Read these tips from Ged and Lauchlan if you ever want to have sex again
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I spent most of Thursday afternoon in the waiting-room of a fertility clinic in Bondi Junction. There’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back, but I suppose I was honored to be asked. Honored and a little surprised. I’d always imagined that, when a bloke makes an appointment to wank into a test-tube and talk about his sex-life, he does it with his partner, or maybe alone. Michael has asked me and Lauchlan along. I find this quite cute in a burly, hard-as-nails kitchen-fitter kind of way, but Lauchlan just finds it weird. He rang me in a panic about it last week.
“Why us?” he says. “It’s not like we might have to be, you know, back-up in case he’s firing blanks or anything?”
I ask Lauchie how his new girlfriend Annia is.
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I point out to Lauchlan that what he and I have in common is that we’re not tied to an office during the week. I obviously sound more confident than I feel, because Lauchie calms down and says oh yeah, well fine then, no problem, of course. So Thursday arvo, there the three of us are, sitting in awkward silence on a bolted row of plastic seats. There’s no-one else in the sterile (geddit?) waiting-room except, behind the counter, a pouting receptionist with frameless glasses and mouth like a dog’s bum. Just for something to say, I ask Lauchie how his new girlfriend Annia is. (‘Dead’ is the answer I’m looking for – we don’t exactly get along).
“Great” he says. “It’s all going great. I’m in love, fellas. Really great. And she’s so…”
“Great?”
“Yeah! But you what’s also great? Not being single. I shouldn’t say this because it makes it sound like it’s not about her – which it is, she’s so great – but it’s, like, when you eventually buy your first home and you don’t have to spend every weekend looking at all these horrible places you don’t want to live in any more.”
I’m somewhat taken aback by this comparison, but Michael nods understandingly.
Then online-dating came along and made everything even worse.
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“Dating was so depressing” he says. (I reminded him of this recently when he and Michelle were having a tough time, but do I get any credit?) “And then online-dating came along and made everything even worse.”
I tell the guys how grateful I am that I met the current Mr Gillmore before online-dating was a thing. It must be so tough to judge a potential life-partner based on a badly-pixelated cockshot.
“Mind you,” says Lauchie, “you were pretty bad at it Mikey. You made every error in the book.”
“Like what?”
I’m sitting between them, and lean back into the moulded plastic and prepare to enjoy the show.
“One,” says Lauchie, “you never took anyone’s advice. That’s like having a bad dress-sense and not checking with a mate before you buy a shirt.”
1. Never put up a profile without getting a friend to check it first.
“I didn’t want you to see my profile” Michael protests. “That’s private.”
“It’s public you moron. That’s the whole point. Everyone’s going to see it anyway, so you may as well get your mates to laugh at it first. And those photos you put up! Useless. Do you remember that first one, the five of us in the Bucket List?”
2. Never use a photograph with other people in it.
“It was to show I had lots of mates!” Michael’s raised his voice slightly and the receptionist looks over. I wonder if she’s working in this place as some kind of penance, she doesn’t look at all happy about it. Lauchie ignores her.
“You put up a photo of you with other people, it looks like you’re trying to attract a girl using your better-looking mates. How’s she supposed to know which one’s you? She’ll always assume you’re the ugly one.”
“My surname’s Chan” says Michael. “She’s going to assume I’m going I’m the Asian one. Anyway, I took that photo down and put up that black-and-white one.”
3. Never use a photograph which makes you look better than you really do.
“The Facebook shot! That flukey photo which everyone owns where gravity, lighting, motion and recent illness combines to make them look fantastic.” Lauchlan’s a photographer, he knows what he’s talking about. “Never use that shot in online-dating unless you want to end up on dates with gorgeous women who are disappointed by the real you. It’s expensive if nothing else, they’re the ones who’ll always let you pay for dinner.”
4. Don’t try and be too perfect. Be humble.
“It’s true you were a bit try-hard” I tell Mikey. “I was always telling you just to be yourself, pretend less to be Mr Perfect. You know, I reckon, more than anything else, women dating online want to feel safe. Even if they’re up for a one night stand, they want to make sure they’re not going home with someone who’s going to get all weird and dangerous on them. You should have to taken the piss out of yourself, like you do in real life. Be humble and funny, attractive but normal.”
“And if you’re going to manipulate the truth,” says Lauchie, “do it sensibly. Remember that time when you told the girl you had a Porsche and then you turned up in your panel-van and she wouldn’t even talk to you?”
“Mikey, you didn’t. You nob!”
I say this too loudly and the receptionist looks over again. Michael reminds us in a fierce whisper we’re there to offer him moral support. This isn’t helping.
“Aw, calm down” says Lauchie. “It’s not like you need to be good at it now anyway. Unlike Tom. And he’s even worse than you. You won’t believe… oh, nothing.”
We can see he’s got a story but he’s struggling whether to tell it or not.
“Go on” says Michael, all hang-dog. “I need cheering up.”
5. Never mention your love of Star Trek unless she does it first.
He checks his watch again for good measure. The appointment was for five minutes ago, he’ll be called in any minute. Lauchlan hesitates a moment longer before relenting in a receptionist-wary whisper.
“Apparently Tom scored a hit online from this girl the other day. Photo looks good and they’re messaging back and forth, and he really likes her because she’s some kind of scientist and you know what a nerd he is. I’ve told him never to mention Star Trek to girls but he never listens. Anyway, turns out this girl’s a Trekkie too and they’re texting away, everything’s going gangbusters until he thinks he’ll show her his sense of humor…
“Oh no.” Michael and I say it in unison. Tom’s British humor is not known to travel too well.
6. Don’t take risks with humor – they don’t always read well.
Lauchlan’s annoyed at being interrupted, but he leans even further in until there we are, three grown men whispering in our seats like schoolgirls. The receptionist pretends not to mind, typing into her keyboard so hard it must be painful for the both of them.
He never heard from her again. She blocked him so he can’t even tell her he was joking!
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“So Tom asks this girl ‘How many planets are there in the solar system?’ And she messages back, quick as, ‘Well, it used to be eight, but now Pluto’s been ruled out, so I guess it’s seven.’ Like, was there ever an answer more perfect for turning Tom on? So he types back ‘Well, there will be one less when I’ve smashed up Uranus’. He never heard from her again. She blocked him so he can’t even tell her he was joking!”
We’re all still laughing about this when the door opens and a woman in a white coat appears, calling out Michael’s name. He’s wiping tears from his face and trying not to laugh again as he stands and walks towards her.
‘Something funny Mr Chan?’
And, just like that, Michael remembers where he is and why. He stands up straight, apologises to the doctor and turns to us like a little boy.
‘Wish me luck’ he says. ‘Hopefully I’m still worth having sex with.’
Which, if you think about it, is the first thing a potential date really wants to know.
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