Romantically Challenged

by Sami Lukis

  On the flip side, a guy with good texting game can elevate himself from so-so to super sexy with a simple, thoughtful text or three. I once found myself dating a Textbook Texter. This guy sent exactly the right text. At exactly the right time. Every time.

  I don’t know if it was something he’d consciously studied and perfected over time, or if it just came naturally to him. But he certainly knew his way around a keypad, whether it was a post-date ‘Thanks for a great night. Can’t wait to see you again’, or a late night ‘Good night, gorgeous girl. Sleep like an angel’ or just a simple ‘Missing you xxx’ completely out of the blue.

  Here’s the gem that really proved this guy had a black belt in text dating. After our first weekend away together, I received this:

  Thanks for a great weekend. You had me from our first kiss on

  Friday night. I’m loving everything I’m learning about you.

  Okay, if you really want me to rub it in, he sent me flowers on Monday morning as well!

  But I digress.

  Until then, I had never realised it was even possible to be wooed via SMS. It’s such a simple way to let someone know you’re thinking about them. Or to say things you might not be brave enough to say to their face. It only takes seconds to type out a message that can make someone smile for hours. On the downside, we all know it can also be used by cowards as a pretty effective escape clause.

  My friend Lisa had been on two perfectly pleasant dates with a lovely new fellow and was very much looking forward to seeing him again the following weekend. But on the Tuesday night, she received this message from him:

  I’m sorry I can’t make our date this weekend, I’m too tired.

  A little abrupt, for my liking. But that’s not even the worst part. How on earth was this guy able to determine on Tuesday that he would be too tired for their date on Saturday night? They had only planned to go to the movies, where you sit down for two hours. You don’t even have to talk to each other if you don’t feel like it. It’s not like they were going to play paintball, for goodness sake.

  And this brings me back to the whole texting and dating ‘lost in translation’ issue. One might have easily interpreted the Tuesday night ‘I’m too tired to see you on Saturday’ text as a subtle rejection. I would never have contacted the guy again. But it turns out he was not fobbing her off. He was just being a guy. And he was very interested in her. So interested, in fact, that he saw her again the following weekend. And they ended up falling madly in love.

  The ‘I’m too tired on Tuesday to see you on Saturday’ text isn’t even the most bizarre excuse I’ve heard to cancel a date. The best one I’ve ever come across is ‘I can’t have dinner with you because I glued my toes together.’

  My old mate Ben had been pursuing a girl relentlessly for a year before she finally agreed to go out with him. But when date night finally came she called to cancel because, in her rush to get ready, she had accidentally reached for the superglue instead of the nail polish remover and glued her toes together.

  Well, Ben wasn’t prepared to let a silly little thing like a pair of conjoined toes prevent him from getting the girl of his dreams. He’d waited an entire year for this moment and he wasn’t giving up without a fight. So he told her to sit tight while he called the poisons information hotline and begged for instructions on how to unglue those toes (make it happen, goddamit!). He succeeded, the date went ahead (all toes intact) and Ben proudly told the story, in all its hilarity, at their wedding one year later.

  If an awkward or embarrassing moment on a first date doesn’t send you running for the hills, it can accidentally turn into a touching bonding experience. Ted loves telling the story of his woeful first date with the woman who eventually became his wife. He hadn’t realised he’d parked his car under an external sewerage line after driving into a restaurant’s underground carpark. In a valiant attempt to be a gentleman, he leapt out of the driver’s seat to race around and open the passenger door for his lady, but he whacked his skull on the sewerage pipe, split his head open and knocked himself out cold. They ended up spending their first date in the ER where he had his skull stapled back together. That contributed to another priceless wedding speech.

  One of my most embarrassing first dates was the time I thought early menopause had hit me, in all its glory, just after entrée. I’d been a little anxious going into that blind date, but we seemed to have enough in common to keep the conversation flowing. We’d had a few laughs and the date wasn’t going terribly. But sometime after the insalata Caprese and just before the ravioli, I spontaneously started to sweat profusely. I’m not talking about a delicate light mist, providing my skin with a radiant natural glow. It was as if someone had turned on a tap. Water was streaming out of my pores. There weren’t enough napkins on the table to soak up the sweat dripping from my forehead. I could feel a river of it running down my back and filling up my bum crack. I was desperate to run to the loo and clean myself up but I was too scared to stand up in case I had a big wet patch on my rear, which would look like either I’d bled through a tampon or I had an embarrassing bladder leakage problem. Of course I wore the fucking silk dress that night.

  So I just sat there, dripping. And pretending not to notice.

  My date did a fine job of pretending not to notice as well. I’m pretty sure he just assumed he was witnessing a menopausal episode. (Yay, she’s a keeper!)

  The sweat tap miraculously turned itself off as soon as the date was over and it never happened to me again. Turns out it wasn’t a menopausal hot flush after all, so I can only imagine it was a spontaneous uncontrollable nervous reaction.

  And that particular embarrassing experience did not bond us. I never saw the guy again.

  A slice of raw fish was the catalyst for one of the most uncomfortable first dates I’ve ever experienced.

  I was doing a fashion shoot for one of the glossy magazines when the chat on set turned to dating, and how difficult it was to meet good men in Sydney. Which is what prompted the stylist to set me up with her brother. She said he was super handsome, incredibly funny and wildly successful.

  ‘He’s a catch,’ she told me, ‘with a capital C!’

  Well, he sounded like a catch with capital everything, so of course I agreed to a date. I didn’t want to appear too keen, however, so when CATCH (capital everything) called to invite me to dinner, I lied and told him I already had dinner plans, but I’d be able to meet him for a quick drink beforehand.

  We met at a cute little speakeasy in East Sydney. The first impression was positive and conversation flowed. We talked about work and life and family and our common passion for travel. After about an hour, he said he was really enjoying my company and asked if there was any chance I could possibly join him for dinner after all. So I fake cancelled my fake dinner with friends and agreed.

  He led me around the corner to his favourite Japanese place. We had sushi and sake. We chatted some more. He seemed quite charming. But then I noticed he seemed to talk an awful lot about money. And how much he had. And about his fancy car and his big houses (yes, plural).

  Well, there’s no faster way to turn me off than to discuss how much money you have. Because it indicates, quite clearly, that you’re a wanker. And not the one for me. So, after dinner, I politely said I had to leave and he called for the bill.

  Suddenly, CATCH began flapping his hands around in front of his face. He crinkled his nose up and made strange gagging noises. Like he’d just taken a whiff of some especially odoriferous sewer gas. He said he wasn’t feeling well. Said he must have eaten some warm sushi. Told me he remembered the exact piece – it was a little tepid when he put it in his mouth. And now it was not sitting well in his tum tum.

  And then he got up. And he left.

  Poor guy, I thought. I can only imagine that ingesting warm raw fish is not fun for anyone. I assumed he’d popped out to get some fresh air. Or throw up. Best not to go out there and check on him, I decided. Might be a little embarrassing if I a
ppeared just as his warm sushi was introducing itself to the pavement.

  So I sat there at the table, alone. And I waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. But CATCH did not reappear. After about thirty excruciating minutes I realised he must have gone home, so I paid the bill and left. The walk out of the restaurant was mortifying. I was very much aware that the other diners had watched him leave me sitting there alone at the table, like his leftovers, or a piece of warm sushi.

  So imagine my complete disbelief when I found CATCH standing there, right outside the restaurant, leaning up against the wall, looking very relaxed and not the least bit unwell.

  Major awks, as I said, ‘Wow, um, I thought you’d gone. Are you okay? How are you feeling?’

  And he casually replied, ‘Yeah, I’m great, thanks.’

  As if nothing weird had just happened.

  I was shocked. Even if he had been feeling a little queasy after the alleged warm sushi, there’d been plenty of time for him to have a quick puke, get some air, suck on a breath mint or three and come back inside to check on me and, um, I don’t know, maybe pay the fucking bill? Or at the very least, thank me for paying the fucking bill. Evidently he’d been standing there for the last thirty minutes, waiting for me to pay up.

  Then, he super casually said, ‘So, do you want to go get another drink?’

  After my countless encounters with man morons over the years, not much shocks me any more. But this guy clearly lived on Crazy Island. Population: one. He wasn’t sick at all. He was totally fine. In fact, I’m pretty sure CATCH had faked his little fishy encounter to conveniently disappear and avoid paying an eighty-dollar dinner bill.

  The Warm Sushi Escape Clause had worked an absolute treat. I’d been had. Hook. Line. And sinker. (Forgive me, but that fishing pun has never seemed more appropriate.)

  He called a few times after that, but I never returned his calls and I never saw him again. And, look, it’s not even about me paying the bill. I can afford an eighty-dollar dinner. It’s the ridiculous way he went about avoiding having to pay it himself. His sister might think he’s a catch with a capital C, but he’s actually just another A-grade loser. And, despite the fact that there really do not seem to be plenty of fish in the sea, this was one catch I was unquestionably happy to release.

  Despite the six-star price tag, upmarket health retreats are not as glamorous as you might expect. They’re basically where rich people go to get colonics. They’re the only place I’ve been to where it’s perfectly normal to sit around a dining table, openly discussing your bowel movements with people you’ve just met.

  I’m not sure if it’s the excessive fibre or the lack of caffeine, but those ‘healthy’ holidays have a way of doing obscene things to your digestive system. Blockages are common. And when you’re in that excruciatingly unpleasant situation, with a bunch of other people experiencing similar levels of discomfort, your poo (or lack thereof) becomes a popular talking point.

  Here’s a transcript of an actual conversation I had with another health farm guest I had known for all of two days:

  Me: This enlightened rice and kale muffin is delish. Hey, have you pooed yet?

  Stranger: The Ezekiel bread is yummy too. I’m so backed up it’s ridiculous. Have you been?

  Me: Nope. Nothing. I’m in agony. I heard the Chi Nei Tsang abdominal detox massage can help move things along.

  Stranger: I’ve booked one today. I’m so friggin’ bloated, I can hardly walk.

  Me: I’m having a colonic today after my Mother Earth Drum Circle class.

  Stranger: Oh my god, I did the drum circle yesterday. I’ve never felt so free. If the Chi Nei Tsang doesn’t work, I’ll try the colonic. Hey, do you want me to grab you another dandelion tea?

  And so on and so forth until you eventually poo. Which usually happens on around day five.

  During one stay at the health retreat, I became friendly with a middle-aged couple who were so loaded they owned their own plane (see . . .? Rich people and private jets. I’m telling you . . . it’s a thing). It was after yet another one of these lengthy discussions about our states of constipation that conversation turned to dating (with an obvious link there to dating shitheads, which I will avoid). The husband’s eyes lit up as he excitedly said he would love to set me up with a friend of his who was a very successful professional footballer.

  ‘Not interested,’ I told him. ‘But thanks anyway.’

  I’m a big fan of all sports and I truly admire anyone who was the exceptional athleticism and skill to make a living out of being sporty. But let’s be honest here. When it comes to professional athletes, footy players do seem to have the worst reputation. That team mentality and excessive testosterone can certainly be the catalysts for some disgraceful behavior. I know it’s not fair to judge an entire group based on the acts of a silly few, but hardly a season goes by without a player being arrested for assault or drugs or public intoxication or public urination or, in at least one case that we know of (and only because poo has already featured heavily in this story), public defecation.

  Delightful.

  But my new friend urged me to give his mate a chance. So I checked myself for being so judgey and accepted his invitation to meet said Player.

  A couple of months later, I met the Player at a fancy function after a game. He seemed polite and pleasant enough and even a little shy. He was also pretty hunky and super fit.

  We spent the next couple of hours chatting and flirting and, despite my earlier reservations, I was undeniably drawn to him. I seem to be irresistibly attracted to a guy who’s made it to the very top of his chosen profession, whatever that might be.

  My sister was my wing-woman that night and I was also staying at her place. So when we decided it was time to leave, the Player gave me a peck on the cheek and said he’d love to see me again. We swapped numbers and I hoped he’d call me sooner rather than later.

  But just when I thought I’d overcome my footballer phobia, I got a pretty nasty reality check the very next day.

  My sister got a call from a mate who, coincidentally, worked with the Player’s team. He said he’d heard someone at training that morning ask the Player, ‘So, mate, how did you go with Sami Lukis last night?’ To which the Player apparently announced loud and proud to the entire group, ‘Well, boys, I took her home and I fucking slammed her’, and they all erupted in cheers and laughter.

  It sounded like a fearless display of Trump-style, locker room ‘conquest’ banter.

  My sister was able to vouch for the fact that there’d been no Sami-slamming of any kind, because I’d gone home with her. But I still felt humiliated. And horrified, to think that a man could be so disgustingly disrespectful. It was exactly the kind of thuggery I’d been afraid of all along.

  The friend who relayed the story was a decent, trusty, reliable guy who had no reason to make up something so foul. But a part of me still didn’t want to believe it. Perhaps it was all a terribly unfortunate Chinese whispers–style misunderstanding. So rather than just promptly discarding him to the Neanderthal pile, I decided to do the mature thing and ask the Player about the reported foul play. I carefully worked out exactly what I wanted to say and how best to phrase it so that I wouldn’t offend him (just in case he was innocent), and I rehearsed that conversation over and over and over in my head. When I finally got the courage to call, he didn’t answer. So I left a message.

  But I never did get the chance to confront the Player about the slamming accusation because he never returned my call. And I never saw or spoke to him ever again.

  It was a foreseeable Game Over for me.

  A cute guy was flirting with me at a pub once and casually mentioned that he was the proud owner of two pugs. I called time out on the flirt-fest. Immediately.

  My gaydar and my cheater radar both went into code red, alerting my inner dating detective to the very real probability that a single straight guy couldn’t possibly own two pugs. Surely the pug is a gay man’s dog. Or a couple’s do
g. Or the dog a guy inherits when he’s dating a girl who already owns a pug, usually named Puggles, Peanut or Sweet Pea (the dog, not the girl).

  I called the guy out on his questionable pair of pugs, but he insisted that he was neither gay nor coupled. And he persisted with the flirting. Well, that helped me rule out gay. But common sense was telling me that a single guy would never willingly own two pugs. It just didn’t seem apropos. And I just knew I shouldn’t go there.

  My double-pug conspiracy theory made perfect sense to me. But was it ridiculous to assume a guy was a cheater simply because he admitted to owning a pair of pugs?

  Sure, my gaydar was a little off that day. But if my cheater radar was broken, I guess I’ll never know.

  My darling friend Kate’s gaydar is non-existent. She developed a major crush on a guy at yoga. He was six foot three with a rock-hard body and he was very, very pretty. He also happened to be ten years younger. Kate had just endured a super messy divorce, so she was ready and willing to take a toy boy and have some fun.

  They went out to dinner a few times but whenever Kate tried to get frisky with the strapping young yoga dude, he’d back right off. Kate was keen, and she couldn’t work out why he didn’t want to get naked with her. She’d already noticed an impressive-looking package in his yoga spandex, so it appeared there was absolutely nothing for him to be embarrassed about in that department.

  It seemed pretty obvious to everyone else that the strapping young yoga dude did not want to have sex with Kate but she was convinced he wanted her because, wait for it . . . He crocheted her a beanie.