Hilda saves the day

So I went on one tinder date.

The guy, who I shall name Alex, because that is his real name and he doesn't deserve anonymity or a pseudonym, had pretty nice pics on Tinder.  Curly blond hair. Frameless specs that made him look smart. A young son. You couldn't tell he was short in his pics.

And let me just say, I was here to make Tinder work for me. I was here to single handedly champion a change of tune in Tinder, to turn Tinder around and make an honest woman out of her, an honest, love-of-my-love, boyfriend-material finding woman. And i told him in no uncertain terms that I was old fashioned, liked to get to know people before becoming 'romantically engaged' and steered him off every line of dirty talk.  I should have known better. Tinder is a scantily dressed hussy that yells COCK tourettes like at passing cars and she will not be tamed ... but I digress.

So firstly, he says can we meet in Ponsonby because it's half way between his house and where I live. So okay, I'm not Cinderella, you're not coming to my balcony to sing me fucking songs, it's Tinder, alright I'll accept this.

We meet at Malt, which is henceforth going to referred to as the dates-of-doom zone, because all things bad happen there.

When we arrive he is really hung up about not having to wait for me on his own, okay, so he times it so we arrive at exactly the same time. He's short. He has the ruddy complexion of a pack a day smoker. But he's not all together awful looking, the kind of looks that would grow on you if he had a SENSATIONAL personality and whopping big... heart.

He buys us each a drink (tick) and we go out to the patio.
We sip our drinks while he talks.  That is pretty much the whole date right there.
He talks, about himself.  I listen, try to be pretty, interested and i'll be honest, come-hitherly.  It takes me 24 hours to look back with horror and hate myself for how I handled my own boredom and discomfort, it's like nothing happened for women's lib since the 20's.  But the truth is, I want him to like me. There I said it, is that such a crime? I haven't been on a date since my last breakup, and I just wanted to go out, and feel like I'm attractive, and a guy could like me.

He is kinda funny, at first, and I tell him that he should do stand up, I've worked in comedy, I'd know. This is like giving a shot of rocketfuel to a twelve year old, he is giddy with urgency to use more of his 'material' on me.

He asks questions only to rapidly interrupt my replies with stories of his own. Like that I play music, well he plays music, yeah he writes songs, yeah they're really good.  He challenges me to a 'lyric off' and I pull some old lyric out of my memory banks. Without comment he launches into a soliloquy of his own. I have to admit they're not bad. But he follows this up with a raving review of his own talent. Raving.

He asks me if I like to look down on people. He says he does. And he tells me likes to have issues with people. He tells me a story about a girl at work, who has a big rack, who he has an issue with, for nothing, just to have issues with people.  Less of this is a joke than you'd hope.

I ask him about his son, and he says: he was an accident, I didn't want him, I'd only known the girl three months then I was forced into fatherhood and I resent it.

Wow.

Not a whisker of 'he's the most important thing in my life/I love him more than anything/he's amazing'.  The standard response you expect from all parents.  I'm starting to wonder if he's a sociopath. Wouldn't be the first.

He tells me how he's watching a detective series, and it's made him really good at reading people and how he feels like he is becoming a detective now, he's gotten so good at it.
I nearly cough cider out my nose.

At some point within the first thirty minutes, he kisses me.  Without asking, or any lead up to let me know to prepare myself for incoming saliva. He pashes me the way you eat a way too big apple. Mouth gaping, lips chomping.  I let him kiss me, stunned. In a bar, crowded with people. Cinderella is dying.

From there he moves to hand on thigh.  Not a little bit of hand on thigh, a full palm and fingers that rub up and down, up and down the length of my thigh.
He says, you're really lean and fit.
I let him rub my thigh.

He says he has no money, and is bad with money, on roughly six occasions. Despite working in IT... which honestly, if you can work in IT and be broke, nigga you got 99 problems and finding a girlfriend is only one.
Oh yeah, he lives at home. Sure, he moved home after the break up, but it's been two years. He's 36.

And then when I ask if he wants to have another drink, as in DO we have a second drink or call it a night, he shoots back 'yes, but only if you're paying for them'.

I might not be Cinderella, I might not be fucking Sleeping Beauty, I might not behoove the tender adoration of prince like suitors, but JESUS CHRIST dude, have a little class.

I sip my way through my second cider and then say something about having to go.
He wants to walk me to my car. I relent. We stand by my car readying for the awkward first date goodbye which is like a police line up for the other person to fire their assessment of you at you (will it be 'talk soon' or 'call me'?)
And then he kisses me a-fucking-gain.

This time it's not even as good as apple-eating, he opens his mouth and stands there, half a foot shorter than me, with his open mouth clamped on mine like a circus clown giving really shitty CPR to a pole.

And I, I try to kiss him back, properly.
Like THAT will make all the difference, if we can just get one kiss right, it will have been a success, in your face singledom, I had a date and the kiss rocked.
But no. Trying to make the kiss work is like trying to scoop a live fish out of custard with your tongue.

And he won't stop! I pull away and he pulls me right back. He's got his me jammed tightly against his sweaty little body with his tight clamp arm, and he's holding me in so tightly my neck hurts as he persists in doing clown CPR on my fucking face!

Then, after the fourth attempt at pulling away, as he is whispering in a lecherous way that 'we should go somewhere' (!!!) something rises up from the depths of my self-preserving stomach, and in my newly found Swedish accent and cut him off with:

Oh yah, oh no yah, yah yah NOOOO, I really have to go now, yah...

When I say Swedish accent, bear in mind I've never been to Sweden or met a Swedish person.  The entirety of my Swedish accent has a direct lineage to the Swedish chef on the muppets.
But it works. I think out of shock more than anything else, he releases me from his wrestlers hold and looks at me with a collision of resentment and confusion, (which I'm sure isn't an unfamiliar feeling for him) and says curtly: what was that?

And still in my Swedish muppet accent, I reply: Zat was Hilda yah, I've got material too. yah.

And as he's muttering that he doesn't THINK THAT WAS APPROPRIATE, Hilda or I, hard to say who, burst into laughter that bends me over at my waist, climb into my car, start it up, and drive away laughing so hard my stomach hurts and my eyes water.

He texted me when I got home, great right?
Yeah nah. he texted me to tell me he was 'tumescent'.
I'll save you from having to google it, it means 'swollen and throbbing'.
And you KNOW that little weasel has used that word many, many times before.

But hey, I made a new friend that evening, a new life-preserving, say what you mean, check in with your gut, don't stand for bullshit, friend by the name of Hilda.  Hilda the Saviour. Has a nice ring doesn't it.