A Secret Speed Date That Started With Lost Earphones

I had just caught a bus into the city to meet a Tinder date, as I could not bear the stress of driving around to find a carpark. I consider city driving as chaos (I was a late bloomer and only got my license at 25) and I’m a shocking parker; can’t park to save my life.

Anyway, enough about my lack of driving skills.

I had been chatting to this guy on Tinder for about a week, and we thought it was time to finally meet in person, you know, before we fell into the pen pal category (and before he could ghost me).

You see, earlier in the year, I claimed that this was going to be my year of dating (that obviously didn’t happen) as I’ve been single for many years, mainly due to suffering from anorexia. So, for me, as a 33 year-old-woman, dating is anxiety-inducing to say the least, and at this point, I delete Tinder from my phone on a daily basis…

Yes, daily.

…

Anyway, it turns out that I miscalculated the bus times, and I arrived 30 minutes early. So, while I waited along the river for my date, I decided to do some ‘people watching’ — a favourite pastime of mine (is that weird?).

‘People watching’ is the best, it’s an effective time waster and sometimes, if you are lucky, very entertaining. I enjoy trying to guess what people are talking about, if they are new friends, old friends, lovers, or workmates.

As I stood there watching, I noticed in the corner of my eye, a tall, rather attractive man stop in the middle of his run and start searching for something on the ground.

As you can probably guess, I went over and asked if he had lost something.

He had lost his brand new AirPods on this patch of grass, where he had been sitting only minutes earlier. As we all know, AirPods are expensive, so he was keen to find them.

I offered to help, since the grassy patch was not that big, so it would be an easy find, plus I had time to kill.

We searched the grass for a couple of minutes, and to my delight, I found them! He quickly picked them up with an expression of relief on his face, then he turned around and gave me a big, sweaty hug. It was kind of like the basketball scene from Along Came Polly, when Reuben (Ben Stiller) gets dominated by the hairy, shirtless basketball player and he gets sweat all over his face!

Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free

Movie: Along Came Polly. Ben Stiller and sweaty basketball player scene. Copyright: ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection

Ok, so it wasn’t that bad, but you get the picture! (I could have shown you a more graphic photo from the movie, but I thought I would spare you…if you know, you know)

…

We exchanged names, then he proceeded to ask me to have a coffee with him, right then and there, to say thanks for helping him out. I laughed and told him that I was waiting for a Tinder date to arrive.

He laughed and said, “Well, how long have we got then?”.

“About 27 minutes!” I joked.

He was not put off by the time limit, so we hurried over to a bench seat along the river, sitting angled towards each other, with our knees touching. We proceeded to fire questions back and forth, as quickly as we could, and it all felt rather exciting!

What do you do for work?

What country were you born in?

How old are you?

What are your hobbies?

Are you close with your family?

It was going great, he was so warm and friendly, and made me feel comfortable very quickly. He was very attentive, and had great eye contact, like he was really listening to everything I said. I was starting to think, speed dating is my type of dating!

Every couple of questions, he would check-in and ask how much time we had left before my Tinder date arrived!

“22 minutes”…

“15 minutes”…

“6 Minutes”…

I could sense there was something he wanted to ask me, but he was unsure of when to ask it.

He then blurted out, “Do you like sex”?

Wait, what?

I laughed and repeated it back to him, “Do I like sex?”

In my head I was thinking, “Less than half an hour ago I was sitting on a bus minding my own damn business, now I’m talking to a stranger about sex…how did I wind up here? Maybe speed dating isn’t my type of dating after all?”.

I ended up getting embarrassed and finally said, “I don’t know, yeah, I guess, do you?”

He passionately replied, “Oh yes, sex is very important to me, I need to have sex every day if I’m in a relationship, that’s how I connect and show love”. And he was serious. That’s why he brought the topic up so quickly, because if I was not someone who liked to have sex daily (daily…are you kidding me) then I guess we weren’t compatible.

I nearly fell off the bench seat and into the river! At this point, we only had about 3 minutes left before I had to go to my next date (my next date…who am I?) So, me being me (awkward), and trying to be a people pleaser, I said, “I guess if I was with the right person, then yeah, I would want to sleep with them every day”.

He took that as a green light. In my mind it was an amber light, a signal for him to rein it in a little.

I clearly need to work on my signalling, considering his next question was “What TYPE of sex do you like?

I nearly fainted right then and there, luckily, I was already sitting down. I sheepishly laughed again, with bright red cheeks and changed the subject to how much time we had left…

“2 minutes”…

Weirdly, and probably because I haven’t had much male attention for a while, I got swept up in the moment, so when he asked to exchange numbers, I gave him my actual phone number, not a fake one, as in, I just gave my real number to this man who wants to have sex every day!

With 1 minute left, I got up and said, “I have to go, my date will be here any minute and I cannot have him see me with you”. He got up and said, “Yes, yes, that’s ok, it was so nice to meet you”.

As I went in to give him a hug, with my head going in the direction of over his shoulder, he moved his head towards my face and gave me a kiss, smack bang on the lips!

It caught me completely off guard, but in a good way! His lips were surprisingly soft, and I could tell he was smiling when he kissed me. I don’t usually share sneaky kisses with random strangers I’ve just met, but I’ve got to say, it made my day.

Flustered and a little hot under the collar, I quickly ran off to ready myself to meet my Tinder date, the reason why I was here in the first place! I walked about 100 meters and I could see my date walking towards me (I had even forgotten his name for a second!)

My tinder date and I then proceeded to walk straight past the bench seat that I had just been sitting at with another man. Luckily the Airpods guy had gone, but there was a woman still sitting nearby, who I remember seeing earlier when I was with the Airpods guy — I cannot begin to imagine what she must have thought about me!

…

Two days have gone by now, and the AirPods guy and I have been texting regularly. We actually have lots in common, except that he is vegan, and I definitely am not, so we are just going to be friends…for now.

Still, I can’t believe that helping a stranger find his earphones turned into finding a new friend. And if you were wondering, the Tinder date guy was not my cup of tea, plus I could not stop thinking about the kiss I just had with the AirPods guy.

I just hope that whoever was ‘people watching’ that day, as I was before I became the ‘people watched’, I hope they enjoyed the show…

In saying that, I can now see how out of context ‘people watching’ actually is, considering the woman who saw me probably thought I was having an affair — meeting my secret man for a quick catch-up and a kiss, all while my main man was just around the corner.

If she only knew — I was single, going home alone…on a public bus. At least the secret kiss was good!

This post was previously published on medium.com.

***