Last night (and early this morning), I was on what I thought was a date - my
first. She was a co-worker who I couldn't quite believe was real: intelligent, very attractive and with a similar sense of humour to mine. Initially immensely excited, gradually it dawned on me that she clearly believed we were
just friends.
We sat outside a cheap pub and shivered. We sat on the balcony of an expensive bar and shivered. I beat her at Connect 4.
We talked randomly, not on any meaningful topic. I suppose I could class the questions I asked as wanting to
get to know her, but to be perfectly frank the knowledge that she likes coffee and doesn't like
Megadeth is a) disheartening and b) not terribly getting-into-pants-amatory. All this, and I'm not drinking a drop of alcohol since I live quite a way beyond walking distance from town. Ho-hum.
But! Once we arrive, following my suggestion, at
the best pub in town, things look up - sort of. We find a sofa and some stools, gather up our Pepsis and J20s and relax. Pretty soon she complains that it's too cold, at which I chivalrously offer my
mammoth trenchcoat. Only...since we're sitting down, it has to go over us.
So with the passing of roughly two hours we have gone from excited first-daters to bored mis-matched teenagers to...well. I don't quite know. If you're practically spooning with a girl you hardly know (and one-night-stands don't count), what does that mean? When you sit there until
3am on a Wednesday morning, talking softly about Noam Chomsky or Nintendo or hardcore punk or who's more tired.
It might have been a shitty (or non-existent) first date, but it was a brilliant night out with someone I feel is going to be a very good
friend.