How about a boyfriend designed to your exact specifications? Liz Frost muses on substituting Metal Mickey for the real thing…
Following a string of highly unsuccessful dates and my dabble into the world of internet dating, I was beginning to feel disheartened with the whole dating thing. I mean, blokes… did we need them anyway? I had just finished successfully putting together a flat-pack chest of drawers for my bedroom – something for which I would have usually enlisted the help of a more masculine force. It got me thinking… How much easier would life be if we could just build a boyfriend, like a flat-pack unit.
I could design him to be tall dark and handsome – chiselled cheekbones would come as standard – I could set him on timer, to have dinner ready when I got home, and he’d never become obnoxious or drunk in public. If he did, I could just put him on mute or switch him off and put him in a taxi home. Although, he’d never complain if I rolled up drunk, wearing a traffic cone for a hat.
As designs became more advanced, I could programme in all sorts of intelligent conversation. Instead of having one eye on the football or regarding me with the obligatory blank stare, should I embark on a conversation about hair or make up – at the flick of a switch, he’d be full of all the useful insight of a gay best friend.
I was onto something, I was sure of that… At weddings, he wouldn’t balk every time somebody mentioned throwing the bouquet and I could programme him with Justin Timberlake moves on the dance floor. No more dancing of the dad variety.
I wasn’t the only one who thought it was a great idea. Rachel said, “No more play station!”. “No more drunken phone calls!” chimed in Laura. (I didn’t let on I secretly quite liked having ‘I love schuh’ slurred down the phone to me at 3am… come to think of it, I quite liked Playstation. And dancing of the dad variety).
On the walk home, I mulled over my invention. There were of course design aspects I would need to consider. The idea of cuddling up to Metal Mickey every night wasn’t very appealing so I’d need to make him soft and cuddly… although not too cuddly. And what if one of his circuits blew? It could be really embarrassing if we were shopping in Tesco’s and he suddenly started going berserk with a trolley. Thinking about it, what if he powered down in the middle of something vital, or horror of horrors, one of his circuits blew whilst we were… you know… That could be quite messy. If not fatal. Actually the more I thought about it, the more I went off the idea. Flat-pack is a great concept when it comes to wardrobes and units, but when it comes to boys, there’s really no substitute for the real thing.
Liz Frost is a freelance writer specialising in features for women's magazines. She writes for Company, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Zest, B, Bliss, She, Female First and NW. Email her at liz_frost@yahoo.co.uk, even if it's just to say hello!
