Table for one, please.

Travelling alone has left me well versed in the art of taking myself out for dinner. A date with myself, if you will. A largely platonic affair (I don't kiss on the first date).

Prepare yourself, dear reader, to saddle up ye old pretentious steed, to grasp the reins of snobbery and whip the arse of haughtiness, for I am about to claim that last night's desire to dine out transcended a mere grumbly stomach and that the source of my hunger was in fact a literary affair. Bear with me, now. I have ground for my claim, and it's not pompous as it may sound.

I have recently finished The Secret History, by Donna Tartt, and in between the scheming and the killing and the boozing, the characters seem to be constantly chewing some delectable morsel of well-described food.

On a quick side note, I also watch Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations on a daily basis, how Spanish and cultural of me, right? Is this how I should be spending my time in Spain? Yeah, well, cago en tu leche (see I'm learning some stuff!).

I digress, I decided to treat myself. A little me-time, just to have a break from all the other me-time I've been having for the last month. A one on one. Well, a one, I suppose. Me and my old chum, Brain.

And so I plomped myself down on the wooden stool of a recommended tapas joint. Same family since 190-something, signed portraits of famous matadors on the wall and marble troughs around the bottom of the bar for the regulars to drop their crumpled, orange stained napkins on the floor.

This is it, I thought, I'm Hemingway now. Order what you please, drink carafes of wine until the sun comes up and then write a modern classic. I'd cracked it. The formula; good food, good wine, the rest will follow. I ordered gazpacho, some garlic and chilli prawns, side of bread and a cold, light beer.

The bread came first, with a tiny fork for the prawns. I inspected it, it was dirty. My literary illusion suddenly popped. The centuries old patter that the bartender offered out was now nothing more than a hollow script. That man was dead behind the eyes. His smile a mere symptom of a madness that saying the same thing one hundred times a day for fifty years will deliver unto your weary mind.

I scrubbed the fork with my thumb, not one for confrontation, I certainly am no Hemingway. I was now just a tired man in the corner taking himself out for dinner and accidentally staring at other customers out of boredom.

Worst date ever.

Didn't even get invited up for coffee.