It is a well documented fact among my circle of acquaintances that my love life is certainly much less than ideal. For example, I have been single now for the past five years; and of my only two boyfriends, the first was one of my best friends (no real complaints there) and the other I went out with for a grand total of thirteen days. Every other potential relationship I've had since then has been fraught with peril and pitfalls. But, courtesy of work, I have an epic new story which is so absurdly typical of how my life seems to function.
At the beginning of May this year a large family group came in to celebrate the birthday of a particular red-headed young man. I was assigned to wait on their table and, during the course of the evening, this same young man asked me to stay behind and have a drink with him once I'd finished work.
Well, it was his birthday. You can't deny people things on their birthday. I agreed, and immediately began to panic.
The last date I'd gone on had been over six months previously and was just a bit of a disaster. The most exciting topic of conversation we'd had was about the properties of steel. He was an air-force engineer, I was working on a design project incorporating steel... and yes, the conversation was just as dull as that explanation. Enough said. Incidentally, this man got married three months later. Huzzah.
So it was with some trepidation that I approached this date – or, as I liked to think of it, my impending doom. I had a massive freak-out to some of the staff, who were both amused and sympathetic. My manager signed me out early AND offered my date a free drink (curse him and his fuzzy beard. I was so panicky I was keen to work until closing).
In any case, as I was changing out of my work gear into more normal clothes, I reminded myself of one of my fundamental philosophies: The secret to life is to go through it pretending to know what you're doing. And so I went into the date faking confidence and calm I did not feel.
The date went well enough. He seemed to be quite a nice person, but unfortunately I was still to panicked to take a serious interest in him. We chatted about all the normal things – work, study, music, etc. with only a modicum of awkwardness, and afterwards he walked me to my car.
“This was cool,” he said. “I'd like to take you out to dinner some time.”
If I'd possessed even a modicum of guts and good sense, I would have said something like, “I also enjoyed tonight, but, alas, I do not think I am ready to pursue a dating lifestyle. It is most unfortunate, but I must refuse your offer of dinner.” I very much wanted to say this. Unfortunately, I am a coward. What I said instead was, “Well, perhaps you should”, in a voice filled with suggestion as a sweet smile played across my face. We exchanged numbers and I gave him a hug – yes, I actually hugged him. It was his birthday, after all.
Then I hopped into my car, went home, buried my head under a pillow and tried to blot out life.
He rang me two days later to try and arrange another time to meet. Luckily, I had the excuse of a hectic work and study schedule that wouldn't allow me to see him for at least a week. And after that, I invented all these elaborate reasons as to why I couldn't see him, because I am a coward and can't tell someone when I'm just not interested in them. Finally, I outright lied to get rid of him, and the upshot was that he ceased to phone, text, or even notice my existence whenever he happened to come into work after that. (There is no need to tell me I'm a terrible person. I already know. See my previous post: Everybody Lies for another example of my skills at deception.)
I implimented a no-dating-people-I-meet-at-work policiy and assumed that would be the end of the story. But I was wrong.
Several months passed. And tonight, the story came to a startling conclusion.
The red-headed young man came into work this evening. He hung about in the bar having a few beers with his mates. We resorted to our usual scenario of pretending not to notice each other. A little later, I saw my manager (a different manager to the aforementioned one) speaking to him.
“Hey, you know those guys you were talking to? Do you know them?” I asked him shortly after.
“Only the red-haired one,” replied my manager. “He used to come into my old work quite frequently.”
“Really?” I exclaimed. “I went on a date with him once.”
He grinned. “You know, he came out as being gay about six months ago, love.”
Time, proverbially, came to a halt.
“Noooooooo,” I gasped. “He's not. He didn't. You're kidding me.”
He wasn't kidding me.
I did some mental calculations. The beginning of May was almost six months ago.
This man, a very short time after going on a date with me, decided to accept the fact that he was gay.
I thought: This is such a me thing to happen.
I howled with laughter. I had to. It was a choice between laughing or crawling into a muddy hole in the ground and hanging a “Do Not Disturb” sign outside.
