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!
No comments:
Post a Comment