THE NIGHT LINDA JAIVIN DROPPED ME

Well it wasn't really "dropped" but it sure felt like it. Technically you can't be dropped until youv'e been picked up. And anyway it was me doing the "picking up" or trying to at least. Whatever it was it was a disaster.

Firstly let me tell you who Linda Jaivin is. Publishers describe her as the author of five bestselling novels and a novella, most of which have been published internationally, including the comic-erotic cult classic Eat Me. That's one way of putting it I guess. The other way, to paraphrase the The Life of Brian, is she's just a very naughty girl.

From all accounts Eat Me would make your hair stand on end. The blurb on her book says:

Linda Jaivin invites readers to partake of a lusty banquet of conversations about that hottest topic of all--sex. The talk is served up in various trendy cafés by a foursome of bright, successful women: Julia, a photographer with a penchant for Peking duck and acrobatic men; Chantal, a fashion magazine editor, whose sexual exploits give new meaning to "mixing and matching"; Helen, a feminist scholar, whose wholesome demeanor belies her exotic sexual fantasies; and Philippa, a writer who appears to be taking rather close notes on her friends' raunchy tales ....This outspoken, outrageous, utterly irresistible debut is destined to be the most talked about book of the year.

We met at the Lord Dudley Hotel with another writer and the topic came around to her facilitating an erotic/romantic writing workshop in a beautiful little Blue Mountains town of Mt Wilson.

Now sometimes you just know you are on fire. The hair is just right, the eyes are all "bedroomy", the light is flattering, your jeans seem to be holding you in an understated, confident way that Richard Gere could only dream about these days. I felt good. REAL GOOD! I felt in fact, as we Australians so charmingly put it, I was in like Flynn.

After describing the beauty of the little town of Mt Wilson, the way the leaves turn golden in autumn, the lovely fireplaces that would crackle in the night, the romantic concept behind the workshop itself, I ventured confidently into the next step of the inexorable seduction dance - PERHAPS YOU'D LIKE TO COME AND HAVE A LOOK AT THE PLACE SOMETIME.

Sometime mind you. Not ... are you available next weekend .. or even next month. No ... sometime .. anytime actually. That's what really hurt when she said "No ... I am very busy at the moment"

The "moment" - I wasn't talking about the moment. I was talking about some point in an unspecified future that rolls into infinity with nothing really penciled in.

It's one thing being rejected but being rejected by someone famous who writes erotic books is in another dimension of rejection. Especially when the whole sordid event was witnessed by a friend who was also famous. It was like a conspiracy of famous people.

Perhaps I am being a little sensitive. Perhaps I read too much into it but we all know I didn't. You know when someone is choosing a chocolate, their hand hovering over the nougats and the caramel creams. I felt like the one that wasn't picked. The last chocolate in the tray, even after all the hard ones and jellies that everyone hates had been greedily snapped up.

Anyway, given this blog like just about everything else in the world is read by 99% women, I thought it might be good to tell some men stories. I'll call them A Letter from Mars. This is the first. They will be told at painful intervals as I become emotionally capable of digging up traumatic events such as this - THE NIGHT LINDA JAIVIN DROPPED ME.

PS. Linda's Website - www.lindajaivin.com.au