I’ve been looking for distractions. I’ve been searching for things to keep me busy and to keep my hands, mind and feet occupied. The logical conclusion is to exercise, but with a broken foot and a part-time moonboot, exercise wasn’t going to cut it.
For the last six months I’ve been internet dating. You’ve heard snippets of reports but there hasn’t really been any kind of ‘dating’ action for quite a while. Looking for distractions, I turned to my dating profiles and started trawling. Literally trawling, like I was looking for prawns rather than the elusive equivalent of an underwater unicorn. It was time to stop being so judgmental and respond to the Hobbits that had added me and start adding the random fish in the dating pool.
“It’s a numbers game.” My friend had said. Just cast your net wide and see what comes back. “One’s got to jump in your boat eventually.” I have no idea why fishing analogies seem to be associated with dating but it’s been proven that I am a shit fisherhuman in real life and the same is proving true in my dating life.
So meet the Hobbit. He’s not really a hobbit. Hobbitses are stocky, hairy, genuinely mischievous and, I think, quite cute. This hobbit is not any of those things. But when Hobbitses go underground their skin turns translucent, their eyes get really big and they fixate on unconventional objects. This one’s profile showed a pale, middle aged, sparsely haired man with wide eyes that you could tell coveted computer screens like precious gold rings. I had previously discounted him. I was incredibly judgmental and I had no basis for my dismissal apart from my shallowness. So on a date on I went.
I met the hobbit at my local pub. The rules of first meetings are
1. Keep them short
2. Keep them local
3. Tell someone where you are going
4. Have an out
5. Keep them short!
I’m not sure what part of those rules I forgot when I suggested my local pub. It was standup comedy night. And once standup started there was little to no space for escape. Leaving mid standup routine is public suicide. Two people, obviously on a first date, one stands to leave mid routine – consider yourself cannon fodder for experimental comedians. However this date was going to go – I was in for a long sit.
It started ok. He was on time. He had shoes on, teeth in place and a job. He told me all about it. He did IT support. Fixed other people’s computer problems. He had a short monologue at the ready to detail how much he loved his job and on the inside I could do nothing but scream ‘my precious’ as I tried to look interested and focused on the conversation. The first forty minutes were ok. We chatted. He asked questions about my job and my social life and as I told him about them I realised I was ok at this. I asked interesting questions, I threw the conversation back to him, I let him talk, I was funny – I can do this. This dating thing… I’ve got it.
At the forty-one minute mark, the conversation turned odd. He asked what I’ve got coming up – I mention a Japan holiday – his eyes light up like Schmiegel’s just seen Frodo through the fog and I think things are about to get exciting. He likes to travel? He’s been? He’d love to go? No. None of those things. ‘I love Asian women. They are so hot!’ I cough and shake my head obviously checking for understanding and clarification. Did a man, on a first date, just tell a fat white girl that he thinks young Asian chicks are hot?
He tells a story about a mate who is Singapore at the moment and has been there for one day and already has a date with a young, hot Asian chick. He pulls out his phone to show me said hot Asian woman and I nod. ‘Not that I’m jealous. It’s not even like I like Asians.’ he says bitterly as he walks to the bar. I turn silent and adjust my vision to the hot compere for comedy night. He’s cute, confident, funny and tells a good dirty joke. I think I like him. While the hobbit heads to the bar for a refill and I steel my focus to the man on the stage I realise it’s gone. Any hope of my prejudgement being wrong, has just walked out the door.
The rest of the conversation followed with anecdotes of dates with other women he met online, the places he’d taken them and how boring they were. (Even though four of them were Asian!) He scoffed at how useless the museum is, what a waste of time GOMA was, that he couldn’t believe this forty something year old woman was upset with him for being twenty minutes late to a date he couldn’t remember where it was. I spent less and less time listening and more and more time staring at Bart (that’s the comedian’s name, look him up… http://www.bartlol.com). The Hobbit could have given me the cure to cancer, diabetes and an African skin disease and I wouldn’t have heard. All I could see where his wide eyes staring at screens of Asian women furiously masturbating over illegal teen sex workers while his row of fine blonde head fluff swayed and bounced in the breeze of his desk fan.
I know that sounds terrible. I know I am awful and I know I am going straight to hell. It’s time to face facts. I am a shit fisherhuman and I am going to judge you when on a first date you tell me that you’re into Asian women, that you’ve found every woman you’ve dated boring, crazy or sparkless and that you’ve decided to get a dog and as a 38 year old single man, you’ve chosen a shih tzu.
On our way out the door, I wait for him to come back from the toilet. He runs a hand across my back and rubs my shoulder and says ‘Hey you’ as he returns. Somehow he has missed my ‘not fucking ever’ signals and has decided that it’s worth a shot. He smiles and says, ‘I think it’s worth doing this again.’ I smile and mutter maybe. He walks me to the car and the guy at the bottom of the stairs smiled at me with knowing pity. I smiled back defeatedly. He goes in for the awkward hug and we do the obligatory nice to meet yous.
I get in the car and drive home. I sit in my driveway mulling over my fishing strategies when my phone beeps. It’s not him. It’s the man that sends me dirty text messages at inappropriate times. He says ‘are you busy?’ I say I’m not. Pretty soon the hobbit is very far from my mind and I go back to what I’m good at, alone and in the dark with nothing but my phone screen for company. (That’s more fun than it sounds, promise.)
The day after the date I can say it wasn’t that bad. It’s not the worst date I’ve been on and now that I’ve got one out of the way, maybe I’ll have the balls to go on a few more. This is the second real date of 2014 and so far both of them have wanted to see me again. That’s a 100% strike rate. The odds say stop now while the going is good. But if I was a betting woman I’d also take note that the dud ratio is also at 100%. I think I should stick to real fishing. Getting kissed by a fish has to be better than being kissed by the prawns I’m trawling for.
life in big frilly knickers 