Another Audition

So I look down at my phone and it is flashing and his name is on the screen.  I don't know if I'm calling him, or he's calling me, or how this happened. Then I realise if he's calling me he might be listening to me heavy breath into the phone while I try to work out what's going on, and quickly press end call.

I think about it for one minute and realise I don't want him to think I called him. Oh so, he's a guy from findsomeone I messaged with once right before I got on-line-dating-fatigue (OLDF) and closed my account.  It's been ages, months since then. So I don't want him to think all this time I was clinging to the possibility of us, worked up the guts to call him, and then lost my mettle and hung up mid call! Tragic.

So I text him him "hey (guy), my phone just pocket called you, sorry about that, hope you're well".
Sorted.
Don't hear back for a few days, nothing unusual there.
Then I get a text from him saying he's had his phone off because he's been trekking in the himalaya's and how am I?
So we text back and forth, turns out he's travelling in south america, and after a few texts asks me if we should have coffee then?
If you don't know, I am a believer in just about everything.  From vampires to fairies to there being no actual time, to mayan predictions, to witches, to lot's of types of gods (non-exlusively), to telepathy, aliens, ghosts.. yeah you name it I pretty much believe in it, so being this type of all-believing person, I think that it might have been Fate slash Destiny that my phone rang him all by itself. And what a great story this will make to tell our grandkids.... of course I'll go for coffee.

We text during the week, actually, he texts me alot, and I have a good feeling about him from the things he says and does.  He asks questions, seems to have a full and interesting life, and thinks I'm funny. Which of course I am, but you know, it's good that he can tell. 

So I turn up at the Piha cafe, he lives at piha and i'm happy for the opportunity to get out there because it's been months.  And I see him through the window and he has a nice sort of look about him - blonde, blue eyed, tan skinned surfer type look. I pull the heavy glass door open and step inside and he has risen to greet me and I am 100% sure that his first thoughts are 'oh my god she's so tall/big!' while mine simultaneously are: 'oh god, so small/short!'  Here we go again.

In the week I'd had to log back onto my findsomeone account to preview his profile JUST to be sure.  And I read on there that he is 5'10.  You know I call myself 5'11, but i have no idea really, i don't even know what that means, five what's? badgers? eleven what? eggs? five shoes and eleven cigarettes. I dont' even know.  And I could possibly be 5'10.  So from looking at his height on his profile I think, okay, about my height I can deal with that.

Everyone knows I date short guys. Dated one for 2 and a half years. It was pretty miserable but not because of his height. I thought he was very attractive. So for years I've been saying 'i don't really mind short guys' and you know what? I'm not going to say it anymore because CLEARLY the universe has been listening, and is sending every vertically challenged midget into my life like it's a Charlie And The Chocolate Factory wrap party.

Anyway, I put that aside. And we get coffee's and he asks me what i would like and pays and that's nice and we sit outside and there's his dog and it's about the nicest dog i think i've ever met, a collie huntaway cross, and so polite and gentle and nice lookingand doesn't smell and well behaved and that really endears me to him.
And we're talking and he's eating eggs bene and i'm saying to myself just be yourself and he's telling me all these things, how he's invented stuff and had it patented and sells it (pretty impressive) and has had four major careers, and while he is giving me a short history of just about everything i notice that his hands are really small.

Quite aside from the old, I think fairly accurate adage, that mens hand and foot size is directly proportionate to their appendage size, his small hands just look a little bit ridiculous.
I know, I know, i'm going to hell. ALONE. I get it.  But i'm just being honest.  I move on from the small hands thing and then he puts this massive big woollen jumper on, the kind that looks like it just came off the sheep, real thick thing, maybe an inch thick, and it has rolled up cuffs and a kind of turtle neck, i like the jumper, but unfortunately the sleeves end shy of his wrists. and in this too short sleeved, over-sized, massive jumper he looks a little bit like .... a little-person.  You know? with normal head size but short limbs and small hands?  I mean. Come on. I'm really not that shallow.  But a little person?

And also, it's starting to become apparent, that he is for talking, and i am for listening. And that's probably the crux of it.
So we go for a walk down the beach and i ask if he feels like a big 'stonking' walk because i haven't had enough exercise this week and we're at piha and the air is all fresh and misty and the beach so long and ideal for it, and he says we could walk up to the look out bit and I say cool and can we walk FAST?
Reason 1 - my back hurts, all the time, and i shit you not it hurts more when i dawdle.
Reason 2 - i have long legs and my walking pace is fast. walking slowly is like waiting for a toddler. Or watching a toddler try to find it's mouth with a spoon, but all the slimy porridge ending up on it's top, hands and chair.
Reason 3 - i need the exercise.
And i begin to stride off at my normal beach walking pace and he falls behind and says, but you have long legs and i have little stumpy ones.
And now the word stumpy has been said, laid on the table, out there for all to see.

Up we go, me and jack the dog up front and piha-man twelve paces behind.  And all the way up and around and down and through, he continues his telling me all the things he's ever done, or thought, or been to.  And the worst of it is, he punctuates his sentences with the word 'mate'.
He actually refers to me as 'mate'.  Like: and then this thing happened and MATE you wouldn't believe it... and i mean MATE have you ever seen.... It's not a general reference, he's actually referring to me as mate. and sometimes dude. which is vaguely better but not much.
I have a thing about being called mate, no, women have a thing about being called mate.
Mate is what you call ugly chicks.  I am not your mate, I am not on your buliding site in gumboots with a fag hanging out the corner of my mouth, nodding my head in condelence to your big night out shagged a fat chick story.
Mate.
And it just kind of adds to the me bing three stories taller than him thing, with him calling me mate, i'm feeling more and more like a checkered shirt wearing, short haired, tractor driving, lesbian.
This is not how I want to be feeling today.

We reach the look out bit and i'm soaking in the big endless grey atlantic sea, six foot swell and tiny black bodies of surfers'; the wet air on my face and emansive black rocks pushing up into the slate sky, and his phone rings and he talks on it for five minutes. and when i want to keep moving he says 'gee you don't sit still and take it all in do you?!' but i did. while he was talking on the phone.

So i don't know, is it the height, the hands, the always talking and telling me the same story three times (yeah i get it, i already got it), the calling me mate, the stumpy legs? Is it all those things, none of them? I don't know. I just know there's no spark. And when there's no spark, there's never going to be.  Sparks do not grow.  We are not two bits of tindery wood, who if we just rub together long enough will create an inferno.  If i've learnt anything about dating it's that sparks don't grow. In fact the lack of sparking almost always escalates into full blown revulsion if you let it go on, hoping for a fire. In a way, it's like mother nature saying, next! And quite aside from whether it means anything or not, I just want to feel something.  It's a bad feeling, not feeling anything.

And you see this, this is part of the reason I don't want to go on dates. Prior to meeting him i was feeling intreptidation, more than half the reason was because i don't want to meet a nice person, have them put in all this vain and noble effort to impress me, and then have to tell them i don't like them.  Because I don't NOT like them, I just don't want their sweaty body writhing on mine.  But that's not how it sounds. It sounds like 'i think you're shit'.  And then this perfectly nice person you have nothing aginst, immediately feels like shit and hates you. It's rough.

I am good and polite and go back to his house for tea and listen to more stories and then finally the light is changing and it's a decent time to say i have to go.  And we have an awkward hug goodbye where he goes to kiss my cheek but i leer to one side and his lips go flying past my cheek, completely missing it so he is making a big MWA sound into the air over my shoulder. I hadn't planned for that to happen. Oh well. And off I'm driving with him on the driveway waving.  If the date had have been with his dog, I would have damn well adopted that dog.  I've never liked a dog more in my life.  I'm going to miss that dog. Might have been the only dog I'll ever meet that I really liked.  The Fates are laughing at me.  I swear they're laughing.

Oh P.S! I had to add this, when i told my mum about him she said, well i'm 5'10.  And my mum is a tall lady. And you're 5/11. She says. Which makes him no taller than 5/8, and probably 5/7.  So he lied. And when we sat down to coffee, the first or second thing he said to me was, i happen to remember in your proflie picture you were a blonde (i've died my hair reddy brown) in a vaguely accusory manner.  Can you believe it!??!

Why get married

Why.

So that you don't spend sunday afternoons alone. If there are going to be lonely hours, that is when they will find their way in. Even the sun slowly sinks away in a way that says 'goodbye'. On Sundays.

So that you can go to your friends house for dinner, friends plural, who are a couple. Because they will invite you as you will be the right number for wine glass sets, games and four sided tables. Two.

So that you can say 'we' and 'oh yes my husband has one of those' and 'i better get home, hubby will be wondering where i am'. And someone will be at home, kindly wondering.

So you can relinquish a job or two that you hate, forever. Such as the rubbish. or the lawns. Even though he doesn't like them either, he does them for you. Til death do you part.

So that you can be sick. Because being sick, when no one cares, is not really sick, you might just be pretending. You cough a little 'achaa' ...and sniff a little 'sffft'... just to check if you are really sick, because unless there's someone to tell who says 'oh dear' and frowns and really means it, what's the point.

So you can go on walks. To walk as one you need alpipne sticks or an umbrella or to hurry slightly your step. One is going somewhere. One is exercising. One is on an errand. Two is just out for a walk.

So you can share all the burdens of your world with another person.

So you know you will always be loved after the fight.
Loved after the fight has gone out of you.
Loved after the light has gone out.

So you can make tea for someone. And have them say, this tea is perfect.

So you can watch movies you wouldn't otherwise watch. Like 3D action films. Or old westerns. It's good for you, to see these films. Saves you from banality of rom coms and tear jerkers.

So you can say 'lets' followed by anything, to someone, out loud.

So you can say 'have you seen my glasses?  I'm losing my marbles!'  and then say it again the next day, and the next, because they are losing their marbles too.
And when alls said and done. Rocking chair porch and sun setting looks faded weathered faces, calloused crippled hands and rings stuck forever on fingers swollen with age, stirring bright purple stewed plums in a bowl and drop them on the floor SWOOSH red everywhere and shed a tear as you kneel to clean up all the lost sweetness. Kneels next to you and says, I love you.