Being single

I haven’t been single for this long ever. And being shy, not getting out much and all my friends being married or attached, I decided to try out a dating site. Oasis Active. I joined because it is free and I am a cheapskate. Besides true love shouldn’t cost you anything right? So I made my profile. It sucked and it still does, despite promises of adding more detail later. Only ever drunk when I am on there, I chat with some interesting people. I thought I would share my first real life meeting. Because if I had to experience it, you do too. That’s just how I roll…
Ballroom, I shall call him. Ballroom lived with his parents, worked as a metallurgist but was in between jobs atm, liked horses, ballroom dancing, and long walks on the beach.


Now, I can’t take all the credit here. I did the leg work, but really had no intention of meeting anyone from there. Especially for long walks on the beach. It was my friend Jeff that encouraged it. He saw his picture, thought he was cute. Said I should go for it. And why not? I have nothing to lose right?


So, it was a Friday night. I hadn’t seen Jeff for months as a result of the fallout from an argument with a mutual friend. I later learned he had been warned off me, by said mutual friend, but that’s a different story. Anyway. I hadn’t seen him for months. I enjoy his company. He’s the kind of guy everyone needs in their life. He will be your ‘Yes’ man, your ‘Oh no she didn’t’ man, ‘Oh lord you didn’t’, and your ‘Advice you don’t want to hear but need’ to guy. I wanted to impress. I wanted to prove that I was all normal and fun and shit now. So naturally, booze was involved. Because that’s where my charm starts. It was fun. He even got his mum to drop off his Guitar Hero things. His mum is a champ :)


We listened to music, danced, sang, drank. I showed him my online account and the people I was chatting to. Then something happened. The beginning of the end of Jenna as we knew her, and my new motto ‘Why not? What have you got lose?’


The batteries for the Wii remote ran out, so we couldn’t play guitar hero anymore. What to do, what to do? Surprisingly, go to bed never entered our minds. But with dutch courage, and Jeff’s encouragement, I signed back into my dating site. Surely there was a guy that I had been chatting to, that lived locally, who could bring us some. And there was…. Enter Ballroom


Its 2am.


Being as drunk as I was, and as new to dating as I was, I didn’t understand what needing batteries implied. On a dating site. On a Friday night, at 2am. I honestly just needed batteries.


So he comes over. With his giant pack of batteries and his backpack.


I am so drunk I can’t see. However, what I do see isn’t a lot like his picture from the site. He looks about 17, a lot skinnier, and a lot geekier. I feel I have pulled him away from WoW.


He looks a little like he did in his pic, like it's his him, but different. And this is the first guy I have met from there. Boy am I in for disappointment with guys and their pics. Heads up, they rarely look like them. But I am so drunk. I literally can’t see. So maybe it’s just me.


The poor guy. My first since the last and I am a mess. I offer him a drink, which he declines, and introduce him to Jeff. I don’t even bother with small talk; seriously, just get the batteries in the remote. He didn’t initiate conversation either. I can’t decide if that is because he is as boring as batshit, or that I was so drunk he just didn’t bother trying. I prefer the former, because that way, it wasn’t just me, and had we met in other circumstances, the result would have been the same. Hey, truth is all about perception, and this girl’s perception is just fine behind these rose coloured glasses.


I am slurring the words in the mic, Jeff plays guitar and Ballroom plays drums. I am not even making words. It’s all just a slur that sometimes hits between the bars.


We sing a couple of songs, and then I ask him to leave. I need water and sleep. He packs his giant pack of batteries into his back pack and leaves.


Me and Jeff speculate about what he has in his backpack. It is at this point I do realise what is implied when you invite a guy from a dating site over at 2am. We also speculate as to why he has such a giant pack of batteries. They were already open, so its not like he picked them up from a petrol station on the way. We decide it's because, obviously, this kinda thing happens all the time in the singlesphere, and he is just prepared. Like a boyscout. And, as we all know, drunken epiphanies equal the truth.


The fallout tomorrow was my roommate giving me a lot of shit, Jeff assuring me it was fine, and, not surprisingly, Ballroom never talking to me again. I was too embarrassed to try and initiate contact after that, even to offer an apology. And let that die a quick death


So lame beginning, but a start nonetheless.