Making a date with danger
I’M bad at dating, which is ridiculous, considering all the dates I’ve been on in my career as a single girl. With so much experience, you’d think I’d have a leg up on some of the other girls out there.
It’s not that I’m a slag, so much, it’s just that when you’ve been single on and off for as long as I have, if you’re not out there dating, what do you do with your Friday nights and your Wednesday nights and your Saturday nights, and your Tuesday afternoons, and Sundays between one and six?
I’m sure I wouldn’t be so bad at it if I was just a little less clumsy. I broke my elbow on a date once. We’d gone for a romantic dinner at a seaside restaurant, where the waves bashed at the windows, the food was delicious and the moon was full and inviting. There may have even been a tequila or two to celebrate the crashingness of the waves, and the fullness of the moon. After dinner we went for a romantic stroll down the pier. It happened very quickly and in slow motion at the same time: my stiletto heel got caught in a gap between the slats on the pier and I went flying.
Hey, no matter how bad your situation, it could always be worse. Had I fallen a little to the right I would have been woman overboard, straight into the ocean where the seals would never have stopped laughing at me. The authorities would have had to bring around a tugboat to heft the whale out of the bay, so I should be grateful I walked away with only a broken elbow and a bruised ego.
That was a few years ago and I haven’t drunk tequila since. The other night I went on another date; different guy, same kind of embarrassment, only fewer broken bones. Dinner was great, we ate, drank, talked and laughed too much. I always imagine that I’m doing so well, and then I realise I have a blob of creamed spinach stuck to the inside of my wrist. Plate, fork, mouth, how hard is it?
I’m yet to find the man who finds a splodge of creamed spinach a turn on. Although if there are men who like to lick feet out there, then why not spinach? Hello Popeye!
After dinner we went for a stroll along
It’s just a shame he didn’t point out the steaming pile of dog crap
the promenade. That’s not romance, that’s just Cape Town for you. You can’t walk 10 metres without finding yourself on a picturesque promenade, on a romantic beach, or facing a jetty of some kind. We walked in the moonlight, enjoying the fresh air, he grabbed my hand and pulled me towards him — to rescue me from walking straight into a crotch-height electricity box. That would have been awkward. It’s just a shame he didn’t point out the steaming pile of dog crap that I managed to plough right through only 100 metres from his car. So close, I almost made it. Cue me wiping my feet on the grass furiously, like a bull or a dog or a bulldog. Charming.
At least I haven’t set myself on fire on a date. Yet. Back when we’d just graduated from college, a mate of mine went on a date. Dinner went well, and then they went for a walk and got chatting about their respective student loans. He was a waiter at the Spur, so hardly rolling in cash. She asked him how on earth he was managing to pay his off. He pulled out a lighter and asked her if she’d give him R500 to set his hair on fire. Horrified, she said no way, so he said, how about R200? Definitely not, she said. OK, he said, what if I just light a bit of it, but I can’t go lower than R100.
So, there are one or two things to be learnt from all of this. Either we need to step away from the candle-lit dinner, or it’s a matter of pure statistics and if you go on enough dates, you’re bound to break your elbow, set your hair on fire, and step in dog crap at some point.