Book club

After last week's cringe-worthy encounter with the city boys, and a weekend in Skegness spent fetching pints of Stella from the bar for bandmate 'Nasty', I decided that it was time for some intellectual stimulation in my life. On my friend Leila's suggestion, I joined her friend Victoria's book club. This week's book was The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, and having already read this recently, I arrived eager but nervous on Tuesday night, clutching my copy in hand and armed with a good bottle of Chablis and a stock of comments deftly lifted from the Guardian website. These book clubs were a serious business so I'd heard, the two ultimate faux pas being to admit you hadn't finished the book and bringing cheap Chardonnay.

After everyone was comfortably seated and acquainted, with glass of wine in hand, I was aghast at the tumult of apologetic mutterings, embarrassed grimaces and occasional apathetic shrugging of shoulders from various members at not having read the book, it really was 'the dog ate my homework Sir...' Taking a large gulp of wine, I ventured that the actual idea of time travel was pretty convincingly handled by Niffenegger. After a few polite nods, and half-hearted comments regarding plot holes, the host Victoria turned the subject to the new Big Brother series. This really got discussion going and after a few more drinks we were in full swing, slating the ludicrously-vain, transparently-mercenary contestants offered by the reality TV show this year. If I hadn't been so merrily drunk, I would almost have resented how my expensive Chablis was gulped down along with the seven other bottles of cheap plonk we'd got through so far.

Soon we were all far too pissed to even hold a discussion of our favourite Sex and the City episodes, and so Victoria decided to turn on her computer and connect to the internet. It has been a while since I'd been drunk with a group of girls, and I'm used to watching YouTube clips of 'comically' dubbed pop videos (or just Jessica Simpson's new pop video) with my boyfriend's friends after a night out, so match.com and mysinglebestfriend.com were real eye openers. At first I was a bit disturbed at the opportunity to literally 'shop' for men on these sites, finding it rather stalker-like. But soon I realised we women need all the advantages we can get - a man's main criteria in the opposite sex seem to be an ample bra size and shapely derriere, with a pretty face being the hat trick, from what I can gather. All this can be ascertained visually from a few metres away. Women need to know a man's job, hobbies and star sign before we can seriously consider having a relationship with them - and here you could get all of this information upfront on each man, saving all those pointless drinks with their colleagues, attending rugby matches with their friends, and awkward initial sexual fumblings to then discover that he is a Gemini. Why hadn't this been invented when I was 20?!!!

I was starting to feel quite envious of this opportunity that I had never had, having met my boyfriend at University. I have never been taken out on a proper date in London (paying for my kebab does not constitute taking me out for dinner), and I imagined choosing an outfit, making small talk, shamelessly getting too drunk and going back to his place... It suddenly seemed very glamourous, until one of the girls Sarah then revealed how she had recently met a man called Scott through match.com. It started off very well through some email flirting, then one night he texted her, asking what she was wearing. Slightly confused, she innocently replied saying she was wearing the stripy pyjamas she had got for Christmas. This seemed to reveal some kind of kinky desire in Scott who then replied explaining exactly what physical manifestation of lust this had aroused in him, and how Sarah might help him out with this, via text message. So in the space of ten minutes, I went from feeling left out of the exciting world of grown-up dating, to realising that the internet hadn't changed anything. Nothing much had moved on from my distant single memories of being chatted up by losers in bars, and probably never would.

But I am now a massive fan of the book club. My suggestion for next month was a classic - Pinot Grigio.