Flirting with Disaster

It's something we perfect from the time we are wee ones...or not. Some folks have the natural gift of charm and some struggle to keep the interest of a Jehovah’s Witness knocking on their door. Flirting is a harmless way for coupled off people to keep boredom at bay and a safe route for singletons to test the waters.

Last night as the evening wound down at a gallery event in London sprinkled with celebs and sponsored by my company; my boss, a colleague and I ducked to the champagne bar to sneak a quick glass of bubbly and toast the colleague's engagement. Glasses mid air, lips pursed to sip, we all three stopped mid way to ogle an amazing specimen of a man who was currently being photographed on the step and repeat. Visibly shaken the 3 of us, in unison said....who is that? Well it was more like WHO! IS! THAT!?. Never mind that he had an unearthly looking woman on his arm, we saw nothing but him. After completing the toast and investigating a bit we came to find out he was the new face of a top European designer.

About 20 minutes later and glass or so of champers later we stumbled upon him (sans ethereal female beauty) somewhere between the nude magazine covers of stars and the portraits of blue stockings. My boss (happily married) struck up a conversation with said hunk while colleague (newly engaged) and I looked on. None of us are sure how this happened, but somehow talk of "the industry" commenced. Now, let's be clear, when I say "the industry" I don't mean PR or IT which is what the 3 of us are comfortable in our knowledge of. No, when I say "the industry" I mean the modelling industry. Colleague and I pretty much stood there staring at the man, while our boss nodded in agreement about commonly held notions and the perils of being beautiful. In order to wrap up the conversation, my boss said we would see him later at the "exclusive" party that was meant to follow the gallery event. Gorgeous didn't know where it was so my boss deferred to me. I explained where it was and as we signalled our departure, I blurted out, Thank You. Thank you? What?

We walked away and my boss conceded that the entire conversation had been for my benefit. We also all agreed that the entire time she had been talking to him none of us actually heard what was coming out of his mouth. We were so lost in his appearance we couldn't even hear what he was saying. Everyone did, however, catch my THANK YOU! at the end. Shame. Just when the artful skill that has taken me years to perfect and is usually very useful could have come in the most handy, I failed miserably.

Probably for the best. I'm sure I would get tired of his chiselled torso, dreamy eyes and amazing cheekbones. Well, I say tired, but really what I mean is I would feel fat and ugly every day I woke up next to him. He would always feel intellectually inferior to me and between our travel schedules we would never see one another. Best that no one got hurt.