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Fall in love (read all 16 entries…)
Worth doing!
Entering the fray. And then leaving it again. — 2 years ago
Holy fuck, I’ve written a lot. Go and get a cup of tea and empty your bladder before you start.
So last time I did an entry about this – actually, it was on the “meet a man without issues” goal – I’d just received a message from a local bloke on OKCupid who seemed right up my alley (snigger). Messages were exchanged on OKCupid, good ones, too, the kind that make you go “Oh, yay!” when they appear in your inbox, and leave you a bit smiley and silly. Eventually we said “This is daft”, and email addresses were exchanged. Textual contact continued, and it was all looking good, so we moved onto that next step in the peculiar ritual of internet dating rapprochement – MSN. Frantic messaging ensued, we both stopped hiding in “appear offline” and hung out in full view just in case the other came online, and this bloke had me chortling like a drain and champing at the bit for more contact. He was clever, witty, interesting, confident almost to the point of arrogance just the way I like them. He certainly appeared issue-free, and had a clear-cut, positive, and compassionate way of looking at the world that I really related to. He could even spell (and you know how important that is for me), we had tons in common, and despite his intense geekiness – LARP, Douglas Adams, you know the drill – when he asked me if I wanted to meet him on Friday afternoon it was all that I could do to restrain myself from saying (typing) “YES YES YES YES YES”. First phone call came and went, and it was fantastic. We spent 45 minutes laughing our heads off about medieval swearwords and the perils of being an adult playing on children’s playground equipment. Brilliant. It was a date. We’d meet at noon on Friday and see what happened.
So I got all dolled up like a 70s cop as I am wont to do on such occasions, and sat at the appointed meeting place, cacking myself with nerves and smoking furiously, convinced that every bloke I saw was my mystery man. I’d seen a picture, but you know how your mind plays tricks. Standing there watching the Salvation Army do their Good Friday parade… pause cos oh my God, he just signed into MSN… I felt a tap on my shoulder and heard my name spoken. I yelped, and turned around, looked at him and… felt nothing. No pulse of attraction, no nothing. He looked like his picture, a little wider perhaps, but he wouldn’t be the first or last person to upload an old picture. Chastising myself for my immediate non-reaction, and telling myself not to judge by first impressions, we went for a cup of tea. Weirdly, it wasn’t awkward at all. We nattered away amiably, telling stories and giggling, but always at the back of my mind… “The chemistry… It’s not there.” Damn, I felt shallow and awful.
I spent the whole afternoon with him. We wandered along the quayside and looked at art, pretending we knew something about it. We discussed everything under the sun from housing policy to etymology to fancy dress. Charming, funny, generous and intelligent, the man was a joy to be with. He was everything I’d hoped, the only thing that was missing was that final and most important link in the chain – attraction. Once or twice he tried tentatively to put his arm around me, and when my gut reaction was to flinch it solidified the idea in my mind that it just wasn’t happening. Finally, we went for a bite to eat, and the cut-off point – Lucyann’s late-afternoon gig – was approaching fast, so I bit the bullet and told him that although he was a lovely, lovely man, I didn’t think we were going to be more than friends. Oh, the wounded look in his eye! I felt awful. I saw all his insecurities flash through his dilated pupils in that one split second, then ease off as he recovered. He asked, and I agreed, if I would see him again on a friendly basis, and we had a friendly hug to seal the deal before we went our separate ways.
It is a testament to OKCupid’s matching software that we did get on like a house on fire. That impresses me no end, and I do fully intend to see him again as a friend. Who knows, maybe romance will blossom at a later date. But without that chemical floating around in the ether it was like spending the afternoon with an old mate or a brother. The one thing software can’t legislate for is pheromones.
I made the mistake of looking at his blog the day after. His mood was “disappointed”, and it transpires this is the fourth consecutive time this has happened to him. He does give me credit for being forthright rather than trying to wriggle out of it embarrassingly, and he calls me a charming young lady, which is rather gracious of him, and says that he’s glad that he now has another charming young lady with whom to discuss the world and all it contains. So hopefully, no lasting harm done. But even though I can’t really be blamed for it I can’t help but have a slight attack of the guilts for reinforcing this guy’s pattern of seemingly failed dates. And I’m disappointed, too, because I’d had such high hopes. But I suppose it can’t be helped.
As a postscript, later that night I went to what was meant to be a raucous guitars-and-wine-round-the-table gathering of friends. I hoped this would lift my somewhat disillusioned mood. When I got there, it turned out to be a coupley dinner party, as the host had forgotten to tell his fiancée his plans. All non-dinner invitees shunted off to the smoking room feeling, frankly, unwelcome. There was a beautiful newborn baby in the dining room with the other couple. I held it for ten minutes, gazing at it and filled with utter, utter longing for one of my own. When I handed it back, I rushed back to the smoking room and promptly burst into tears. So all in all, a pretty emotional day, and not at all for the reasons I’d hoped.
