#MyFirst... Date

I was a horrible person.

Okay, I wasn't really a horrible person. I was just young. And I was very inexperienced in the Ways of the Male. Or rather, how to deal appropriately with the Ways of the Male.

I was fifteen years old, and on holidays in Surfers Paradise with my parents. I had brought along a friend, and a few other friends of mine were there with various parents. My friends and I had met up one night for dinner at the local Toga restaurant, Roman Scandals. (Yes, the wait staff wore togas. It was considered very Of The Moment.)

Clive and friends

I had some Donelli Lambrusco at dinner, because it was sweet and cheap and that's what we drank (and if you are under 18 and reading this, underage drinking is BAD, as you will learn from this post).

I can't remember the details because a) it was thirty years ago, and b) Donelli Lambrusco, but somehow after dinner I ended up being walked back to our Surfers apartment by Clive the Toga Waiter. Clive was 18 or so - not much older than me - and very cute in the dark, at least when viewed through the prism of cheap, spritzy wine.

I was a little late for curfew, and as Clive waited by the elevator with me, and pressed his 18 year old lips to mine, the lift doors opened, and out jumped my father.

"I have to go!" I cried to Clive, and followed my dad into the lift.

"When did you meet that boy?" my father asked me.

"Tonight," I said sheepishly, and he shook his head.

The next day, I met Clive the Toga Waiter at the beer garden down the road. We had arranged our date when we were pashing, and it had seemed exciting at the time. I had never gone on a formal date before, and Clive looked so cute in the Donelli.

But when I got to the beer garden, and saw him in daylight without his toga (meaning, in shorts and a tee shirt - not naked, for goodness sake), I realised I had made a terrible mistake.

"You want a drink?" Clive asked me, and I shook my head.

"You want some chips?" he tried again, and I shook my head once more.

And so I sat, beside him, not saying a word, as he scoffed his chips and drank his beer and watched the footy game on the telly, thinking no doubt (because I was), "what an absolute little nob".

Then, after twenty minutes had passed, I said "I have to go," and left. And then I ran, and took a shower, and never saw his face again.

So that was my first ever date. Pretty hideous, but memorable. My second (first) date was much, much better.

But that is another story.

Next week's topic: #MyFirst... Agonising Loss of Material Possession