6/30: A Recent I-Date

I went on an i-date on Saturday at the end of the day: 21 years old, grew up in Madagascar but then moved to Paris when she was 18 to study. Gwenn had decided to book a flight to London for the bank holiday weekend (Whit Monday, I believe, in France). She booked the tickets two hours before the plane left. All sounds great right? That’s what I thought too, and I knew I had to go for the i-date. Obviously, since there’s been no lay report, it didn’t end up as I hoped.

I met her on Oxford Street; she needed to buy a notepad first so we stopped at an off license and then continued to Starbucks. She giggled at my jokes and leaned forward, it seemed to be going well, but when I went to sit next to her on the sofa (the metal chair was hurting my back), I could tell she lost a little of that spark.

Then I tried to bounce her to Wetherspoons (because I’m a classy guy like that) but she said she wasn’t drinking because she had been out the night before. Another spanner in the works. So instead, I thought on my feet, and led her to Souk Medina where the environment would set the mood.

I went through my escalation and could tell she was becoming more defensive: holding her tea up to her chest and placing her bag between us. She rejected the kiss twice and I could tell it just wasn’t on. She suddenly remembered that she had to meet the people at her hostel because they were going out tonight.

“On a Sunday?” I asked

“Oh yeh, I completely forgot…” Sure.

I walked her to the station and took her number, but I never expect to see her again.

I could tell in Souk it wasn’t on, but something I’m considering is: was it ever on? She was studying business at university and had just completed an internship in M&A. She also mentioned how she’d previously been to New York. That make me think that she was more interested in status over experience. I get the impression that logistically, it was the perfect setup, but that there was no spark of excitement on her side. To be cynical, maybe she saw it as a quirky opportunity to siphon attention off of a man. I’m sure I saw a little bit of her excitement die when I sat next to her; it reminded me in stark detail that “attention comes at the cost of escalation”.

Yours unfaithfully,

Thomas Crown