The Fatslayer Chronicles

I don’t know what it is about office-nights-out, but sooner or later (is this a peculiarly English phenomenon?)  the conversation always turns to “if you had to shag one person in the office at gunpoint, who would you choose?”

This conversational topic fills me with dread and foreboding, and has always been one of the many reasons why I’ve cultivated an anti-social demeanour and always declined such allegedly team-building invitations. Maybe if I was drop-dead gorgeous and constantly beating men off with a stick I’d take pleasure in such conversations (though somehow I very much doubt it), but sadly that isn’t the case, and I find myself squirming in embarrassment and pretending not to care in the slightest that the memories start flooding back of always being picked last for playground team sports and sitting like a wallflower at parties.

I don’t need to be reminded that people always pick the fattie last – I know it already! Can we please just change the subject?!

Last night, though, I though I’d be safe because it was a girls-only night out. No room for embarrassment, humiliation and shame, because at best we’d avoid the topic completely, and at worse we’d only be taking the mickey out of the (absent) male contingent.

Right?

Wrong.

Unfortunately two of the women (both heretofore dyed-in-the-wool heteros) have recently become an item, and the evening soon became imbued with L-word overtones. There was much discussion of the would-you/wouldn’t you/have you/haven’t you variety, and one by one everyone ‘fessed up, pinned their colours to the mast, and stated which side of the line they sat on.  (We were 88% straight (laced) in case you’re curious.)

Then, with a hideous inevitability, someone posed the question “if you had to sleep with one woman in the office, who would you choose?”

It’s a miracle I didn’t groan out loud.

You know, somehow I’d always assumed deep down that women were less shallow than men, and wouldn’t choose purely on the basis of face and figure. Men – the poor things – are so ruled by their willies that their brains can’t function properly– I guess I expected women to be more discerning.

But guess what – I’m no more of a babe-magnet than I am a man-magnet. Nope, no beating chicks off with a stick for me either!

One after another they all chose the same two gorgeous gals, and the rest of us never got a look-in. The two gorgeous ones looked pretty pleased with themselves (bitches! heh heh), whilst the rest of us just knocked back the tequila slammers to numb the pain of another rejection - heh.

Such is life for the less than beautiful ones, I guess.

And dammit, that’s another illusion shattered.