Crash Landing

Do you ever think of a date as being somewhat like a plane flight?

I mean, you arrive, you check in, you're greeted with a smile by your pilot, the sky is clear and free of clouds, everything is looking set for a beautiful flight.

Finally, nearly a month after we first said we were going to do drinks together, I was finally going out with the guy I connected with at my friend's birthday party last month. At least we had lift off, as he met me outside my office (he remembered where I work!) we went to a nearby pub for a drink, he paid for our drinks, and it was all looking good. We were chit-chatting, we were laughing, the flight seemed to be going smoothly.

Then suddenly I noticed that things were going awry. How did the conversation turn to talking about other people we've dated? Alarms start going off in the cockpit. How did I fail to notice that when you sit with a table between you and the guy, you're just staring at each other and you can't do all of the flirtatious "touching" moves and cute little things girls will do to let a guy know they like him? Turbulence was shaking the cabin, and although I have a great deal of respect for people who temporarily choose not to be drinking (particularly when they're on meds after they got sick last Weds), I suddenly realised that it was making for a rough flight.

In an attempt to correct course, I suggested getting out of the noisy bar and going to a quiet little pub tucked down an alleyway that I knew. He agreed to walk towards it, but warned me that he'd have to see how he was feeling, and might bail when we got close to the Tube station. Yes, okay, I understand the reason this flight didn't depart last Wednesday was due to mechanical difficulties, but it's scary to think that the plane will drop out of the air mid-flight for the same reason.

We managed to fly on to some smoother air, as he made it to the pub and was totally charmed by it (as there's a reason it's one of my favourite pubs). We found a quiet table in the corner and kept chatting, but somehow the turbulence continued as the conversation somehow got onto the topic of our dating lives. I'm just absolutely thrown at this point, as when the flight was first scheduled, this guy was finding excuses to wrap his arms around me and acting like his interest in me was anything but platonic. (Oh helpful influence of alcohol, how I miss you!) Now I'm not sure if it's nervousness some misguided attempt to shrug off his lacklustre dating life, but this conversation is seeming distressingly....friendly.

I proposed possibly getting food at the new pub, but he decided to check first to see if any of his flatmates would be cooking dinner. To my distress, he texted them right then, found out one was willing to cook, and decided to instead go home to have dinner with his flatmates.

Last time I bailed on a guy to go home because my flatmate was cooking, it was because I totally wasn't interested. Maybe it's a girl thing, but my flatmate told me in advance that I was free to ditch her if the date went well, it was only when I didn't fancy him that I came home in time for dinner. So what guy prefers to go home to his male friend's indifferent cooking when he could be out with a cute girl who seems to make him laugh his head off?

Hence the eject cord was pulled, and the plane went down in flames (or a kiss on each cheek at the Tube station). And as he walked away and I surveyed the flaming wreckage, I was left to wonder, "How the hell did that happen?"

I often think that initial meetings between men and women are often spent trying to decide if it's a "romantic potential" relationship or a "friendship" relationship, with each side trying to decode clues in the conversation. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but something that had started out as a "romantic potential" relationship banked left with no warning, the rudder flipped and the whole thing went into a tailspin, crashing and burning on the field of "friendship".

Was it because we both confessed to having best friends who were of the opposite sex? Are we perhaps too conditioned to being friends then, rather than considering the romantic interest? Was it because he was still obviously somewhat bitter about a recent break-up?

My own perspective is no use for figuring out what went wrong, because if I had any idea where I erred, I obviously wouldn't have made that mistake. Still I'm reminded of the rebuke of one of my gay friends on Friday night about the state of my dating life, where he said, "Jeez Adrian, you're beautiful, intelligent, and you have really big boobs. This shouldn't be that hard!!" Distressingly succinct, but accurate. I was dressed in a borderline inappropriately low-cut dress, was wearing cute heels, was funny, charming, and all of that. Obviously I must be doing something wrong, as it really SHOULDN'T be that hard.

As we parted company, I promised him that I'd e-mail him the next day, although I was so busy that I didn't remember to compose a sufficiently witty or funny message until the end of the day. Funny enough, he hasn't written back yet.

In the end, I had a great time, because he's funny and smart and well read, and if I was interested in having yet another platonic male friend, he'd make for a great one. Still, don't I already have enough platonic male friends? This wasn't quite the destination I had in mind when I started this flight...