Those English Boys

“You need to be careful of those boys Jacqueline,” Grandma Marge had always warned.

Even though Grandma Marge was frequently confused in her old age and constantly forgot that Jac hated being called Jacqueline, she was still right about one thing: the English boys. They were the frequent topic of discussion between grandmother and grandchild, simply because those boys created such woes for the two women it was impossible not to talk about them.

Ah yes, the English boys. Jac could have filled a book with her thoughts on them easily. When she first started dating it was obvious that she was going to fall in love with that handsome London born and bred boy that lived just down the road from her. But as it turns out he had a way of working through the girls that lived on the street. Jac found this out after she had been dating him for four months. He had been faithful for about two. He was her first English disappointment. After him she started loosing faith in the boys of her home country as disappointment after disappointment followed.

Jac decided that English boys were a species all to themselves.

No other type of boy could get away with being so scruffy, cocky and downright arrogant. No other nationality of boy could be so full of contradictions. Yes the English boys prided themselves on the stereotype of being ‘old fashioned’, and yet they hated having to act like that. The last man who held a door open for Jac was a man in his late sixties. The English boys were all about being righteous and noble, yet the majority of their Friday nights were spent passed out in some pub with a random girl on their lap, and there was nothing righteous or noble about it.

It was no wonder that the females in England despaired at their men, and it would explain the number of pages that were dedicated to figuring what men were all about in the monthly women’s magazines.

It had taken Jac exactly three magazines to realize that she wasn’t going to find the answer in between the fine print. She was going to have to take things into her own hands. After countless attempted dates with English men, Jac decided that it was time to go global.

The lack of true English gentlemen lead Jac to strategically target the young male tourists that flooded into London almost on a regular basis. The twenty one year old Jac would ‘accidentally on purpose’ bump into a young man of her choice outside one of London’s countless museums, and then conversation would strike up from that. In her daydreams some French or Italian dream man would sweep her off her feet and after a series of romantic dates he would agree to stay in London for her and live with her in a penthouse flat overlooking the river Thames.

But these daydreams stayed dreams, and because she knew her friend would laugh at her hopelessly romantic soul, Jac kept stum.

But sadly Jac wasn’t very lucky when it came to her ‘Go Global’ plan. There were a few dates, but these had all turned out to be disastrous. The French men could not speak much English, the German men only spoke of themselves in that horrendous accent and the Italians were all chauvinistic pigs who wore their hair gelled back.

You couldn’t say that Jac didn’t try, she lingered outside language centres and even went so far as to think of becoming a tour guide, but then as her friend Helen reminded her, the whole point of a tour guide was that they could speak a foreign language. Jac could just about get by in Paris with her mediocre GSCE French, and as for German? Jac refused to go anywhere near that topic.

So once it was clear that mainland Europe obviously had little better to offer than the English boys, Jac decided to see what the great nation across the pond had to offer to a desperate and lonely girl such as herself.

Her next plan of action was to see what the Americans were like.

She started going to shows in town, dragged along chiefly by Helen who swore ‘this band is going to change your life’. Of course this wasn’t necessarily the case. After about two weeks of constant concert going Jac came to the conclusion that essentially all American music sounded the same after a while, and all the boys dressed exactly the same too.

But apart from that Jac was pleasantly surprised. She grew attached to the American accent that would pour through the massive speakers and she was surprised by how courteous some of the boys could be.

Jac finally allowed herself to think that finally she had found her kind of boy.

However, fate obviously was not on Jac’s side, because even though she thought she’d found her perfect type of boy she could not get within two feet of these boys. They were constantly surrounded by fans and for some strange reason Jac felt horribly intimidated by them, even though these girls were all far younger than she was. Maybe it was the threatening way they brandished their sharpie pens in their desperation to get an autograph, or maybe it was the way that the girls shot her the ‘up down’ look, because they knew that she didn’t belong.

So band boys were out of the question.

All her flouted attempts at finding someone that was just right for her, left Jac with the horrible realization that she was just not mean to fall in love or find someone who would be willing to put up with her. Maybe it was time to consider the idea of a convent. Jac had seen pretty and picturesque photos of gorgeous nunneries nestled into the high mountains in Italy surrounded by beautiful nature. Jac thought that maybe in such an environment she could quite happily live as a nun.

When she put this idea forward to Helen, the latter was genuinely upset and refused to let her friend wallow in depressing and silly thoughts like that. As a way of curing what Helen thought was a sad and lonely mind, she took Jac to dinner in a stylish sushi bar. But instead of it being a relaxing dinner, it only served as a painful reminder to Jac what she was missing, once her eyes fell upon the happy couples sat around them.

‘I can’t believe you’re making me sit here watching other people eating each other rather than the sushi!” Jac had wailed shooting Helen a pained look.

“Shut up and order will you, you need to lighten up and stop being so miserable,” Helen snapped, brandishing her menu at her friend.

Ironically enough on the other side of town a similar situation was occurring in an Italian restaurant.

“Rob seriously, lighten up,” Sam Bradley said slapping his friend on the arm with a menu. He had tried pretty much everything to get his friend out of his foul black mood, but to no great avail.

This annoyed Sam because if there was one person on this earth who should not be moody then it was Robert Pattinson. He had a great career lined up ahead of him, was exceedingly talented and got a lot of attention. Sam really didn’t see what the problem with that was.

But of course you had to be in someone else’s shoes to see if the grass was really greener on the other side. For Robert the constant attention was a burden. He couldn’t even go to the corner shop of a pint of milk and a packet of cigarettes without a camera flash documenting his every move. He could meet up with friends that were girls without being accused of dating them. The whole attention thing got tiring very quickly.

Of course it didn’t help his relationships one bit. Even though his schedule was hectic and filled to the brim, he wanted someone to share it with. But this was easier said than done. In LA he had hopes of finding that one special person but he quickly lost faith in the LA girls. The girls he dated there were the type who would check the gossip websites the day after the date to see if their picture with Robert was up yet.

So Robert decided it was time to come home for a while. London had greeted him with all the grey and dampness that the city could offer; yet he was relieved to be away from the constant sunshine and the materialism that seemed to brood away in LA. However despite his hopes, Robert found himself just as alone in London as in LA.

His close friend Sam had really tried everything; he had trawled through bars and clubs within him in the futile search for someone that Sam thought didn’t exist. So Sam gave up and instead attempted to keep Robert occupied. He talked about writing more songs and kept suggesting new film projects Robert could audition for. He knew that Robert didn’t just want to be Edward Cullen; he had demonstrated that very clearly when he shaved his head and had gotten rid of the ‘Edward hair’. It was at that point that Sam was glad Robert was back home in London in a reasonably stable environment.

Yes Sam had also been hoping that a girl would provide some stability, in fact at the moment it was quite the opposite.

Just before Sam ordered the desert Robert went outside for a smoke. He resented being shooed out of restaurant like that but at least it gave him the chance to clear his head. He had just lit his first cigarette when a person walking down the street towards him, caught his eye.

From far away she looked like your average brunette, but there was something about the daydream-like expression that she wore on her face, which made Robert pay her more attention.

Jac had polite excused herself from dinner with Helen; she had bailed just before desert. She couldn’t stand being around so many happy couples. Looking at them produced the feeling that she was being stabbed in the heart over and over again with tiny pins. Not a feeling she enjoyed. So instead she was now walking back home, struggling slightly on the uneven pavement in her heels, but distracting herself by allowing the same old daydream to filter into her head; a gorgeous foreign boy sweeping her off her feet.

Robert still stood outside the restaurant, smiled to himself as he recognized the same expression that his elder sisters wore when they were planning some extravaganza in their heads. Usually it had something to do with a boy. He carried on watching the girl glide down the street in her heels when she suddenly stumbled on a crack in the pavement and there was a sudden snapping sound.

“You have got to be kidding me,” the girl muttered angrily to herself as she looked down at her feet and saw that the heel of her right shoe had just snapped off.

Robert chuckled at her seething expression, dropped his cigarette to the ground and crushed it with the point of his shoes before walking towards the girl.

“Let me call you a cab,” Robert offered her and held out his arm towards her so she could walk with him to the side of the road.

The girl had still been glaring at her shoes but when she heard his helpful voice she looked up and shot him a dazzling smile.

“Thank you so much that’s really kind of you,” she said as she slipped out of her now useless shoes and accepted Robert’s arm.

Jac of course had instantly realized that he was from London and was already rather giddy at the fact that he was being so helpful. The added fact to the matter was that this boy was incredibly good looking.

Robert hailed down a cab, and was exceedingly surprised that the girl hadn’t yet screeched at him in the way that so many females had recently. It was a relief for once not to be recognized. In fact Robert was a little disappointed that the cab pulled up so quickly at the side of the road, she already intrigued him.

Without giving it a conscious thought Robert in his gentleman like manner yanked on the cab door and held it open for Jac. Jac was totally shocked and delighted all at once by this show of manners, it was definitely a first. She didn’t slip into the cab but instead beamed up at Robert.

She had just found her very own English boy.