I have tried to recreate events, locales and conversations from my memories of them. In order to maintain their anonymity in some instances, I have changed the names of individuals and places.
So where do we begin?
Marc and I had been seeing each other for a few months now and I guess what I need to make acutely clear is that we were not exclusive. We told each other that we had dates and how those dates went, in detail may I add. We did have rules when we were together.
- Phones down
- Pay attention
- Don’t waste each others time.
Mid-week and Marc asked if I wanted to dinner on Friday at a restaurant neither of us had been to. He said he would book the table and we could make an evening of it.
Well, this is that story.
Now on Friday, I go to work. On this particular day, I worked late. In fact, I worked a 12 hour day and the realised I had dinner at 8PM and needed to go and get ready. It’s now 7.30PM and I still have not heard a peep from Marc which wasn’t unusual however we hadn’t worked out the finer details of that evening.
So at 7.30ish I text him and ask what the plan was. He said he would meet me there and I then told him I was going to be about 10 minutes late because I had worked late.
He said that it was fine and I said I would keep him the loop about my ETA and with that, I went to my best friends house and did my hair because I wanted to debrief for the day and work out a couple of things.
It was at this moment when she expressed her deep concerns for how useless Marc was being.
Hair did, gin and tonic drank, I got into my uber and headed into the city.
Sent a heads up text that I was on my way thinking that he was already there as he was working in the city that day.
What follows is not how a date should go.
I arrived at the restaurant 10 minutes late. Marc was not there and I proceed to order myself an espresso martini because:
1. its Friday and 2. I am tired as fuck by this point.
Drink arrives, still no Marc.
Halfway through my drink, still no Marc.
Drink finished, proceeds to text Marc telling him that he is now late and orders another drink. I shall remind you, he was meant to be there before me.
Then I see out of the corner of my eye a very flustered guy walk through the door, points at me and shake out his hands.
It was Marc and he plonks himself down next to me.
And he tells me he can’t hug me.
His hand is covered in blood.
Confused I asked what the hell happened to him and he tells me he was on an ONZO bike (which is a bike renting app) and he was racing to get to me and the handles broke and he fell off.
Puzzled; I had a few questions.
- why was he racing to get here when he was meant to be on time?
- why was he late in the first place?
- why the fuck is he trying to wipe his blood on me?
- no seriously, why the hell is he trying to wipe blood on me?
Practically yelling at him to not put his blood on me it causes the waiter to come over. I ask for a bandage and tell him to go to the bathroom and clean himself in my ‘you are being told off like a child tone’. The waiter leaves, Marc leaves and my drink turns up.
In this time I call my best friend and she replies with how very confused she is and that she thinks I should leave.
Marc is now back, the waiter is also back with plasters and I am playing nurse on a Friday night in a nice restaurant.
He orders a drink and asks me what I am drinking but doesn’t seem to get the hint that I have questions that I would like answers to as he jumps around my question of how his day was.
He replies “it was good” and I ask if he had any meetings – “just the one”.
Side note: If you want a pointer on telling when people are lying, short answers about themselves means somethings askew. People love talking about themselves.
He then asks me about my day and I simply reply “really long” and we both silently take a sip of our drinks.
We get sat at our table and start looking at the menu and I ask where he was before here and Marc says “I was drinking”.
Now my interests have peaked, short answers with no details. Something is up. My friends will know, I do read into things a bit too much but it is because I am normally right (there’s at least four blog post I could write about that).
We order dinner and talk about our week and plans for the weekend. Both of us are busy. He then blurts out “I am in a bit of a cunty mood”. Now I query that because things are getting more bizarre by the second and I can’t figure out why. Clearly, something has happened to give him an ego boost. I would call Marc a very proud creature and I assumed he would tell me eventually but it wasn’t going to be over entrees.
I excuse myself from the table and call my best friend again in the bathroom because I know she’s on the couch and explains to her what is going on. She agrees. Very strange and messed up. She asked me if I was joking about Marc trying to wipe his blood on my legs and I remind her that I couldn’t lie to her even if I tried.
We order another round of drinks and I ask what he had really been doing after work. He says he went for coffee with a girl in the morning after his meeting.
Now it didn’t come as shock like I said we weren’t exclusive, though he had kept this under wraps.
So I ask him how it went and he says:
“I told her I didn’t want to go back to work and she said I shouldn’t, so I didn’t, I’ve been drinking with her and her friends since then. I am actually fucked”.
What.
Literally what the fuck.
So I reply with “so you were late to dinner with me because you were on a date with a girl and you drank too much and now you’re fucked?”
And as if he didn’t pre-warn me about him being a cunt he smiles and says “yes”.
With the magic that is the world, the mains arrive and I sat there waiting to be slapped in the face whilst my brain worked things out.
I begin to calculate and break down the math in front of me, his meeting was at 9am because I had stayed the night on Thursday and left him in bed just that morning. His meeting was short and I knew he had nothing else booked for the day. And as I slice into my lamb I realise that this guy had been on a bender since 10am.
I remember sitting there thinking if I should ask him if I interrupted his evening but he clearly saw me thinking and asked how my meal was. I said he should try some and downed half my cocktail waiting for someone to tell me this was all a big joke.
He then spots the table next to us and the drinks they are having and asks if we should get them. Yes. Let us get more alcohol to the table and specifically into my body because I need to survive this evening. We finish mains, cocktails arrive and well some god was watching because we have order long island ice teas.
I have never felt so welcomed by the inner party goblin in me telling me to just down the entire thing but I bargain with her with consuming half, excusing my self from the table again and if you haven’t guessed it, calling my best friend.
She is now giving me step by step instructions on leaving the restaurant. “book an uber right now, pick up your shit and get the fuck out of there”.
And you know what I did.
Not that.
Because I am a dumb dumb.
I sat down and asked why he was in such a ‘cunty’ mood.
He shrugged and though well my evening is ruined we might as well play petty and ruin his as well.
So I leant forward onto the table, looked at him dead in the eye and said the word ‘penis’.
Now if you haven’t played this game called ‘Penis’ it’s very easy to understand. You take turns to say the word ‘penis’ louder than the last person in a public place until you are too embarrassed to continue and have to back out.
Marc, being a proud person hated losing. We had discussed this at length which is important because he also hated child games.
“What”, he said.
And louder than last time I said “PENIS” and continued to drink my long island ice tea.
If you haven’t realised this yet, I have had a stupid amount of alcohol and am definitely not myself, Patricia’s cousin is out and she has no fucks to give.
Picture this: two adults on a date, one covered in blood and blue plasters, drunk, the other holding a permanent frowned face and now almost yelling the word penis.
I should also point out that at this point Marc is now playing the game and the waiter walks over putting dessert down asking us if we would like another drink. To which I pause the game and say yes to a gin and tonic.
We order and Marc takes this moment to go to the bathroom and yes ladies and gentlemen I call my best friend and tell her once again what is going on and once again she tells (shes actually yelling down the phone) me I should leave.
Find out what fuckery happens in part two.
Hidden Under The Covers 