challenge alice Dear future husband: galactic dating
Dear future husband,
I am going boldly where I’ve never gone before -to singles night at Winchester planetarium. I am sure you’re now picturing a room full of trekkies, as am I. However for your information your future wife is secretly intrigued by space shizzle and is a bit of a Red Dwarf fan on the quiet. So I thought why the smeg not.
It’s only fitting that I draw on The Big Bang Theory for inspiration ahead of my opening salvo at the planetarium. In one of my favourite episodes Raj dates Siri, his iPhone voice robot. Whilst I’ve not got an apple, I slip the Samsung S4 into a cheeky tuxedo number, light some candles, put on Ronan Keating and practice my chat.
Well at least I’ve ruled out the possibility of wedding my phone… I think I could probably do with being a little less direct but there’s little time to ponder either way, so I pop my old casio on (still going strong fifteen years on) and head over to the planetarium to talk to real people…
Welcome drink in hand, I venture into the herd. Women outnumber men and there are around 40 people here. The average age sits somewhere around 45 which renders me a bit of a whippersnapper. Unperturbed, I wander around the exhibits. The absence of children appears to bring out the infant in us all and I watch as the group gets eagerly stuck into the interactive games.
Time to fly through the universe, in the halftime planetarium show. A few playful references from the narrator to Uranus gets the room tittering and I lie back utterly mesmerised as we travel the breadth of the cosmos, feeling very insignificant indeed. Context aside, the show is phenomenal and I’d love to take you there someday.
Next up it’s time for a communal curry. Given the number of women, I end up sitting opposite Deirdre, a well to do lady in her 60s who reminds me very much of actress Celia Imrie. Talk spans the one way trip to Mars, the international space station and the failed Virgin Galactic flight. Neither of us are science geeks and Deirdre is as unlikely a visitor here as any but clearly we have a curiosity about the same things. Deirdre is also a member of a local singles social group called Chears in Winchester, including walking and quiz nights which she kindly invites me to and I promise to think about.
It’s back to mixing at the exhibits and I manage to dodge the advances of an elderly gent called Derek wearing a frankly illegal leather jacket. Derek is a bit of a space invader when it comes to proximity comfort zones and I need Scotty to beam me up in any event as I’m off to Salisbury Cathedral with some friends for a homeless sleep out.
As I lay shivering in my sleeping bag with the cathedral bells reminding me every hour I was still awake, there was plenty of time to ponder life, the universe and everything. I had a stellar time at the planetarium but it was the wrong demographic for me. Wookie mistake.
I’m curious about what tomorrow’s trip to a pitch black restaurant could bring. Given my lack of sleep this is probably timely for all concerned.
Your galactic girl,
Alice
challenge alice 