The well-meaning friends of writer Mavis Cheek, concerned at her now single status, have been showering her with advice about how to get a man. Their answer? Appear vunerable. Despite her belief that if she felt any more vunerable, she'd "be dead", Mavis dutifully set off to parties where she "minced in flat shoes", said "gosh", a great deal and worried about whether she should have another glass of Rioja. But ...
"Blokes are not stupid. They know when they're standing next to an uppish sort of
a girl and it's the fragile blond person over in the corner who squeaks naturally
who gets the lift home in the Porche from the man who knows how to fix dripping taps."
So Mavis abandoned the notion and stayed in quietly with a book until one day her aging computer blew up and no amount of hitting it with a hammer would bring it back to life. She talked to a very helpful man on the phone about the purchase of a new one. When the man and the computer
arrived ...
"... it was like giving someone who'd only ever ridden a bike the keys to a Jumbo Jet".
The helpful man stayed for five hours teaching Mavis how to get to grips with the new beast.
"It was a humbling, vunerabling experience. I was merely his admiring acolyte, a desperate, grateful sponge, soaking up his knowledge."
When the man left, he asked Mavis out. She said,"yes".
