I've decided you can tell if you want to spend time in someone's company within roughly thirty and no more than sixty seconds.
Call me judgemental, I suppose it is. But you just get so much information about person the minute you meet them. bam. like a wave. probably in your brain a trillion nerves are firing, areas are lighting up here and there, you're recognising them, relating to aspects of them, associating them with other things from your past. weighing them up. judging them.
This is not about looks, shoes, car... or even face, well it's not strictly about face.
It's the expression their face has taken on from all the years they've used it. It's the feeling that the muscles around a persons eyes give you about how they've received their life. You can tell a cheerful, aware, optimistic, observant person, from a person who wears blinkers all their life, and lives a tunnelled life, from the look in their eyes and the muscles in their jaw.
You can tell a pessimist from an optimist, by the way they hold their shoulders. Whether they lift their heart or not.
You don't analyse this at the time, you don't think it consciously, you just feel it.
And chemistry. You either have it, or you don't. Not just the bowchika wow wow type, but just a 'click', something that fits, a feeling that tells you were meant to meet this person. A feeling that you like them straight away.
Or on the contrary, a feeling of ambivalence.
Date one. Friday night. You like date one the second you meet him and shake his hand, and see how nervous he is, and how he grins stupidly because of his nerves.
Date one starts with smiling and laughing and easy rapport. Date one catches you off guard, date one is funny.
Date one is a good date. A feeling that you've met with an old friend who's been away along time, and you're eager to hear all their stories. And you've always fancied this old friend, and now providence has brought you back together.
Date one involves playing guitar together, and singing, and cider.
These are a few of my favourite things.
Date one is easy. It's comfortable, but exciting, like driving your trusty car through the winding roads to the coast. You've been here before, but it's exciting every time.
Date one has kisses. Kisses, and dancing, are two sure fire ways to certify whether you fit with a person. A kiss fits, or oh lord... it does not fit.
I described a bad kiss scenario to a friend yesterday as 'like eating a pie'
Cringe with me.
The least sexy thing you can imagine. All fat and no flavour. Excuse whatever filthy pun you are inventing in your head right now.
When, during the pie-eating-like bad kiss i heard my inner voice say: it'll be over soon. I realised, it was over right now.
Date one kisses are not like pie eating. Date one kisses are like lychees in syrup on icechips. Date one kisses are like getting static off your jersey as you pull it from your head. Like sneezing. Date one smells JUST how you like a man to smell, you can't put your finger on it, but when your face is leaning on his jersey with his warm shoulders underneath and there is that smell... you melt down into a little puddle and hope he won't notice. That smell is like pine trees at christmas, just, so, right.
Date one ends with you wanting more.
Date two is a sunday rollerskating jam. It begins with you losing direction in Mount wellington. Date two is polite. Date two seems a little, medicated, do you know what I mean? Date two doesn't look you in the eye properly. Date two has short legs.
To Date Twos great credit, he takes you rollerskating.
Rollerskating is seven years old, my little ponies, everything with rainbows on it and plenty of pink. Rollerskating is ice cold slushies, music and lights, rollerskating is a boy two years older than you that you JUST DIE every time you rollerskate past him, because you have the BIGGEST crush on him.
I am ready to have fun, you know? Date aside, it's ROLLERSKATING... how could this not be fun?!
But somehow... it is not that fun, it starts out fun.. you get your size 10 womens, mustard brown rollerskates shaped by many years of eager feet from the teenager standing in the room full of skates. You put them on and tentatively roll out onto the hard, shiny floor. You take little, sliding new born foal steps forward, you can move, you aren't falling over, and something in your brain fires up and says I remember this!!
And around you go. Around and around and around, and around. With Date two either trailing, or leading, or beside you asking you the dullest questions you have ever heard, so dull they make your stomach ache, so dull they make you instantly tired, like, so you work monday to friday then?
And a nasty, hot, painful blister begins to form on the inside of your big right toe, metaphore not lost on you.
I'm in two places, emotionally, one of me is a 7 year old child rollerskating around a dark skating rink with the smell of sweat and sugar in my nose and multicoloured lights dancing across the floor, tripling the feeling of fun.
The other of me is 31 year old on a first date thinking REALLY? I'm really on a date with this guy?? This is really what's out there for me?
I haven't really given you any real reason not to like him, here's one. There are a bunch of lesbians at the rollerskating rink. Apparently rollerskating is big in the lesbian world, you can kind of see why, and because there was that movie with drew barrymore and page whatsherface about young girls defying their parents and taking up rollerderby.... you still with me?
So the lesbians are clearly lesbians, and there's quite a few of them. They're wearing those black clothes that are meant for 15 year olds but somehow women in their 30's seem to think it makes them look young and cool to wear them, with grafitti on them and Misery type graphics. ANYWAY. I like a lesbian as much as the next person, which is to say, I just generally like everyone until proven wrong.
And Date two, as he slowly dwindles into a bottomless hole of boringness, running out of things to say even MORE so than in the start, skates in a bit closer to me and says, looks like there's a lesbian convention down there, with a sort of a snide smirk.
The lesbians, about 8 of them, are all standing at the end of the rink, chatting, probably about how they like to eat pussy you know. Cuz thats all those lesbians do you know. And of course my date has to point it out, like we've come across a cage full of vaguely dangerous monkey species at the zoo.
I don't know, am I being too harsh? To me, that is just not interesting, and furthermore, who cares, and furthermore, it starts with the lesbians and it ends with him saying let's not let so-and-so mind the dogs while we're away because you know (he's black and he might nick something). You have to watch for bigotry, it comes in many guises.
I do this thing, when i hear someone say something snarky or unkind I try to picture my brother kae saying it. Kae's personal goodness is A close to god's as a man's could be, mean, bitchy crap doth not depart his lips. And if I can't picture him saying it "check out the lesbian convention" I drop the hammer on the person who did.
So anyway. I make the most of the rollerskating, I can feel myself going off the guy and am having to work out an exit plaln. My inner thighs and outter glutes have taken all the nostalgia they can take. When I look at the clock to see if it's over soon, there's an hour to go. Bad sign.
I realise I'm going to have to lie to him. To get out of the date extension, because of course rollerskating has only been two hours, two interminable hours, there's sure to be a 'drink' afterward. I can't bear the idea. Call me selfish, it would be entirely accurate. Out of self preservation and nothing else, I cannot sit in a bar drinking cider across from a guy who is going to ask me 'so, do you drive a car?'. Nope. NOsirreebob. No can do.
Rollerskating comes to it's natural conclusion, lights go on, skates come off, shoes go on, everyone is a little sweaty, tired and elated. Hand in our skates and head outside and there in the parking lot I lie cold and barefaced to his face. I do, I know, I'm a bad person, it's true. He says, do you want to go get a drink or something, and i look him in his dry, chaffed, red little face and say, man you know, i've got to go catchup with a friend, because she's LEAVING THE COUNTRY, and it's really bad timing i know, i'm so gutted, but this was the only time i could see her, did i mention she was leaving the country?
EEEEEK.
It's horrible. It's horrible to lie to someone and them know it and you know they know it and...it's horrible. And he just says: on yeh. and gets in his car and disappears, as I plea into the air behind him it's been REALLY nice to MEET YOU!!!
Oh god.
What you want to be able to say is, you're a nice guy, you are, you're not an asshole and you'll probably find someone as lifeless and boring with a mellow case of bigotry just like you to spend your every day with until you just completely stop moving and become a sod of dirt. I appreciate you liking me too, thanks, it's always good to have a fan, and the date was not aweful, but I can tell you with total sincerity that we are never going to have a spark and end up in a passionate tryst tied to a bedpost, or spend our sundays reading papers while we stroke each others leg with our foot under the duvet, or reading books to each other in a tent. We have no future. So lets just cut our losses shall we?
That's what i wish you could say, but you can't, the world makes you lie.
So then i text date one, because i want to kiss him again, and i'm hungry, for food, and if there's one thing i like it's going out to dinner with someone i'm attracted to. Sitting across from each other sharing our thai meals thinking how if things carry on this nicely you might just end up reading the paper together on sundays.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Rambo is a Vegetable
So this is a posthumous post. This bad date happened several months ago. It's a tale worth telling as it fits with this blog, and shouldn't go untold.
I meet him at a party, I am on a high because I sung at the party, on a microphone, to everybody, and no, not drunk, not by prying it from the MCs hand, I was actually part of the 'set'.
I'm excited, I have a few ciders, a few more. I have a cup of 'tea' that might or might not have had something in it that dilmah doesn't know about. I'm down by the fire and the fire is glorious and I'm glorious and he has a big bent nose, the type i like, and so i kiss him. And we kiss and kiss and then he drops me home. We sit in his van outside my house, he has been supermarket shopping and has a bag with wine and chips and crackers in it. we have a mini, drunk as heck picnic in the van at 4 in the morning outside my house. Everything about this is likeable. He is named after a vegetable.
He texts me the next day, and after texting all week he arranges to pick me up on Sunday for our first real date. He has texted me all kinds of sweet wonderful nothings, he seems quite taken by, I can't wait.
He says he'll be at my house at three. At three fifteen he texts and says 'running late will be there in ten'. I wait. I hate waiting. I hate people making you waste time, I hate not knowing when the next thing is going to happen. I hate how your makeup and hair flops and sweats off when you wait. By FOUR pm, yes, an hour after the origial ETA, I confirm with a good girlfriend that this is unacceptable and am just writing the text that says 'don't worry about it mate' and his text intervenes (damn you fate) and says 'i'm here'.
I figure it's worth going out and seeing if in the daylight, he's worth any fuss at all. Okay to be honest, memories are patchy and I want to see if his nose is a alluringly bent, if he is is cute as i remember.
He doesn't cross the road to come to the door. He stands by his car. I cross the road (don't you think this is unfair? That i have to be seen approaching and not him?). When we meet it is awkward because cars are passing at high speed and we dont' hug or kiss cheeks and he. Does not. Apologise. For being. Late.
We get in his jeep, he's kinda cute, part maori with blue eyes, nice, the big bent nose, nice, a funny brightly coloured old 70s tramping jacket, he's kinda cool, I think.
But as soon as were driving he's talking, talking, talking, all about himself. He's done this, man he's done that, he's bought this business and worked for this organisation, man there isn't anything this guy hasn't done. Currently? Oh, currently he's between things, weighing up his options. He talks and talks some more. Maybe he's nervous, I think. He is fairly interesting. Man I wish I could talk some too...I cut him some slack, maybe he's just nervous.
We get to where we're going, kare kare, nice. there's a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, my opinion of him keeps flicking from positive to negative. And damn you know what else? All this time i'm trying to appear gorgeous, funny, interesting, intelligent and skinny.... for a guy i'm not even sure I like at all.
This is how bad it can be inside the brain sometimes ahy.
We drive up, up, up a long winding road, i've never been here, miles away, not the beach at all. We park, we get out, he says 'we should have time to do the loop' and i think nothing of it. Off we walk. It's muddy, but it's beautiful. Bush walking is never not good. We walk and talk. He's definitely an alternative guy, and done some cool things, he's up my alley for sure, i'm just not sure if we share the same address, i do like him... but he still won't let me talk... negatives, positives....
Okay so here's the next thing. We come to a fork in the path. One way says 20 mins to karekare beach, the other says back the way we came (can't remember the track name). He ums and ahhs and scratches his patchy hippy stubble, how long do you think we've been walking for? he asks me. I reckon about 40, 45 minutes I say.
I, for no known reason at all, have decided this day to wear my tacky, plastic, $10 watch today, something i never, ever do. It's strictly for wearing to personal training sessions so i can time peoples torture. But here I am wearing it, funny thing that.
I run every night, so I know when sun down is, because I always check how much daylight I have when i head out the door. I look at my watch, and I realise that sun down is in 20 minutes, light will linger for 30 if we're in a place with no canopy and very, very lucky.
He has decided that we take the track back the way we came, finish the loop.
There is a little, awkward aching in my torso that is worry beginning to take root.
We walk a bit of the way down the track, this part of the track is real muddy, it's all about just getting muddy now, it's steep too, and not as well cut back.
After a minute or so he stops, looks genuinely perplexed, and says, ahh, i've kind of lost my bearings, i'm not sure if we're going the right way.
BANG. Adrenalin bursts out of my adrenal glands and takes a millionth of a second to reach my heart which pounds once, big and hard like an axel against it's ribbed cage.
I realise now fully the predicament we're in. We're not lost, not exactly, but we are in the waitakere ranges, and the sun is about to go down, we have no light, no equipment of any sort, in fact i am dressed in jeans, which are wet, and a sweatshirt, which is also wet, and wet, muddy sneakers with holes in them.
I am with a stranger, and no body knows where we are, because it was a date, and so the destination was kept a surprise from me. I'm not even one iota worried about this pleb doing something harmful to me, he's too stupid to be dangerous, what i really, really don't want, is to for the first time, have to spend a long, cold, scary, uncomfortable, night, with absolutely no equipment, water or food, in the forests of the waitakere ranges.
And you know why i'm facing this predicament? Because he. was. late.
And why was he late, lets face it, because he doesn't respect me, or other people generally. do you know how much i like this guy right now? less and less.
And the part of me that wants him to like me? That is willing to let him make bad decisions while i stand by being tryinig to seem skinny and simultaneously funny?
It is dead to the world.
We're going back to the fork and we're taking teh other track, i say. And I lead us up the hill at a MUCH brisker pace. We get to the fork. The sun is going down. The light is getting grainy. It's funny how the light seeps away in such tiny increments that you can't see it going, what you notice instead is that you start to only be able to see outlines, colour loses it's vividness. After awhile you note that you are semi seeing your way, semi feeling your way along the track, the ground rises to meet your foot unexpectedly high, low, or slippery, you can't quite tell in advance. It is going to be dark soon. I want to go home.
All this way, mainly to quell my hysteria, i keep letting him talk at me, asking him questions to egg him on. you know what he tells me? That he got lost in the bush not once, but twice before, and had to unexpectedly sleep in the bush over night with his mate. That they'd nearly walked off a cliff in the dark in fact. You know what i think about this guy: you're a f**king dickhead. And how DARE you put me in this position, you big, hardmN, rambo, renegade friggin vegetable.
We make it out, we walk out in darkness, nighttime darkness. And now, now my friends, we only have an hour or so walk up a very steep, winding, one lane road in complete pitch black to get back to the car!
A guy goes past on one of those one man wide, flat, tractor farm type bike things (somebody help me here) and Vegetable Juice says, if he comes back i'll flag him down for a ride.
WHAT!?!? And where the hell do you think we're going to sit?? you on the back and me clinging to your shoulders??!! This guy is such a fricken renegade, such a tough guy, so much to PROOVE.
car lights light up the horizon, I thrust my arm out, thumb up and say into the night, please PLEASE pick us up. They stop, two nice people, they say, we'd give you alift but we've got two really wet, dirty dogs in the back.
Of course you have.
That's fine! I tell them, opening the door, ploughing into the back seat only to be met by the wettest, dirtiest dog i've ever met, and there's another one behind them. I push them over, to leave room for Rambo. The couple in the car are absolutely lovely, and it makes me realise what unenjoyable company rambo has been, i'd rather have been hanging out with these two complete strangers and their dirty canines.
Which, by the way, are plastered against me, wet, cold, sandy dog fur, pressed to me like, lover-close. dogs.
They drop us at the car. i'm now wet, cold, dirty, muddy, sandy and smell like a dog, and the vegetable man? not even a little bit muddy, no no because convenintly it was i who ended up sitting next to the dogs, not herotown over here.
He drives me home. Every second is one second closer to being away from him.
He mentions how he's going to be early for a part which is not like him at all, and i'm like, "that doesn't surprise me, late people are late people, they don't give a shit about other people adn they're just late for everything". I relish not caring and being able to blurt out the thing that comes to mind the fastest.
He drops me off. Before I can silence my stupid mouth it says 'lets do this again' or something inane like that. Something that i dont' even MEAN! I should have said, you suck, thanks for getting me lost in the bush, i hope your johnson gets a rash this week. But no, i smile and say, lets do it again. Goddamn me!
You wanna know what the real injustice of it all is. He doesn't call me. He doesn't text. He doesn't want to see me again. Him. Me. Him. Me. I taste the bitter and bile-like taste of being rejected by someone you don't even LIKE.
There is more to this story that could be told... about how i bumped into him again... and proved my theory that he was just a try-hard rambo wanna be and that nobody really liked him... but for another time.
Moral: Don't date dudes named after vegetables.
Lesson for the day: if he's any moer than 15 minutes late, it's too late. Stop waiting for him and move on.
Next!
I meet him at a party, I am on a high because I sung at the party, on a microphone, to everybody, and no, not drunk, not by prying it from the MCs hand, I was actually part of the 'set'.
I'm excited, I have a few ciders, a few more. I have a cup of 'tea' that might or might not have had something in it that dilmah doesn't know about. I'm down by the fire and the fire is glorious and I'm glorious and he has a big bent nose, the type i like, and so i kiss him. And we kiss and kiss and then he drops me home. We sit in his van outside my house, he has been supermarket shopping and has a bag with wine and chips and crackers in it. we have a mini, drunk as heck picnic in the van at 4 in the morning outside my house. Everything about this is likeable. He is named after a vegetable.
He texts me the next day, and after texting all week he arranges to pick me up on Sunday for our first real date. He has texted me all kinds of sweet wonderful nothings, he seems quite taken by, I can't wait.
He says he'll be at my house at three. At three fifteen he texts and says 'running late will be there in ten'. I wait. I hate waiting. I hate people making you waste time, I hate not knowing when the next thing is going to happen. I hate how your makeup and hair flops and sweats off when you wait. By FOUR pm, yes, an hour after the origial ETA, I confirm with a good girlfriend that this is unacceptable and am just writing the text that says 'don't worry about it mate' and his text intervenes (damn you fate) and says 'i'm here'.
I figure it's worth going out and seeing if in the daylight, he's worth any fuss at all. Okay to be honest, memories are patchy and I want to see if his nose is a alluringly bent, if he is is cute as i remember.
He doesn't cross the road to come to the door. He stands by his car. I cross the road (don't you think this is unfair? That i have to be seen approaching and not him?). When we meet it is awkward because cars are passing at high speed and we dont' hug or kiss cheeks and he. Does not. Apologise. For being. Late.
We get in his jeep, he's kinda cute, part maori with blue eyes, nice, the big bent nose, nice, a funny brightly coloured old 70s tramping jacket, he's kinda cool, I think.
But as soon as were driving he's talking, talking, talking, all about himself. He's done this, man he's done that, he's bought this business and worked for this organisation, man there isn't anything this guy hasn't done. Currently? Oh, currently he's between things, weighing up his options. He talks and talks some more. Maybe he's nervous, I think. He is fairly interesting. Man I wish I could talk some too...I cut him some slack, maybe he's just nervous.
We get to where we're going, kare kare, nice. there's a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, my opinion of him keeps flicking from positive to negative. And damn you know what else? All this time i'm trying to appear gorgeous, funny, interesting, intelligent and skinny.... for a guy i'm not even sure I like at all.
This is how bad it can be inside the brain sometimes ahy.
We drive up, up, up a long winding road, i've never been here, miles away, not the beach at all. We park, we get out, he says 'we should have time to do the loop' and i think nothing of it. Off we walk. It's muddy, but it's beautiful. Bush walking is never not good. We walk and talk. He's definitely an alternative guy, and done some cool things, he's up my alley for sure, i'm just not sure if we share the same address, i do like him... but he still won't let me talk... negatives, positives....
Okay so here's the next thing. We come to a fork in the path. One way says 20 mins to karekare beach, the other says back the way we came (can't remember the track name). He ums and ahhs and scratches his patchy hippy stubble, how long do you think we've been walking for? he asks me. I reckon about 40, 45 minutes I say.
I, for no known reason at all, have decided this day to wear my tacky, plastic, $10 watch today, something i never, ever do. It's strictly for wearing to personal training sessions so i can time peoples torture. But here I am wearing it, funny thing that.
I run every night, so I know when sun down is, because I always check how much daylight I have when i head out the door. I look at my watch, and I realise that sun down is in 20 minutes, light will linger for 30 if we're in a place with no canopy and very, very lucky.
He has decided that we take the track back the way we came, finish the loop.
There is a little, awkward aching in my torso that is worry beginning to take root.
We walk a bit of the way down the track, this part of the track is real muddy, it's all about just getting muddy now, it's steep too, and not as well cut back.
After a minute or so he stops, looks genuinely perplexed, and says, ahh, i've kind of lost my bearings, i'm not sure if we're going the right way.
BANG. Adrenalin bursts out of my adrenal glands and takes a millionth of a second to reach my heart which pounds once, big and hard like an axel against it's ribbed cage.
I realise now fully the predicament we're in. We're not lost, not exactly, but we are in the waitakere ranges, and the sun is about to go down, we have no light, no equipment of any sort, in fact i am dressed in jeans, which are wet, and a sweatshirt, which is also wet, and wet, muddy sneakers with holes in them.
I am with a stranger, and no body knows where we are, because it was a date, and so the destination was kept a surprise from me. I'm not even one iota worried about this pleb doing something harmful to me, he's too stupid to be dangerous, what i really, really don't want, is to for the first time, have to spend a long, cold, scary, uncomfortable, night, with absolutely no equipment, water or food, in the forests of the waitakere ranges.
And you know why i'm facing this predicament? Because he. was. late.
And why was he late, lets face it, because he doesn't respect me, or other people generally. do you know how much i like this guy right now? less and less.
And the part of me that wants him to like me? That is willing to let him make bad decisions while i stand by being tryinig to seem skinny and simultaneously funny?
It is dead to the world.
We're going back to the fork and we're taking teh other track, i say. And I lead us up the hill at a MUCH brisker pace. We get to the fork. The sun is going down. The light is getting grainy. It's funny how the light seeps away in such tiny increments that you can't see it going, what you notice instead is that you start to only be able to see outlines, colour loses it's vividness. After awhile you note that you are semi seeing your way, semi feeling your way along the track, the ground rises to meet your foot unexpectedly high, low, or slippery, you can't quite tell in advance. It is going to be dark soon. I want to go home.
All this way, mainly to quell my hysteria, i keep letting him talk at me, asking him questions to egg him on. you know what he tells me? That he got lost in the bush not once, but twice before, and had to unexpectedly sleep in the bush over night with his mate. That they'd nearly walked off a cliff in the dark in fact. You know what i think about this guy: you're a f**king dickhead. And how DARE you put me in this position, you big, hardmN, rambo, renegade friggin vegetable.
We make it out, we walk out in darkness, nighttime darkness. And now, now my friends, we only have an hour or so walk up a very steep, winding, one lane road in complete pitch black to get back to the car!
A guy goes past on one of those one man wide, flat, tractor farm type bike things (somebody help me here) and Vegetable Juice says, if he comes back i'll flag him down for a ride.
WHAT!?!? And where the hell do you think we're going to sit?? you on the back and me clinging to your shoulders??!! This guy is such a fricken renegade, such a tough guy, so much to PROOVE.
car lights light up the horizon, I thrust my arm out, thumb up and say into the night, please PLEASE pick us up. They stop, two nice people, they say, we'd give you alift but we've got two really wet, dirty dogs in the back.
Of course you have.
That's fine! I tell them, opening the door, ploughing into the back seat only to be met by the wettest, dirtiest dog i've ever met, and there's another one behind them. I push them over, to leave room for Rambo. The couple in the car are absolutely lovely, and it makes me realise what unenjoyable company rambo has been, i'd rather have been hanging out with these two complete strangers and their dirty canines.
Which, by the way, are plastered against me, wet, cold, sandy dog fur, pressed to me like, lover-close. dogs.
They drop us at the car. i'm now wet, cold, dirty, muddy, sandy and smell like a dog, and the vegetable man? not even a little bit muddy, no no because convenintly it was i who ended up sitting next to the dogs, not herotown over here.
He drives me home. Every second is one second closer to being away from him.
He mentions how he's going to be early for a part which is not like him at all, and i'm like, "that doesn't surprise me, late people are late people, they don't give a shit about other people adn they're just late for everything". I relish not caring and being able to blurt out the thing that comes to mind the fastest.
He drops me off. Before I can silence my stupid mouth it says 'lets do this again' or something inane like that. Something that i dont' even MEAN! I should have said, you suck, thanks for getting me lost in the bush, i hope your johnson gets a rash this week. But no, i smile and say, lets do it again. Goddamn me!
You wanna know what the real injustice of it all is. He doesn't call me. He doesn't text. He doesn't want to see me again. Him. Me. Him. Me. I taste the bitter and bile-like taste of being rejected by someone you don't even LIKE.
There is more to this story that could be told... about how i bumped into him again... and proved my theory that he was just a try-hard rambo wanna be and that nobody really liked him... but for another time.
Moral: Don't date dudes named after vegetables.
Lesson for the day: if he's any moer than 15 minutes late, it's too late. Stop waiting for him and move on.
Next!
The Tight Stockbroker
I signed up to the dating website 'findsomeone.co.nz' four years ago. I didn't have much luck. I went on one date with a guy who'd watched his girl friend get shot and die and thought, not for me!
Incidentally I ended up going out with a guy who had been on findsomeone at the same time as me, but we had never been 'matched up'.. hmm, doth the internet not know everything?!?
So last week my friend said, have you been on findsomeone? There are heaps of cute guys on there, you have to have a look!
Never one to miss an opportunity for voyeurism, I logged in, unbeknownst to me, reactivating my account. After having a decent perve through the lists of men (and yes, quite a few hotties! And yes, quite a few notties), I closed it down.
The very next day, drawn like pooh bear to honey, I reopened the website, only to find that my now reactivated account had attracted a fair whack of attention!
Well of course I immediately set about updating my profile, four years had passed! Things had changed! Things I said when I was 27 were cringe-worthy! photo's could be hotter!
Bam, a message from The Stockbroker. Hi! We chatted four years ago! Lets meet up this time!
Well I like a straighforward man who will put himself out there so of course I agreed. There were numerous texts in the week which led me to believe Stockbroker man might be somewhat interesting, perhaps even have wit.
What should have alarmed me was when he referred to me as 'hot clare' (I know, I know, sounds like internet sleeze, one has to keep an open mind!), which I now think may have meant 'way out of my league clare'.
It's Friday, we meet at said bar, here's how it goes down.
I'm five minutes early (common courtesy) so I buy myself a wine and chat to an acquaintance I run into there.
Stockbroker texts that he's on his way. He arrives 11 minutes late. I make no mention of this, or even barely note it. Things happen.
He buys himself a red bull. I sip my wine.
We talk, about stock broking for about 40 minutes. Hey! I can use all the financial aid I can get, so i'm cool with that. But when he does get round to asking me why 'a hot, smart, funny woman like me is doing online dating'?
I only get three words into my reply before I physically feel him fading off into goldfish attention, blip, blip, blip.
This is not the problem, not the main one, nor is the fact that he's not all that good looking, because hey, personality talks! (his doesn't really talk, it sort of mutters).
Anyway here's the thing. The man is a stockbroker, and as far as I know (from tele and 80's movies) stockbrokers are people who tell other people what to do with their money to make the maximum amount of money from it. I'm guessing, the guy is not on the artists benefit.
He also tells me he owns two businesses and in his words 'has nothing to spend his money on'. I wonder if this is meant to lure me into liking him more, if so, it should be followed up by a magnum of champagne and being helicoptered to a spa pool of hot chocolate. But I digress...
My drink becomes empty and after leaving it a few minutes to see if he will get a round, I get up to buy myself one, it's Friday night, I didn't come out to sit still and look pretty. I offer to get him one too, which he declines.
I buy myself one, two, three drinks, always offering to buy him one as well, but he doesn't get the 'vibe' about perhaps buying me a drink.
I have to interject here and say, I am not a gold digger, not by any stretch of the imagination, and those who know my ex boyfriends can testify to this. But I think that if you are going to ask a girl out to meet you for a drink, from a dating website, then you buy her a drink. Tell me if I'm wrong??!!
So, buoyed by three wines I say to him: Want to do a trip to the bar? Reluctantly, he does. When, buoyed by an additional cider I say: want to do another trip to the bar? He says no!
In good humour I INSIST that he buys me another drink and I go to the toilet. When I return I have a half glass of cider sitting in front of me. This is because he has bought one drink, and poured half of it INTO HIS GLASS, because he ONLY FELT LIKE A HALF.
I can see me now in my minds eye, flicking my head to the side, unable to actually look at him for what I would say out loud. I'm not mad, i'm just incredulous, it just seems so... rude??!!
Buddy, I want to say, What is with you!?!? Good luck mate, I hope you enjoy sleeping on your humungous pile of cold gold coins all alone tonight!? What is $8.50 for a date with a, in your words, 'hot, funny, intelligent woman' like me?!
I glance into our future and see clothes that I've sewn to other clothes to make patchwork one piece blanket/outfits for our homeless kids.... I see valentines days with him washing half of his own dishes, saving half for me, because fairs fair. I see a wedding ring made out of coke can pull tabs....
Needless to say, Cinderella was in bed before the clock struck twelve that evening!
He texted the next day to say he'd had fun and did I want to meet again, and resisting the urge to be more frank I said no, that I didn't think that we had enough in common.
Fair enough, he said, best of luck.
I mean, you can't say he was a bad guy, just the tightest goddam stockbroker in the whole of auckland city!
Next!
Incidentally I ended up going out with a guy who had been on findsomeone at the same time as me, but we had never been 'matched up'.. hmm, doth the internet not know everything?!?
So last week my friend said, have you been on findsomeone? There are heaps of cute guys on there, you have to have a look!
Never one to miss an opportunity for voyeurism, I logged in, unbeknownst to me, reactivating my account. After having a decent perve through the lists of men (and yes, quite a few hotties! And yes, quite a few notties), I closed it down.
The very next day, drawn like pooh bear to honey, I reopened the website, only to find that my now reactivated account had attracted a fair whack of attention!
Well of course I immediately set about updating my profile, four years had passed! Things had changed! Things I said when I was 27 were cringe-worthy! photo's could be hotter!
Bam, a message from The Stockbroker. Hi! We chatted four years ago! Lets meet up this time!
Well I like a straighforward man who will put himself out there so of course I agreed. There were numerous texts in the week which led me to believe Stockbroker man might be somewhat interesting, perhaps even have wit.
What should have alarmed me was when he referred to me as 'hot clare' (I know, I know, sounds like internet sleeze, one has to keep an open mind!), which I now think may have meant 'way out of my league clare'.
It's Friday, we meet at said bar, here's how it goes down.
I'm five minutes early (common courtesy) so I buy myself a wine and chat to an acquaintance I run into there.
Stockbroker texts that he's on his way. He arrives 11 minutes late. I make no mention of this, or even barely note it. Things happen.
He buys himself a red bull. I sip my wine.
We talk, about stock broking for about 40 minutes. Hey! I can use all the financial aid I can get, so i'm cool with that. But when he does get round to asking me why 'a hot, smart, funny woman like me is doing online dating'?
I only get three words into my reply before I physically feel him fading off into goldfish attention, blip, blip, blip.
This is not the problem, not the main one, nor is the fact that he's not all that good looking, because hey, personality talks! (his doesn't really talk, it sort of mutters).
Anyway here's the thing. The man is a stockbroker, and as far as I know (from tele and 80's movies) stockbrokers are people who tell other people what to do with their money to make the maximum amount of money from it. I'm guessing, the guy is not on the artists benefit.
He also tells me he owns two businesses and in his words 'has nothing to spend his money on'. I wonder if this is meant to lure me into liking him more, if so, it should be followed up by a magnum of champagne and being helicoptered to a spa pool of hot chocolate. But I digress...
My drink becomes empty and after leaving it a few minutes to see if he will get a round, I get up to buy myself one, it's Friday night, I didn't come out to sit still and look pretty. I offer to get him one too, which he declines.
I buy myself one, two, three drinks, always offering to buy him one as well, but he doesn't get the 'vibe' about perhaps buying me a drink.
I have to interject here and say, I am not a gold digger, not by any stretch of the imagination, and those who know my ex boyfriends can testify to this. But I think that if you are going to ask a girl out to meet you for a drink, from a dating website, then you buy her a drink. Tell me if I'm wrong??!!
So, buoyed by three wines I say to him: Want to do a trip to the bar? Reluctantly, he does. When, buoyed by an additional cider I say: want to do another trip to the bar? He says no!
In good humour I INSIST that he buys me another drink and I go to the toilet. When I return I have a half glass of cider sitting in front of me. This is because he has bought one drink, and poured half of it INTO HIS GLASS, because he ONLY FELT LIKE A HALF.
I can see me now in my minds eye, flicking my head to the side, unable to actually look at him for what I would say out loud. I'm not mad, i'm just incredulous, it just seems so... rude??!!
Buddy, I want to say, What is with you!?!? Good luck mate, I hope you enjoy sleeping on your humungous pile of cold gold coins all alone tonight!? What is $8.50 for a date with a, in your words, 'hot, funny, intelligent woman' like me?!
I glance into our future and see clothes that I've sewn to other clothes to make patchwork one piece blanket/outfits for our homeless kids.... I see valentines days with him washing half of his own dishes, saving half for me, because fairs fair. I see a wedding ring made out of coke can pull tabs....
Needless to say, Cinderella was in bed before the clock struck twelve that evening!
He texted the next day to say he'd had fun and did I want to meet again, and resisting the urge to be more frank I said no, that I didn't think that we had enough in common.
Fair enough, he said, best of luck.
I mean, you can't say he was a bad guy, just the tightest goddam stockbroker in the whole of auckland city!
Next!
And so it begins
I want to tell you why I'm writing this blog, or at least the part I'm consciously aware of...
As my profile outlines... I'm a nice, funny, smart, cool, talented, sexy, fit, pretty, generally fabulous young woman in my very early thirties, and yet ... single.
I've had boyfriends, good ones and bad ones and everything in the between, but like elastoplasts on wet fingers, they've never stuck.
I'm the girl whose family and friends plough their taught fingers through their wiry hair and ask of the God's: FOR WHY IS SHE STILL SINGLE?!?!
Okay that might be a tad dramatic. But with some small essence of truth.
Being the kind of optimistic 'cut'em off at the turn, it aint over ‘til the fat lady sings, can do attitude' kind of gal, I've decided the only adequate response is to date with reckless abandon.
It all began when on the recommendation from a friend I signed up to a dating website strictly 'for a perve' only, and proceeded to get lost in the world of internet dating like it was the plot of The Bourne Identity.
Having had one bad date, and seeing how happy it made others to hear this tale of woe, I thought I would set up a blog so you could all share in the mirth. Becuase I like to laugh, even at my own misfortune, and I'd like nothing more than you to laugh along with me.
It also serves as a sort of inadequate justice to those buggers who orchestrated the bad dates!
NoteBene: Karma forbid that in true justice I am actually subjected to ONE HUNDRED AND ONE BAD DATES, the number just has a nice ring to it.
Post Script if you know any singly, handsome, smart, emotionally mature, emotionally available, sexy, conscious, part hippy, physically active, eco-friendly, lover-extraordinnaire, tall-ish, cuisine-friendly, funny, sensitive, mentally-well men. Please post them to.....
As my profile outlines... I'm a nice, funny, smart, cool, talented, sexy, fit, pretty, generally fabulous young woman in my very early thirties, and yet ... single.
I've had boyfriends, good ones and bad ones and everything in the between, but like elastoplasts on wet fingers, they've never stuck.
I'm the girl whose family and friends plough their taught fingers through their wiry hair and ask of the God's: FOR WHY IS SHE STILL SINGLE?!?!
Okay that might be a tad dramatic. But with some small essence of truth.
Being the kind of optimistic 'cut'em off at the turn, it aint over ‘til the fat lady sings, can do attitude' kind of gal, I've decided the only adequate response is to date with reckless abandon.
It all began when on the recommendation from a friend I signed up to a dating website strictly 'for a perve' only, and proceeded to get lost in the world of internet dating like it was the plot of The Bourne Identity.
Having had one bad date, and seeing how happy it made others to hear this tale of woe, I thought I would set up a blog so you could all share in the mirth. Becuase I like to laugh, even at my own misfortune, and I'd like nothing more than you to laugh along with me.
It also serves as a sort of inadequate justice to those buggers who orchestrated the bad dates!
NoteBene: Karma forbid that in true justice I am actually subjected to ONE HUNDRED AND ONE BAD DATES, the number just has a nice ring to it.
Post Script if you know any singly, handsome, smart, emotionally mature, emotionally available, sexy, conscious, part hippy, physically active, eco-friendly, lover-extraordinnaire, tall-ish, cuisine-friendly, funny, sensitive, mentally-well men. Please post them to.....
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