Usually a man indicates his interest in you by shooting you a penetrating glance, which you return and hold just a second longer than is polite, as you say: “Whoops tra la, here we go again.” Soon your eyes are meeting so often in penetrating glances it doesn’t matter that you’ve got nothing to say or he’s talking about garden sheds.

Superman, when he’s chatting you up, never lets his eyes swivel to see if there’s something more amusing behind you, he howls with laughter at your weakest joke, and remembers what you’ve said an hour later.

He only leaves your side, even if he’s given every chance of escaping, to go and fetch you another drink, so he can shoot you a long-distance smoulder across a crowded room, then bolt back to your side again. He keeps telling you how pretty you are, which works a treat—all women like a bit of buttering-up with their bed. Occasionally he touches your hand when he lights your cigarette. Sexual Norm, in an attempt at sophistication, puts the cigarette in his own mouth to light it for you, and hands it to you all soggy.

A lot of men chat up girls by being rude to them. But personally I don’t fancy the plain blunt type. If a man’s likely to put me down, I don’t let him pick me up in the first place—I like soft soap, a flannel and a duck for my bath. My idea of an agreeable man is one who agrees with me. Nor do I like a man who boasts of his conquests. If he’s keeping open bed for half London, what’s in it for me?

As he is leaving, Superman moves into action:

“We must meet again sometime.” (Smouldering glance.)

“We must.”

“Where can I get hold of you?”

“Wherever you like, darling.” (Smouldering glance.)

“No, I meant your telephone number. We must have dinner sometime.” (Lunch if either of you is married.)

Superman then memorises the number until he gets outside the room, when he writes it down. Sexual Norm overhears and jots it down in his diary, alongside the addresses of hundreds of other girls he’s never had the courage to telephone. In fact, knowing he’s got her number and could ring her up lessens his desire to try.


THE DATE

“And afterwards, Miss Dyson, you might like to come round to my place …”