Saturday night's alright I suppose

This Saturday night is dinner party night at the England Project household. It happens less often than I would like and I like it less often than I usually imagine I would. Mainly because of the pain I tend to feel the next day.

Now, normally the dinner guests are all women and unreservedly so which is simply the way my life seems to have turned out. For one reason or another I have always preferred the company of women and, without intending to, most of the dinner party set that me and Mrs. England Project have gathered around us for use within our own home are of that persuasion. Not all of them mind as I have continued to cultivate friendships with a few select men, mostly those I grew quite fond of at University and once and a while they are included at our table but this is not a common occurrence.

I think this joyful overrepresentation of women at our table is down to a number of factors. Mostly because Mrs. England Project is popular with her lady friends but from my perspective it is because I tend to enjoy conversing with women far more than I do with men, I enjoy looking at women more than I do men and, frankly, I tend to find them far more interesting than men. Am I a girly man? Yes, yes I am, but not in a girly way I would like to think.

Well, imagine my surprise when I discovered that one of our sweet, sweet guests was bringing along a friend and that this friend was in fact her new boyfriend. Not just any old boyfriend but one that I happen to know in an occasional mutual drunken event kind of a way.

He’s a charmer, far more intelligent than he lets on, quite wealthy and quite humorous so I should be welcoming his inclusion. But welcoming as I will be, and as good a host as I am sure I will turn out to be I can’t help thinking of him as, well, contamination.