makes me jump. I start to slither off the stupidly high and shiny stool, throw my arms out wildly to recover my balance, and slap my empty glass with the palm of my hand so that it skids along the bar. ‘Fu—’ I lurch forward to try and grab it, and somehow instead end up sucking a strange man’s chin.
I say strange but mean strange as in ‘stranger’ not weirdo; he’s actually quite presentable. Minty breath (can’t avoid it), nice nostrils (no long hairs). I can’t see much more of him this close up. And yuk, bristles! Thank God he’s just gone for not-shaved-today and hasn’t got a full bits-of-food-in beard. Which would be totally gross.
I edge back, so that my nose is no longer pressed against his lips. What kind of germs might I have picked up, licking an unknown man’s stubble?
It’s then I realise that I cannot move to a polite distance because I am in a weird tango position – one arm outstretched, fingers reaching for my glass, the other hand pressed against his chest.
Em-barr-ass-ing.
I appear to have been in a clinch (but luckily now at arm’s length) with a man. But he is not Gabe.
Definitely not Gabe.
‘You’re not Gabe!’
He chuckles. ‘Nope. Not Gabe. I’m not the first date shite!’ He raises an eyebrow and grins at me. ‘More the first date dream.’
‘Really? Are you for real?’ This is why I don’t come to bars like this one. ‘Has nobody ever told you how bad that sounds?’
Just as I thought this couldn’t get any worse in the humiliation stakes, it has. I am groping my not-first-date. What the hell am I doing? Shit! What if Gabe turns up late and finds me grappling somebody else? And a cocky, confident, sexy, self-assured type of somebody else. A player!
Is it possible to be unfaithful to somebody you haven’t yet met? Oh my God, Tinder isn’t like TripAdvisor, is it? Can I be rated on true-to-likeness, turns-up-on-time, and likelihood-of-being-faithful?! Is there a noticeboard where I can be branded a bitch and lose forever the hope of a swipe surge? Even though it is not my fault?
Well actually it is partly Gabe’s fault for picking this place, which is a bit of a pick-up joint from what I can tell, and for not turning up on time.
I have got to get away!
But Not-Gabe has his hand on my waist. And he’s got a pretty firm grip of me.
Maybe I need to let go first. My hand is still splayed over a surprisingly firm pec, which I am tempted to squeeze. But I don’t. If I shove hard enough, I might catapult myself backwards over the bar and possibly injure myself hideously in the process.
Instead I take my gaze off my twitching fingers and glance back up. Straight into smiley eyes that have laughter wrinkles at the corners.
I wriggle, and his fingers move against my waist but don’t go away. So I freeze.
This is a weird game.
What do I do now? No blog I have ever read about first dates has covered this situation. Or rather, how to get out of it. Even Bea, the fount of all man-related knowledge didn’t cover this in her pre-date pep talk.
She covered: what to do if he’s boring (suggest going to a karaoke bar – he probably won’t go, but if he does at least you’ve got a distraction); what to do if he’s ugly (tricky one, nobody likes cruelty, but turn the convo to plastic surgery?); what to do if he’s drunk (just sit and wait until he passes out); what to do if he won’t stop talking about his divorce/ex (leave, no argument, just leave); and what to do if he keeps saying he wants to shag you, but you don’t fancy him and the thought of seeing his bits in all their naked splendour is making you feel like you need to vom (tell him in a whisper that the infection has nearly cleared up, only a few more blisters to pop – but if he tells anybody he’s dead).
Tango-style clinches with an attractive but totally unsuitable man (who wasn’t the man you were meeting), and getting out of them, were definitely not mentioned.
‘Let me go! What the hell are you playing at?’ Attack is always a good form of defence.
His warm fingers close over my hand which is holding the glass. He doesn’t move out of my personal space. I gulp. It’s weird. Holding hands with a man who isn’t Robbie.