I would be lying if I said this is why I stopped bothering with dates. To be perfectly honest, that would be me just scapegoating (if there is such a word) but this sits pretty at the top there with other reasons.
It was supposed to be a soft launch. You know, the kind where you casually introduce a man to your life without making it a big deal. No pressure or expectations. Just vibes, right?
So I invited him over.
I had planned everything. The house was clean and I had even cooked. Not a full meal (please let’s not get carried away, we do not do that here, unless we are sure you will be staying around for a while) but enough to suggest I am a woman of range and depth. Ahem.
He arrived. Tall and handsome. A little on the lighter side than I would have normally preferred, but it does happen to be 2026, the year of going after that which would normally have been everything we did not like. In simple terms, going after the exact opposite of our day to day type. But boy, did he smell like good decisions.
We sat and talked. We laughed. I was funny, the kind of funny that makes a man lean forward and laugh at your jokes with a twinkle in his eyes. Everything was going perfectly. And then… my stomach made a noise. It was not even one of those cute noises you could laugh away. Not a “haha I’m hungry” noise. A noise that sounded like someone dropped a brick into a bucket of water.
I paused…. as did he. We both chose to pretend it didn’t happen. Growth, man. This is probably what they called grown up stuff. Handled like a true millennial.
I smiled. “So anyway—”
And then it happened again. Only, more louder and angrier. More… committed.
This was no longer a suggestion but a warning. It is what I fondly like to call Murphy’s Law. According to this law, “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong“. Captain Edward A. Murphy Jr., an engineer working on safety critical systems for the U.S. Air Force in 1949, who also happened to be the most pessimistic MF to ever live. Even i, the pessimist that I am, have nothing on him.
According to him, If a situation has multiple possibilities for failure, the one that causes the most damage will occur. And my favourite gloomy line? That If you anticipate four ways things can fail and mitigate them, a fifth, unforeseen way will occur.
Murphy, being the prophet of gloom and doom, also stated that If a situation has a perfect moment to go wrong, it will. Which is exactly was was happening to me. Now, here’s the thing about the human body: it will betray you at the exact moment you are trying to impress someone. Because how else can I explain this moment, something that had last happened to me ages ago, happening now, in the presence of this handsome good smelling man? A man that infact, was the complete opposite of what I would normally consider to be my type?
I excused myself gracefully, like a woman who absolutely has control over her internal organs while the truth is I didn’t have control over shit – quite literally.
“I’ll just use the bathroom real quick.”
He nodded. “Yeah, of course.”
Simple and manageable, right? Plus, what could possibly go wrong?
Well….. the moment I sat down… my body chose violence. I will not go into details, because I respect you, my dear reader. But what I will say is this; the sounds that were coming out of my body were like nothing I had ever heard before.
I froze, not as a natural body reaction, but because I realized that the walls… were thin. Suddenly I understood what they meant when they said the walls have ears. I sat there in silence afterward, staring at the wall, my mind an empty blank. Maybe if I stayed long enough, he would think I had moved out.
Then I heard it. A soft cough from the living room.
Oh. He heard alright. He heard everything. At this point, I had two options: to stay in the bathroom forever or to come out and face my consequences like an adult. So I chose option 3. I flushed and waited. Sprayed air freshener like I was fumigating the place. Then opened the door slowly, like a prisoner being released.
He looked up and our eyes met. It hit me then, that this is why I loved dark skinned men. Dark skin men do not give a shit about thunderous farts or what have you. A dark skinned guy would have cracked a joke or even have been oblivious to it all. But my guy over here, he just looked at me as if he was seeing me for the first time. What I would have given at that time for the earth to open up and swallow me.
A long, heavy, spiritual moment as he kept staring.
And then this man… smiled. “Everything okay?” he asked. No joke, or behaving obliviously.
Sir. What do you mean everything okay? Nothing is okay. We are not the same people we were 7 minutes ago. But I nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, all good.”
And he said, “Good.”
GOOD???
Conversation continued, but something had changed. If only he could crack the damn joke. But all he said, at some point, was “You know… I like that you’re comfortable around me.” Am I, really? Anyway. He stayed a little longer and we laughed again. And when he left, he hugged me and said, “This was really nice. Let’s do it again.”
pssssst.
I closed the door and leaned against it. And then I whispered to myself, “You will never know peace again.”
That was eight months ago. We’ve been dating for eight months now. Last week, his stomach made a noise. I wanted to crack a joke, diffuse the tension, but petty me could not let the opportunity pass. I smiled.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
Balance has been restored.
