Destruction Most Beautiful
Twenty-Two Dates and Four Kisses
Patrick — The Man Who Had It But Didn’t Know It
I agreed to meet him to prove to myself that yes, I can go on a date with a guy who is ugly, to try to prove to myself that I am not superficial. He was ugly in a kind of way that was almost attractive. He was nicely dressed. His trouser legs were very drainpipe’ey.
I tried valiantly to find common ground. He kept going back to the topics on which we disagreed (politics, for example) while I was trying to move on to a topic on which we agreed. I would’ve kissed him — he had a kind of nice energy if only he’d kept his mouth shut — when we hugged on parting but he didn’t make his move.
I sent him a mail thanking him for a pleasant coffee meeting.
He waited THREE WEEKS to respond.
“Never wisen up a chump,” my ex-husband used to say.
I wanted to tell Patrick that seven days is an aeon in the life of a hot chick and give him some dating tips. Even though he was desperately irritating, I felt a motherly urge to help him. He wrote that he was leaving the dating site empty-handed and sending me a “lifeline” — his email. I didn’t contact him.
Jack — The Vampire Superbore
Jack and I had a funny banter going about knowing each other before and being vampires. I even wore a Vampire cape when we met.
I was a little nervous about meeting a stranger in the dark garden between Amailienborg palace and the harbour promenade.
I reconnoitered the area the day before and decided to take my chances. He was a businessman who seemed well-to-do, bragged about his apartment in town and about his membership of the Freemasons. Tried to be a know-it-all. Complained that women can get sex whenever they want and men can’t. Talked about legalizing bordellos. Yawn!
But he did show me the pictures he’d painted, which were good, and he was proud of them, with good reason — they were fabulous.
His paintings were the best part of the date. We found a hotel café where we got some coffee, tea for me. He pressed me that it was my treat. But it only cost 50kr which I paid after I’d been to the bathroom. It was so cheap that I suspected that he’d paid for his while I was at the bathroom. Won’t work. And not because he was stingy, because he was boring.
Richard — The Celebrity Footballer
We arranged to meet on Monday.
He contacts me on Sunday asking if we can meet that day instead. Then he writes me three mails Monday afternoon to confirm our appointment and asking to meet earlier. I stick to the original plan. He started to whine about the overtly sexual messages he gets from women. I laughed and told him that women were the new men, wanting sex, not relationships and that men wanted to marry. He talked a lot about football and seemed like a nice man but didn’t really pick up on the conversation threads I threw him.
I didn’t feel like I got through to the real man. If he invites me for dinner, I will say yes. If he invites me to fly somewhere for the New Year, like he hinted, I will say yes. Celebrities get a second chance ;-)
Jim — The Handsome Redhead
I see Jim’s photos on-line, he contacts me, he is handsome in a clean, clear kind of way and I wanna meet him asap.
He is a little shorter than I expected but we have a really nice time at the café, he holds my hand and kisses me lightly when we get up to leave.
I like the way he looks, I like the way he moves, I like the way he expresses himself when he writes (until it turns nasty, see below). We walk for about 40 minutes and kiss passionately outside his house. I give him my number. I write the next day thanking him for a pleasant evening and a few days later he asks if we can go to a museum on Sunday.
I wrote that I was getting my hair cut on Sunday so I couldn’t, fully anticipating that he would suggest another time. Then he goes bananas, writes me a very angry mail, accusing me of patronizing him, of dishonesty, of thinking that men are easy (they are ;-)) and instructing me how to correspond with him in future.
I messaged him on the dating site asking him to call me if he was still awake. Next day he writes another message, equally bitter and angry. I was terrified.
After a few days calming down, I wrote to him and explained exactly how I felt, that I liked him very much and that his written communication frightened me. Then he writes back, asking to meet again.
Amazingly, I was considering it. Twelve hours later he contacts me on the dating site with another angry message, clearly unable to wait one whole day for an answer.
Martin — Mr Nice Guy
Martin looks like Mr Wholesome in his profile photos, ordinary in appearance, bordering on the ugly, standing there barbequeing, simple, straightforward, uncomplicated. There’s my guy, I think.
We meet, have a real nice walk in the park and an amazingly emotionally-present conversation. He pushed me to answer some questions, just to the edge of discomfort. I enjoyed being challenged in that way.
I had a feeling that he was married but his photo was on the dating site openly so I guess he was single. I felt I really opened up to him, we went for coffee and apart from a few text messages, I never hear from him again. Later I see that his profile is one of the more popular on the dating site.
Update: TWO YEARS go by then he contacts me out of the blue. I didn’t even know who he was as I’d changed phones. We meet and the guy appears to be nervous. I did not want to meet him again.
Felix — The Prospect
Felix takes me for a fabulous walk along the sea.
We have a wonderful conversation. We go back to his summer house and even though he initially doesn’t want to, he reluctantly starts a fire when I ask him to light it. (Why didn’t I heed the symbolic significance?)
I felt a little uncomfortable being so close to a stranger (the BEDroom was the first thing you see when you go in the door) but I liked him very much.
He dropped me off at the railway station and kissed me really nice.
He said twice that the two-hour drive to my home town didn’t mean anything to him, suggesting that it probably did (the lady doth protest too much ;-))
We texted a little back and forth afterwards (mainly me) and under a little pressure from me, (I have a standard phrase: “If you were to invite me to do such-and-such, I would say yes”) he said that he would invite me for a walk. Never heard from him again. Pity, he was nice and I was the one who chose him.
James — The Board of Directors Member
James was an older man that I went on a couple or three dates with. I paid my way with him but my friend later said always to let the man pay, otherwise you’re making a fool of yourself. He was nice but older. I kissed him lightly on the lips a couple of times and didn’t feel the urge to kiss him more. Pity I never got to hear him play the guitar. I just didn’t want to visit him in his home. I told him that I would be delighted to accompany him to concerts or whatever but no more than that. He wrote poignantly, “I guess I’ve lost the beauty contest” and he was probably right.
Casper — The Cutie Pie
Casper was handsome and well-dressed but tense.
He asked me what I did and I began by saying that I’d been fired from Acme four years previously… “I just came from there”, he said. So we laughed and suddenly had something in common. He told me a little story too, about a guy who is helping someone to move house and a psychologist is helping too. The helping guy repeatedly asks the psychologist what therapy is all about and the psychologist refuses to give a simple answer. Finally, after much badgering, the psychologist gives in, and sums it up in two short pieces of advice:
- Know what you want
- Ask for it
We drank tea together. He said that this was his first date in 28 years. I wouldn’t have met him again except that he was really nice looking. The second time we met, and in our correspondence, I began to realize that he was an intelligent, sensitive and considerate man of his word. He called me some weeks later to tell me that he’d lost his heart to somebody but that he would set up a business meeting with a friend he’d talked about. Kind, thoughtful, handsome and smart. Some other chick beat me to it. Boo Hoo.
Francis — The Teacher
Somehow we got chatting. I had seen this film with Tom Cruise where he asks “Have you ever kissed a stranger on the balcony of the Hôtel du Lac?”
Anyway we agreed to meet on a bridge one Friday afternoon in November, kiss, no talk.
But he waits on the wrong side of the bridge and I don’t do waiting well. Finally he gets there and contrary to our agreement, begins to talk. It was kinda nice to kiss him, though, we necked a little. But he began using phrases like “one shouldn’t do that” which turned me right off.
There was a clump of mud that smelled of chlorine on the wall that he backed me onto to kiss.
It destroyed my very best “little black dress” and I had to send my coat to the cleaners too.
He sent the same opening line to me again a couple of years later; he’d presumably forgotten that we’d already “met” and he sent exactly the same message to my friend too:
“You have beautiful eyes and a sweet smile”.
Works every time…almost.
Mark — The Stalker
I agree to meet him for a walk in the park (don’t ask me why!) and even though I only gave him my first name he had soon found me on LinkedIn and Google+. I should have been forewarned when I found out he was a schoolteacher. Viewed my online dating profile 50 effing times.
Ronnie — The Intellectual Heavyweight
I arranged to meet Ronnie at very short notice; we went for a walk down by the lakes.
He had brown eyes and was very nice looking.
As we walked past a gated entrance, he asked the man working there if we could go in.
He knew a lot about the history of the area. From time to time he touched my arm gently, it felt nice and he seemed like a wonderful man. He just seemed older that the 52 years he claimed to be. His son called him at the café and he had to leave again and go home to transfer money to the boy to do his Christmas shopping. I got the idea that he had agreed with his son to call and if he were bored that he would use that as an excuse to leave. I decided to share it with him. I believed him when he said that he would never involve his children in that kind of stuff and I felt a little bit ashamed that I’d bragged to my sons that I was going on a date with a celebrity footballer.
We cycled up the street together and he stopped at the supermarket where we would say goodbye. He gave me a hug as I stood there holding my bike. I wanted him to kiss me and when it didn’t look like he was going to, I asked him directly to.
He kissed me again (without me having to ask this time). Later that evening, to my amazement, he wrote me an email inviting me to join him for dinner at his home. My kids were coming but if they hadn’t been, I would have been sorely tempted. I thought he wasn’t interested, funny, I read the situation wrongly…
Some months, later I am at the library and my friend Jacques tells me there’s a man at the next table staring at me. I nod to him coolly and later realize that it was Ronnie. Ronnie had a good chance with me, he just didn’t pursue it, for whatever reason.
Francis — The Uncomplicated One
I met Francis outside the French café one afternoon in the quiet days between Christmas and New Year. Again, he looked significantly older that his profile photo. We had a nice chat, he reminded me very much of a friend I’d had many years ago (where the friendship deteriorated after we became “Friends with Benefits”).
I asked him some questions and he started talking about his previous girlfriend.
“Make it short”, I said, and he did.
“Have you been on a lot of dates?”, he asked.
“A lot? I am an engineer, I like precision and numbers. You are number 20.”
We laughed and he asked about my previous dating experience, and I told him. Suddenly, I began to feel stifled and suggested we walk a little. So we collected my bike from The French Cafe and walked a little and then he said the magic words:
“I’m a simple guy,” he said, “uncomplicated.”
I thought “Wow” but played it real cool.
When I hear a guy say that, I immediately think:
“I am basically a happy, content type of person. If I have a job, a place to live, get regular sex and a blow job once in a while, I am perfectly content and happy.” He seemed very eager to meet again, in a nice kind of a way. So when we parted, he asked if he could give me a hug (normally I hug the guys when I meet them, but this time, for some reason, I had only given him a handshake).
We hugged and I said, “Do you think a hug is enough for me?” and we kissed. He kissed kinda nice but with tongue work right away, which earned him some minus points. It was actually just a few yards from where Rene did the same, almost five-and-a-half years ago and broke my heart. I wrote a text message thanking him for a pleasant afternoon coffee and haven’t heard from him since.
Ralph — The Direct One
I am on Ralph’s favourite list for weeks and finally he contacts me; he describes himself as a slightly domineering alpha male. We correspond a little, sending (decent) photos back and forth when he sends me a very revealing photo of himself (fabulous body, nice profile). I respond jokingly by requesting him to send a photo where I can see his face. He wrote about persuading me to go on a date.
“I was already persuaded,” I told him, we just needed to find a time. We met out at the beach at short notice on an amazing moonlit night with the full moon sparkling on the sea.
I liked the way he kissed me, I liked the way he held me, I liked the way he picked up his cue to make his move as we stood at the edge of the pier and looked out over the sea. He sure as hell knew his way around a woman’s body.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat it, down-and-dirty Miss Naughty Pants stuff”. I was a few short millimetres from losing my on-line dating virginity, this time around.
If that late-evening stroller hadn’t come by at just that moment, who knows what might have happened. He wouldn’t believe how old I was and teased me about cradle snatching. We talked about taking it to the next level. I made my usual two-part speech:
I only sleep with a man if I am convinced that he appreciates me for the amazing woman that I am.
If I begin a physical relationship with someone, it must be monogamous.
We sexted later that evening. The last thing he said to me as I was walking away from his car was to send him a photo but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I haven’t heard from him since but he has swung by to view my profile. By far the most beautiful date of all, as regards setting.
Martin — Mega Nice
Martin was nice-looking, he had a nice profile, he was a nice man, we drank a nice cup of tea in a nice café (he flirted with the waitress — not so nice), we had a nice chat. He smiled really sweetly (now that was a glimpse of true authenticity) as he reached over to give me a nice warm hug at the end of our date and he sent me a nice polite “It stops here” message the next day.
Laurence — The Ocean of Calm
Laurence is very tall dark and handsome, just my type. He wrote right away asking for a date because he was going on a skiing holiday.
I liked his brisk businesslike approach. He seemed kind of alpha-male-ish when asking for a date but turned out to be unbelievably calm and handsome. When we met, he shook my hand with both of his, I would’ve done the same except that I was carrying a bag or something. (I learned that on the net too.) When he gave me the one-handed hug afterwards I knew instinctively that our short-lived acquaintance was over and that I would never see him again.
Jasper — The Young One
This nice-looking thirty-something (all in the name of research ;-)) somehow gets me to meet him at short notice in my neighbourhood. We know what a guy his age wants with a woman my age. He seemed not-quite-sober and as if he had taken something. We went to an Italian restaurant in the tenderloin district and he ordered a couple of plates of tapas, I had already eaten. But that didn’t stop me from nibbling at his plate too.
We chit-chat blah blah blah and suddenly he says, “I bet you’re a great lover” — I am taken a little bit by surprise. We kiss a little in his car and then we agree that he drive me home. Pleasant evening but I didn’t like wasting his time, clearly he had another agenda.
Harry — The Sweet One
We meet at my usual tea shop and I invite him for a ginger shot in the same area before we go back to drink our tea. Then we go to the botanical gardens. We hang out for several hours and walk around a little (he offered his hand to hold as I walked on the steel ledge high up and I took it). I am getting hungry and suggest that we get a bite to eat and he wants to go to a pricey sushi place.
He suggested that we go dutch, that is the first time anyone I’ve been on a date with has suggested that. He chatted up the waitress too, a beautiful young blond chick — bad move — mainly because it was bad manners, secondly because it backfired — I wound up having more in common with her than he did. She’d been to Kuching. It was nice to be around him, we chatted pleasantly but he did break one of the rules of first dates, if not THE cardinal rule: “don’t talk about your ex”, he mentioned her a couple of times and even mentioned her first name. And her profession (nurse).
Hmmmm… I gave him my number but was kinda relieved in retrospect that he didn’t call. He was nice enough but not very gentlemanly. He couldn’t know it, but the issue about the bill is a very delicate one for me. With my previous boyfriend we would argue interminably about who was going to pay and I always felt used somehow even if I were the one who suggested that we eat out. I fear that Harry is the kind of guy who sees himself as Mr. Nice Guy and can’t understand why everybody else doesn’t see him that way too.
Boris — Laid-Back, Steady, Unobtrusive and VERY Sexy
Boris writes and asks very simply, “When are you and I going on a date?” and I respond, “Tuesday, The Tea House, 16.30.”
He had the primal sexiness of a man who is in tip-top shape and was dizzyingly and seductively calm. His speciality was Iron Man. I enjoyed his company and he touched me several times in a way that I liked. But he gave me the one-armed hug at the end of the date and I knew our paths wouldn’t cross again. I wondered afterwards if he’d spotted the beard rash on my chin from the previous day’s date with Prussian Blue. I didn’t write to thank him for the tea, I felt ashamed that I’d used him to pass the time because I couldn’t bear to wait at home for Prussian Blue to contact me.
Horace — The Judgement
I arrange to meet Horace in a posh bar. The same afternoon, I tell a friend that I am meeting a man that evening and mention his name. It turns out she knows him. But I don’t mention that to him when I meet him that night. I give absolutely no indication that I already know that he has a domineering mother, that I knew he worked in the same bar before, that he has problems with relationships, I kept quiet.
He had that American-footballer look about him and was very tall. He told me that my clothes were naughty; I felt judged and irritated. Why wasn’t he thrilled and delighted that I’d made an effort to look good for him? Maybe the fishnet stockings were too much.
I was his first on-line date and I told him he was my 33rd. I don’t know why I gave him my card but somehow I found myself doing it. Maybe it was because I’d just gotten them and was proud to pass one out. He gave me his but we haven’t corresponded and probably won’t.
Raymond — Tender is the Night
Raymond seemed very intelligent, we exchanged some messages and he guessed where I was from, winning the prize of me calling him darling for the rest of the year. I wrote on my profile in November that if they guess which country I’m from, I’ll call them darling for the rest of the year. I didn’t think I had much to lose but then I forgot to delete it in January.
He refused to meet for coffee, saying he wasn’t an elevator-pitch kind of guy, that suggested that we meet for dinner instead.
First he invited me to a restaurant that I often went to with my ex, so I explained to him that I didn’t want to go there (but not why, of course) and then he invited me to a fabulous Thai restaurant where we ate in a bed-like alcove.
He was a very nice man, a little shy, the food was fabulous and he was very intelligent.
I have finally figured out that I like intelligent men.
We went for coffee afterwards and stayed out until well after midnight. He kissed me goodnight and we talked about meeting again. My friend says that she doesn’t care if the guy can kiss good or not. If he can’t kiss good, she can teach him, the important thing is that he is teachable. Good point. He invites me to go to the movies. I said yes, but am having a crisis of conscience.
Prussian Blue and I don’t have an exclusivity agreement but I don’t feel good about meeting Raymond when Prussian Blue and I are in touch daily, sexting in the late evening most days and talking often on the phone. I called Raymond to cancel, he said he was disappointed.
I used to take this bag on dates with me:
I was giving them a hint: “kiss me”.
Same with this one:
These bags spoke the something that I couldn’t say aloud and couldn’t bear to ask for.
Prussian Blue — The Naughty One
With Prussian Blue, the chat goes from:
“Hi, how are you?”
to:
“Fuck me baby”
in about 10 seconds.
I wished I had a transcript of that very first chat so I could see how he did it, when so many had failed before him. (I now have 500 printed pages of dirty talk with him. Where can I publish (and monetize) that kind of stuff?)
When I asked him afterwards how it was that he was able to take me by storm, he said “rapid escalation”, which I assumed was a military term (he’d been in the army for many years) but when I investigated it, it turned out to be “How To Get Laid Fast”. Nonetheless, a month would go by before we met.
“I like to speak in my mother tongue,” he said.
And boy, did I like it too ;-).
He was date number 30.
I met him twelve more times over the course of five months.
Click here to find out more about what happened with me and him.
Thank you for letting me share my life with you for a brief moment. It means the world to me.
If you click the green heart below you will catapult me into immediate rhapsodies of ecstasy. Truly.
I published an earlier version of this story back in March. Stella J. offered many pertinent editing suggestions and urged me to add my own naïve doodles to replace many of the photos that I originally used.
If you enjoyed reading this, you might also enjoy reading @Jim Roberts’ dating diary, from a male perspective:
This article, by Alana Massey is subliminal:
I had two peak experiences (William-James-style experiences, not sexual events) with this man in the space of ten days:
I have read Katey DeCelle’s story about six times.
It still makes me laugh:
Instagram: @augustkhalilibrahim
Twitter: @augusta_khalil
With which man in this article do you most identify? Let me know in the comments or Tweet me ;-)
