Don't Forget the Basics

This was in Piccadilly Circus, at a time when I enjoyed taking long lunch breaks from work: I would come here by Tube from Baker Street to grab a salad. Wholefoods had a nice terrace outside in a pedestrian street, very pleasant on a crisp sunny day.

While eating I saw a girl sitting a few tables in front of me. I got up to talk to her and after some short conversation she invited me to join her. The conversation went around books. This was the time when every girl in London was reading Fifty Shades of Grey, which makes for great conversation: it was an opportunity to tease because girls would always say something around the lines of “Oh my friend told me it was amazing so she lent it to me. I’ve only read a few chapters so far.” They would never say “I bought it myself, read it three times and it makes me dripping-wet horny every time.”, which is word for word what an honest Filipina friend once told me.

I could not stay for too long so I suggested a risky move: set up a date later in the evening after work without taking the phone number.

“Let’s meet at 6.30pm at Kahve Dünyasi.”

I used to like this Turkish coffee shop for a date because it was comfortable, a bit exotic and much more original than Costa. They have this interesting Turkish hot milk that takes ages to cool down. Their chocolate cake is terrible though, stay away.

Setting a date without taking her number was risky. But she turned up more or less on time and we had our coffee. Good conversation, good vibe. After a while I walked her back to her bus stop. We talked some more, let one or two buses pass and agreed to see each other again during the week. Then she got into her bus.

After the bus doors closed I realised one missing logistical detail: I still didn’t have her number. The bus had gone, too late.