Firstly, I am back, and have been very lax in my posts lately, due partly to work, and partly to a really bad illness from which I thought I might never recover. Luckily both of those pesky distractions have since disappeared and I am free to blog at will.
I had a really bizarre experience the other day whilst walking the streets of Dublin. First, some background will be essential in order for you to fully appreciate the reaction I had.
Many moons ago, somewhere amongst the mess that comprises my romantic history, one particularly amusing train wreck occurred. Amusing in hindsight, at the time, not so funny. I was a fresh-faced twenty year old, with only one serious past relationship under my belt, and hence very little experience of the male variety. I was in my first year of a new degree, having just traded up. And there was a boy studying the same degree who I was very, very, very interested in. Now he was a typical Bluck (black hair, blue eyes, generally very good looking young man), and hence exactly my type. He was actually one of the first Blucks I ever encountered, and he set in train an obsession with that particular look that does not appear to be lessening with age. He was in one of my tutorials and my best friend Porgie and I made it a fairly regular mission to sit in the back of this class giggling and hoping that he would turn and look at me. Things moved forward, a rather drunken school function occurred, and I succeeded in my goal of kissing the Original Bluck. Victory was mine! After this encounter we formed what I would call an uneasy friendship. We talked a lot in the library (let's just say that my library usage increased... a lot), assisted in making awkward conversation by another lovely young man, let's call him Chinchilla, who was also in our class. This went on for months, there was not another school function in sight and chances of kissing in the library were nought, I had to take affirmative action. One day, after hours of conversation in the library, I trudged off to my car to drive home and feel sorry for my cowardly self. I arrived at my car and suddenly realised that I had just left the Original Bluck back in the library by himself, and had missed a golden opportunity to ask him out. I, being young and inexperienced, had never asked a guy out before, and it took a gargantuan effort for me to run back to the library with that aim in mind. As I arrived back he was walking out and I crashed into him. Great start to an epic romance. He was very confused and asked why I was back, and I stuttered out something about forgetting a book. Just as he was saying goodbye I blurted out something along the lines of 'Would you like to have dinner, or lunch, or a drink, or a coffee, or something with me, maybe, sometime?' He gave a simple yes in response and my heart soared.
So there I was, poised at the precipice of a very exciting date with the Original Bluck. We had settled on the coming Saturday and it was to be a lunch date, which was good, in my mind, not too much pressure, nice and relaxed, a good way to kick off what I was certain was set to be the greatest love of all time, surpassing that of Romeo and Juliet, Cleopatra and Marc Antony, Scarlett and Rhett, Lizzie and Darcy, you get the picture. I went to bed on the Friday night sick with anticipation. At roughly 3am the following morning (read: the time of night when all the clubs are closing and people are starting to get desperate) my slumber was interrupted by the rude ringing of my mobile phone. I groggily answered it and was shocked to hear the slurring of the Original Bluck on the other end of the line:
OB: Are you out tonight?
BJ: No, I'm in bed
OB: Oh, ok. I'm out. Listen, we're still meeting up today for lunch right?
BJ: Yes
OB: Great, great. Look, there's something I need to tell you before we go out for lunch.
BJ: Mmmhmm?
OB: I'm a 'have sex with' type of guy, not a 'going out with' type of guy. Is that ok with you?
BJ (slightly shell-shocked and still half asleep): Ummmm, I don't know.
OB: What do you mean you don't know? Are you ok with that or not?
BJ: Listen (insert first name), I actually don't know, it's three o'clock in the morning.
OB: Alright, well how about you just come over to my place tomorrow and we'll sort everything out from there.
BJ (young, foolish, and still hoping that this is some sort of nightmare): Um, ok, see you then.
End of call
The next day I received a text message stating that he was far too hungover to go out for lunch and asking for a raincheck. I gave one, with some relief. After this I became intensely rageful towards the Original Bluck and three months went by with neither one of us breaking the silence. I eventually started talking to him again, after I started dating the King of Emotional Fuckwittery (who at that point was a sweet, lovely boy of eighteen, you would never have guessed what he was to become), and forgave him for his sins.
In hindsight, hilarious, that I would get so self-righteous and horrified by a guy behaving like a drunken moron, and not just laugh and tell him to rack off (god, that's a phrase I never thought I would use). Unfortunately for the Original Bluck, things just got worse, and about six months after our big falling out he started going out with a girl from the year ahead of us. He moved in with her within a few months and they are now engaged. Shocking, that the 'have sex with' type of guy was so easily tamed, and disheartening, that I was not the one to do it. A lot of what ifs flew through my mind. What if I had just succumbed to his desires? Would he have realised that he was, in fact, a 'going out with' type of guy and promptly shacked up with me, followed closely by a proposal and a happy, long, joy-filled marriage? Probably not, because he was a bit of a dick. But still.
Anyway, I'll get to the point. I hadn't heard from the Original Bluck in years, and I was quite happy with that arrangement. We run in different circles, he in his engaged 'I'm a dick' circles, and I in my single, happy, carefree, 'I'm not a dick' circles. We are "friends" on Facebook, but he appears to lead a very boring existence and he's gotten a bit ugly with age, so he is not really cyber-stalk-worthy, and I had sort of half-forgotten about him. Then , BAM. The Original Bluck IM'd me on FB (oh, listen to me with my techno acronyms, I am so down with the technology etc) about a month ago, and asked if I was living in Ireland. Why, yes, I am. OB responded by telling me he is currently living in England (conveniently left out that he lives there with fiance, who, by the way, appears to be a jealous bitch from hell, perfect for him, really. The only time I ever met her, and I use the word met loosely, was when I was talking to OB following an exam and she marched over, and stood about two metres away from us with her arms folded across her chest until he stopped talking to me and ran over to her). OB (whose mother is Irish and father is English) told me that he often comes to Dublin to visit family and that next time he was over we should catch up. Yes, I responded, great idea (secretly thinking, yeah right, like that's going to happen!). I thought that would be it.
Life went on, I once again forgot about OB, after laughingly telling my friends about his ridiculous IM-ing and chortling over how much of a dick he is. What a dick. This Saturday just gone I was walking home from Henry Street, crossing the O'Connell Bridge, when I saw someone who looked a little like OB. I glanced over and acknowledged this resemblance. Then I looked again and realised, with growing panic, that it was OB. FUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKKKK!!!!!! I also registered that Jealous Bitch from Hell Fiance was marching along in front of him, no doubt on a mission to stare down anyone who so much as smiled at him (not that anyone would anymore, he has lost the magic, that's what impending doom, oops, I mean marriage, does to you). I didn't know what to do. Did I call out to him and have an awkward 'Hey, what a bizarre coincidence', 'I was going to FB message you tonight to see if you wanted to catch up (internally: 'not really, oh fuck, I can't believe I saw her here, now my jealous bitch from hell fiance is going to be on my back for months'),' 'Haha, great, yeah, we should totally catch up (internally: 'please shoot me now, omg, jealous bitch from hell fiance looks like she is going to attack me. She's smaller than me, I could probably take her, although I have to factor in the fact that she is way meaner looking than me)' conversation? Or did I pretend that I hadn't seen him and hope he hadn't seen me? I, in true fifteen year old style, looked at the first opportunity I had to speak to an old "friend" (I guess he was kind of a friend, once, before I realised he was a dick) from home, the first person from home I have randomly seen in a foreign city, and I put my head down and ran as fast as I could in the opposite direction. Proving what? That I am reverting back to behaving like a weird teenager? Probably.
Anyway, that's my story. Pointless, I know. But kind of amusing. The good times just keep on coming.
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