The Ex-Replica

Well, hello, kind readers!

You join me as I prepare to divulge the deets on Date Numero Uno.

Though I have to warn you at this juncture that you may want to a) grab a comfy chair and b) read this in two parts. It's a long'un and no mistake. 

...OK, technically Date Numero Uno wasn't the first date I'd ever been on. (I'm not that green!)

The first one took place (whoooosh, mists of time, etc etc) in June 1999 (just in case you thought I was really late to this dating game -- nuhuh) with the man (or, manchild as it later transpired -- he was very immature) after whom I had lusted, vocally, for the whole of my last year of university.

Aaaaanyway, said manchild was apparently immune to what the rest of us called Cold Weather, and wore shorts almost all year round. Which actually... was not necessarily a bad thing. He had some good pins on him. And magnificent eyes.

He was also (at the time, to my naive 20-year-old self) rather charming. And tall. And smiley. And wore shorts almost all year round. ...Ah. Mentioned that already. It is pivotal to the story, however, so do bear with me.

We went for an odd little date that kicked off in a well-frequented university bar. I had some weird end-of-term-lurg-thing that meant I was a) as good as mute, and whispering/coughing sweet nothings all night and b) knocking back the throat sweets, so smelling alluringly of blackcurrant.

Foxy.

To his credit he was, well, charming. And smiley. And he may have been wearing shorts. But then it was June. There were very casual trousers involved, I know that. I dressed up, of course. This was the lust of my life at the time!

There may have been some very innocent kissing involved. And that was that. (I knew he was heading off for the States to work as a summer camp counsellor imminently, and I was heading back home-for-good shortly and, again, what kind of girl do you take me for?) But I still hoped he'd ring me before he left. He didn't. And yet I still pined after him for the next few months. Glutton for punishment? Almost certainly. But I learned. Oh, I learned good.

I came back up to my university to visit a friend a few months later, was an appalling friend to be with (I'm so sorry, A-----, I was rubbish) as all I wanted to do was find Mr Shorts (who was either on a new course, or repeating a year, or something -- old age/selective memory has robbed me of the specifics)... I gleaned his email address a couple of months even later, got in touch... and nabbed myself a boyfriend for about a year (again the specifics are hazy, though for some worrying reason I've never forgotten when his birthday was. The blighter probably never remembered mine).

But in the end, fantasy and reality did not compute, and we had a weird, largely long-distance relationship (SouthEast vs Westcountry) that involved the following negative events:

1. Me being bitten at his house... by bedbugs. (He was living with his parents. He was 31. They all smoked like chimneys.)

2. Him bringing bedbugs to my house. A world of Eew.

via here

3. Him returning to the States without telling me he was leaving. This involved the humiliation of me ringing his mobile and getting his brother-in-law on the other end, laughingly telling me that Mr Shorts had already flown out.

4. Him subsequently cheating on me in the States.

5. Me in a fit of childish insanity still agreeing to see him after that.

6. Him promising to visit me when I had my own little flat for a while that year as he was going to stop off on his way back from the States. Me waiting all night for him to turn up and worrying when he didn't. Me ringing his house.

This involved the humiliation (part II) of getting his mother on the other end, telling me that Mr Shorts had come straight back to the Westcountry, and was now off visiting his sister who lived nearby. A rather curt, "Oh. OK then." from me was then followed by crying passionately into my denim futon mattress for the remainder of the evening and deciding that All Men Were Almost Definitely Not Worth It etc on the basis of one man(child).

Then, the tipping point:

7. Me realising that every time I rang him, he was laughing at something on Channel 5 and wasn't listening to a word I was saying, not even when I was saying something of devastating importance. OK, I was by then 22, had little life-experience, and probably never did say anything of interest... but still. It's the principle.

via here

So I broke up with him. He dun me wrong and I weren't having it.

Plus my parents had to replace a mattress that had succumbed to an infestation of bedbugs.

...You still awake in the back there? You are? I owe you.

"But what does all this malarkey have to do with anything?" I hear you ponder into your [  ] insert beverage of choice here.

Well, good reader, I shall tell you!

...But not before I've dropped into the mix that in the years between Mr Shorts and let's call him Official Date Numero Uno, or ODNU for short, I was set up on two blind dates, one by a friend, one by a workmate, which taught me one thing: I don't do blind dates. Nuff said.

I also went on a day-date with a chap from a certain site on which your friends recommend you (you know the one). From his photo (note: singular photo) he looked like a blonde Declan Donnelly:

Yep, this poppet! via here

and in reality... didn't so much. Though, he did buy me a DVD of Pan's Labyrinth (which I'm yet to watch all the way through). And yes, I will address, in a later post, the fact I may be a bit shallow, amongst other significant flaws... Sigh. But I never saw him again, largely because we ran out of things to talk about halfway through the afternoon.

So! This brings me up to the now. Or, the Now that is November 2010 when I went for a hot chocolate with Fellow Single Friend S--- (have added some dashes just in case I cite multiple Friends whose Names begin with S and I get confused), who gave me the famous Nugget of Advice I Have Actually Followed (mostly).

That Nugget was, when Prospecting on dating sites, only click on/respond to those men who have more than one photo.

Makes a world of sense. Just means that the two photos corroborate each other and the subject is more likely to be who they claim to be on all levels.

In the same conversation I declared that next time any of the dating sites were promoting a free weekend, I'd subscribe. And lo and behold, a site we'll refer to as "CatchInfinity" promoted a free weekend that very weekend. I was on it like Sonic. I decided this was it, this was my New Approach.

I am woman, watch me date. 

And ODNU was the first victim date after that epiphany.

When ODNU messaged me, I noted his multiple photos, and responded. We chatted. I discovered he sang in numerous choirs. Which is always good, I like a singer. And he worked in IT. Which is also good. I like a geek.

We exchanged phone numbers. Before the free weekend was up ODNU said, pseudo-boldly, "I think we should meet up soon, see if anything comes of this", or words to that effect. I agreed I'd phone him to discuss times, dates, etc. So I did.

Alarm bells should have rung on the Ex-Replica front when he slipped into the conversation that, despite this being November, he rarely felt the cold... and wore shorts almost all year round.

via here

...I decided not to dismiss him out of hand without meeting him though.

The night of the date was ill-fated. Dire weather (sleet and wind) and subsequent issues on the motorways meant heinous traffic for him; train traumas meant lateness and no time to spruce up for me. I may have reapplied some lipgloss in the taxi on the way to the pub. But I needn't have bothered. He turned up in, basically, jogging bottoms. I know. CASUAL TROUSERS. The cheek of it... And he was tall. But not smiley.

I bought him a drink [thus emasculating him...], and we talked.

Correction.

In the spirit of Showing an Interest and Making Conversation, I asked him questions, he responded. He made a couple of lame jokes.

Awkward silence.

I asked more questions. He responded.

Awkward silence.

I asked more questions. He responded.

Awkward silence.

...Had he not got the memo on Etiquettes of Conversation? That if someone asks you questions you ask them questions back out of politeness if not out of interest? No?

Nope.

A bit like Mr Shorts not clocking on to the fact that I was racking up a phone bill to talk to him, and he was guffawing at Jeremy Clarkson (or someone) instead of listening to whatever I had to say, it was just too much like hard work!

At about 8.45pm, ODNU looked at the clock on the pub wall, stated that it was, indeed, 8.45pm, and he had to drive home. So, that was that. Game over.

I booked a taxi. I left in the taxi.

I had no idea what to make of the evening. My suspicion was, we had no chemistry. But even if he thought I was the most ebullient sparkler and conversationalist he'd ever met, well, he just reminded me too much of Mr Shorts. To which I'd have to have said, no, no, no.

But I was spared that particular awkwardness.

Three days or so later, I got a text from him along the lines of, "Hi Quirky. It was nice to meet you but I don't think we have any chemistry. But you're a nice girl and I wish you luck." Which was admittedly politer than I'd given him credit for.

And, dare I say, a relief to receive.

Onto the next.

PS I am having issues with formatting. Sorry for the annoying inconsistency of type size and colour.

PPS The issues with formatting probably only bother me. :-)