Shamela!

(See here for an explanation of the title, if you should be so interested)

Eeek, the first date. More particularly, the first date after many, many years of no dates at all, during which time a once-joyful relationship became slowly more joyless with every passing day. Nerves. Horror. Excitement. More horror. The strong desire to leg it out of whatever venue you have picked, a desire which can only be combatted by the swift consumption of a double brandy at the bar as you pretend to sip half a lager while looking anxiously around for someone who might, given further consumption of said brandy, resemble at a big push the bronzed Adonis in the internet profile pictures. The sense of unreality, as you suck in your gut and raise your eyebrows, the sudden attention to all those parts of your personality that you really couldn't give a flying one about and neither could your friends (Grade 8 on the piano! A love of foreign films! Highly knowledgeable about bulbous plants! Keen correspondent with political figures on the plight of several nations of peoples around the globe!), the extra make-up, the best underwear, the desperate searching for a clean top with no holes in it...

All these things are pretty misleading, really. However, as it turns out, I was no more guilty of this than anyone else. Far more innocent of it, in fact.

I stood up to greet him. He winked at me as he came nearer and yes, he was cute. Long-ish hair tinged blonde by the sun, from the looks of it; one onyx earring in his left ear, just the right amount of stubble, big dark eyes, nice smile, and from the look of his body he certainly hadn't been lying about all that sport. All in all, very easy on the eye. I put out my hand; he took it in both of his and kissed me on the cheek. I was blushing slightly as I sat down - and then he began to speak. 'So! Did you find it ok? You seem to know some pretty good places in Cardiff, have you been here lots before? To tell you the truth I don't go out drinking an awful lot these days, no, not really, I find it all a bit much really, it makes me feel a bit strange and I don't really think I can cope with it all that well...still, here we are, great you could come, how have you found this whole thing?' All delivered in a strong south Wales accent, at top speed, and with slightly maniacal movements of the head. I peered in a bit closer at those big dark eyes and saw that the pupils were so dilated, the irises could really have been any colour at all...

Curses! How can this be? All my efforts to weed out stoners, and still - even on the bloody Internet - still they find me! My inner bubble deflated somewhat as I realised that I had been on this date, with this guy, many, many times before. It goes like this: we talk a bit, at first on perfectly reasonable subjects such as work, family, where we live, education and such like. Then we find an area of shared interest, usually something political or philosophical or, more commonly, music. In this case, it was the Smiths, Noam Chomsky, Freakonomics, socialism and football. More or less in that order. I was surprised, given the length of time that had passed since I had last been on a proper date (seven years ago, at least) that the format doesn't appear to have changed. Wait to see what they're drinking before you ask for that pint that you really want. It may be that you have to order something a bit swifter to drink. Such were my thoughts but my date didn't seem to have noticed...'well, people these days, they're all into such bollocks, aren't they? Well take my sister and her partner, they've not married, as all right thinking people should agree not to do, why would you want to, it's all just bollocks...' and so on. By this point I had resigned myself to listening to him and taking salient points to recount to my friends later.

Eventually, the conversation turned round to his yogic practice. I asked if this was why he didn't drink very much these days and he looked up at me furtively. 'Well, it's that and other things, I mean I've never been very good with alcohol, it makes me go a bit...funny, you know? And I mean, well, I smoke a bit of weed, you know...' It was all I could do to stop myself laughing out loud and say well, yes, I could tell from the second you walked in mate! Instead I feigned indifference and said something about decriminalisation. He nodded vigorously and I listened with the same barely feigned indifference to his thoughts and treatises on various drug laws and policy. He told me had been a prolific writer since his trip to India, writing political thoughts and research...And then I saw that I was on a date with Cuckoo (click here to see the character in question). Really and truly.

Still, I had great fun. I mean, he was easy on the eye even before I was three pints of Hobgoblin down. He offered to walk me to the station to catch my train, which was just as well as I had no idea where I was going. I thought I'd conduct an evaluation. 'So,' I ventured, 'How do you feel this date went?' He was grinning. 'Oh, yes, very well, very well indeed,' he said. I was about to gently disagree when I noticed he was walking very close to me. Very close indeed. He yawned, and then I felt an arm around my waist - the old stretch-and-yawn! Terrible. I was about to remonstrate with him about his cliched behaviour when he stopped walking and turned to face me. 'Yeah,' he said, 'this has definitely gone a lot better than I thought it might.' I was about to ask what he mean when he lent down and, without asking permission, kissed me. On the mouth. With tongues, straight in. The cheek! The nerve of it! How dare he...oooh. He's actually really quite good at this. Mmm. This is actually really quite nice. And the beard feels nice and soft and...I mean...what was I saying?

We broke off (partly because there were people walking past shouting things like 'Oh my God!' and 'Ugh!') and I then realised that despite my protestations, I had in fact been standing on tiptoes, and therefore I wobbled over, fell into him, and he fell smack into a pile of bins behind him. He stood up, brushing his hat and coat down. 'Oh dear,' I said. 'Slightly embarrasing,' he said. 'For you,' we both said. Uh oh.

We got to the station, where, despite some more snogging, lasting quite a while, I just made my train back to Bristol and got straight on the phone to GBF, who rather uncharacteristically squealed like a girl and demanded I met him in the pub for the full lowdown. We arranged to meet and I realised that, whatever came of this, I had finally made an important step forward; that this signified a turning point in my life, the final goodbye to any residual feelings towards Daddio I had been harbouring. No more hiding in B&Q or garden centres on my childless weekends. No more worrying about chores, the state of the front yard, or what the old bat up the road thinks about me and my kids and the number of empties in my black box on a Thursday morning. From now on, life is going to be as much fun as it can possibly be. I was feeling good, feeling positive, as if I were 21 again and the world was my oyster. Life had colour and meaning again. This, I knew, was going somewhere.

I sat in the quiet carriage and gazed out the window at the lights of the city. It all looked so beautiful. How amazing, I thought, that technology can do all the things it can do. Its function changes our lives, and its form, these lights for example, change our landscape and make everything it casts a glow upon seem fuller, brighter, more beautiful. You can look upon a filament and see nothing, or you can see the whole world. I drifted off into an existential reverie, the quiet of the carriage broken only by the steady rhythm of the train, a comforting, blanket-like peace...then my phone bleeped, very loudly. The other passengers gave a collective tut and frown. I apologised and checked the phone. It was my date from earlier. I read the message and began to laugh. And laugh. And laugh, and laugh, very loudly...

Very nice to meet you earlier. Hope you get back ok. Perhaps on another occasion, if you would like, I can come to Bristol and we can shag each other senseless? 

Like I said. This was a definite turning point.