The first date

My first date with Kris was awkward, to put it gently.

After meeting Kris at the nightclub that fateful night, we arranged to meet in the city a few days later. It didn't occur to me that 1 July was a bad time to have a date. Turns out that one should never plan to go out on 30 June OR 1 July when working in the commercial sector. This is because every single client wants some last minute legal transaction completed just prior to the end of the financial year. Extremely uncool.

Anyway, we'd planned to watch a movie and have dinner, and agreed to meet at 6.00pm in front of Starbucks in the semi-quiet end of the city after work.

Waking up on the morning of "the date", I immediately felt anxious, excited, scared and happy all at the same time.

I had already decided on an outfit to wear so I quickly showered and changed into my clothes. As I had no time to go home before "the date", I had to dress appropriately for work as well as "the date". So I had chosen a "conservative" mini-skirt with a bright watermelon-coloured top. I also had special "instant suck-me-in" shiny stockings, to complement my outfit.

Staring at myself in the mirror, fully dressed in my outfit, I smiled.

I look awesome, I thought.

I headed off to work.

I had almost reached my office building when I noticed that my "instant suck-me-in" shiny-stockinged legs were a tad bit cold on one side. Looking down whilst briskly walking in my shiny high heels and juggling a massive file I had taken home with me the night before, I stifled a cry of dismay as I noticed a ladder on my shiny new stockings.

$#!%, I thought.

Checking my watch, I decided I had enough time to quickly duck into the nearest pharmacy to buy a new pair of (not-quite-as-nice) stockings.

I chose the nicest and shiniest pair of stockings that I could find in the pharmacy. Hard stuff to do, especially when the pharmacy stocked only a handful of them.

I quickly paid at the counter and rushed into my office building. I dumped my file I had been carrying earlier and made a beeline to the ladies' room to put on the newly-purchased stockings.

By lunchtime I had almost forgotten about "the date". Almost. I was kept on my toes the whole morning, trying to complete last minute jobs that our clients required before the end of the financial year, and I was too busy to think about anything else.

At around 1.00pm, my stomach started making angry grumbling noises, so I figured it was a good time to take my lunch break. I purchased a sandwich from a coffee shop downstairs and proceeded to eat my lunch at my desk.

I was happily munching away on the sandwich when I dropped some lettuce on the floor. Bending down to pick it up, I happened to glance at my legs and noticed that my second pair of stockings had a ladder on them.

$#!%, $#!%, $#!%!!!! I thought.

Dropping my sandwich, I made a quick dash to the nearest grocery store and bought my third pair of shiny stockings.

Kris better be worth it, I thought, as I shimmied out of the laddered stockings and put on my new ones.

At 4.30pm that day, Delia casually sauntered into my office and asked me (not-so-politely) to commence drafting a lease for one of our major clients. She told me that the client was expecting the lease by tomorrow morning.

Glancing at the clock on my computer, I groaned. I was due to meet Kris at 6.00pm, but with the lease to draft up, it looked like I was going to be late for "the date".

I started work on the lease straight away.

At 5.45pm, I decided I had better call Kris and let him know that I was going to be late. I winced as I picked up my cellphone and dialled Kris' number.

"Oh hi Tia," said a feminine voice on the other line.

I was confused - did I dial the wrong number?

The feminine voice continued, "It's me! Leilani! Where are you? Kris is waiting for you right now. You should see his face - he's all red and sweaty. I think he's nervous to meet up with you."

WHAT? Leilani? What's she doing answering Kris' phone?! I thought.

"Ummm. Leilani? What are you doing on Kris' phone? I'm so confused", I managed to blurt out.

Leilani laughed. She said, "Oh, I was just walking past Starbucks after jujitsu training, and I ran into Kris. He said he's meeting up with you tonight. Then his phone rang and we saw it was you calling, so I told him I wanted to talk to you".

Still confused, I asked to speak with Kris. When he got on the phone, I told him that I was running late by fifteen minutes and that I'd see him soon. He was OK with it, and said that he would wait for me at the designated meeting spot.

After I got off the phone, I hurriedly put the finishing touches on the lease and scrambled out the door. Half-running and half-walking, dodging slow-walkers and trying to keep my stockings in check (phew! no ladders!), I managed to arrive in front of Starbucks at 6.15pm. I spotted Leilani talking with Kris and I approached them whilst trying to catch my breath.

Leilani wasn't joking when she said that Kris was nervous. His face was red, both of his hands were in his jeans pockets and beads of sweat dotted his forehead.

As I greeted the both of them, I glanced over at Leilani thinking: geez, this moment is awkward enough without having my ex-boyfriend's sister witnessing it all!

Sensing her cue, Leilani gave me a sly wink and a knowing look as if to say "first dates are fun, aren't they?!", as she said her goodbyes and left me alone with Kris.

With a bit of shy chit-chat here and there, sprinkled with panicked silence, Kris and I managed to get through our first date disaster-free. We ended up watching a scary movie and then had dinner at a popular Chinese noodle restaurant.

After dinner, we awkwardly said our goodbyes and parted ways. Kris offered me a lift home, but I refused and told him I would find my own way home. After all, even though he seemed nice enough, I didn't want him to know where I lived until I knew he wasn't an axe-murderer or something worse.

As it turned out, it took five dates before I became comfortable around Kris and on the sixth date, I knew he was someone special.

The rest, as they say, is history.

The "meeting"

Looks like I've been M.I.A. again.

Not to worry, I will fill you in.

I'll start with the story of how I met Kris. I'd briefly summarised the story in my last post already, but the meeting had significantly changed my life and thus warrants its own blog entry.

It all started when my ex-boyfriend's sister, Leilani, called me on a Friday afternoon and asked me to hang out with her. I'd had a particularly bad day, with a crazy boss and all, so I didn't hesitate to accept Leilani's offer.

Leilani had just finished Jujitsu training and was keen to "wind down". She'd been doing Jujitsu for several years now, and had won several gold medals in various state and national competitions.

Leilani and I met up for dinner, and eventually ended up going to a south-side suburban night club to (as the young 'uns would say) "part-ay". We bought a few drinks and decided to start a game of pool.

Half-way through the game, a guy came up to us and asked us if we wanted to play pool with him and his two friends. His friends were nowhere to be seen, but he seemed friendly enough so Leilani and I agreed.

As the guy picked up a pool cue to start playing, he casually introduced himself as "Trevor". He took a shot (a bad one at that), and then his two friends magically appeared out of nowhere. Trevor's friends introduced themselves as "Phil" and "Kris".

It was obvious that all three of them were a bit on the drunk side, but they were quite funny and took it lightly when they lost the pool game (we trashed them, actually). They kept offering to buy us drinks and paying for extra pool games (all to no avail, of course, since Leilani and I possessed awesome pool skills).

Next door to the night club was another night club, which the boys wanted to go to. Initially, Leilani and I refused to go with them because, well, we didn't want to pay the entry fee.

If you must know, it's a stance Leilani and I had taken not too long ago - we believed that night clubs already obtained much revenue from the overpriced drinks they sold over the bar, and thus we refused to pay any sort of entry fee to get into a night club. That, and we were loathe to waste money on entry fees when we could be using that money on alcohol.

For some reason, Kris was really adamant that we come with them to the night club, and offered to pay for our entry fee. We refused, of course. But he was so damn insistent that we caved in after 2 minutes.

We walked over to the new night club and, as promised, Kris paid for our entry fee.

Once inside the night club, Trevor and Phil disappeared for a few minutes to "scope out" the place. Kris stayed back with Leilani and I, and we started talking.

Kris asked me what I did for a living. I told him I was a lawyer. He had a blank look on his face for a few seconds, then he said, "What? A liar?".

I laughed. He genuinely didn't hear my response properly, I could tell. I repeated my response and luckily, it registered the second time around.

"Well, I wasn't far off the mark the first time, was I?" he laughed.

I then asked Kris what kind of work he did.

Kris told me he was a printer machinist.

Now it was my turn to have a blank expression.

"Huh? What kind of work does a 'printer machinist' do?" I asked. In my head, I imagined Kris in front of a giant computer pressing the "print" button and him walking over to a gigantic Canon printer to collect his print-out.

He explained that he ran a printing press that could print anything from letterheads to business cards to cheque books. He said that he'd undertaken a four-year apprenticeship to obtain his tradesman qualification as a printer machinist.

I asked, "So you can print newspapers and magazines as well?"

He replied, "Yes, but only if I were using the right machine. Usually, to print a newspaper or magazine you would need a bigger printing press". It made sense, of course. But up until that point, I had never really thought about how newspapers, magazines or cheque books were even printed.

Kris seemed like a really great guy, and he wasn't sleazy or "overtly friendly", so I quickly warmed to him.

He said that he had moved from the country about 2 years ago, and that he was a "country boy" at heart. It wasn't long before we discovered that we'd both lived in the same country town (that I'd just moved from), and not only that, but he completed his apprenticeship a few doors down from my old work!

What a small world! I thought.

We somehow got to talking about great parties, and I mentioned that I'd never been to a party at a prominent night club in the city fringe called "The Wiki". The Wiki was famous for throwing legendary parties every quarter. However, with such a great reputation, only invited guests were allowed to attend the parties at The Wiki. Needless to say, I'd never been invited to a party there.

At this, Kris' voice perked up and he said, "My friend has a lot of contacts at The Wiki. She's invited me to attend the next party, but I wasn't really keen to go because I didn't think I would enjoy myself. Maybe if you came with me, it might be a different story?"

Was he asking me out?!

No wait, was he asking me out to go to a party at The Wiki?!?!?!?!

Playing coy, I replied, "Sure. Why not?".

I gave him my phone number and he promised to text me details about the next Wiki party.

By 3.00am, Leilani and I were getting tired, so we decided to bid the boys farewell.

I had sobered up quite nicely whilst talking with Kris inside the night club, so I was prepared to drive home. As I started the engine, the boys appeared next to my car. Without asking me, Leilani offered the boys a ride home. They all eagerly accepted.

I figured, What the hell? They say they just live down the road anyway. If try anything funny, Leilani can whoop their butts.

So Trevor, Phil and Kris all hopped into the backseat of my mini four-wheel drive, and I drove them home. They really did only live down the road.

When Kris got out of my car, he stopped by my window and leaned inside. He said, "Can I have your cell number?"

"Ummmm. I gave it to you already", I replied.

"But I can't remember where I put your cell number in my phone!" he wailed. At that, he whipped out his cell and started going through his contact list, to see which one was my cell number.

Sighing, I gave him my cell number again.

"You better take good care of that phone number, because I'm not giving it to you again!" I warned.

When I got home an hour later, Kris texted me to say that he was glad we met, and that he had taken good care of my cell number. I was too tired to text back.

When I woke up a few hours later, I checked my phone to find another text message from Kris.

It read:

I know we've just met, but I was wondering if you'd like to come out on a date with me sometime? I really like you and I really enjoyed meeting you last night.

Awwww how cute, I thought.

I texted him back, saying:

Of course! Aren't we going to the Wiki party? We could catch up then?

Kris messaged back a few minutes later, saying he was keen to catch up before the Wiki party.

Hmmmm. Should I? I contemplated this question for hours.

In the end I decided, Why the hell not? It wouldn't hurt to go on one date, right?

I texted Kris back and said, "Yeah, sure. When and where? I'll leave it up to you".