Free Love... From Both Sides (A laugh-out-loud romantic comedy) by Nick Spalding Page A

hope he can see past the attempted murder and bright red crash helmet.
     
    Love and miss you, Mum.
     
    Your tired but happy daughter, Laura.
     
    xx

 
     
     
    Jamie’s Blog
    Tuesday 24 May
     
     
    Today finds Jamie Newman in an astoundingly good mood my web-based friends, for I have had the best night out I’ve experienced in a long time.
    First dates have always been something of a trial for me – even the ones that have resulted in a relationship – but the two hours spent in the company of the lovely Laura McIntyre last night at The Barley Corn pub were far more pleasurable than I expected them to be.
     
    It started, as these things always do, with THE PHONE CALL.
    I’m using capital letters for extra added emphasis to indicate just how important THE PHONE CALL is.
    There are many times when you call a girl during the course of a relationship, but there is only ever one THE PHONE CALL - and it’s always the first one you make.
    This call will determine the rest of your life.
    Those few brief moments you spend speaking into a small electronic device can have ramifications on your future so profound it’s hard to put into words.
    People with beards can bleat on about chaos theory and the ‘butterfly effect’ all they like, but they pale into insignificance alongside the seismic shifts that happen in the universe based on what transpires during THE PHONE CALL.
    The biggest part of the call is establishing whether the young lady in question is still interested in meeting up with you. This is never, ever a certainty.
    Just because she drunkenly scrawled down her number in lipstick on a beer coaster, it doesn’t mean she actually wants anything more to do with you three days later, when she’s sober and watching Eastenders .
    …and just because a woman feels guilty about nearly killing you in the high street and gives you her phone number, it does not automatically mean that she’s got the hots for you.
    Even if you do find out she is interested, you still have the thorny problem of engaging in a conversation with a complete stranger over the phone without saying anything stupid, offensive - or even worse, boring .
    It’s not good enough to simply ask the young lady if she still wants to go out and arrange a time and place before signing off – that’s far too brief and to the point.
    Unlike conversations on the phone with other men, women want you to actually have something of substance to say, to prove that you’re worth the time and effort of getting dressed up for.
    Therefore you must have a topic of conversation prepared ahead of time for THE PHONE CALL.
    Nothing that’ll take an hour to get through (don’t start telling her all about your hopes and dreams for the future, or your opinions on climate change) but something that will engage her interest for a good five minutes, and will make you sound like a charming, upstanding individual.
    Avoid mentioning sex, football, cars, your personal hygiene or your mother and you should be fine.
     
    With Laura I elect to ask her if her friend’s child enjoyed the doll’s house she’d battered me with. This shows that I listened properly to her explanation for why she nearly killed me with the bloody thing and demonstrates an interest in something Laura clearly felt was important to her.
    In reality, I couldn’t give a shit if the kid had taken one look at the house and vomited into the chimney stack, but this is the type of bullshit you have to engage with if you’re going to secure yourself a date.
     
    …which I did, I’m happy to say!
     
    THE PHONE CALL went fine and we chatted amiably for a good ten minutes.
    The girl did like the doll’s house it transpires.
    I made the appropriate sympathetic noises when Laura described the nasty graze she’d got on her knee because of the crash, and she was pleased when I told her I had no lasting effects from my fall onto the concrete. I assume this was out of a genuine concern for my health, rather than a