Date #8 occurred 15 minutes after Date #7 finished. I had lied to Date #7 and said that I was meeting a friend for a drink and that I needed to move my car, which was mostly true – I did genuinely need to move my car. Little did he know that I was about to meet yet another Irish Tinder lover due to my weird sense of humour “Hey, do you know what would be freaking hilarious! Two Irishman back to back!”
Upon first glance, Date #8 seemed like he would deliver in terms of Irish charm and had more of a Gerard Butler vibe in PS I Love You ( except for the minor detail that he was red-headed and not Gerard Butler)
Date #8 opened the chat on Tinder with a bizarre accusation as to how I knew his flatmate ( I didn’t know his flatmate) but one thing I began to notice about Tinder since I was clearly becoming a Tinder expert was that it started to show you having lots and lots of friends in common with any potential match. This could have been disastrous as my mutual friends with Tinder potentials were 80% previous conquests. Not ideal, especially if word got out about this short blonde girl with big boobs. This was luckily just a glitch that Tinder was overcoming since it now (few weeks on) comes up with 1st connections and 2nd connections next to mutual friend icons. 1st connections meant friend of both of yours and 2nd connections was your friends who had a connection with one of their friends. Did that make sense? I don’t care if it doesn’t.
After we got over the hump that I didn’t actually know his flatmate, things went relatively smoothly and for once, it was me who was failing on the chat-game. Date #8 seemed super keen to converse with a minimum of four lines to each three or four words I was getting out – I was getting jaded by this stage of my 30 days. He had a pretty exciting job that required qualifications and was originally from a place in Ireland that was known as Stab-City. He used to live in Canada and Queenstown and used at least two exclamation points at the end of every two or three lines of text!!
Looking back on our conversation, I’m surprised he was even keen to meet. I was definitely failing at the chat and wasn’t giving him much to work with. He asked me how my day went a week before we met up and I said “Day was good. Coordinated an event and Phil Goff showed up“.
Christ, He’s from Ireland. No New Zealanders even know who Phil Goff is post-2012. How many Labour leaders have we had since him? I’m surprised he even wanted to hang out after I mentioned a political figure. Yuck.
He texted me during Date #7 and said “Hey Date#8 here, so rum bar for a drink or would you prefer cocktails at Chow or Library or I’m always keen for good food!
He followed up with a second text since I didn’t respond ( I was too busy getting my chest stared at by a short Irish guy with a bad haircut)
“Just home, what’s your plan? Do you want to meet somewhere or should we try this another night?”
We agreed to meet at 6pm at CGR Merchant and Co. He mentioned that it was upstairs if I had never been there before.
I had been there before.
I went there a few months beforehand to break up with my boyfriend at the time, and on a separate occasion a month prior, when I took yet another fucking Irish guy home to meet my four poster bed and tiny dog. Since we hadn’t met yet, I didn’t know if it was appropriate to mention either of these stories related to our date location so I thought I would say that I’d see him there.
Date #8 was 10 fucking minutes late. I had never been the first one there before and I didn’t know how to chill or pretend like I didn’t look like I had just been stood up.
Date #8 ran up the stairs at top speed to compensate his tardiness ( I will never forgive you) and I simply pretended like I hadn’t even noticed and was okay with him being tardy (I will seriously, never, ever forgive you). First impression was that Date #8 was genuinely a similar albeit ginger version of Gerard Butler’s character in PS I Love You. He was just as charming, energetic and infectiously happy.
You could be forgiven thinking that Date#8 and I hadn’t seen each other in years by the way we energetically spoke and there was just so much infectious banter from the get-go. We immediately talked about all the things you should never talked about on a first date ( I told him about how the last time I was here I took a guy home afterwards and the time before that I broke up with my boyfriend at the time) and we bonded over our mutual love for awkward moments.
This guy seriously had the best chat. We talked about being that person who got way to drunk in inappropriate situations and I loved that he didn’t take himself too seriously. He wasn’t bad on the eye either. The conversation was going so well, we even settled for a second beverage, a rare sign that things were going well.
Which is when he dropped his bombshell.
We somehow got onto the topic of movies and I said how much I loved Mean Girls. Date#8’s favourite movie was “We are the Millers”
Apart from that bizarre choice of favourite movie, Date #8 was starting to seem like a second date was actually on the cards. I offered to drive him to his destination as it was getting late and he had to go to a Jazz thing with his friends at The Realm in Haitaitai (A tacky pub on a Wednesday?) and it took us about six minutes to drive there before we commenced pashing in the Barina, outside The Realm in Haitaitai for about seven to eight minutes. Not too much tongue, surprisingly tasting nice after two salted caramel rums before we said our Goodbyes and I tried to get over the horror of Date #8’s favourite movie.
