Thursday 1 October 2009

Mr Effeminate

Whilst at a cultural function a few weeks back, I was enveloped in my happy surroundings and busily emersed in the ceremonious happenings at hand. Who should I look up to find standing a few metres ahead of me but Mr Effeminate. The gentleman in question was someone who I went on a few dates with last year. He was actually the first 'introduction' who I met and thought 'wow...i've found my very own George Clooney!' Well a younger, Indian version anyway...At first sight Mr E was a little on the short side but just gorgeous - chiselled jawline, fair and piercing green eyes. He belonged to my community, lived locally (basically anywhere outside of N.London is too far to move to...!) worked in finance etc etc..perfect on paper. The first time we met I remember thinking yeah he seems really nice. Actually let me rephrase (don't you think 'nice' is jsut the most non-descript blah word?) - he was sweet and funny, engaging enough and quite good to talk to. Before long we established some common ground and we were both running the Nike+ event about a month after the first date. So I went home thinking yeah he seemed great, let's see. So a week later we met for another coffee - met at Baker Street post work and then he did a funny thing. He led us to the same bar we had a drink the previous week - how's that for some variety eh! Again conversation was easy and smooth flowing but something was a little odd. At one point he was talking about ghis trips to NYC for work and how much he loved shopping (should be a good thing) but then he went off on a tangent about how he's always telling his sister to go shopping. The previous week he had said something along those lines after his siter had worn the same outfit on that day of the week as she had on exactly the same day the week before. Ok, the fact that he takes an interest in his sister's style is good but it sruck me as slightly unhinging that he would remember that level of detail! A few other such mentions made me wonder if he was just a little too in touch with his feminine side - I love a man to have a variety of sensibilities but after the mention of his sister's wardrobe and his love of cooking and how him and his mum would talk about how life was so difficult when you got married and came home to deal with the cooking and laundry and food shopping etc, accompaniesdby his funny girlie giggle...I just thought hmm something is just not quite right! After that, I heard from him again to say he's off on business for few weeks and will get in touch...eventually the contact fizzled and when I mentioned to my mum what I had been thinking, she actually surprised me. I would have expected the whole 'You are far too harsh blah blah...) but she simply said that my aunt had said that someone else who'd been on a date said the same thing! I was relieved but almost felt sad at the same time. It made me wonder if some of the people engaging in the introduction process simply do so to satisfy pushy parents and are stifling their own wishes and orientations...Safe to say I feel lucky that even though I whinge about having to meet some of these 'randoms' I am equipped with the knowledge that my parents are two of the kindest and most intuitive people around and would never force me to go through something I did not want or force me into a corner that I really did not want to be lost in...