After a few failed attempts at pursuing the wrong person throughout my first year of college and spending most of my Friday and Saturday nights working on the doors of Glasgow’s pubs and clubs, I decided to give the world of online dating a go.
Online dating in 2008 was the wild west. There was still a stigma around the idea of meeting someone online so it wasn’t the most socially accepted way to meet people back then. More often that not, most of your first dates in those days would be spent thinking up a good cover story as to how you met in case you bumped into anyone you knew.
Case and point, CJ. We met on Plenty of Fish in around May of 2008 but we’d also worked in Primark at one stage too. So, if anyone ever asked me where we’d met – I’d lie and tell them I met her on my training day when I went to the Argylle Street store in 2007. It was a lie, but a believable one at least.
I wasn’t the most confident man back then. I’m not even sure I’d call myself a man, I was definitely still more boy. I was pretty at the time. Thin, with a good a jaw line and I’d started growing my hair out. I still couldn’t really grow a full beard like I wanted so I stuck with a stubbly look and compensated my need for glasses by wearing my prescription sunglasses anywhere I could get away with it.
CJ was one year and a day younger than I. At the time I was fast approaching my 20th birthday and her, her 19th. She was small and curvy with long dyed hair and she was shy. I thought she was way out of my league, something that to this day I think about almost anyone I end up in a relationship with.
I know they say confidence is sexy, but back then I couldn’t even fake that shit. I was a nervous wreck on almost every date I had back then. I knew who I wanted to be, what I wanted to be, so I just kinda pretended to be that as best I could. I never lied about who I was, I just hid certain aspects of myself so seem cooler and more confident.
For our first date, I picked CJ up in town and we drove out to Queens Park. We had no real plan, we just sat on the grass in the sunshine talking and getting to know each other. I didn’t feel any real pressure and while there was absolutely some awkwardness from my side, I don’t think she noticed that much. I think she was nervous too because she spent the entire time picking daisies out the grass and fiddling with them.
We kept in touch for another week or two and we ended up going on a second date. Again, we went to the park only this time we climbed a tree and I spent most of the date trying not to fall out.
The big difference is that this time I made sure I kissed her in the middle of the date. I’d spent more than my fair share of time in the dreaded friendzone and I wasn’t settling for that this time. I think I kissed her at the end of the first date, but I was double parked when I dropped her off on Waterloo Street and it was a rushed mess of a thing that don’t imagine left a great impression.
With the second date in the bag, things looked promising. Next, she invited me to hers when her Dad wasn’t home so it was just us and her cat. I went up with a bottle of wine for some reason, trying to be all cute and romantic but we were teenagers still. We weren’t cultured enough for wine! Pretty quickly we ended up in her little loft conversion of a bedroom. We talked and we kissed and we hugged.
I think she was nervous as well and started adding some Vodka to our Irn Bru. Sadly, especially for me, it was room temperature diet stuff and it tasted like ass and even if I did down it I’m still not sure it would have made me feel any less nervous for what was clearly on both of our minds.
This was going to be my first time but first she wanted to put on a film… Caligula of all things. I was so bored. I’m not sure if she wanted me to make a move at this point or not but she ended up falling asleep on me. She woke up about half way through the film, which meant she still had a solid 2hr nap as I lay there with a dead arm wondering what the fuck I was doing with my life and why I didn’t just bite the bullet and make a move on her.
Once she woke up, one thing led to another, and eventually my first time was officially in the books and I did not do good.
I was a clumsy mess who had no real clue what the hell he was doing. I was a year older than her, but I was also the one with the least experience. I think in the end she just realised I wasn’t delivering what she wanted from me and hurried us to the end just to get it over with and I could feel the disappointment from her as we lay there.
I’m not sure what I expected from the experience. I certainly didn’t feel any different afterwards. I think more than anything I felt embarrassed, maybe? I don’t know. It wasn’t what I wanted it to be anyway and it certainly had more in common with the comedic sex scenes from American Pie than the hot and steamy scenes from Basic Instinct.
After that, CJ came and met some of my friends in the pub for my 20th birthday but she’d already made other plans before we’d met for her own 19th so I didn’t go along to that one. Even if you held a gun to my head I couldn’t tell you now what those plans were but after another couple weeks things fizzled out and we broke up by the end of summer. We both knew our time together was limited. It was easy between us but there wasn’t any real spark and there really wasn’t any love there either. We liked each other, that is much is sure. But love? That’s a stretch.
We kept in touch for a couple of years, lost touch for a while, then got chatting again a few years after that. I have no idea where she is now or what she’s doing. Wherever she is, whatever she’s doing I hope she’s happy.