I went to meet some Internet friends for drinks on Tuesday after work. I was early, so had to spend an hour reserving the biggest table in the pub for people who would “be here in a minute”. People like it when you say that, really. They especially like it when they are stood next to the table 45 minutes later and your friends still haven’t arrived. My presence here today is proof that looks, do not, in fact, kill.
When everyone arrived the conversation began to flow nicely, and amongst other things, the topic of gym visits came up.
“So my new personal trainer is working me really hard at the moment”, said one of the friendly Internet-based women I had not met before, “but I have got good core strength apparently, so I can beat him at some of the exercises, I just wish I could beat him at more of them.”
I made a mental note not to arm-wrestle her for bar snacks later in the evening.
“Unfortunately after the gym, I feel I should treat myself so I eat a piece of cake, as you do.” she continued.
“You could challenge your personal trainer to a cake eating competition!” I said helpfully.
The entire planet froze in an instant.
“How rude!” she answered, looking directly at me.
“No no no, I was just trying to suggest something you could beat him at.. you know?” I concluded feebly.
“You can’t say that!” another lady chipped in from the other end of the table.
People began looking around the pub in the hope of a suitable distraction, like a stabbing, or a car crash outside the window.
“Err, no, that’s not what I meant, I meant you want to beat him at something, and we were talking about cakes! I didn’t mean, you know, you’re good at eating cakes, which you might be of course, but I wouldn’t know. Maybe you are rubbish at it?” I continued, clearly highlighting my original chivalrous intentions.
“Stop it now!” all three women screamed at me.
The evil glares and stifled giggles from the others at the table suggested that I had perhaps overstepped the mark.
A little tip for the men out there, complimenting a women you have only just met on her ability to eat cakes is not the way to make a good impression. It merely creates an atmosphere heavier than a room full of death-contemplating hippies.
{ 58 comments… read them below or add one }
On the bright side…. at least they turned up.I think after the cake eating comment you should have promptly grabbed your coat…..
I shall have to come on one of these internet outings, seeing angry get beaten up by a load of women would definately be something to start my Youtube career, apparently you get paid for the popular videos now, im looking for GOLD people.
LOL you’re not having a very sociable week are you Mr Angry?!
I think you livened things up remarkably if ‘core strength’ was the topic of conversation!
Faux pas – see? French! And it’s a better expression than ‘saying something which makes a tit of oneself’ n’est-ce pas?!
Talk about digging yourself into a fuck off enormous hole! Well done Angry, dug like a man
Well, it seemed like a fairly innocuous comment to me. Do you think she may have been ever so slightly over-reacting?
Sometimes humour riles people. A long time ago I went out to the pub to meet my girlfriends friends from University, I thought I’d be funny, break the ice and said to one bloke, “Hey, I like ya shirt, it reminds me of public transport upholstery!” ha ha.
He seemed offended. His friend was offended on his behalf. It was an awkward moment.
The shirt was really bad though.
I thought fat birds were supposed to over-compensate with an abundance of jocular personality.
Christ, chicks are just so tricky to understand…
Some enormously fat people have no sense of humour.
she didn’t give you her number then?
Hang on – after the gym she treats herself to cake as you do!?
Errr no actually I don’t.
In fact I don’t know a single one of my female friend’s who does have cake after exercise. It would make you feel sick.
People are very curious.
Inner core strength!
Inner core bollocks and gateau more like.
Well played Angry – take it you didn’t get a valenitines shag there then.
steve_p – Not only did they turn up, they stayed too…
Oli – There was no physical torture, it was all verbal abuse.
Sooz – As I am going back in a couple of weeks I am giving the lingo a go.
marycub – I try.
rachie – It wasn’t just her, it was everyone. Except the guy next to me (he knows who he is).
fatman – I wasn’t being funny. I was genuinely trying to help her beat her Personal Trainer at something.
Jann – Who said she was fat? I bet Kate Moss would take offence if someone told her she was good at eating cakes…
Twenty Major – Leave Jo Brand out of this.
f:lux – Unless it starts with two digits, no.
Celeste – So how do you reward yourself after a workout then?
billyboy – Err, no.
I go home and I have a much better shower (i try and spend as little time as possible in gym showers) and snuggle up in my fluffy dressing gown witha cup of tea.
Bliss.
I’ve just realised why I’m single – I am in fact a loser.
Last night I exercised on the stepper. Then I had one of those sublime melt in the middle chocolate puddings.
Delicious. If the point of exercise is not to have toned thighs and a fine ass, and still be able to enjoy such rich treats, well then I don’t know what the point is.
Call me a good pudding eater though and I will kick your ass.
Celeste – And you are how old again?…
Betty – You are clearly rubbish at eating cakes! (is that better?)
*cough* 22 *cough*
BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!
I just snorted tea up my nose. Yesterday a post that Betty thought would be good for bulemics and now you’re having a go at the cake eaters of the world.
Class.
Woman are just so ungrateful when we try to take an interest and shirty when we don’t.
GH.
“Woman are just so ungrateful when we try to take an interest and shirty when we don’t.”
And your point is?
You should have powered on through.
After she said “How rude!”
You should have said “Are you saying you couldn’t beat him in a cake eating competition?”
It was a joke, it was when you started saying sorry and babbling like an idiot that the situation became “an atmosphere heavier than a room full of death-contemplating hippies”.
But at least we have another amusing story to read.
I just don’t get why the comment was so offensive. Being able to eat cake competitively would be a beautiful and wondrous gift.
Mind you, comments of that ilk do have form.
Just ask Marie-Antoinette’s disembodied head. And she said it to a bunch of starving French peasants who were almost certainly nothing more than skin and bone, so heaven knows what it was that they took offence to…
Why does it always come back to the bloody French?
I think she did over-react, some women are touchy and you apparently ended up in a room full of the really sensitive kind. I mean it’s not like you called her fat, just a good cake eater.
I’m with Celeste, I couldn’t eat cake after working out! After a run I really can’t eat much for awhile, just fruit and water otherwise I get sick. So really, I guess it was a complement that you paid to that lady. She obviously has a tough stomach!
Celeste – A mere pup then!
GH – Sorry about the tea.
Betty – There is no point, it is a statement of fact.
Anthony Lynch – Hello, I am glad you appreciated my well thought out and beautifully crafted simile. I am pleased the standard of readership is improving at last.
rachie – I know a few with that particular gift…
Jann – because they are to blame for absolutely everything, ever?
Ldbug – She wasn’t touchy, and actually gave me a little peck on the cheek when I went home, which was nice. Unless it is some sort of Mafia ‘farewell’ that I am unaware of?
Hmmmm could be….;-)
You’ll wake up with a Muffins head on the pillow next to you Angry, and then at some point she’ll set your feet in a vat of rock cake batter and drop you in the nearest river.
Angry – I’ll have a cake-eating competition with you next time I’m down South (Guv’nor). Let’s see how cocky ya are then, eh? eh?
And that bird MUST be a fattie.
Celeste – 22, eh? Can I have yer number?
B.
Us chicks are all pigs in drag but we’d never own up to it, oh no. Much as we never fart.
Some people are sooooo touchy!
Oh man, perfect timing for once, someone mentioned farting just as I entered.
And I just had a cake-eating competition with Mrs Farty. We declared a draw.
When you realise you’re in a hole, you’re supposed to stop digging, but I’m so glad you kept going. Har-de-har-har
That woman clearly needs to stop eating cake. It doesn’t improve her mood. She probably needed another fix and you mentioning it was giving her a jones for that sweet, sweet cake juju.
There is no pleasing some women. When you get right down to it, to the nitty gritty if you will, you complimented her by suggesting she would WIN a cake competition and she got offended.
It wasn’t too long ago that the suffragettes were struggling to earn the right to even enter such gastronomic contests. If you had suggested she would LOSE, the feminists of the world would have been champing at the bit to prove that women are just as capable, if not more so than men, of winning a cake eating competition.
They’ve still not got over the alleged degradation of women inherent in the male dominated world of cake making as demonstrated by the “victoria” sponge or the “madeleine” and the “angel” layer cake. Just a few of the cakes declared to be a “continued example of maintaining the traditional, outmoded idea that the woman’s place is the kitchen, in particular the stove.” (Vera Goes Author of Gourmandising Women)
You were never going to win in such a situation Angry. Once again your good intentions have been misconstrued as a complete lack of any social competence whatsoever.
I wondered why I could cut the tension with a cake knife when I walked in.
I derive no small amount of pleasure from pretending to accuse men of calling me fat, particularly when they have said something completely innocuous and unrelated. Like “would you like a cup of tea” or “nice shoes”. It amuses me.
Just be thankful you aren’t Marie Antoinette
I think it depends how many drinks you had whilst drinking alone, waiting, alone. The Real question is this? What is the difference between a fox and a dog? About 4 pints! Maybe if you had “power” drunk for 45 minutes, all women would have been “babes” and all men “top sorts” and you would be sat there mentally undressing the said “babes” and kept out of trouble. Just a theory……….
And btw have you ever bought anything?? If you have join my survey, what annoys you??
SHOPPERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!!!! LET YOUR OPINIONS KNOWN!!!!
I can’t think why that would be offensive… I am very proud of my incredible cake eating abilities. Bet I could beat her. Yum.
What’s everyones favourite cake?
Nothing can beat Jamaican Ginger Cake.
They say internet people are weird, and your story kind of proves it. I’ve never dared meet any, myself. Stick to real life, I would say.
Celeste: it’s not singles who are losers, but the others.
Yes! The orange jamaica ginger cake! I’ve got one and I was just thinking a piece of it would go down well right now. Spookinessabounds.
All – I am delighted to see that after over a year of insightful social commentary, it is the post where I am accused (it was an accident!) of calling a woman fat, that finally gets you all commenting in droves.
It is good that I finally understand my audience.
Come back next week when I will endeavour to be wrongly accused of racial stereotyping, verbally abusing the disabled, and promoting sexism in the workplace.
Still bit sad my joke about the difference between a dog and a fox went unnoticed though (huff)
steve_p – (hello by the way) It did not go unnoticed. It is a good joke, and I did laugh.
When I first heard it back in 1998.
Did this get more comments than the one where we all commented about nothing?
1998??? Is there life on Mars?? (see what I just did!) You are a true comic genius, but figure this out… what is the common denomitor between Dora the Explorer and Vlad the Impaler?
*denominator even. Bet no one gets it!! throws down gauntlet
Fussy Bitch – Yes, this is officially the most popular post I have ever written. I am so proud. Then again, Steve_p wasn’t around in those days and I think it would only be on about 15 comments without him.
steve_p – Is this like one of those, “what’s the difference between Prince Charles and a tennis ball?” jokes?
I do not know who Dora the Explorer is, I didn’t do History at GCSE.
steve_p – they share a middle name. Gods tits, you really do need some form of mental help.
Angry – Oh. Congrats. I’m off to buy a cake now.
Fussy Bitch well done, if I am annoying I will go now and will find mental help, sorry to cause grief
steve_p – no need to buzz off, and no apologies needed. We take the piss a lot here, do not take it personally.
Oh, and ‘one is thrown in the air, and the other is the…’
Now, if you’d suggested that she could win a cake-eating competition *without* previously being told about her penchant for cake, maybe she would have had reason to be offended. Maybe.
But she’d literally just admitted to eating cake on a regular basis.
I may be a woman, but there’s no way that would have offended me.
Angry
Women are are all the same with a chocolate eclair stuffed in their mouth squirting cream. It’s a great leveller
Phoenix
x
i have nothing to say about cake, as i don’t indulge (but, yes she did over react)… but just joining in the party as is it obviously the place to be.
Clearly Phoenix has come to the above-mentioned conclusion because a chocolate eclair is all he manages to stuff into a woman’s mouth that squirts cream.
Sad.
As for your foible with the overly sensitive cake-eater, I think that as a peace offering, next time the bloggers meet, you should bring her a cake. With frosting that reads: I’ll arm wrestle you for it.
Two words: Beth.Ditto.
That is all.
Oh man! that is classic. I would have laughed my head off if you said that to me and totally gotten into the facts about how a personal trainer would never eat chocolate cake with a client, etc. but then again, I am an odd bird.
I couldn’t eat cake after working out, either.
It’s just one more perfectly excellent reason not to work out.
Perhaps she was just having a “Who can overreact and be the most offended for no reason” competition with you, without your knowledge.
And she won. Everybody’s happy.