Social Fumbling

Why I don’t date.

The following documentation is a fine example of why ‘hooking up’ works for me, and why ‘dating’ doesn’t.

I met her through a somewhat unusual channel, but she was a nice, pretty, funny girl nonetheless.

I had taken her out on two separate outings of sorts. First to lunch at the markets (prior to which I was infact mugged at a Tram stop, but that story is for another time), then to a dancing lesson, which is a bad idea if they’re not really into dancing in more than a drunkley-giggle-and-flail-with-your-friends kind of way

I wasn’t sure exactly how things were going, but decided to err on the side of her being anxiously shy. A final ‘date’ was needed to see if there was anything sparking between us – at a party or in a club you can figure this out pretty easily. Some physcial contact and some cheekily furtive eye-contact and you can be pretty sure that the night is going places.

The world of polite, public dating is not so clear-cut, with its ever-changing modern etiquette and complex social contracts.

During a discussion about her fussy eating habits on the way home from the aforementioned dancing lesson – a minor disaster; she didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d hope, but who does enjoy looking silly and having to constantly readjust their poorly chosen (if stunning) strapless dress – I asked if she’d like to come to my place and I’d cook her dinner, however fussy an eater she was. She accepted, and we chose a Sunday evening, her to organise the drinks and myself the food.

Sunday rolled around and I spent the hungover afternoon frantically cleaning, washing and shopping. My housemate whipped up some chocolate mousse, complete with chocolate shavings, served in out best matching martini glasses as I blended mango daiquiris. My housemate’s friend also came over, a huge relief in the end seeing how the night blundered – any and all deflection was more than welcome.

The girl turned up just as we began cooking, ourselves a little drunk from the daiquiris, which were really just ice, mango, oranges and a shitload of vodka. As we cooked, my housemate and I noticed that we were much messier than our guests, a fact we somehow managed to hide due to them both being enthralled with eachother’s love of Glee.

Dinner went well; I had cooked a rich chicken pasta dish with butter, cream, white wine, onions, mushrooms and capsicum. The dessert mousse was powerfully rich however, and we were barely able to eat half a cup of it. Except of course for the girl, who scarfed down two cups and then raided our freezer for icecream, despite my housemates warnings that it’d been there since at least the late 90s.

What I had originally taken for character ad quirk was slowly being realised as downright weirdness…

With dinner out of the way, we decided to watch a movie, but failed to meet any real form of concensus from Planet Terror to Madagascar 2, where upon she asked what time it was.

Discovering it to be the late hour of 10pm she leapt up, stating that she had to be home.

Normally I execute some poorly-timed kiss or start getting belligerant about my exes before girls start making “oh my, look at the time” bail outs. By the time my confusion had cleared, she rummaged in her bag only to bring out an enormous fluorescent safety vest.

I froze. So did my housemate. The girl turned to us, clad in cumbersome stackat and reflective nylon and asked us: “Is it okay to ride on the footpath? I don’t think I’m supposed to be out on the roads…”. We mumbled something hastily, laughing awkwardly, and the girl left.

My housemate and I sat in silence, confusion and fear written across our faces.

“Do you think she’s…” my housemate began.

“Retarded?” prompted I.

No, of course not, we consoled ourselves. A little odd, a bit strange maybe, different even… Right?

Right. This is why I don’t date.