The Last Date Saloon

As a woman in her forties who has had enough dates to know what constitutes a good one, Ms Robinson is not inclined to let a bad one proceed any longer than it should. She is thinking of one such date with a man called Mark last year. After forty-five minutes, Ms R realised she was bored. She should have known but when she had met him in a bar a week earlier he seemed ok. But now her life was starting to flash before her very eyes and she'd only had one vodka. At 8.45, she excused herself. She had to kill this one off. So she was honest. "Look Mark, this date isn't working for me. It never will. So I'm going to go ok. Bye." Hell, life is short, why waste it?

Dressed up and with nowhere to go, Ms R made her way home feeling, understandably, unsatisfied. What would have been preferable is a place for disappointed datees, people like her to go to. A kind of Last Date Saloon where people gathered when their date had dumped them, they'd had an argument or they hadn't got what they expected. Here they could tell their stories of woe and hopefully save the evening in one way or another. It would be like Cheers except nobody would know your name.

Upon arrival at the Last Date Saloon you would have a brief assessment and then be allocated to an area of the club where you would find people just like you. In Self-Pity you would be automatically surrounded by women with smudged mascara and runny noses, all saying things like "All men are bastards", "Why do I attract the fucking losers?" and "This always happens to me." Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" would be playing on a loop in the background.

Inevitably someone would announce that she'd had enough and wanted to become a lesbian at which point a dateless lesbian would reply, "Honey it's not that good for us either." There would be lots of cheap, warm chardonnay, chocolate and crisps. There would always be one woman crying in the corner, inconsolable. A life member. Occasionally she would get hysterical and one of the employees would remove her and put her in No-one Can Hear You Scream.

Like the women who were employed in Self-Pity, the men who worked in Not Again Mate would be full time employees who knew exactly what sort of comfort to offer. They would wear rugby shirts with their collars up and say things like, "I know mate, they speak another language" and "It's not you, it's them, who knows what's in their heads?" Endless pints would be on offer.There would be lots of back slapping, endless sport on the screen above their heads and porn movies to watch. The Bloke Who Gives Good Advice would be there saying that the only way was to "Treat them mean and show them who's boss." Lots of men would be sat around him nodding at his sage advice.

A busty, overtanned, ertsaz blonde wearing a skimpy dress, high heels and a fake Louis Vuitton bag would walk past now and again. Each time she appeared, a man would say, "Now that's what you want. A bit of totty." On cue, they would all mutter things like, "Give me five minutes with her" and "I'd wear her out." The blonde would smile at them no matter what they said. Eventually one would say, "Now that kindof girl makes me feel really good about myself. Why can't they all be like that?"

More analytical souls could head for Date Replay where they could role play their date and figure out what went wrong. "So should you have asked for anal sex on the first date Bob?" The crowd waits while Bob struggles with his answer. Angie meanwhile cannot quite work out why she should not have told Michael that she really liked him. Soon she will end up in Self-Pity.

Of course, like Ms R after her date, many visitors to the Saloon will just be looking to continue their evening. Happily they can go to Pick Me Up where the hardier, hornier souls are just looking for a good time with someone else's date. Just like real life really.