There comes a time - or a few times - in everyone's life where you realise that its time to change things up, and sometimes this means things need to end. WeirdNameGuy (the one from the last week's post) and I had been hanging out for a few weeks and it had been moderately fun - we did a lot of walking because we liked to walk (one particular day, we walked from London Bridge to Wandsworth Bridge which is a considerable walk and took us about 6 hours since it was a slow saunter and included lunch and drink stops in between) and chatted about a lot of random stuff, but ultimately, there was no way I could ever see a future with this guy. He was, unfortunately for himself, too insecure and stuck in his own ways for me to ever take him seriously, and I had just exited a relationship of 8 years with someone who was too similar in those ways for me to ever want to take that on again.
I had been thinking about this quite a bit and trying to devise a way to softly let this guy down, though realistically, I knew he wasnt going to take it too well. What I didnt realise was the just how badly he would end up taking it.
Perhaps around February-time earlier this year and we were due to have a particularly warm winter's day in the upcoming weekend, so WeirdNameGuy asked me if I wanted to hang out. I wasn't really in the mood to leave my house because I wanted to enjoy the sunshine outside on my deck with a glass of wine and told him so, so he sort of invited himself around to join me in doing that which I didnt object to.
Unfortunately for this bloke, the odds were not in his favour because, for whatever reason, I had woken up annoyed with the world and remained that way all day, so by the time he arrived - which was late, by the way (not that it really mattered because we didnt have any real plans, but lateness is not a thing that I can abide) - I was not in the mood for people and was a glass of wine down.
We sat outside on the deck in the sunshine and I poured some more wine while we chatted about general life stuff. General life stuff quickly turned into the topic of animal testing - something that I am vehemently opposed to - and, as I was already generally annoyed at life, his absolute disregard and nonchalance at the subject pushed me to the edge of what would become a very slippery slope. His argument was if we werent testing on animals, what should we test on? (Ummmmmmm...HELLLO?) The conversation seriously began to spiral into the abyss that all conversations go to when you have alcohol and discuss serious subjects and before long we were discussing the concept of happiness and this guy went into full on self pity mode and began a monologue about how he wished he earned more money and had more work opportunity available to him, how he wished he could move, but his dad is sick and therefore had to wait to see what happened to him (his dad had been sick for 8 years at this point), and then, weirder still, he started referring to himself in the third person: "And I just want to know, when is it WeirdNameGuy's turn? When will WeirdNameGuy get what he wants?"
I didn't know what to say to this charade. I was also really weirded out.
Once that little disaster had calmed down and we had returned to "relatively normal" conversational activities, he then suggested we go inside and "cuddle" on the couch - it had gotten dark to be fair.
NOW, two things that people dont necessarily know about me is the following:
1. I dont like to cuddle (unless its on my terms. Like a cat, basically)
2. I dont like to discuss feelings. Ever.
So when I declined to go inside to "sit on the couch and cuddle", he retorted with "sometimes, you are well stand-offish". My response, in its entirety, was to blink at him a few times with a deadpan expression.
What followed was the phrase almost everyone hates hearing: "where is this going?", followed by "because we talk every day (read: he texts me incessantly everyday and I reply sometimes) which is quite coupley"...you may imagine the rotating red lights being set off in my head by this point.
What followed was a rumination of firm words in my "I-am-so-done-with-this-shit" voice something to the effect of being so absolutely not interested in both a relationship and continuing with the conversation.
**Crickets**
After sitting in the dark for ten minutes in silence, I suggested that we go in, which we did. He kept putting out his hand in an effort to try to hold my hand and I kept putting the base of my wine glass in his open palm in response.
Things became increasingly awkward because I had decided I was firmly done with talking and, eventually (and thankfully), he asked me if I would like him to go home.
By his reaction, I dont think he expected me to say that yes, I did want him to go home because his face registered mild shock and he said "Really?" about three times.
When I confirmed that, yes I really did want him to leave, he picked up his coat and bag (which I had noted included a toothbrush and extra shirt, meaning that he had banked on staying over the night which further annoyed me) and stormed outside and down the garden path. I called after him that he was going the wrong way (because he was), so he whipped around and loudly said "Really!?" and then walked back towards me.
Queue a massive flare of rage from me at his passive aggressive attempt to elicit a reaction out of me. I responded to this by telling him that he could take his passive aggressive bullshit and fuck off because I was not interested in the way he was behaving and what he was trying to do.
He asked if he could stay and have one more cigarette which I abided, and then immediately regretted because he lit his cigarette and resumed the "where is this going" tirade.
I had, quite literally, reached tipping point by this time and ended up half shouting at him that he was "too negative" in frustration (but also, he was) because all I wanted was for him to leave. His reaction to this was descend again into a self pity monologue about shit his life is and THEN...
He began to cry.
Whilst he rattled through his monologue, he was crying. A man that I had known for a few weeks, that I wasnt even properly dating was crying because I was, perceivably, ending things with him.
In the dark, I leaned against the wall to the outside of my entrance hall, looked up at the sky and whimsically thought:
"HOW THE FUCK DO THESE PEOPLE FIND ME?"
After about 5 minutes of this sob-cry-rant monologue, I cut in and said to him that we didnt need to discuss this anymore, so he, promptly, stopped talking, looked at me, said okay and then picked up his bag, asked me if we could speak the next day and disappeared into the night.
And that folks, was the last time I ever saw or spoke to him.
I didnt block his number so he could have texted me if he had wanted to, but he never did contact me again. I honestly thought he would, because when I walked back into my house that evening, I saw that he had left an entire bankie of weed on my kitchen counter and I was sure he would want that back, but nope - not a word.
It was most definitely one of the stranger nights of my life.
Monday, 22 July 2019
Monday, 15 July 2019
That time that I drank 3 bottles of wine by myself
The second series of dates that I went on was with one of the most hopeless human beings that I have ever met.
I met him on Tinder and, from his profile, which contained a few of his key interests (some of which were out of the norm for the standard, boring Tinder profile) and a few pictures of him doing various things and wearing silly hats, he seemed like an interesting enough person, so I swiped right and we started a conversation that lasted about 6 weeks before we actually met.
Usually, Id say a 6 week conversation prior to meeting was a bad sign, but it was the end of 2018 and anyone with a social life knows how bad November and December are for free time. I was in between a lot of social engagements, Christmas parties, a backpacking trip around the Gulf of Naples and Christmas in the Midlands, and he was in between London, East Anglia and Essex, so the first time that we had a matching time slot was just after Christmas.
After six weeks of chatting, he seemed to me to be a stereotypical British person - non-confrontational, relatively safe in terms of his life choices, mild-mannered, liked to complain a little - not entirely contemptible, and, for the most part, he seemed funny and could hold a good conversation. What could go wrong, right?
We met at the Vineyard in Islington (in London...obviously) on a relatively chilly Friday evening and, upon my insistence, sat outside (it was circa 0 degrees) - I've said before: I do love sitting outside, even when it is arctic.
He was very clearly freezing his reproductive organs off, so I reassured him that alcohol would warm us up and promptly made alcohol appear...Im not sure that it did, but after 3 bottles of wine (to myself), I certainly wasnt too bothered by the cold any longer. Before you wonder how I was standing after 3 bottles of wine - I wasnt. I was on the verge of (although if we are being honest here, and we are, I already was) messy drunk. He, meanwhile, was drinking gin and tonics and, from what I can remember, was fairly drunk himself, though I definitely think I won the "who is the functional alcoholic and obvious train wreck?" round that night. We had to move inside at some point because the outside area was closed, so we took our (mostly incomprehensible) conversation to a corner of the bar and continued to shout one another down over the music that was playing. I cant very well remember what we spoke about, but it was must have been a topic that required wild gesticulations because I ended up knocking his glasses off his face and, shortly after, elbowing him in the temple. I also confiscated his glasses for about an hour and, essentially, left him blind as fuck - which is probably why he didnt see my elbow coming towards his face the second time. I didnt do this on purpose, of course - I was reprehensibly drunk by this time and barely knew my elbow was even attached to my body.
As 2am rolled around, we agreed that it was time to head home (thank the Lundy Undy for the night tube) and so began the "short" walk to Euston station. It wasnt until 2 days later that I realised that the walk from Islington to Euston was, on a good day, 40 minutes long - I still dont have the faintest clue how two severely mentally impaired people managed to survive both the temperature and the aggressive night bus drivers at that time of night - never mind actually navigating our way in the correct direction. Fortunately, he seemed to have an idea of where we were going, which meant I could drag my concrete block feet around, blurting absolutely inane things (like "oh, my coffee shop! They have OAT MULK!! DID YU KNOW OAT MULK ISH MADE FRM OATS? WHY ARENT THEY NOT OPEN? IM PRETENTUSH!) while he lead me by the hand to the station.
In case you dont know what a person is like after 3 bottles of wine, the accurate question might be: "How does one describe a hot mess?" I was in the road (in the oncoming traffic), I was out of the road, I walked into a sign post, I walked into people, I walked into the guy...most of all, I definitely made absolutely no sense in anything I was saying because it was around that time that my brain short circuited and all I could make was strange mouth shapes that resulted in illegible noises.
We eventually reached Euston station and descended down the many, many, many stairs to the tube platform. I was holding on to the hand rail with one hand while he held my other hand, and was trying to figure out how to put my foot on the next step down without the end result being my taking the stairs face first, while he was pulling me after him - if you can, for a moment and in your mind's eye, imagine a very drunk flowy curtain flapping in the breeze suddenly try to be sober and rigid, then you would have an idea of what I probably looked like every time i took a step.
I dont remember getting home.
I do remember feeling like 5 day old burger on the top of a rubbish heap baking the midday African sun the next day.
We ended up going on a few dates after this first night and probably hung out for around 2 months before it finally - and spectacularly (though, that is another blog post and, in the words of a Game of Thrones character: Not Today) - ended.
What I happened to learn about this guy in the weeks that followed that he was very peculiar. He lived in a shared fat in East London with three other, by all accounts, hobbits who apparently never cleaned up after themselves because their poor cleaner has resorted to putting a permanent layer of tin foil over their stove because it was so dirty every time she went there; he only wore vintage clothes. From the 60s. From vintage stores...I dont mind the odd vintage piece if it means to enhance an outfit, but pilled, woollen, sleeveless jumpers from the 60s are hideous whichever way you look at them, okay.
He once told me that someone gave him a compliment on one of his uglier jumpers and I asked him if the person that gave him the compliment was blind. Im still not entirely sure why he kept speaking to me after that.
He also spent a lot of time complaining about this job, the people he worked with, his salary, his lack of career progression, his shitty flat - basically, anything and everything he could possibly complain about, he complained about. I, in response, spent my time taking the piss out of him for complaining about everything every time I saw him which didnt bode well because he ended up getting very defensive about everything I said which meant that I argued my point more and we would just descend into childish repartee's at one another's expense.
One particular evening, we ended up at the World's End in Camden having a drink for the road and, while showing me something on his phone, a message from his friend popped onto the screen with words that contained my name. I asked him what he had told his friend about me - he mentioned a few arbitrary things and ended his sentence with words about wanting to see more of me (we were seeing one another about once a week at this stage).
Now, since I knew this little dalliance was going nowhere, I had absolutely no intention of seeing this person more than I was seeing him - in fact, if I could see him less, that'd have been ideal, which - lets be honest - I could have chosen to see him less, but one must not refuse a willing drinking buddy.
Anyway, with the words now hanging in the air, I went into full mental retardation mode and found every excuse conceivable in my panicked brain as to why I could not see this person more than once a week: "My life is so busy", "Im just going through a lot right now", "I cant leave my cat alone that often" (yeah, right - she prefers being alone because there is no one to moan at her when she brings dead mice inside), "Im not ready for such a serious commitment", "I have to do my laundry a few times a week and dont have many free nights"...basically I retched up anything I could think of that might sound like a plausible reason. Fortunately, he took my odd reaction to mean that he had somehow upset me and immediately started apologising and, quite frankly, if it meant that we could stop talking about it, I was happy for him to continue thinking that.
Im not a bad person, I promise.
I met him on Tinder and, from his profile, which contained a few of his key interests (some of which were out of the norm for the standard, boring Tinder profile) and a few pictures of him doing various things and wearing silly hats, he seemed like an interesting enough person, so I swiped right and we started a conversation that lasted about 6 weeks before we actually met.
Usually, Id say a 6 week conversation prior to meeting was a bad sign, but it was the end of 2018 and anyone with a social life knows how bad November and December are for free time. I was in between a lot of social engagements, Christmas parties, a backpacking trip around the Gulf of Naples and Christmas in the Midlands, and he was in between London, East Anglia and Essex, so the first time that we had a matching time slot was just after Christmas.
After six weeks of chatting, he seemed to me to be a stereotypical British person - non-confrontational, relatively safe in terms of his life choices, mild-mannered, liked to complain a little - not entirely contemptible, and, for the most part, he seemed funny and could hold a good conversation. What could go wrong, right?
We met at the Vineyard in Islington (in London...obviously) on a relatively chilly Friday evening and, upon my insistence, sat outside (it was circa 0 degrees) - I've said before: I do love sitting outside, even when it is arctic.
He was very clearly freezing his reproductive organs off, so I reassured him that alcohol would warm us up and promptly made alcohol appear...Im not sure that it did, but after 3 bottles of wine (to myself), I certainly wasnt too bothered by the cold any longer. Before you wonder how I was standing after 3 bottles of wine - I wasnt. I was on the verge of (although if we are being honest here, and we are, I already was) messy drunk. He, meanwhile, was drinking gin and tonics and, from what I can remember, was fairly drunk himself, though I definitely think I won the "who is the functional alcoholic and obvious train wreck?" round that night. We had to move inside at some point because the outside area was closed, so we took our (mostly incomprehensible) conversation to a corner of the bar and continued to shout one another down over the music that was playing. I cant very well remember what we spoke about, but it was must have been a topic that required wild gesticulations because I ended up knocking his glasses off his face and, shortly after, elbowing him in the temple. I also confiscated his glasses for about an hour and, essentially, left him blind as fuck - which is probably why he didnt see my elbow coming towards his face the second time. I didnt do this on purpose, of course - I was reprehensibly drunk by this time and barely knew my elbow was even attached to my body.
As 2am rolled around, we agreed that it was time to head home (thank the Lundy Undy for the night tube) and so began the "short" walk to Euston station. It wasnt until 2 days later that I realised that the walk from Islington to Euston was, on a good day, 40 minutes long - I still dont have the faintest clue how two severely mentally impaired people managed to survive both the temperature and the aggressive night bus drivers at that time of night - never mind actually navigating our way in the correct direction. Fortunately, he seemed to have an idea of where we were going, which meant I could drag my concrete block feet around, blurting absolutely inane things (like "oh, my coffee shop! They have OAT MULK!! DID YU KNOW OAT MULK ISH MADE FRM OATS? WHY ARENT THEY NOT OPEN? IM PRETENTUSH!) while he lead me by the hand to the station.
In case you dont know what a person is like after 3 bottles of wine, the accurate question might be: "How does one describe a hot mess?" I was in the road (in the oncoming traffic), I was out of the road, I walked into a sign post, I walked into people, I walked into the guy...most of all, I definitely made absolutely no sense in anything I was saying because it was around that time that my brain short circuited and all I could make was strange mouth shapes that resulted in illegible noises.
We eventually reached Euston station and descended down the many, many, many stairs to the tube platform. I was holding on to the hand rail with one hand while he held my other hand, and was trying to figure out how to put my foot on the next step down without the end result being my taking the stairs face first, while he was pulling me after him - if you can, for a moment and in your mind's eye, imagine a very drunk flowy curtain flapping in the breeze suddenly try to be sober and rigid, then you would have an idea of what I probably looked like every time i took a step.
I dont remember getting home.
I do remember feeling like 5 day old burger on the top of a rubbish heap baking the midday African sun the next day.
We ended up going on a few dates after this first night and probably hung out for around 2 months before it finally - and spectacularly (though, that is another blog post and, in the words of a Game of Thrones character: Not Today) - ended.
What I happened to learn about this guy in the weeks that followed that he was very peculiar. He lived in a shared fat in East London with three other, by all accounts, hobbits who apparently never cleaned up after themselves because their poor cleaner has resorted to putting a permanent layer of tin foil over their stove because it was so dirty every time she went there; he only wore vintage clothes. From the 60s. From vintage stores...I dont mind the odd vintage piece if it means to enhance an outfit, but pilled, woollen, sleeveless jumpers from the 60s are hideous whichever way you look at them, okay.
He once told me that someone gave him a compliment on one of his uglier jumpers and I asked him if the person that gave him the compliment was blind. Im still not entirely sure why he kept speaking to me after that.
He also spent a lot of time complaining about this job, the people he worked with, his salary, his lack of career progression, his shitty flat - basically, anything and everything he could possibly complain about, he complained about. I, in response, spent my time taking the piss out of him for complaining about everything every time I saw him which didnt bode well because he ended up getting very defensive about everything I said which meant that I argued my point more and we would just descend into childish repartee's at one another's expense.
One particular evening, we ended up at the World's End in Camden having a drink for the road and, while showing me something on his phone, a message from his friend popped onto the screen with words that contained my name. I asked him what he had told his friend about me - he mentioned a few arbitrary things and ended his sentence with words about wanting to see more of me (we were seeing one another about once a week at this stage).
Now, since I knew this little dalliance was going nowhere, I had absolutely no intention of seeing this person more than I was seeing him - in fact, if I could see him less, that'd have been ideal, which - lets be honest - I could have chosen to see him less, but one must not refuse a willing drinking buddy.
Anyway, with the words now hanging in the air, I went into full mental retardation mode and found every excuse conceivable in my panicked brain as to why I could not see this person more than once a week: "My life is so busy", "Im just going through a lot right now", "I cant leave my cat alone that often" (yeah, right - she prefers being alone because there is no one to moan at her when she brings dead mice inside), "Im not ready for such a serious commitment", "I have to do my laundry a few times a week and dont have many free nights"...basically I retched up anything I could think of that might sound like a plausible reason. Fortunately, he took my odd reaction to mean that he had somehow upset me and immediately started apologising and, quite frankly, if it meant that we could stop talking about it, I was happy for him to continue thinking that.
Im not a bad person, I promise.
Tuesday, 9 July 2019
That time I used a bad bird pun
Perhaps the very second date I went on as a newly single Londoner was with a guy that I met on Match.com.
Being new to dating, and having spent years hearing people talk about the likes of Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, Match...I was so curious to see what they were all about, so I, naturally, went a little "bos" (which is South African slang for being a little extreme in the way you do something, but describes it so much better. Bos also means bush in a literal sense...which is totally not relevant in this context....where was I?)
Anyway, on paper this guy seemed funny, quirky, moral, employed...all the good adjectives, basically. We messaged back and forth for a few days about the generic "who are you, what do you do, what do you like" shit, he asked for my number, we agreed to meet and bobs-your-uncle. He did send me some very random texts in the days leading up to meeting - one of which had something to do with him witnessing a bird flying at some woman in the street. I hadnt the faintest clue what this guy was on about, nor how to respond appropriately (...to a guy I hardly knew about a random bird story), so I went with a bird pun (default, right!?) and replied with "Thats Hawkward!"
No reply. Not even a weak "lol". Just radio silence.
I thought it was my bad sense of humour and that he surely thought I was a complete imbecile.
A few days later, I met LibrarianGuy (as he shall henceforth be known) at Covent Garden tube station (in London...obviously). As we politely made first date small talk, I noticed that he stood oddly close to me, almost leaning towards me as he spoke to me. My natural reaction was to lean back - or step back, which is what I did - because personal space, mate. I was desperately hoping that he was a little drunk or something and wasnt a weird leany-in person.
He took me to a pub called Punch and Judy where we had a few glasses of wine - three to be exact. Two of which I paid for. (The reason I mention this will become apparent a little later on)
We chatted about various generic things, including my job and his - he was a librarian for a charity, and I work in the tech sector as a technical person. He took this to mean that I earn a lot of money and kept on lamenting about how much more I must earn than him. A point that I kept trying to either not comment on or defer, but that he kept harping on about throughout the evening.
Another weird thing that happening was that, at one point, I noticed that I had something in my shoe and needed to remove the shoe to get rid of whatever it was and readjust; he watched me with an intense gaze as I did this, even moving back and looking under the table and commented, almost under his breath: "Painted toenails" (assumingly at my painted toenails) - creepy much?
I think we spent about an hour and a half at this pub before he told me that we were going somewhere else and, as I was mildly drunk by this point, I willingly picked up my belongings and followed him out of the pub and through the streets of the West End until we ended up at Trafalgar Dining Rooms in Trafalgar Square.
Trafalgar Dining Rooms (through wine goggles, at least) was lovely - very chic and elegant with well dressed staff and a well populated cocktail menu. We sat down on a couch and ordered a round of cocktails which, still unbeknownst to me, they gave us on the house. At this point, I can scarcely remember what we were discussing, but I do distinctly remember getting to the 20 questions round for the evening...basically, he suggested that we are each given a certain number of questions to ask back and forth which had to be reciprocated with an answer and the follow-on questions could not be related to the previous one, nor could it be the same as the last question the other had asked. I dont know why I am going to into so much detail about this "game", because I dont remember what we asked each other, except to say that he got a little inappropriate with his questions towards the end of the game and got a little annoyed with me when I descended into drunken stupidness when answering his questions in an effort to diffuse, for lack of a better word, his line of questioning.
Being inebriated, I do believe he sort-of kissed me at one point, but then stopped and told me something along of the lines of needing to feel safe, comforted and understood - or some shit like that. All I remember thinking was "ALRIGHT MATE, WE ARENT GETTING MARRIED. CHILL YER BAPS"
By 11pm, it was time to go home, so we asked for the bill which arrived almost immediately. LibrarianGuy then says to me that, since he had bought the drinks at the pub and because I earn more than he does, I should get these drinks... ...... ...... NOW, HOLD THE FUCKING DOOR. I, absolutely, 100%, without a doubt, have no problem with paying for drinks when on a date, but it should be 50/50. End of.
I had paid for two out of three rounds at the first pub and now I was being told that since he paid at the pub (which he did - but ONE round only), and because he assumed that I earned more than he did, I should pay for the cocktails at the bar we were at!?
Anyway, pick your battles right? I paid and we left. He then grabbed my hand and proceeded to drag me through the streets of London to Charing Cross station. Once we had arrived and were in the process of saying our goodbyes, he told me that on our next date, I should wear heels of the same height as I had on that night because he likes me at that height.
We had, much earlier in the evening, discussed a second date (before shit got really weird, obviously) where we would meet in Greenwich for a drink and dinner, and go on a walk through the park, so when he told me to wear heels on this next date, I responded by saying that I would not wear heels if we were going to be spending time walking around a park - his face told me he didnt like that answer.
Very shorty after, we went out respective ways back in the directions of where we lived - fortunately, his direction was opposite to mine. I think he texted me the next day (again, some random text to which I really didnt know how to respond).
I had in fact learnt that my prior-to-meeting bird pun had not received a response because this guy was fundamentally a creepy weirdo devoid of a sense of humour - in fact, had I been so indulgent, Im fairly certain there were a few weird obsessions lurking beneath the surface.
Despite my poor judgement due to the alcohol on the night, I realised the remarkable error of my ways and sent him a "Dear John..." text a few days later and then blocked him - so I have no idea if he ever replied, and thank god for that.
I also deleted my Match.com account shortly after that because fuck that. I was not in the market for the weirdos of London, and by all accounts, Match.com was where they lived.
Being new to dating, and having spent years hearing people talk about the likes of Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, Match...I was so curious to see what they were all about, so I, naturally, went a little "bos" (which is South African slang for being a little extreme in the way you do something, but describes it so much better. Bos also means bush in a literal sense...which is totally not relevant in this context....where was I?)
Anyway, on paper this guy seemed funny, quirky, moral, employed...all the good adjectives, basically. We messaged back and forth for a few days about the generic "who are you, what do you do, what do you like" shit, he asked for my number, we agreed to meet and bobs-your-uncle. He did send me some very random texts in the days leading up to meeting - one of which had something to do with him witnessing a bird flying at some woman in the street. I hadnt the faintest clue what this guy was on about, nor how to respond appropriately (...to a guy I hardly knew about a random bird story), so I went with a bird pun (default, right!?) and replied with "Thats Hawkward!"
No reply. Not even a weak "lol". Just radio silence.
I thought it was my bad sense of humour and that he surely thought I was a complete imbecile.
A few days later, I met LibrarianGuy (as he shall henceforth be known) at Covent Garden tube station (in London...obviously). As we politely made first date small talk, I noticed that he stood oddly close to me, almost leaning towards me as he spoke to me. My natural reaction was to lean back - or step back, which is what I did - because personal space, mate. I was desperately hoping that he was a little drunk or something and wasnt a weird leany-in person.
He took me to a pub called Punch and Judy where we had a few glasses of wine - three to be exact. Two of which I paid for. (The reason I mention this will become apparent a little later on)
We chatted about various generic things, including my job and his - he was a librarian for a charity, and I work in the tech sector as a technical person. He took this to mean that I earn a lot of money and kept on lamenting about how much more I must earn than him. A point that I kept trying to either not comment on or defer, but that he kept harping on about throughout the evening.
Another weird thing that happening was that, at one point, I noticed that I had something in my shoe and needed to remove the shoe to get rid of whatever it was and readjust; he watched me with an intense gaze as I did this, even moving back and looking under the table and commented, almost under his breath: "Painted toenails" (assumingly at my painted toenails) - creepy much?
I think we spent about an hour and a half at this pub before he told me that we were going somewhere else and, as I was mildly drunk by this point, I willingly picked up my belongings and followed him out of the pub and through the streets of the West End until we ended up at Trafalgar Dining Rooms in Trafalgar Square.
Trafalgar Dining Rooms (through wine goggles, at least) was lovely - very chic and elegant with well dressed staff and a well populated cocktail menu. We sat down on a couch and ordered a round of cocktails which, still unbeknownst to me, they gave us on the house. At this point, I can scarcely remember what we were discussing, but I do distinctly remember getting to the 20 questions round for the evening...basically, he suggested that we are each given a certain number of questions to ask back and forth which had to be reciprocated with an answer and the follow-on questions could not be related to the previous one, nor could it be the same as the last question the other had asked. I dont know why I am going to into so much detail about this "game", because I dont remember what we asked each other, except to say that he got a little inappropriate with his questions towards the end of the game and got a little annoyed with me when I descended into drunken stupidness when answering his questions in an effort to diffuse, for lack of a better word, his line of questioning.
Being inebriated, I do believe he sort-of kissed me at one point, but then stopped and told me something along of the lines of needing to feel safe, comforted and understood - or some shit like that. All I remember thinking was "ALRIGHT MATE, WE ARENT GETTING MARRIED. CHILL YER BAPS"
By 11pm, it was time to go home, so we asked for the bill which arrived almost immediately. LibrarianGuy then says to me that, since he had bought the drinks at the pub and because I earn more than he does, I should get these drinks... ...... ...... NOW, HOLD THE FUCKING DOOR. I, absolutely, 100%, without a doubt, have no problem with paying for drinks when on a date, but it should be 50/50. End of.
I had paid for two out of three rounds at the first pub and now I was being told that since he paid at the pub (which he did - but ONE round only), and because he assumed that I earned more than he did, I should pay for the cocktails at the bar we were at!?
Anyway, pick your battles right? I paid and we left. He then grabbed my hand and proceeded to drag me through the streets of London to Charing Cross station. Once we had arrived and were in the process of saying our goodbyes, he told me that on our next date, I should wear heels of the same height as I had on that night because he likes me at that height.
We had, much earlier in the evening, discussed a second date (before shit got really weird, obviously) where we would meet in Greenwich for a drink and dinner, and go on a walk through the park, so when he told me to wear heels on this next date, I responded by saying that I would not wear heels if we were going to be spending time walking around a park - his face told me he didnt like that answer.
Very shorty after, we went out respective ways back in the directions of where we lived - fortunately, his direction was opposite to mine. I think he texted me the next day (again, some random text to which I really didnt know how to respond).
I had in fact learnt that my prior-to-meeting bird pun had not received a response because this guy was fundamentally a creepy weirdo devoid of a sense of humour - in fact, had I been so indulgent, Im fairly certain there were a few weird obsessions lurking beneath the surface.
Despite my poor judgement due to the alcohol on the night, I realised the remarkable error of my ways and sent him a "Dear John..." text a few days later and then blocked him - so I have no idea if he ever replied, and thank god for that.
I also deleted my Match.com account shortly after that because fuck that. I was not in the market for the weirdos of London, and by all accounts, Match.com was where they lived.
Thursday, 4 July 2019
The time that things eventually fizzled out
The other thing I havent told you about PhotoGuy is that he is a "loller".
For those us who were born in the, for lack of a better term, perineum of Generation X and Millennials, we know that LOL was born as an acronym for "Laugh out Loud"...if you use any kind of social media these days, however, you know that lol is more often used as punctuation than it is to indicate that you found something quite funny and therefore actually laughed out loud (or, rather, snorted air out of your nose while slightly nodding your head once).
Using "lol" as punctuation is one of my top three pet peeves - along with loud chewing, and the saying "time flies when youre having fun" (as I type this I realised that I actually have about 10 top peeves and about 8 of them are grammar-related).
PhotoGuy was a loller.
Nicole: Hi, how are you?
PhotoGuy: Im good lol. You?
N: Good thanks. **something about my day or something else equally irrelevant*
PG: **Blah blah blah** lol.
N: Why are you laughing at "blah blah blah"?
PG: What do you mean lol
N: Since lol means laugh out loud, why are you laughing at blah blah blah?
PG: oh lol
PG: LOL
This is typically how conversations over Whatsapp went, and the more irritated I got, the more he lolled. It drove me around the fucking bend, and as he sensed I was getting irritated, he would become weirdly competitive about things. I must also explicitly state that PhotoGuy is 40 - so he should know - better than I do - what LOL actually means - or at least one would think.
On our last date, I had invited him over to my house for dinner and wine. I cooked a red wine and chorizo risotto, and I drank all of the wine that I didnt use for cooking, so by the time dinner was over, I was about a bottle down and feeling particularly merry. As far as I can remember, we watched Strictly Come Dancing (I think) and some other random stuff on TV and then decided it was time to get some sleep.
Disclaimer: If you are a parent, sibling or family member of time, I suggest you close the browser and read something else right now.
I brushed my teeth, we got into bed - and well, things happen as things do and...
Well, Im actually surprised that my bed made it out in tact.
And not in a good way.
I shant go into too much detail because, to be honest with you, I'd really rather not remember it, but what I do remember thinking at the time was that at some point, the joints on my bed are going to realise that there was a fucking elephant jumping on them and, because I have wooden floors with little traction, they would just split and slide apart.
I felt the same about my poor conchita.
Fortunately, after another night of little sleep due to the sounds of a coal-driven wood chipper crunching on broken glass that emerged from PhotoGuy's face while he slept, I groggily woke up to find that both the bed and my conchita were, in fact, still in fact.
Unfortunately, however, I was forced to talk to this person and to pretend like I was happy that he was still here because we, stupidly, had made plans to go on a "photo walk" (because, clearly, that had worked out soooo well for me the first time we did it) through one of the local forests that afternoon - which we did.
I basically spent the entire time walking around the forest being intensely annoyed by everything he said and did, and eventually, wishing he would just shut up, take me home and disappear into the abyss.
Which basically means, we were already 10 years into a 4 week old "relationship" (and, really, I shudder at calling it that).
Finally, we did head back to my place (I spent the entire car ride shouting SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP at him in my head) and, because he wasnt making any apparent plans to leave any time soon, I ordered pizza for dinner which he wolfed down...basically, there was nothing this bloke could do at this point that wasnt going to annoy the living shit out of me.
He eventually left around 8pm and texted me when he got home to tell me how "difficult it was for him to leave me while he had his arm around me" (again, the awkward cinema arm thing was happeneing...and the weird hand was out to play which made it super awkward). I told him to stop being soppy and that I needed alone time.
In the weeks that followed, our conversations via text became more and more competitive and rigid, and he broke out in full-on lol-ingitis, which, as you may have guessed, turned me into a frigid cow that made cutting remarks all.the.time - essentially, we'd definitely fast forwarded through about 15 years of a relationship and were now at the "together for convenience" stage - except there was no convenience, only resentment.
One magical day, however, he obviously had had enough of this and stopped texting me. Like full-on-apolocalypitcal radio silence.
I stopped texting him and that, my friends, was the end of that disaster.
I was free to indulge once again in poor judgement about someone else, and trust me...I did...
For those us who were born in the, for lack of a better term, perineum of Generation X and Millennials, we know that LOL was born as an acronym for "Laugh out Loud"...if you use any kind of social media these days, however, you know that lol is more often used as punctuation than it is to indicate that you found something quite funny and therefore actually laughed out loud (or, rather, snorted air out of your nose while slightly nodding your head once).
Using "lol" as punctuation is one of my top three pet peeves - along with loud chewing, and the saying "time flies when youre having fun" (as I type this I realised that I actually have about 10 top peeves and about 8 of them are grammar-related).
PhotoGuy was a loller.
Nicole: Hi, how are you?
PhotoGuy: Im good lol. You?
N: Good thanks. **something about my day or something else equally irrelevant*
PG: **Blah blah blah** lol.
N: Why are you laughing at "blah blah blah"?
PG: What do you mean lol
N: Since lol means laugh out loud, why are you laughing at blah blah blah?
PG: oh lol
PG: LOL
This is typically how conversations over Whatsapp went, and the more irritated I got, the more he lolled. It drove me around the fucking bend, and as he sensed I was getting irritated, he would become weirdly competitive about things. I must also explicitly state that PhotoGuy is 40 - so he should know - better than I do - what LOL actually means - or at least one would think.
On our last date, I had invited him over to my house for dinner and wine. I cooked a red wine and chorizo risotto, and I drank all of the wine that I didnt use for cooking, so by the time dinner was over, I was about a bottle down and feeling particularly merry. As far as I can remember, we watched Strictly Come Dancing (I think) and some other random stuff on TV and then decided it was time to get some sleep.
Disclaimer: If you are a parent, sibling or family member of time, I suggest you close the browser and read something else right now.
I brushed my teeth, we got into bed - and well, things happen as things do and...
Well, Im actually surprised that my bed made it out in tact.
And not in a good way.
I shant go into too much detail because, to be honest with you, I'd really rather not remember it, but what I do remember thinking at the time was that at some point, the joints on my bed are going to realise that there was a fucking elephant jumping on them and, because I have wooden floors with little traction, they would just split and slide apart.
I felt the same about my poor conchita.
Fortunately, after another night of little sleep due to the sounds of a coal-driven wood chipper crunching on broken glass that emerged from PhotoGuy's face while he slept, I groggily woke up to find that both the bed and my conchita were, in fact, still in fact.
Unfortunately, however, I was forced to talk to this person and to pretend like I was happy that he was still here because we, stupidly, had made plans to go on a "photo walk" (because, clearly, that had worked out soooo well for me the first time we did it) through one of the local forests that afternoon - which we did.
I basically spent the entire time walking around the forest being intensely annoyed by everything he said and did, and eventually, wishing he would just shut up, take me home and disappear into the abyss.
Which basically means, we were already 10 years into a 4 week old "relationship" (and, really, I shudder at calling it that).
Finally, we did head back to my place (I spent the entire car ride shouting SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP at him in my head) and, because he wasnt making any apparent plans to leave any time soon, I ordered pizza for dinner which he wolfed down...basically, there was nothing this bloke could do at this point that wasnt going to annoy the living shit out of me.
He eventually left around 8pm and texted me when he got home to tell me how "difficult it was for him to leave me while he had his arm around me" (again, the awkward cinema arm thing was happeneing...and the weird hand was out to play which made it super awkward). I told him to stop being soppy and that I needed alone time.
In the weeks that followed, our conversations via text became more and more competitive and rigid, and he broke out in full-on lol-ingitis, which, as you may have guessed, turned me into a frigid cow that made cutting remarks all.the.time - essentially, we'd definitely fast forwarded through about 15 years of a relationship and were now at the "together for convenience" stage - except there was no convenience, only resentment.
One magical day, however, he obviously had had enough of this and stopped texting me. Like full-on-apolocalypitcal radio silence.
I stopped texting him and that, my friends, was the end of that disaster.
I was free to indulge once again in poor judgement about someone else, and trust me...I did...
Monday, 24 June 2019
That time I took his strong hand
I have to declare before I go any further: this is a blog about dating which means that there may or not be some risqué business regaled on this platform from time to time - as much as I'll try to keep it clean and mostly above board, there are going to be times where, if you are one of my parents, aunts, grandparents, siblings, or otherwise conservative acquaintances, you may want to just stop reading and move right on. Im just saying...it might happen, so dont say I didnt give fair warning.
Anyway, back to PhotoGuy.
I'll have to fast forward through a few not-very-interesting dates because they were, as alluded to, not very interesting. So uninteresting were they that, although I know they happened, I don't actually remember them (thats probably because of the alcohol too....).
Anyway, one evening, we decided to meet at this cute little blue pub in Farringdon (in London...obviously) that I had been to twice before - they served this variety of unfiltered Cattarato wine from Sicily that made my tastebuds sing every time I had it and it was enough of a reason to keep me coming back. I arrived a little early and ordered the wine - and, much to my disgust, it tasted really fucking terrible. I dont know if it was me or the wine, but I reckonit was to be a bad omen.
PhotoGuy arrived a few minutes late, which was fine because Id managed to secure a table outside for us in the meantime - I like sitting outside, even when it is arctic.
The evening was pretty standard - there was talking, laughing, drinking, smoking and then eventually, we had to leave because it was a week night and we had work the next day.
I spent most of the night convincing myself that I liked him, and to this day, I dont know why. I dont know if I was keen to find out that, after being in a committed relationship for so many years before, I still had the skills to pick up men, that I was still loveable, or desirable - god knows what it was, but I dont imagine this is an uncommon feeling that people (women and men) experience after a break up from a long relationship.
Anyway, we walked to the station and shared a little kiss on the way down the escalator - I should mention that I was a little drunk at this point, and so I have come to realise about myself over the last year that I make my worst decisions when drunk - and those decisions usually include kissing people that I dont actually like.
Of course, I, then, proceeded to become very awkward about it straight afterward and did everything in my power not to look at him, so I made idiotic small talk about escalators, I chuckled at nothing in particular, like an idiot, and then, when we reached the end of the escalator and had to go our separate ways to our trains, quite literally shouted "BYE!!!" and (again, literally) ran off in the direction of my train. For some reason, this guy still wanted to see me after this.
Moving swiftly along by about a week or so, we had agreed to go and watch Bohemian Rhapsody at a local cinema together.
Now, the thing is that I haven't yet mentioned is that PhotoGuy had a weird hand. I dont know if he was born with it like that, or if it was due to an accident - I suspected the latter due to things he said about it on one or two occasions, but my mom raised me to be polite, not to stare and not to ask, so I behaved accordingly. She did not, however, raise me to emotionally process the prospect of having to touch weird hands, so when, on the way to a pub for a pre-drink, he tried to hold my hand with the weird hand, it took everything in me not to run away screaming "Take my strong hand, chiiiiild!"
Im aware that this makes me sound like a complete asshole, but fascinated as we, as a human race, are with anything that is different from the norm, it was just a little bit too much for my level of emotional maturity.
This, obviously, meant that I started on my weird awkward behaviour tirade again and started lamenting about how I was technically having an affair because I was legally still married.
Folks, heres some free advice from me to you: the quickest way to make things go from slightly awkward to pray-for-the-ground-to-open-up-and-swallow-us-whole awkward is to tell the person you may or may not be dating that you are cheating on your ex-husband with them and expect to have a normal and reciprocal conversation afterwards.
Trust me on this one.
Anyway, we watched the movie (can we just take a moment to appreciate Rami Malek again?) and he spent the few hours that the movie went on for with his arm around my back which was really very uncomfortable because I couldn't lean back and relax into the couch for fear of killing the blood supply to his good arm (because he already had one weird hand, amiright!?!?) so, being too chronically awkward to tell him to move his arm, I just sat there pretending to love it.
Afterward, we came back to my house for some wine which meant he was staying over because one must not drink and drive.
It was an innocent night which means that nothing happened except for actual sleeping - on his part. I, on the other hand, had to endure the sound of what I can only describe as a freight train on steroids passing through the very depths of Mordor every time he breathed in. It took everything I had not to suffocate him in his sleep.
In the morning, I woke up categorically annoyed that A. there was someone else in my house and B. that I had to talk to them - and not only did I have to talk to him, he stayed at my house until around 6pm that evening when I finally broke and asked him to leave because I couldnt stand to be around him any longer.
You would think that, by now, Id have realised that things were going nowhere quickly. You would think that, wouldnt you?
Well, you would be wrong, because that was not the last date.
Why? Alcohol, my friends. Alcohol and poor judgement...
Anyway, back to PhotoGuy.
I'll have to fast forward through a few not-very-interesting dates because they were, as alluded to, not very interesting. So uninteresting were they that, although I know they happened, I don't actually remember them (thats probably because of the alcohol too....).
Anyway, one evening, we decided to meet at this cute little blue pub in Farringdon (in London...obviously) that I had been to twice before - they served this variety of unfiltered Cattarato wine from Sicily that made my tastebuds sing every time I had it and it was enough of a reason to keep me coming back. I arrived a little early and ordered the wine - and, much to my disgust, it tasted really fucking terrible. I dont know if it was me or the wine, but I reckonit was to be a bad omen.
PhotoGuy arrived a few minutes late, which was fine because Id managed to secure a table outside for us in the meantime - I like sitting outside, even when it is arctic.
The evening was pretty standard - there was talking, laughing, drinking, smoking and then eventually, we had to leave because it was a week night and we had work the next day.
I spent most of the night convincing myself that I liked him, and to this day, I dont know why. I dont know if I was keen to find out that, after being in a committed relationship for so many years before, I still had the skills to pick up men, that I was still loveable, or desirable - god knows what it was, but I dont imagine this is an uncommon feeling that people (women and men) experience after a break up from a long relationship.
Anyway, we walked to the station and shared a little kiss on the way down the escalator - I should mention that I was a little drunk at this point, and so I have come to realise about myself over the last year that I make my worst decisions when drunk - and those decisions usually include kissing people that I dont actually like.
Of course, I, then, proceeded to become very awkward about it straight afterward and did everything in my power not to look at him, so I made idiotic small talk about escalators, I chuckled at nothing in particular, like an idiot, and then, when we reached the end of the escalator and had to go our separate ways to our trains, quite literally shouted "BYE!!!" and (again, literally) ran off in the direction of my train. For some reason, this guy still wanted to see me after this.
Moving swiftly along by about a week or so, we had agreed to go and watch Bohemian Rhapsody at a local cinema together.
Now, the thing is that I haven't yet mentioned is that PhotoGuy had a weird hand. I dont know if he was born with it like that, or if it was due to an accident - I suspected the latter due to things he said about it on one or two occasions, but my mom raised me to be polite, not to stare and not to ask, so I behaved accordingly. She did not, however, raise me to emotionally process the prospect of having to touch weird hands, so when, on the way to a pub for a pre-drink, he tried to hold my hand with the weird hand, it took everything in me not to run away screaming "Take my strong hand, chiiiiild!"
Im aware that this makes me sound like a complete asshole, but fascinated as we, as a human race, are with anything that is different from the norm, it was just a little bit too much for my level of emotional maturity.
This, obviously, meant that I started on my weird awkward behaviour tirade again and started lamenting about how I was technically having an affair because I was legally still married.
Folks, heres some free advice from me to you: the quickest way to make things go from slightly awkward to pray-for-the-ground-to-open-up-and-swallow-us-whole awkward is to tell the person you may or may not be dating that you are cheating on your ex-husband with them and expect to have a normal and reciprocal conversation afterwards.
Trust me on this one.
Anyway, we watched the movie (can we just take a moment to appreciate Rami Malek again?) and he spent the few hours that the movie went on for with his arm around my back which was really very uncomfortable because I couldn't lean back and relax into the couch for fear of killing the blood supply to his good arm (because he already had one weird hand, amiright!?!?) so, being too chronically awkward to tell him to move his arm, I just sat there pretending to love it.
Afterward, we came back to my house for some wine which meant he was staying over because one must not drink and drive.
It was an innocent night which means that nothing happened except for actual sleeping - on his part. I, on the other hand, had to endure the sound of what I can only describe as a freight train on steroids passing through the very depths of Mordor every time he breathed in. It took everything I had not to suffocate him in his sleep.
In the morning, I woke up categorically annoyed that A. there was someone else in my house and B. that I had to talk to them - and not only did I have to talk to him, he stayed at my house until around 6pm that evening when I finally broke and asked him to leave because I couldnt stand to be around him any longer.
You would think that, by now, Id have realised that things were going nowhere quickly. You would think that, wouldnt you?
Well, you would be wrong, because that was not the last date.
Why? Alcohol, my friends. Alcohol and poor judgement...
Monday, 17 June 2019
That time I got hammered on two glasses of wine
In hindsight, I probably started dating way too soon after I broke things off with the ex-husband - it was towards the end of Summer last year that I hurtled face forward into the London dating scene - I was encapsulated, ensconced and drunk on my new-found freedom.
I'd just moved into the cutest little mid-terrace cottage in the leafy, quiet suburb of Barnet in North London with my cat, and it was her and I against the world. I was single for the first time since my early twenties; I was capable; I was determined; I was free.
I've always had a love of photography and took it up as a hobby a few years ago and, as such, am connected to a fairly large network of photographers via Instagram, where we all follow one another for promotion, inspiration, advice and the like. On one seemingly random day, I received a notification about a new follower - for the sake of privacy (though, I hope he never sees this), I'll refer to him as PhotoGuy (because I did actually refer to him as this IRL for quite a while). After sufficient profile stalking, I sent him a message "complimenting" him on his photography and casually mentioning that I'd be open for a collaboration shoot if he were ever keen.
Now, letsbehonesthere: his photos were okay - fine even - but from the few selfies he had posted on his profile, he looked rather attractive. I was feeling particularly bolshy on that day, and so, message all sent and budabing! All of a sudden, we had a "photo collab" date set for the following Friday evening at South Bank (in London...obviously).
Friday evening rolled around and there I was standing in Waterloo station waiting to meet a guy that I knew almost nothing about. All of a sudden, a colossally tall, very South African man appeared in front of me and introduced himself as "PhotoGuy" (yes, okay, he didnt actually say PhotoGuy, but for the sake of his pride...) who definitely looked like the man in the photo's I'd seen, but my guess is that the photo's were taken from a good angle. He wasnt an aesthetic disaster, but he certainly wasnt as hot as he had looked during my numerous instagram stalking sessions.
Nevertheless, I greeted him back with a weird hug and we walked towards South Bank and awkwardly chatted about being South African, photography and living in London.
Fast forward through a few hours of polite chatter, photo taking, sun setting and walking, and we decided to have a drink at a riverside pub to end off the evening. I had two large glasses of wine, forgetting that I had not eaten the entire day, and proceeded to get progressively and absolutely hammered over the course of the following hour and a half. I couldnt tell you what we discussed (although I believe some if it may have included both of our divorces and how weird it felt to be a divorcee at the age of 32), but by the time we left, I was thoroughly and utterly white-girl-wasted. We got up to leave and walk back towards Waterloo station - not before I almost flipped the picnic table with my legs when I got up - and I remember walking as if my shoes had turned into concrete blocks and my body had turned into a windsock, flailing in the wind and hitting every bannister, low wall and person I walked past, all while trying to maintain a conversation - and an iota of dignity.
Can you even imagine how difficult it is to have a conversation about the virtues of Ramin Djawadi as a modern day composer when you are trying to articulate "modern day composer" with your fat, wine-drunk tongue or remember what a Ramin Djawadi even is.
After what seemed like 13 hours of walking (it was actually 10 minutes), we got to Waterloo, where I retreated like one of those collapsible donkey toys down the stairs to the tube, drooling all the way, and disintegrated into a seat on the train, wondering how in the world I had gotten so drunk on two glasses of wine - and then proceeded to laugh maniacally at being so drunk for about 10 minutes. The giddiness was in part due to the fact that I realised that I had no one to answer to for being so drunk when I got home, and that I could throw my clothes around without retribution all while shoving slices of toast down my throat to soak up the wine and ward off the imminent hangover (which is exactly what I did, before faceplanting into bed).
I spoke to PhotoGuy the next day, who told me that I had in fact not seemed as drunk as I said I was - thank sweet baby jesus - and promptly made plans to hang out again.
In my mind, this guy could have been the father of my future children, but I had just found the freedom and wasnt ready to take on another relationship (and to be honest, he was a little too camp for my liking) - so why, you ask, did I agree to go on another date with him?
Im telling you - alcohol and poor judgement...
PS. all the photos I took that night were also absolute shit.
I'd just moved into the cutest little mid-terrace cottage in the leafy, quiet suburb of Barnet in North London with my cat, and it was her and I against the world. I was single for the first time since my early twenties; I was capable; I was determined; I was free.
I've always had a love of photography and took it up as a hobby a few years ago and, as such, am connected to a fairly large network of photographers via Instagram, where we all follow one another for promotion, inspiration, advice and the like. On one seemingly random day, I received a notification about a new follower - for the sake of privacy (though, I hope he never sees this), I'll refer to him as PhotoGuy (because I did actually refer to him as this IRL for quite a while). After sufficient profile stalking, I sent him a message "complimenting" him on his photography and casually mentioning that I'd be open for a collaboration shoot if he were ever keen.
Now, letsbehonesthere: his photos were okay - fine even - but from the few selfies he had posted on his profile, he looked rather attractive. I was feeling particularly bolshy on that day, and so, message all sent and budabing! All of a sudden, we had a "photo collab" date set for the following Friday evening at South Bank (in London...obviously).
Friday evening rolled around and there I was standing in Waterloo station waiting to meet a guy that I knew almost nothing about. All of a sudden, a colossally tall, very South African man appeared in front of me and introduced himself as "PhotoGuy" (yes, okay, he didnt actually say PhotoGuy, but for the sake of his pride...) who definitely looked like the man in the photo's I'd seen, but my guess is that the photo's were taken from a good angle. He wasnt an aesthetic disaster, but he certainly wasnt as hot as he had looked during my numerous instagram stalking sessions.
Nevertheless, I greeted him back with a weird hug and we walked towards South Bank and awkwardly chatted about being South African, photography and living in London.
Fast forward through a few hours of polite chatter, photo taking, sun setting and walking, and we decided to have a drink at a riverside pub to end off the evening. I had two large glasses of wine, forgetting that I had not eaten the entire day, and proceeded to get progressively and absolutely hammered over the course of the following hour and a half. I couldnt tell you what we discussed (although I believe some if it may have included both of our divorces and how weird it felt to be a divorcee at the age of 32), but by the time we left, I was thoroughly and utterly white-girl-wasted. We got up to leave and walk back towards Waterloo station - not before I almost flipped the picnic table with my legs when I got up - and I remember walking as if my shoes had turned into concrete blocks and my body had turned into a windsock, flailing in the wind and hitting every bannister, low wall and person I walked past, all while trying to maintain a conversation - and an iota of dignity.
Can you even imagine how difficult it is to have a conversation about the virtues of Ramin Djawadi as a modern day composer when you are trying to articulate "modern day composer" with your fat, wine-drunk tongue or remember what a Ramin Djawadi even is.
After what seemed like 13 hours of walking (it was actually 10 minutes), we got to Waterloo, where I retreated like one of those collapsible donkey toys down the stairs to the tube, drooling all the way, and disintegrated into a seat on the train, wondering how in the world I had gotten so drunk on two glasses of wine - and then proceeded to laugh maniacally at being so drunk for about 10 minutes. The giddiness was in part due to the fact that I realised that I had no one to answer to for being so drunk when I got home, and that I could throw my clothes around without retribution all while shoving slices of toast down my throat to soak up the wine and ward off the imminent hangover (which is exactly what I did, before faceplanting into bed).
I spoke to PhotoGuy the next day, who told me that I had in fact not seemed as drunk as I said I was - thank sweet baby jesus - and promptly made plans to hang out again.
In my mind, this guy could have been the father of my future children, but I had just found the freedom and wasnt ready to take on another relationship (and to be honest, he was a little too camp for my liking) - so why, you ask, did I agree to go on another date with him?
Im telling you - alcohol and poor judgement...
PS. all the photos I took that night were also absolute shit.
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