Why do handymen always knock on the door so early? I awoke with a bit of a yelp and the realisation that clothes are considered customary for answering the door. It took a few moments of fumbling for a slip for me to realise how hungover I was. It was not a good realisation. Hair like Alice Cooper and a ‘tache burnt top lip (but that’s another story for later) I opened the door to a squat, bald, handy looking man. He bustled about my leaky cistern while I realised that nothing could be achieved without a shower first and therefore had to just sit with my head in my hands as the true glory or last night’s drinking revealed itself to me in the form of scattered underwear, mascara down my face, a throbbing head and a thirst for bacon and Lucozade. Fixed in moments, (you feel like such a girl when they do that) he wished me a good day and sauntered off, evidently amused at my predicament but I was too distracted to care.

I had a date to prepare for! Yes, an actual first date. A rare creature for me as I usually meet guys in fairly datey social situations anyway, like bars or parties. The chap in question had come to my place of work -drunk- and asked me out. He wasn’t fall-over drunk, and he was evidently intelligent and interesting. My gut instinct had said no, but then my gut instinct often gets ignored for things that I think might be an unusual or entertaining experience. I am a thrill seeker after all, where would I be if I didn’t do anything that took me out of my comfort zone? Probably quite comfortable I imagine. Hmmm.

Come the allotted time, still fighting off the remnants of my hangover I go to the bar to meet him. It is closed. A big event is happening in the venue across the road apparently so they’ve shut for the evening. Not a great start. I wait for 5 minutes and a friend walks past. When he asks what I’m doing I say I’m worried I might be being stood up (though home to bed is sooo inviting right now!) He asks if I want to get the bus home with him but I feel I should give the date another 5 minutes before giving up. The date turns up shortly after and after some playful admonishment we go to a trendy bar. He buys me a drink without asking what I’d want, which is odd. A vodka and tonic. I can’t stand tonic but I let it slide. We started chatting and he became apparent as somewhat manic. An interest in hypnotism and NLP was mentioned which interested me, but when he lightly touched the top of my arm while asking an innocent question I was immediately on my guard, it didn’t seem natural and I know what he was trying to achieve. If people want to chat me up I want them to do exactly that: chat to me. Employing such cheap tricks makes me untrusting from the off.

We moved on to a much nicer bar shortly after that (DJ’ed, unknown to me, by a friend of mine), found a sofa and talked at length. I’ll admit I didn’t follow everything he said and although there were many light little touches I was getting annoyed with how much he was trying to read my actions so I started to fuck with him. I’d cross my arms while talking, rub my eye, play with my ring-finger. I’m not sure what half of these ticks mean, but he seemed to and it threw him quite a bit. It amused me and I felt he deserved it. My DJ friend came over for his break and sat with us and as he and I hadn’t seen each other for a while we chatted. I’m not used to date etiquette and fail to think things through sometimes, and so I didn’t realise how much it was upsetting my date until he stood up and snapped “I don’t know how you can be so disrespectful! You’re completely out of order!” and stormed off. I was so utterly gob smacked I just sat there with my mouth open feeling mortified in front of my friend, who pieced together that it was a first date and apologised profusely. I explained that he had done nothing wrong, and that on reflection I should have made it clear that I couldn’t speak to him right then. When the date returned the friend bought us both a drink as a (frankly unnecessary in my opinion) apology and disappeared.

The date tried to explain why he had reacted as he did, that he felt I’d been playing him, testing him, making him fight with my friend for my affections. I don’t like it when people misjudge me so wildly, and I certainly don’t like being shouted at in front of my friends. He had lost me with references to Aluminati and Demons minutes before my friend had joined us but now I was just really shaken by the bile he had spat at me. He even mentioned my friend’s skin colour as some sort of element to my supposed ‘shit-test’ which I just can’t fathom. Time to get out of there! He obviously  felt able to share his true feelings with me, so I decided to share mine with him. I told him that I understood why he was upset, but he had shocked and upset me and that I didn’t want to continue my evening with him. Also, getting carried away chatting with friends is what I do, and almost all my friends are male, thus negating my chances of any future with such a strongly possessive and jealous man as he was.

You can’t argue with that, and though I sensed he really wanted to, he held back. He knew he’d fucked it. I got a cab home and found a friend and a hug. Apparently I’d missed a really excellent night at my local  bar where lots of my friends had been with an excellent ska DJ that I haven’t seen in years.

I’d been excited by the prospect of a date, being taken out. The world of Dinner & a Movie. On reflection I think I’d rather have a night out with my mates and buy my own fucking flowers.