Keeping mum

'Did you have a nice time?' 'It was great, thanks.' 'Did you meet anyone?'
This exchange took place immediately after my mum had hugged me to welcome me home form an eight-week trip to China, Vietnam and Cambodia. If it seems as if I am obsessed with my love life, it pales into insignificance compared with my her desire to see her eldest son settle down.

I told her very briefly about Tandy (see 1/7). 'That's the trouble when you go to the other side of the world - you're not going to meet a local girl.' The fact that the closest I have had to a relationship with a local girl was more than 20 years ago - and she was from Deptford (and a Millwall fan) - seems to have escaped my mum's notice.

Talking about Tandy started me thinking. I'd like to say that I thought long and hard. But I didn't. Emailing her just seemed the natural thing to do. What did I have to lose? I didn't pledge undying love and I certainly wasn't creepy or inappropriate. But I did tell her that she was very special and that I was amazed she was still single.

Of course, I never heard back. I can't say I was surprised. But I was disappointed. If someone who I spent a couple of very pleasurable evenings (and she clearly enjoyed my company) with sent me such an email, even if I didn't fancy them, I would still reply (not that it has ever happened). I'd thank them for their kind words, express a similar sentiment and then, perhaps, tell a little white lie that things had progressed with someone I had met just before I had overseas.

It was almost a year to the day that exactly the same thing happened with Gemma, whom I had met in Costa Rica (see 8/8/08). There had been a lot stronger chemistry with Gemma (she was far more my 'type'), but Tandy was probably a better catch. Yet for whatever reason, neither thought that I even merited a reply.

Without trying to sound arrogant, when I finished my month-long trip across China, I received fonder farewells from my companions than anyone else. One chap said I was the funniest bloke he had ever met (if I had a quid for every time I'd heard that - and that's suppose to be the way to a woman's heart) and everyone clearly liked me. Yet the closest I got to any action - and people's morals are less stringent when they are on holiday - was a pinch on the bum by a 61-year-old gay bloke.