I went on a date last week. Ok, ok, I wouldn’t normally blog about this but I’ve read a few pieces of relationship-commentary recently (why married men cheat, why cheating’s still not ok, why clever women fall for second-rate men) and it’s all very thought-provoking. In the spirit of Carrie Bradshaw I guess I could always file this under ‘current affairs’. Still it’s interesting that I need to justify it to myself as much as to anyone else. Relationships affect all of us but writing about them seems frivolous.
So the way the date came about was unconventional, at least in the context of my own sketchy template (meet a guy at a bar/club/through mutual friends; prolonged gestation period in which you communicate cordially but give nothing away in case he just wants to be friends; eventual date which is usually somewhat disappointing in telling you hardly anything about how he actually feels).
It had been a boiling hot day and I was cycling back from church when I stopped to buy some high SPF suncream for my white, shockingly sun-averse arms and legs.
Factor 50 in hand, I was about to pedal home when I felt something trickle from my nose. Due to some bizarre body temperature malfunction, extreme climates give me nosebleeds. I’ve had them when skiing (resulting in dramatic snow art) and on beaches. Now here I was on the Holloway Road in a summery skirt and vest top, blood dripping through my fingers; totally ill-equipped to stem the flow as I had zero handkerchiefs anywhere on my person.
“Do you have any tissues?” I managed to gasp to a friendly-looking girl walking past. “No,” she said and walked on. Right. As the nose showed no signs of letting up I strode purposefully into Argos, ignoring the disgusted looks of pensioners and toddlers as the blood ran in rivulets across my lower face.
“Excuse me, can you help?” The girl at the counter was thankfully more compassionate than the one on the street, and immediately dashed off for some toilet roll. I stood contemplating Argos’ remarkable selection of disney watches and tried to bleed quietly into my sleeve.
“Are you alright? I’m a doctor,” said a voice.
Good start.
From there, it was a hop skip and a jump to the boy suggesting we swap numbers. Leave aside the possible weirdness of said boy finding me even remotely attractive with rapidly-drying blood adorning my face and hands. I like to think it showed an ability to see past first appearances (rather than, say, an epistaxis fetish). The next day a distinctly flirtatious text arrives, followed by a facebook message, followed by a suggestion for a date. Fast work. A week later we go for cocktails.
In the first instance, I thought the boy’s efficiency was a lesson to others: he who dares wins. Girls love being asked out, and someone who has the confidence to put himself on the line and suggest a date wins instant gold stars.
However on more consideration, I decided the episode probably wouldn’t teach men anything they didn’t already know. It was more useful for women. What it showed is that when a guy’s interested, he doesn’t hold back. He’s not scared or hesitant and he doesn’t wait around for you to show your cards. He just goes for it. This should teach us something about those times when boys are less pro-active. If they wait ages before texting/emailing you back; if they email but never ask you out; if they are happy to see you with a group of friends but don’t invite you to do something just the two of you, then it’s basically game over. The best thing you can do is walk away (or accept that he just wants to be friends). Too often, we project our own ability to dawdle onto men, attributing all sorts of good reasons for hesitation into the silence of their non-communication. But it’s much simpler than that. As the enlightening (if crushing) book says, he’s just not that into you. If he was, he’d be asking you out even with a nosebleed.
(Smarties heart photo courtesy Alexandre Duret-Lutz; Holloway Road photo courtesy Kake Pugh).
Hey, enough with the gender stereotyping! Some of us are plenty good at dawdling, and confusion, and watching potential relationships vanish because we’re too terrified to act ;)
Glad you (apparently) had a good time, anyway.
Blimey, Esther, that was a crash course in etiquette that I’m not going to forget in a while!
Not everyone will agree with its arguments, of course, and perhaps it shouldn’t be taken too seriously, but according to the book, being ‘confused’ is essentially the same thing as ‘not that into you’. Writers Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo both agree that it’s just another excuse that (in the main) women make for the men they are seeing to justify their seeming lack of interest or commitment.
But, if the comments here are considered then do you suppose your experience is a lesson in dating to men and women alike? To women as you have outlined and to men that this is how they behave without even realising it. So perhaps the book should be called: ‘You might think that he’s into you, and so might he, but his actions or lack thereof prove he just isn’t.’
oh come on, im not having any of that…one guy is one guy is one guy. You can’t create some kind of handy gender behavioural matrix from the actions of a carefully selected handful of men/women. And what’s all this about ‘his actions rah rah rah’, which seems to me to be abdicating responsibility for any kind of relationship building by laying it all at the feet of the man? Rubbish. The whole joy/shittyness of relationships is that each potential duo has its own individual dynamic, whether that be positive or negative, and to attempt to construct one big ol’ peg on which to hang them all is a little self defeating i think.
As you can probably tell, i can’t stand relationship help books.
Good post though, I get struck down by nose bleeds in the summer too. Blood strewn pillows all round.