I may as well start at the very end: there is not going to be a second date.
On paper it looked like it shouldāve been a good date, and in many ways it was. Good looks with nothing overtly contraband or botoxy about them, close to my age yet younger, as common decency dictates, smart but not solipsistic or batshit crazy neokantian, she was perfect! Iād sort taken the initiative but didnāt want overplay my hand. So I turned it into what Iād refer to as a green tea date, no booze, drugs or innuendo. A mild, autumny affair centred around coffee and cake for the lady and overpriced designer beer for the humper-to-be.
Problems began 10 minutes prior to her arrival. I donāt mind being punctual, so as I sat there I hear these slow, loutish steps behind me, and assuming the best I turned only to see this misshapen figure cumbersomely walking towards me as if dragging a chain and ball. She didnāt look at all like my date, whom Iād met before. It wasnāt her, but for some bizarre reason Iāll never fathom I immediately decided: āItās her, no two ways about itā. It was like muttering as you see the Titanic embarking on her maiden voyage ānothing will ever be able to sink this shipā. I knew it couldnāt be right, but for several seconds the belief persisted. I finally managed to shake off the belief only to find that now I believed that she was, literally, a spy, a cold war spy, To my credit she was wearing this perfectly ridiculous mackintosh, as if leaning over a bridge in Vienna or Budapest, so I concluded she had been sent by my date to deliver a secret message.
The date proper proceeded more or less as planned. I allowed her to do most of the talking, which Iāve found, after many tribulations with the loquacious sex, is the surest way to a womanās heart. Iām very good at feigning interest, smiling and nodding in the right places, even daring sometimes to ask moderately leading questions in order to spurn her on. She does strain my patience though with her endless dog chatter. At some point I did seriously consider canicide but I quickly realised that was no way of getting into her knickers. As we lied down on the local beach, increasingly despairing of her voice, this infernal disembodied machine, I briefly travel to the future, all I had to do was look intensely into the sky blue -the metaphysical reverse of the blue sky- and allow the tunelling effect to do the rest. On my return I find myself in the middle of a familiar conversation, already in my past. I continue to be plagued by micro-psychotic episodes -including a brief Truman delusion experience- and violent intrusive thoughts until we part ways. She seemed ready for more. I will keep replying to her messages for as long as she feels the need to write, but never again.
I was expecting more of myself. Despite retaining some of my old courting skills I no longer have the emotional and psychological resources required for something so hard, stressful, and ultimately pointless as dating. Sex sure, especially as we hand in hand walk moonwards into a perfect drunken stupor, but romance and monogamyā¦ not a happy ending, sorry guys.
PS. Iāve not embellished the experiences described above. Would you describe them as being āpsychoticā or just the normal result of stress?
