Meeting in real life.

I remember you as soon as I see you. I wasn't sure I would. He is looking out for you because he knows you better. We have chatted our way through two beers and then you are here, suddenly and I know it is you. You have a manner which is both confident and shy at the same time, as if you are apologising for your own self-assurance. I recognise your voice. You never waver in your manner. It is the same rhythm and meter that I enjoy so much from our electronic chatting. There is comedic timing, and you are quick. You leap from one topic of conversation to another like a dancer. You can take us both, my friend and I, you can engage with our similarities and our differences.

I buy you a beer.

We turn our attention to people we have in common. This is one of those towns where people wash up against each other. Huddles of people bob on a cyclical Brisbane tide. I have probably slept with friends of your mother's or at least friends of her friends. It is inevitable. We find people in common and we circle around them. You like girls it seems. Girls like you. Girls that I have had altercations with like you. You like girls who dislike me and actively make my life difficult. You like them and you will not back down. My glower is a siren, warning you against shallow water and sharp rocks. You continue blindly on your course. You are perhaps a little drunk and therefore unable to read me neatly. I am becoming irritable as I down another glass of wine.

"We should stop talking about her, maybe"

But you bluster on, extolling her virtues, bringing me up to the boil one sentence at a time.

My friend suggests a meal. He is more sensitive to my moods than you it seems. He wants us up and walking. A change of venue, a change of conversation. We move to a restaurant nearby and it seems the fresh air has lightened things. We talk about food, swap recipes. You like to cook and I have a knack with herbs and spices. It seems our ship has righted itself. I push off into safer waters and you sail alongside me, but in a pause you mention another girl, my Nemesis. You count the things you like about her, her manner, her habit of giggling and touching you on the arm. I tell you that this is an affectation, that I would never use such calculated moves to charm someone, but you will not budge from your admiration and when our food arrives, I eat it with a tight throat and it seems for a moment I might choke on a chicken burrito, but I swallow it and chase it down with more wine.

The problem with the Internet is that it is so easily to misinterpret someones meaning. In the harsh light of the real world, I take stock of you and know that my assessment was misguided. You are an irritant. You are a liar. You are a clever salesman with the gift of the gab and a penchant for flirtation. I will not be flirted with by you.

When we come to the subject of dating I explain that I have never gone on dates, just one, a disaster that ended in bad sex and a series of phone calls to be dutifully avoided. You say you would like to take me on a date, but that is the last thing I would want to do at this moment in time. I want to finish my meal, scull the last of my wine, and find the quickest path away from you.

Later, I will not talk with you on the Internet. I will not be fooled by your faux sensitive banter. You are all lies, but still there is something about the quiet hurt in the droop of you girlish mouth and the odd style of your dress, and the slightly mannered way you speak. Something about all of this makes me think that there must be more to you than that. You are cleverly calculated, it is true, but there is something else, some softer place that you are hiding beneath a brash exterior.

I am always one to trust my first impression and I feel that you are a good person, complicated, but good at heart. It is something I can't quite put my finger on. And also, you smell good. You smell clean but with a hint of flesh and the flesh smells sweet. I am vaguely attracted to you because of it. You are not my type. You are nothing compared to the exquisite beauty of my own boy. You are nothing like the tall thin bookish boys I lust after. You are not the smooth hairless Japanese stereotype I adore. You are not for me and you are far too young for me in any case, and yet when I shake your hand at the end of the meal I have a fleeting urge to lick the sweat off your fingers.