Yesterday was possibly one of the more awkward days of the year. A friend of mine, let's call her FV (stands for Fuchsia Vibrator, but that's a WHOLE 'nother story) decided that in the interests of reconnecting we should go and see a film.
Despite the fact that FV is both an evil genius and an interfering busybody (kidding, kidding. Mostly.) I little expected a fix up.
Yet I arrive, and find FV, her girlfriend-of-the-week (eyebrow piercing, dirty blonde, heavy eye makeup, gorgeous lips, horrendously magenta braces) and a sensibly dressed girl waiting.
Hindsight being twenty-twenty, I should have suspected something when the 'friend who might be coming along,' turned out to be exactly the specimen of girl FV mistakenly thinks is 'my type,'
We go into the film, where I wind up between Braces and the girl who was introduced to me as Antonia. I don't quite remember what the film was about (was sci-fi and not very good), mostly because for the first few minutes I could feel her eyes on me, and it was in equal parts disconcerting and irritating.
It's a mark of how oblivious I can be that when she put her hand on my leg it was a total shock. It was, for those of you who are interested, nearer to the knee than the groin, and her hand was positively trembling, so I suspect it took a lot of courage on her part to be that forward. I froze completely, and my poor brain jumped into overdrive, trying to think of a tactful way of brushing her off.
It was one of those moments of pure and utter awkwardness, the kind that make you cringe weeks after the event. I like to think I'm good in a crisis, but, well, to put it bluntly, I'm a grumpy git who puts most people off, so have little experience in such situations.
After a quick glance at FV and Braces (cuddling, but being surprisingly well behaved) I turned to the girl with the intention of whispering something suitably apologetic but firmly negative.
Giant Mistake. Note the capitalisation.
Antonia lunged (there's no other word for it) in for a kiss, and instead of gently stopping her and explaining calmly and sensitively that I was neither available nor interested in her, I recoiled, jerking my leg away from her hand.
The rest of the film passed in a blur. FV was giving us concerned looks, and while I'd hoped Antonia would laugh the situation off, I was horrified to realise that she was crying, very quietly, in the seat next to me.
I got up mumbling something about the toilet, and half ran out of the cinema. Once I'd reached the bus stop I sent FV a text saying I felt ill, and I spent the bus journey home feeling impossibly, irrationally guilty.
FV, you have to understand, is scary. She could quite easily take me in a fight, and has some of the longest nails I've ever seen, which she uses to scratch people with worrying regularity.
Fast forward to 11.30 that night. Phone buzzes, it's a text from FV:
omg, wat happend with you n nia?
Shit. I'm sleepy and not in the mood, so I rattle off the obvious question and hit send:
who's Nia???
The reply wakes me up considerably:
ur such a cunt sometimes. she was fuckin crying the whole way back u insensitive
bastard.
Ah. That clanking sound? That's the penny dropping, clanging and rattling around like it's doing a samba. Antonia= Nia. In my defence, I was sleepy. The male brain only functions at 2% capacity in the moments immediately after waking and advanced nickname processing requires at least 5%. Fact.
Turns out anyway, Antonia/Nia was just getting over some serious self esteem issues, and FV thought I'd be good for her confidence. She was, of course, banking on the assumption that I was lonely enough that I wouldn't turn down a nice, intelligent person even if we had zero chemistry. (with friends like these...)
The possibility that my tactless and vehement rejection could have sent someone into a downward spiral of self loathing made me feel extraordinarily guilty for a while... apart from that small gush of perverse smugness at the thought that someone had liked me enough to be provoked into said tailspin. I'm a self involved bastard. Sosueme.
FV tells me that Nia is now going out with a 'lovely' Jamaican boy who looks like me but 'with muscles and no glasses. Like how you'd look if you weren't a nerd,'
I. Need. New. Friends.
(note to self, now that Braces is out of the picture, must enquire as to whether or not very similar friend C is currently single and open to matchmaking. Second thoughts: potentially hazardous match, mixing such similar and colourful personalities would be akin to mixing francium and water in an enclosed environment).
