Living for Disco

God, blogging gets tough when nothing is happening on a daily basis. What to write about? Well, it’s cold. Been there done that – so 2006. Um, I could write about the depression I have not been feeling for the last few months , but you know, it’s a bit of a non-event. I could write about the fact that I have a date (ooh!), which I’m quite excited about. A blind(ish) date, in fact, in a couple of weeks. But I won’t. I’ll write instead about the last blind date I went on. Oh, it was a lark.

It was last year some time, and I think my friends were feeling a bit sorry for me at that stage, as it had been some months since the departure of the ex and they were concerned that I was not showing any inclination to get back in the saddle, so to speak.

So, one of them said to me, as friends do “My boyfriend has a lovely single friend, who’s ever so nice, and intelligent and I think you’d get on really well. I’ll set you up.” It seemed churlish to say no, although now I realise that if anyone ever says this to you, you must pretend to be horrified by something behind them, and run screaming in the opposite direction. It’s for the good of your self-esteem, trust me.

I got to the bar, which was closed. How to rearrange? I didn’t have his number. No matter, I thought. I’d just wait for him to arrive, and we’d have a bit of a laugh about it, thereby breaking the ice.

My phone rang. It was my friend.

“Rachie. Er, Grant just rang. He’s going to be a bit late.”

I sensed there was something she was not telling me. I’m good like that, and I winkled it out of her.

“Yes, well [her boyfriend] didn’t really tell him it was a date, so he thought we were coming to pick him up to go out for drinks. It’s ok, though. He’s on his way now.”

Oh, how absolutely marvelous. Hard to imagine at that point how I could look any more desperate. Anyway, we sorted out the venue, and were soon sat sipping a couple of glasses of wine and having a slightly awkward conversation about something banal.

“So, anyway,” he says, looking uncomfortable, “did you know this was supposed to be a date?”

There was nothing for it, so I admitted it, and explained my friend’s “Get Rachie back in the saddle” five point action plan. He looked embarrassed, and then guilty.

“So what happened?”

I gave him the concise version (ex bloke was an emotional cabbage), rather than the usual long winded rant. I was bitter there for a while.

“So, there’s no-one that you’re interested in?”

No, you imbecile. That’s why I’m on a blind date. By myself, apparently. Then I saw where this was going.

“No. You?”

Lordy, was he interested in someone. He almost fell over his tongue trying to get the message across. He spoke about this woman for some considerable time. He was very apologetic, despite my protestations that really, having known him for less than half an hour, I wasn’t experiencing any searing feelings of rejection or disappointment; however, in his eyes I was not only a desperate woman, but a desperate woman spurned. I think he thought I was going to slit my wrists with a broken wine glass or something. Poor bastard.

When he dropped me off outside my gate, he looked at me in a deeply pitying way and said “I might call you.”

“OK. Whatever. If you like.”

“No, really. I might give you a call.”

“Fine. If you like. I don’t mind.”

Of course he didn’t call. I didn’t expect him to, but the pity in his eyes. It’s how I imagine people will look at me when I’m sixty, wheeling my 700 cats around in a shopping trolley, and throwing empty beer cans at traffic. It still makes me shudder.

I’m fairly certain that this one will go differently. I mean, he does at least know that it’s a date.

I think.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 1st, 2007 at 3:17 pm and is filed under Miscellanea. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.