"I get knocked down, but I get up again"

Date 3: A guy about my age with longish, scraggly hair, a t-shirt I suspect was made from hemp and old, worn jeans met me at my favourite park for our date – a walk in the park and maybe drinks after. We’d see how we went. I can’t remember his name, but we’ll go with “Chris”. Chris was a passionate environmentalist and kept pointing out used cigarette butts on the ground, shaking his head sadly and going on the same rant (I heard it about 10 times as we walked around the park) about how these not only were bad for the environment – but they “adversely affected sea turtles”. I exclaimed in surprise that I didn’t know sea turtles smoked. Chris was not up for a second date.

Date 4: Justin and I met on the beautiful boat harbour of Hillary’s. I love being surrounded by water. He had a long day ahead filled with appointments, so we agreed to meet for a breakfast date. Breakfast as a potential date option is highly underrated. I hadn’t eaten dinner the night before my date with Justin (I was out dancing with my girls all night) so by the time waiters arrived with our breakfasts the next day, I was ravenous! I inhaled my pancakes with strawberries, cream, syrup (mmmmm) and blueberries. Yum. Justin had talked and I don’t think I heard a lot of what was going on, I was so busy stuffing my mouth. He’d ordered a full English breakfast but had only eaten the mushrooms and sausage. He put his cutlery down and chatted on while I nodded politely and hungrily eyed off his remaining bacon, toast and beans. After 20 minutes of this food torture, I couldn’t help myself.

“Are you going to eat those?” I asked and pointed my cutlery at Justin’s plate.

“No, I’m pretty full” he admitted.

“May I?” I reached hungrily for his plate. I smashed Justin’s remaining breakfast in minutes.

Justin didn’t call for a second date.

Date #5

I’d ‘spoken’ to Jayden quite a few times on msn but we had yet to meet in person. Online he was funny, sweet, charming and a lot of fun. I was about to find out that a lot can change when you meet someone in person.

Jayden pulled up in a car that looked like it was on it’s last legs and precariously held together by gaffa tape. One door was from another car and stood out at a faded aqua against his faded red…something or other. I don’t even know what model it was. It looked like it was put together at a scrapyard by 10-year-olds.

We didn’t speak on the (thankfully) short trip from my house to the cafe. I held tightly to the sides of my seat, wondering when the car would just completely fall apart and hoping we would get there and back in one peice.

Once seated and we’d ordered, the bizarre date began.

Jayden wasn’t working at the moment and didn’t aspire to change that any time soon. He didn’t want to study and didn’t have any hobbies. Talking to him was like pushing an elephant up hill. I started to give up and just sipped water while looking around and wondering when would be polite to leave – was 10 minutes ok?

Noticing the lull in conversation, Jayden decided to speak up.

“Do you know about friends with benefits?” he asked.

Well. This escalated quickly.

There was absolutely ZERO attraction there and I wasn’t up for ‘benefits’ from someone this hard to talk to, but I was curious as to where he thought he was going to go with this.

“What do you mean?” I asked, suspecting his answer would be something worth waiting to hear.

“I mean… benefits, like…I have a jerry-can of petrol in my boot, so if you ever ran out of petrol when you’re driving, you could call me and I could help you out…with petrol…benefits”

Oh Jayden. No no no NO no. No.

I suppressed a smile.

“Petrol, huh?”

“Benefits” Jayden repeated.

There was no 2nd date for him, either. Go figure.