The Zimbabwean

Location: Various, London

It was a Friday night and I was still at work at 8pm. The last person in the office despite being a freelancer and therefore supposedly carefree. I had organised the date earlier in the week, but Friday arrived and I wasn’t really feeling it - putting on a completely non-datey outfit of jeans and a comfy but completely unflattering stripy t-shirt. 

I was supposed to be meeting him at 6.30 in Clapham Junction (why I decided to meet there again after the last incidence I don’t know), but every half hour I had to message him and say I was still at bloody work and sorry for being late. Luckily he had met friends in Clapham and was drinking with them until I finished.

I arrived at the station and let him know I was in M&S grabbing a snack and to meet me by the entrance. I recognised him immediately because, for once, a date actually looked like their photo (so rare on these dating sites)! 

In fact the pictures didn't even do him justice - he was completely gorgeous! Tanned, with an incredibly toned body, tall with a lovely smile, and a Zimbabwean accent...yum! I felt instantly self-conscious because when he looked at me in my 'comfy' outfit I could tell immediately he wished he hadn’t bothered leaving his friends to go on a date with someone who clearly had left all sense of fashion in the last century! I felt so disgusting and frumpy that I downed the first drink we bought to improve the situation by at least being so drunk I wouldn’t notice what he thought of me.

But funnily enough there actually turned out to be a massive attraction on both sides, we ended up having a really good time, laughing a lot (and more with every drink), and he didn’t make an excuse to leave! So we moved on to Northcote Records for more drinks. 

It was rammed and as we were queuing for the bar, a drunken guy started talking to us, asking whether we were on an online date (to which we both had to ashamedly nod), whether it was our first date (again, more nods) and then proceeded to say ‘well I think you guys should kiss’. 

Under normal circumstances I would be pretty mortified and obviously refuse to act on a stupid drunken guy’s presumptuous request. But being a stupid drunken girl myself, the Zimbabwean and I decided to go for it. It was actually amazing, he was one of the best kissers I have ever been with and after we had broken the seal so to speak, we were lipped-locked (hate that expression!) for the rest of the night.

Long story short, we went on lots more dates and within a very short space of time it got pretty couply, with him staying around my flat alot and us cycling to work together in the morning (sickening really, although we never had 'the chat' about not seeing other people). I think, although it sounds ridiculous, in the end he was just too good looking. I had been so chuffed to have got with him that it blinded me to the fact we were actually really different people and he wasn't really that bright. He was also quite shallow and probably looking for someone less 'alternative' than me, so after a month or so when my South African called once more, I answered. South Africa trumps Zimbabwe apparently...