Chapter I: How to not date a man?
Women have different takes on how one should act like when it comes to securing a man’s attention. Some say you should have a black cat energy. Some would disagree. I have seen the nicest and kindest women have their success in getting into a man’s mind and I have also seen nonchalant women do the exact same. It could simply be the varying taste of men when it comes to the different shades of personalities of women. However, one thing that I have also seen is the nicest and kindest women getting hurt the most as well and often times, they are usually the ones getting taken for granted. It is never the case with the black cats.
In my previous relationship, I tried to be understanding of a lot of things which led me to be at the receiving end of breadcrumbs and mistreatments. I’m naturally a very empathetic person so it didn’t really occur to me that I could just leave them for one hurtful behavior, which led to two, then three until I was utterly empty.
So the moral of the story is that don’t be too nice, ever. Learn from the black cats.
I went out on a date with this guy. We will call him Dan. He was a part-time model and a firefighter. He shared with me that he aspired to be a commercial pilot. So really, an ultimate fuckboy. He texted a lot and sent me a lot of videos of himself. So
1. He was full of himself
2. He was a bittersweet player.
Side note: never judge a book by its cover.
Then there was another guy, Aeron. He asked me out on a coffee date and frankly, I have never been on a coffee date. It somehow felt like a job interview. Maybe he was a nice decent guy who just wanted to get to know me with no ulterior motives because these days, when you’re on a dating app, you can never really tell. Up until last min, we were still deciding on where to go, or rather, he was still deciding. I felt a little icked out by his unpreparedness. We were supposed to meet the next day but he suggested we could go on that day. So I double booked them. Can we do that? I haven’t been in the dating field in years.
Aeron turned out to be a scandalous player who I ended up making out with in the backseat of his car, after dinner of course. At least, he took me out for dinner first.
He had a decent sense of humor. The dinner setting was a little awkward, a big round table that could fit 4 people but we made do with what we had. The dinner was pleasant, we talked about his work, my work, how what he wanted to do and what he ended up doing was vastly different, and how I, myself, had the same situation. Then we continued chatting for a while over dinner and headed out.
We walked back to the car and let’s just say I was under the impression that we would be just chilling in the car listening to some music. We did that, and more. It went from listening to professionally made music to making our own music, almost.
After a little bit of fooling around, he drove me off at my second appointment and let’s just say we laughed at the idea of him driving me to my second date of the evening.
Moving on to my second date, Dan. Let’s just say I didn’t expect him to be the way he was. He was quiet, very respectful, not too touchy and very soft spoken. A complete contrast from what I expected over his text messages and videos.
Dinner was a little awkward. He said he had a long day and was hungry. So I just popped in a few questions about his life every now and then as the silence was killing me. He led a pretty interesting life. He shared with me about the grueling aspects of his job as a firefighter, the dead bodies and the suicides. The irony is that he didn’t like getting his photos taken and he was a model.
He later dropped me off after we walked around the area for a while as I told him I needed to head back early because I had a long day the next day. We just sang in the car. He liked really old and slow songs. He was an old soul and one wouldn’t guess it from a glance.
I kept throwing a bunch of questions at him about his dating life, his ex-girlfriends, his flings and what happened. He proceeded to ask me if I was a virgin. I thought in my head, “Boy, you have no idea how much of a virgin I am not,” but I just smiled and said no, and asked him what made him think that. He responded that I just gave him the vibes. That was the first. Usually, I was often called naughty. Maybe I just wasn’t sexually attracted to him, hence, the vibes. I realized I had been treating him more like a friend than a date.
I guess after what happened with Aeron in the car, I couldn’t stop thinking about it and couldn’t see past it.
Let’s just say the date, overall, was quick and most part of it was in awkward silence. Maybe the stars weren’t aligned or he was just tired and I was still reeling from the make out session an hour before. Dan and I stopped texting after a while.
The moral of the story was to never judge a book by its cover. And sometimes, expectations often betray you.
Aeron and I, we met again the next day. He asked me to come over to “watch a movie”. I told him I didn’t want to hook up and if that’s what he wanted, he should look elsewhere. He proceeded to ask me which genre I was into. I’m usually a chicken when it comes to horror movies but that day, for some reason, i decided it was time I changed it. I guess I was on a mission of new year, new me.
After I ended my relationship, I said to myself I wouldn’t do hook ups. I always had a habit of trying to distract myself with guys in order to heal from a heartbreak which I knew wasn’t healthy. So, this time around, I told myself that I would heal on my own first. Maybe I will look for company but no hook ups.
I bought popcorn and took metro to his area where he picked me up. He was wearing Bermuda shorts. He pointed out how he remembered me telling him on our first date that he could have at least worn Bermuda shorts and not pajamas if he wanted to be comfortable. I asked him if anyone was home and apparently, his mum was out of town and his dad was out as well. But when we pulled up to his place, his dad was right there and I told him I was shy but we might have to say hi and I volunteered to introduced myself as a lesbian friend.
We settled in with a horror movie and popcorn on his bed. He was cuddling me while both of us were munching on popcorn. We would chit chat here and there about the movie. After a while, he started grazing my nose and commented that I had a cute nose. I looked up to ask what kind of compliment was that and well, there was nothing that would lead to other things but yet, we ended up making out.
Old habits die hard. One thing led to another and he got naked while I got half naked. We didn’t really go all the way to the end but a lot of hands were involved. Dinner time rolled around and we went out to grab a bite. We joked about nonsense all the way there. We discussed about the books we were reading during dinner. He lectured me on how the digital footprint affected our daily lives and how it was fascinating. He was cute talking so passionately about it.
At one point, I started to notice the resemblance between him and my previous partner. The way they dressed, the nonchalance, the way they talked and acted. After that little moment, I thought to myself that maybe i was attracted to him because of what I was familiar with and that it would be wise to keep some distance and look for someone different. Maybe I was wrong, maybe I was utterly right. Only time would tell.
My relationship with Aeron seemed to be purely based on sexual tension. We didn’t talk about feelings and emotions. Most of our topics surrounded jokes and work with a hefty pile of sexual tension on top of it. It was light-hearted, yet heavy in a sense. We still texted casually here and there but that was pretty much it. He was a busy man.
Milene Estel: Love & Life 