The Drought (The hilarious laugh-out loud comedy about dating disasters!) by Steven Scaffardi

Katie had
told Rob the whole story. She even told him things I couldn’t
remember. At one point I had apparently spotted someone taking the
piss out of my dancing and had engaged in a heated exchange with
them, only to realise it was my reflection in the mirror.
    So in the aftermath of what had
been the worst period of my love life to date, the last thing I
needed was Valentine’s Day. I really didn’t want to go out. The
thought of spending an evening being reminded that everyone else
was getting some did not really appeal to me in the slightest. But
I’d promised Ollie I would meet him for beers. Rob had a date with
Katie, while Jack was taking Anna out for a meal. Ollie had as many
options as I did for Valentine’s Day and had nagged me to meet him
for a drink as he reasoned that alcohol was better than any
woman.
    I was meeting Ollie in a pub in
Wimbledon called the Three Crowns. Unlike the dozens of trendy wine
bars and gastro pubs that had cropped up in the town over the last
10 years, this was more of your traditional English pub. It was in
desperate need of a paint job, with black and white photos on the
wall capturing images of life in Wimbledon a century ago. It sold
proper ale on tap rather than stocking the shelves with fancy
coloured bottles of alcopops. I was confident this was just the
place where we would not be exposed to countless romantic couples
out celebrating their love for each other. Ollie was already at the
bar when I walked in, nursing a pint, and pretending to text
someone so people wouldn’t think he was on his own.
    “ What time do
you call this?” Ollie asked as we exchanged handshakes. I winced as
he crushed my hand as he always did, not realising his own
strength.
    “ Sorry, mate,”
I yanked my hand away. “Got here as quick as I could.” He already
had a pint waiting for me. “So how’s work?” I asked taking that
first satisfying gulp of the evening.
    “ Not bad, you
know how it is,” Ollie said, pretty much summing up his life as a
postman. I nodded at him and raised my glass back to my mouth. I
glanced around the pub as the silence between us grew in the air.
We both knew what the other was thinking but neither one of us
wanted to say it. Here we were, two single guys out on Valentine’s
Day. Together. It didn’t get any sadder than that. We were on a man
date. It was a sorry state of affairs. I was about to ask Ollie
whether he delivered his own mail, but luckily he had a much more
interesting topic of conversation.
    “ I’ve been
shagging this housewife lately,” he said with a big grin. “She’s a
right Milf.”
    This was more like it. “How did
that start?” I enquired, quite excited.
    “ You know how
it goes, mate. I start by slipping the post through the letterbox,
and then I move on to slipping her one.”
    And it didn’t really need any
more of an explanation than that. As men, we didn’t need to examine
everything with a fine-tooth comb. No need for the little details.
Ollie was shagging an older woman. That was all we needed. I raised
my glass to him on a job well done.
    Obviously, that is a complete
lie. He told me some disgusting stories about what he had been
doing to this poor, lonely housewife. A gentleman never tells, but
we were far from being gentlemen.
    Ollie’s
revelation opened up the door to our first topic of conversation
for the evening – women. Cars and football would come later. We
turned our lack of female companionship on the most romantic day of
the year by engaging ourselves in a bit of women bashing. It
wasn’t our fault
we didn’t have dates tonight. We didn’t even want a date. Moaning
about women made us feel much better about our own inadequacies of
not being able to actually find one.
    “ Why do girls
insist on chatting continuously when you’re watching the footy, but
as soon as the adverts come on they shut up?” I said.
    “ Yeah, that is
what the adverts are there for. That is their chance to speak,
otherwise,