A date...with my 13 year old self

I have a date tomorrow night. Now this may not come as much of a surprise to those of you know have read my previous blogs, where I may come across as a bit of a whorish nymphomaniac (he said coyly after only having had sex once). But this one is special. It's my first real date with another man that hasn't been based on a digital dialogue. He is in fact the first flesh and blood person I shall ever go out on a date with, using non-dating technology. Yes I managed to find me a live one that was somehow attracted to my hook (god that's a terrible analogy... but what choice do I have?) in that great big fishbowl we called the real world without the use of a digital net (see I needed the fish reference to finish my Internet dating thing...). 

It was one of those romantic meetings - our eyes locked across the darkened room. I went up to him, scribbled my phone number on some flyer for some film organization and left. Just because it happened to be in a theatre, and he happened to be asking for people interested in joining a script writing association (hence the need for my number, email, and details) had NOTHING to do it. And so we met a couple of times with mutual friends. Now what has become of First Man some of you might want to know? Well FM tried to call me the other day - right in the middle of filming. 

I am a terrible monster when I'm making a film. I'm dominant, aggressive, abrasive, and focused...OK so I may be this monster most of the time, but more so when in film-making mode. I was abrupt, curt, I may even had said - yeah, fine, cool, chat later. Anyway, no correspondence from him and I believe he may now be on some oil rig somewhere. He will remain always FM and if he comes back, well, sorry FM but we now have TDS...tall, dark, stranger? It sounded more romantic in my head, now it sounds like some kind of mental abnormality (no she's fine, she likes sticking her finger in the socket, it calms her... she suffers from TDS). No, I'll need to find some other name for him. I haven't yet asked permission from him to use him in my blog so for now, let us called him: Eros. 

But I digress. My blog isn't about the date. It's actually about a meeting with myself at age 13. Tonight when I was vacillating between calling Eros or simply letting it pass (a friend had urged me to take a chance - my self esteem being fairly low[although rising constantly due to this wonderful interest Eros has displayed and others have assured me {although I'm sure that they are merely being friendly and polite - which is why I like my students who are anything but, but they are candid and honest about their hatred of my clothing/hair/choice in music... I've forgotten which bracket I'm in?}]) I'm lost. Let me start again: Tonight whilst building up the nerve to phone Eros I was awash with such a wide range of emotions I could hardly contain myself. 

I'd done some work for Carte Blanche (a hard hitting journalism TV show) and was heading off to drop off the finished product. The whole drive my mind was in turmoil. Thanks to my therapy (see previous posts) I have now been able to identify good thoughts from bad. My mind was full of bad thoughts masquerading as good thoughts. This was what ran through my mind, the eager 13 year old, and the somber 29 year old:

13: OK, so X said we were both interested in each other. That's a good thing. 

29: What if X was only saying that though because X thinks we should be interested in one another? Or if X just wants to see me try, and get rejected? 

13: Don't be silly, X wouldn't do that. Would X? Why? What on earth could possess X to want that to happen? What possible gain does X have from having that happen? So can we rule out X has ulterior motives? Yes. (My brain is a savage nasty creature sometimes, I love you X as wonderful person don't hate me because of my brains paranoia) 

29: OK, back to the question of to phone or not to phone? If I phone and the answer is no - I will feel stupid because 1. I asked, 2. a fat fucker like me should know better than to expect Eros to lower himself to my level, 3. Eros was drooling over another Adonis (so was I but my drool  was the distant self touching later kind of drool, Eros would most likely be able to touch Adonis if he so chose). So three very good, very solid reasons. Don't phone. 

13:  But what if Eros says yes? 

29: Why the FUCK would he say yes? List three reasons, I dare you. 

13: One - I'm funny. 

29: Big deal, fat people farting is funny (so is alliteration apparently, sometimes I wonder about my brain...). 

13:  Two - I'm intelligent. 

29: So's Bill Gates - wanna screw Microsoft (if ever there was a Freudian slip)? 

13: No. OK, how about this: Three, I'm charming, kind, honest, and generally a nice human being. 

29: Oh you mean like the 10 000 other gay men running around Durban? Sorry, that's a 

prerequisite, not an additional bonus.

13: So then there is no real reason to phone?

29: Not unless you want to feel really, really, stupid.

It's at this point in my conversation that I think I ran a red light. Or someone else ran a red light and I hooted. I think that's what happened.

So then the conversation shifted to what I like to call: Deviousnessness. I tried to work out a way that I could call Eros and ask if he wanted dinner. If he said no, I'd quickly amend to say that I wanted to meet him to chat about the script I'm writing, and that others would be coming as well (and then frantically phone others). If he said yes he'd lover dinner, I'd push a little more until I had established that he was either interested or not, using the script for the film (something he mentioned he was interested in helping out with) as a safety. 

That helped. Then the mind - our old Professor Mature - came up with a corker: What if you get together, have a wonderful time, and then break up? Are you prepared to tell someone that you don't love them anymore? Are you prepared to finish something that you start? That was a sobering experience. Until I realized that it was Prof. Mature at work. I mean imagine not starting a relationship because you thought you might have to end it some day, so avoid all that trouble later on by never starting! What the Fuck? Thankfully I had arrived at Carte Blanche and hand over the work. So then I drove home quickly, my mind racing with deviousnessness. 

I got home and quickly delayed things for as long as possible by asking my flatmates about what I should do. The advice was, as I'm sure you'll agree, odd. 

"Sniff him."

Yes, I also said - excuse me? I beg your pardon? 

Sniff him. His breath or his arm pits or his balls. I had to sit down at that point, my knees had folded. Only after much discussion did I realize my flatmate was being facetious. One might as well go around sniffing people for all the guess work one can do before actually just asking. ASK and ye shall get an answer. Something my students seem to not understand. So one could sniff, one could develop devious ways, one could beat around the bush, one could talk to 13 year olds, it all boiled down to one final answer: Phone him or don't. But either way fuck off with all your cerebral masturbating you're interrupting the news. 

So I phoned. All my devious plans dribbled out of my ears, all my sniffing ceased when he answered. The 13 year old inside my head giggle as the 29 year old and Professor Mature turned pale, went weak and began to blabber..."Heya... would you like to get dinner sometime?" After that there was some backwards and forwards sword work until finally he asked:

Eros: May I ask a pointed question?

13: Sure. Ask away. 

29: (I'll lie, fake, prevaricate, obfuscate...)

Eros: Are you asking me on a date?

29/Professor Mature (13 bound and gagged under one arm): Well I might ask that question, but only if I knew the answer to such a question to be a positive and not a negative. For if it was a negative I should deny having ever asked such a question.

Eros: I would not believe your denial.

13: No. Yes. I'm asking.

And so we set it up. God just reading that he still wants to see me? I wouldn't want to see me with that kind of pretentious self sucking shit! 

Now you've been very kind reading this far. So let me round off with some thoughts on this whole thing. The excitement I'm feeling now, the nervous sweat, the lack of mental focus (as per this entire blog), must be felt by every human on the planet? Surely we all go through this at some point in our lives? And I know tomorrow at work I'll be fairly useless. Thinking about what I should wear, what I should say, what I should order, where the fuck to go in the first place... has Eros read this blog, realized how much of a fool I am, and decided to tip cold water in my face the best possible moment (classic bad thought in the guise of a realistic thought)? And then as I drive to Eros's house (I have directions) I will be in a near hysterical state. Is there not some better way? With online dating one gets these sorts of things fairly clearly sorted out before meeting. There isn't this phone calling hype that we generate. Just emails, messages and so forth. At least that's been my experience. Can't we date via document, signed and agreed upon, with check boxes as to what we like, don't like etc?  

Now what really scares me is that every 13 year old on the planet is going through this. At 13 I was worried about Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the Ferengi Alliance, WWF wrestling, and getting the Internet. I was not worried about dating, or loosing focus on the world because of a dinner plan. Perhaps I should have. No point in regreeting... sorry I have to point this out, with a replacement 'e' for a 't' regretting the past becomes regreeting the past - going back and living it all again. This is a deep discovery I'll write a book about one day. Anyway - I guess I understand now why teenagers are such nervous, skittish, self absorbed creatures. I may be coming one myself. In which case is this my mental age? 13? I think so perhaps. And now of course, this flu which has been going around, has got to my nose, and as I sit here, snot is welling up inside my head. How FUCKING ROMANTIC. I'll have the snails for dinner. No, I just sneezed on the pasta. If it's not zits, it's snot. I'm doomed! See I am 13 again, thinking snot would make a funny finishing joke for this blog. 

Let me leave you my beloved reader but I ask you to cast your mind back to your first experience, and remember for just a moment or two how stupid, foolish, and giddy you got, and then think of me, poor, little snot-monster trying so delicately to impress whilst snorking through my pasta.