A few dates in with a hot former Army man we go out for beers and wings which escalates into shots and some very bad karaoke on both our parts. Why I always think I know all of the words to Hotel California I’ll never know. Anyways. Everything is just clicking. Sparks are flying. There’s magic in the air etc. (insert any cliché here). So much so he turns to me and says very seriously: “is this a date? Because I don’t go on dates. (dramatic pause) This is a pretty amazing date”. Agreed.
He walks me to my car. There’s a chill in the air. Not another soul around but us. We pause in an embrace. He glances at my hand as I jingle the keys: “you know what that means don’t you?” he says (of course, I’ve seen Hitch). I laugh. “Say it,” he says. But before I can he is kissing me. Very romantic comedy. That is until a homeless man interrupts us asking for change. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” We laugh.
...And so we are at my place. He asks what’s in the dusty boxes pilled in the living room. I tell him they are my future IKEA TV stand (lets not talk about how long they were there). “Let’s build it!” he says enthusiastically (now he has joined the ranks of a very long line of men who never fulfilled their promise to help me build the TV stand. This includes my father). I tell him no worries, but he is insistent that it will be fun. So we spend the next 6 hours and a few more the next morning clutching an allen key and trying to decipher the directions of a Swedish stick man with no words. I am literally floored when I finally see my TV at eye level. I thank him, okay I gush profusely. He waves off my thanks insisting it was fun. Best. Date. Ever.
...And then I never hear from him again. Ever.
As my friend so accurately stated: “I wouldn’t build a TV stand for someone I didn’t like”. Hell, I’d be hard pressed to build one for someone I do like. Is this the basic difference between men and women? Men can act like you have a future together, get all comfy in your house, drink your tea, sleep in your bed and walk away without a thought? Disappear into the mist without a teeny tiny twinge of guilt?
Is it truly a leap of faith every time we take what a boy is saying at face value? Will Smith did not warn us of this. Rant over.
I like to think of my TV stand as a date parting gift. A take-away. A consolation prize. Really not all that bad.
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