Dates I Have Known: vol 2

Soldier guy

I met Soldier Guy on a free dating website, the clientele of which tend to be less...washed.
 He was the only person who could spell his own name correctly and didn’t have a picture of himself in his bathroom showing off his skinny naked torso and chav buzzcut, and was therefore the only guy I went on a date with from this particular website. He also didn’t called me ‘babes’, which was a pleasant change from the usual message. He was a soon-to-be ex-soldier who wanted to be a paramedic. Nice, I thought.

I met Soldier Guy after work one day for a drink in a bar by the station (quick getaway if necc). He was larger than life, with enormous ham-like hands, a bewildered childish grin permanently etched on his face and huge, battering ram shoulders. He made Builder Guy look small and delicate. He made me look child-sized, which was quite pleasing. He was very smiley, very exciteable, very willing to buy me drinks. We actually got on very well, he was funny and very talkative, probably not the sharpest tool in the shed but immediately likeable. We went for tapas and I managed to look incredibly intelligent when I had an entire conversation with the restaurant owner in Spanish. I think this was the highlight of my dating life so far.

On the way back to the station he grasped my hand in his firmly and announced his intention to kiss me. We were down a dark alleyway and he was about four times my size so I squeaked assent and he picked me up, like Grawp the giant with Hermione in the Forbidden Forest, and kissed me for a good five minutes. It was an excellent kiss. He seemed very pleased with himself. “I like kissing” he announced, happily. He put me down and took me to the station.

We had another date a week later which he forgot to turn up to. I have a two strikes policy so I agreed to go on another one; I had enjoyed our last and he was relatively contrite. He seemed refreshingly straightforward and I have a thing for enormous men who take control. (Not a euphemism. Ok yes, a euphemism.) So we went out again – he was chiefly keen to kiss me as much as possible and seemed to have forgotten most of what I told him about me on our last date. He then spent the remainder of our time together staring around wildly looking for invisible flies and insisting we stopped nowhere for longer than three minutes (difficult when you have a coffee in hand). He also ranted excessively about his new non-soldiering job where he wandered around Sunderland high street (a place you would really only want to go should you wish to place a bet or buy something from Greggs) trying to sell insurance to unsuspecting passers-by. He was becoming less attractive by the minute. I concluded that he had severe ADHD. It was like being on a date with an overgrown four year old.

I have realised that I am attracted to enormous men (not a euphemism. Ok yes, a euphemism) physically, and I assume that they are also enormous on the inside (not a euphem- you get the idea). What I mean by this is that because they are physically large I expect them to be brave, and protective, and mature, and wise. This continually turns out not to be the case.

We did a bit more kissing then arranged a further date.

I never heard from him again, but by that time I had met The Ex.