Adventures in Dating 12: Runaway Lover.

Dating

Apr 27

It’s the age old dilemma - you sleep with someone after the first date and then don't hear from them again. A problem that I’m not exactly unfamiliar with, but hadn’t encountered in a while. And let me tell you, it doesn’t feel great the first, second or any other time.

Does anyone remember this onimus tweet I posted a while back? Well, hold onto your butts and let’s rewind, shall we?

When L and I first matched, it all seemed very promising. He was handsome (aren’t they all?) and knew how to carry a conversation. I had recently changed one of my Hinge prompts to ‘You should *not* go out with me if: You don’t like someone constantly pointing out dogs that look like Paul Giamatti.’ He responded, “Have you ever seen a Steve Buscemi dog? That’s when it’s time to call RSPCA.” Clearly a sign of someone who was on my level.

We exchanged numbers and he asked me if I was free that night. I was at work - and I had made no effort whatsoever. I didn't have any make up on, and was wearing the same top for the third day in a row. I was in no state to go straight into date-mode after work, so I tried to blag meeting the following day instead.

“That’s a shame,” he said, “I just came by some tickets for pizza and an interesting jazz band. Are you sure you can’t make it?”

I’m not sure what it is about guys on Hinge wanting to take me to jazz joints, but I decided to throw caution to the wind and go, despite not feeling/looking my best. What's life without spontineity? Plus, there was pizza at stake! After work, I ran to Boots to buy eyeliner (my old one was running out anyway) and spritzed myself with perfume at Debenhams, before I made my way to the Soho bar we arranged to meet at.

When I saw L outside the bar, I had to stop myself from physically swooning. Our good chat didn’t stop, either. When we got our drinks, he asked me if I was into jazz at all, and I said, “sure, I’ve seen La La Land."

That seemed to tickle him, and he admitted, “I’ve not actually seen it.”

“I wouldn’t suggest it if you’re super into jazz,” I said, “considering it’s basically about how a white man tries to save the integrity of jazz and the black guy is depicted as a sell-out.” Which blew his mind in a hilarious way, and lead us to talk about the films and TV we enjoyed.

We went on a tangent about Master of None, and how it was so disappointing when the allegations about Aziz Ansari came to light. It seemed very tone deaf of him to act the way he did, when he's always been very vocal about sexual harassment and assult, and Master of None in particular opens a dialogue about things like this. We gushed about how much we both loved season two, specifically the opening episode that was an ode to The Bicycle Thieves. We fell into a brief silence before L said:

“Well, it’s a shame that we’re not allowed to enjoy that anymore!” and we both chuckled heartily.

At one point, L took his jumper off and I almost swooned again when I saw a peak of bicep creeping out of his t-shirt (I’m not really into muscles but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a sucker for a lean arm under a tight white t-shirt). On top of the very interesting and nuanced conversation we were having, I was so incredibly attracted to him and I couldn't be more aware of the fact that I looked like a foot.

I tried my bed to salvage my appearance, but the facts were, even with a flick of eyeliner and a spritz of perfume, I hadn’t washed my hair and didn’t feel confident. I know looks aren't everything, but I think it's important to feel good about yourself, especially in a date context. But let’s just say that, despite it all, I can still be charming as shit when I want to be.

Then, a pleasant surprise, we started to talk about race. Like me, L was mixed-race and grew up in the UK with a Latin parent, so we had a lot in common and empathised with each other over similar struggles. We spoke about living in very white communities, and people always tilting their heads and asking, “but where are you from?” I opened up to him about owning my identity more, how I carried a lot of guilt about not embracing my background enough and anglicising myself a lot to fit in. And he opened up about often being used as the ‘diversity card’ at work, since he is surrounded by a lot of white, middle class men.

It was a lot of great, enlightening discourse, but we had pizza and jazz to move onto.

The jazz band was good (they were called House of Waters and the lead guy was playing a weird instrument that L and I spent a long time trying to figure out what the hell it was). The pizza and dough balls were bangin’ (but there were no doubts in that department anyway). Afterwards, we took a little walk around to find another bar. When we reached the very picturesque Soho Square, he stopped and lingered for a moment before he pulled me in for a kiss - a knee-weakening good kiss.

He asked me if I wanted to get another drink somewhere, or if I wanted to go back to his for a glass of wine. Being slightly naive I opted for the latter, and it wasn’t until we were hailing down a taxi that I realised - wait a minute, “a glass of wine back at mine” means sex! I know it sounds dumb, but in the moment I totally didn't pick up on the hidden meaning and genuinely thought a glass of wine was a glass of wine. In that moment, as a taxi pulled up ready to take us in, I had to make a choice: bail, or go through with it

I obviously went through with it. I didn’t feel forced or like I ‘had’ to - I just simply wasn’t going to pass up on the opportunity of sleeping with a very handsome (okay we get it Ella) man. The chemistry was there, we were having a good time. So, why not? And I’m not going to go into detail (I have colleagues and family members who read this blog), but a fun time was had by all.

Now, dear reader, we know that I’m not currently in the position to commit to anything serious at the moment. I am, after all, in the midst of a challenge where I’m attempting to go on 26 dates with (almost) as many people. However, I am still a human being with feelings, who feels slightly used after a date falls off the grid straight after getting her in the sack.

I don’t subscribe to the whole ‘don’t have sex on the first date’ ideology (clearly!) - if you feel a connection and want to rub fronts with someone you met only hours ago, I don’t think there’s anything wrong than that. In particular, I don’t think women should be judged for giving into basic human behaviour, because men certainly aren’t.

But I’d be lying if I said in the week after my encounter with the Hispanic Softboy, that I wasn’t feeling a little bit insecure about my decisions. Did he think I was ‘easy’ because I slept with him on the first date? Is that why he didn’t want to bother getting to know me anymore? Had I held back, not gone back to his for ‘wine’, would he be making more of an effort? Or is he simply one of those who just isn’t interested in people after sleeping with them, whether it’s the first, third, or sixth date?

So many questions whizzed around in my brain. I really enjoyed our date - I thought we got on really well, our compatibility matched in all sorts of ways. And he was obviously enjoying himself and engaged in the date - so why was he not interested in getting to know me further?

Then it hit me: do I really want to get to know someone who acts like this? Just falls off the face of the earth after sleeping with someone? The answer is an absolute, definite, resounding NO.

Except, he didn’t fall of the face of the earth. Over a week later, just days after I tweeted about our encounter, he finally messaged me.

“Hey, sorry work is mad at the moment.”

Not a good enough excuse to leave someone on read for OVER A WEEK. Not at all. And to make matters worse, he then just picked up the conversation again like nothing happened. Before he disappeared, I sent him a link to the Wikipedia page for the Hammered Dulcimer, which I found out is what the lead guy from House of Waters was playing. After L's half-assed apology, he said, "That's absolutely it! How did you find that?"

I entertained him for a bit - only for him to take almost another week to reply to my subsequent message. Nah mate, ain’t nobody got time for that. No job is so crazy that you can't take two minutes at the beginning or end of the day to message someone. He was letting his actions speak for him: he wasn't interested. I’m a firm believer in that if someone likes you and wants to get to know you, they WILL carve out the time for you. I deleted the WhatsApp thread and left it at that.

So, what can I take away from all this? Yes, it sucks not hearing back from someone after sleeping with them, but all in all, I had a good time. I had a brief but meaningful connection for a night - laughs were had, pizza was eaten, and I found a new appreciation for jazz (kinda. The House of Waters are good and I still listen to them on occasion because it's good wordless music to do work to, but I can't really speak for other types of jazz). And if that’s all it was meant to be, then that in itself is fine.

Unlike my last date, I have THREE possible songs to set as the soundtrack to this date - and so I'm just gonna post them all. Save Tonight by Eagle-Eye Cherry (Save tonight and fight the break of dawn / Come tomorrow, tomorrow I'll be gone), Hot Thoughts by Spoon (Hot thoughts all in my mind and all of the time / You must be trouble for sure) and How to be a Heartbreaker by MARINA (Rule number one, is that you gotta have fun / But baby when you're done, you gotta be the first to run). Enjoy!