The never-ending​ date – Tinder Stories

Seems unfortunate that it was Snapchat that reminded me of these suppressed memories. Forewarning and a word to the wise, don’t do what I did.

It was a Saturday night, I was at my best friends house and her flatmate brought home a bunch of people who had been at an awards ceremony that evening. As we all know people get sloshed at these sorts of things and this was no different. Having a yarn to these people on the couch one person, in particular, caught my attention. We chatted and he was clearly white boy drunk on wine and unlike some men who walk this earth, I didn’t push the situation. Instead drove everyone into town on my own way home and left them to it.

What was to my surprise was that the next morning, lying in bed I was swiping through Tinder and saw the guy I had been talking to the night before. Chuckling to myself I swiped right to him (that’s a yes I would like to match with you, for those of you who do not know how Tinder works) and we bloody match.

Now if you know anything about Tinder, matching with someone actually doesn’t mean anything. So I messaged him asking about his hangover. He was indeed, very dusty.

We get chatting and find out we are both from the South Island of NZ and that we might indeed have mutual friends and if you aren’t picking up what I am putting down we then added each other on Facebook to compare friends. Tinder messages led to Messenger and that led to getting a drink and talking in person.

Standing once again in Ponsonby I hugged the dude who was well over 6ft and asked what bar he would like to go to. Settling on a spot we arrived, ordered and proceeded to get ID’d because Seren looked not her age when wearing pink apparently.

But just so we know that I am not perfect in any light I left my fucking wallet in my car which has enclosed, my ID. So within the first 5 minutes of meeting *Clyde, I have to ditch him and run back to my car and get my wallet.

So there I am jogging down the road to get my wallet, snap chatting my best friend because my mistakes make her laugh.

I get back to the bar and we start chatting. Jogging to your car and back really settles the nerves which were quite apparent as Clyde was bouncing his leg so aggressively the table was shuddering like a small chihuahua.

We were a drink deep, talking about what we have been doing with our lives for the past 3 years and he spills the tea on his ex-girlfriend. You could see it on his face, just how much that girl hurt him. It’s very confronting but also refreshing seeing someone wear their emotions on their sleeve.

Now what caught me off guard was him asking me if we wanted to share a bottle of wine at his house. So we went to the bottle store, brought two bottles of wine (because we couldn’t settle on one) and drove to his house.

Yes, I told my friends what was going on and yes my snap maps were on. I also told Clyde that if he murders me, he couldn’t get away with it. He wasn’t expecting me to say that.

What I can tell you is what follows.

Clyde and I drove home, wine bottle clinking and then it occurred to me that I was standing in a garage that was a workout room/ laundry/entryway. Then Clyde began to whisper. We went from a normal conversation to barely be able to hear him. Then I remembered people don’t have as chill flatmates like I do.

So he grabbed some glasses and waved me through to his room and I was like “wow, Clyde with some big moves over here, ushering me through to his room, not so timid in his own home”.

But ladies and gentleman, girls and boys, he should not have done that.

1. why does he have a $4000 computer set up (and before anyone disputes this, Dad runs a computer business, ya girl grew up around tech) but his bed is on the floor? He had a bed base but no legs. In fact, the legs were sitting in a bag in the corner of a room.
2. why had he insisted on me going first when he should have taken this opportunity to hide the pizza boxes – AND I MEAN PLURAL AS THERE WAS MORE THAN ONE – from my very observant eyes?
3. why he tried to kiss me whilst juggling two bottles of wine and their glasses as he clearly wasn’t from a hospitality background?

Now if you need to know anything about me, its that I generally pay attention to all of the things all the time. Which didn’t bode well for Clyde because his dim lighting was not helping the situation rather making me look harder because it was like he was trying to hide something from me? WHICH HE CLEARLY WAS. Pizza boxes cannot be disguised as anything other than pizza boxes.

So I am standing in a room full of empty pizza boxes, just been kissed by Clyde and I haven’t even taken my jacket off, let alone put my wallet down. He then puts his wine glasses down – almost smashing them and says he’s just popping to the bathroom, to which I take the opportunity to send a snap and my location to my best friends.

Once again, take the time to check how to get out, check in with your friends and remember no means no. I will forever remind you of this.

I also take this opportunity to pour the wine because I don’t know what the hell else to do with myself and the Clyde appears in the doorway super chuffed, to say the least. Now I am trying to be as open-minded as possible these days and I think “bugger it, give him a chance”.

That my darlings was a big mistake.

It’s 1am. We are talking, cuddled up, I am wondering how I should start making tracks when he clearly was reading my twitching lip and said “you’re staying right?” and guys I let my wine brain talk and she said yes. Please play in your head ‘That wasn’t me it was Patrica’ from Split about 8000 times.

Now wine + wine + wine = Seren fighting to be the last one asleep so she can go home and be hungover by herself. But Clyde he had other ideas. Gave me a t-shirt to sleep in and was insistent that I couldn’t leave at this time in the morning as he wanted to take me home, his mother raised him that way and well at this point Patrica is in full control.

Fast forward to the most intense cuddles I have had from any man in my entire life. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t going to die of hypothermia in my sleep, nor is anything going to get the chance to attack me but at one point when my hair was definitely stuck for the 47th time that night. I did begin to think we started to become one being. Very dark times. So I wake up 7am and immediately would like to go home but no.

First I got the “I had an amazing time” to the somehow letting Patrica say yes to a fucking shower but FINALLY it was time to go home and we are driving and I’m like the joker in the back of the cop car, practically high from thinking about my own house when the car stopped.

Bless his fucking soul. Clyde said, “so your picking where we do breakfast this morning…”. The bubble popped, I was not at my house, I was not dreaming, I was not by myself, the date is approaching the 12-hour mark and I took a breath in and asked Patrica to take control. She blurted out a brunch spot.

Now don’t get me wrong, Clyde – lovely guy but I am now not wearing any make-up, in last nights clothes and desperately in need of time to reflect. I would call Clyde politely persistent and me a lost lamb who looks like a raw potato.

So finally, we are back in the car, yes we are driving home and then I remember, I can’t go home.

My hopes and dreams stop and gasp when I yell in the car “WE HAVE TO GO TO PONSONBY”. Like a manic motherfucker without a filter on. Clyde literally just cracks up laughing and asks me if I am okay.

Oh, but how silly Seren forgot that her car was where she left it last night at the start of the date. Its been so long I thought my car had just magically driven itself home like I did in my own head 400 times over the past 14 hours. YES, 14 HOURS.

I had almost forgotten where I had parked my car and I was like the kid who spotted Wally after everyone had been looking for him for so slightly too long. I almost punched a hole through the windscreen when I saw it.

We pulled up alongside and Clyde looked like he was going to cry, he double checked he had my number and asked me out on another date there and then. I said I would need to check my schedule and get back to him but that I was also going to be very busy that day/evening so don’t panic if I get back to you later tonight.

I hugged him, trigger reminded me of being snuggled to death and got into my own car.

Watched him drive off, turned my phone off and stared out of the front window waiting to be teleported home. Honestly, I have no idea how long I sat there for. But I finally turned the ignition, drove home in some sort of daze and practically sprinted up to my stairs.

And I can tell you now, there is nothing that can top the sound of my front door closing and the sound it made as I knew the date was finally over.

I then shred my clothes, put a robe on, put my washing on, ran a shower, recleaned my soul, boiled the kettle and made myself a cup of coffee.

It was now almost lunchtime, I rolled my blinds down, crawled into bed and vowed never to let Patricia take control ever again.