The Planet of Beautiful Women

The Artist chided me recently - after perusing my Yahoo Photos site - that I seemed to be "always surrounded by beautiful women".

There may be some truth in this. I've always been good at being friends with women (in fact, several of my very best friends, both here and 'back home', are women). I seem to be able to manage to be charming without being at all sexually threatening (people do occasionally mistake me for a gay); which means that, while I always struggle to find myself a girlfriend, I have any number of admiring girlie chums who will happily tell people what a great catch I would be.

And, yes, I am a great admirer, a connoisseur of female pulchritude. My oldest friend, The Egregious Dr P, once chaffed me for being "obsessed with classical ideals of beauty" - by which he merely meant that the reason I could never find a girlfriend was that I was "too fussy". I disagree with that verdict, but.... I do set the bar pretty high, I know. (I tend to want looks and personality and intelligence and humour and creativity and..... "Tick ONE!" my friends say.)

However, it is always worth bearing in mind this favourite 'proverb' of mine:
"Remember that many a man who has fallen in love with a pretty smile, makes the mistake of marrying the whole girl."

But (as so often) I digress. The question is, does this city in which I live have a significantly higher-than-average proportion of beautiful women? And do I get to meet them?

Well, it's not quite as spectacular as Edinburgh in August (what is?), where the Gorgeousness Quotient is pushed through the roof by the huge influx of art and drama students attending the festivals there (and the background levels of attractivness - it is like radiation, isn't it? There should be some sort of Geiger Counter device to alert us to dangerous 'hot spots'! - are always pretty high there: I have a great fondness for the ladies of Scotland). In fact, the local women here are mostly pretty rough - the least attractive in Asia by a long margin. However, as a bright & shiny metropolis, we do tend to attract some of the finest-looking women from all over the country, and beyond..... so, yes, there are plenty of headturners around. And then, of course, there are the foreigners. Although I admire the delicacy of Oriental features (Singaporeans, in particular, are probably the most beautiful women in the world, I think), it tends to be a rather abstract, academic kind of appreciation: 99% of Asian girls are just too darned short for me. My great weakness (who knows why?!) has always been for Americans. And, to a rather lesser extent, Australians. Canadians, Indians, Greeks, and most Eastern Europeans also get an honourable mention. We have all of those nationalities represented here, in numbers. Sometimes it feels as though I have woken up in one of those bizarre cheapo '50s sci-fi movies where the Planet Of Improbably Beautiful Women has sent down a covert invasion force to take over the Earth.

I was hanging out with a Drinking Companion a few nights ago ('twas The Choirboy - a handsome rogue, but at times strangely diffident with the ladies), when he suddenly told me: "It's ridiculous! I think I must have fallen in love with at least 2,000,003 women in the last month."

I could sympathise with his distress. Thereafter, whenever an attractive woman entered our field of view, one or other of us would intone sadly, "2,000,006.... 2,000,007.... 2,000,008...."

The Choirboy, of course, is still young, free, and single - at liberty to pursue any or all of these legion temptations. I, on the other hand, am tormented by the thought that I may have found The One.... and that she is now thousands of miles away, and might not be coming back. Yes, at the moment, there is only one beautiful woman I want to be surrounded by - The Artist. She had better bloody well come back!!!