily-mascaraed false eyelashes and scarlet lips and nails fought for attention with her leopard print dress and patterned lace tights. She was American and when she spoke she had a gruff drawl not unlike Joan Rivers. She claimed to be a psychologist by profession but I wondered who in their right mind would go to her for treatment.

I might try a Human Behaviour couse next.