It Started With A Tweet(10)
‘Yes, but I went to the real Thailand,’ he says with his weird drawl.
The entry visa in my passport made me think that I had too, but I don’t have the energy to get into a debate with him. Instead I sip my drink.
‘It was very spiritual. I went to a retreat, no phones, no Internet, no trappings of modern life.’
‘Sounds .?.?.’ bloody awful. ‘Enlightening.’
‘Oh it was. It really made me realise how I didn’t want to work for The Man anymore. It’s where I decided I wanted to be a private investor instead. It was at this fantastic Buddhist monastery up on this hillside outside of Chiang Rai .?.?.’
He launches into a story of his time and I do the only thing I can do to get myself through this awful date. I drink. I signal to the passing waitress for another one and I try and tune him out while also trying not to think of the one hundred and one things I’d rather have done with this evening.
*
An hour and a half later and we’ve finally finished dinner. Dominic has had his coffee, I’ve had three martinis, and it looks like this painful date is about to come to an end.
He summons the poor waitress once more with a cringe-worthy click, and she passes us the bill on a little metal tray. He reaches for it with such ferocity that I’m at once impressed with his chivalry of paying for the meal; I was about to reach for my debit card to pay my half but he’s beaten me to it. If he hadn’t been such an all-round vile man this might have gone some way to redeeming him.
‘Right, then, so I had three beers, the ribs, a coffee and, oh, I had that side order of onion rings,’ he says, pulling his phone out of his pocket and tapping the figures into it.
I watch in horror as he agonisingly itemises our bill and even adds on a shared tip. ‘So you owe thirty-nine pounds.’
He smiles at me triumphantly, passing over the bill in case I want to see it. I give it a cursory glance and see that we wouldn’t have been far off it if we’d just halved it, although this way at least I save myself ￡1.35!
The waitress comes over and takes our payment and then I’m finally free.
God, I can’t believe I left work early for this torture. There aren’t many days when I’d rather have been chained to my desk than be out and about in the real world, but this is definitely one of them.
‘Which way are you headed?’ he asks.
I glance at my watch and, based on the fact that it takes me a good minute to work out that it’s half past nine, I decide that I’m too drunk to go back to the office, so I’m homeward bound.
‘I’m going on the circle line to Victoria.’
‘I’ll catch it with you, then,’ he says.
I look at him in horror, wishing that I’d said that I’d catch a bus instead.
We walk in awkward silence as we weave our way through the crowds on the bridge towards Embankment. He mutters under his breath as I fumble in my bag for my Oyster card and we soon find ourselves on the platform waiting for the train.
‘Have you lived in Dulwich long?’ he asks.
I groan internally. Will the questioning never end?
‘Not too long, about three months, or maybe four.’ It reminds me that I really need to start looking for a new place.
‘Bit of a trek to get there, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘I prefer being more central. West Kensington is perfect for me. Less than a half-hour commute to the City. Less of the pram brigade there too.’
I grit my teeth. Right now I’m glad that Dulwich is so far away – the further away from him the better.
A train pulls in and we climb on, and, wanting to signal my imminent departure, I shun the empty seats and instead stand holding the rail by the door so I can make a quick exit.
‘I’m not a fan of north of the river,’ I say, lying, as I was only thinking the other day how nice it would be to live closer to work. The hour-long commute is getting tedious, and even when the company pay for a taxi to take me home when I finish late at night, it still seems to take ages to get back.
‘I don’t think real Londoners live south of the river,’ he says. ‘I mean, I can walk to the City if I need to from where I am.’
‘Um,’ I say, biting my lip to stop myself getting into an argument with him. I’m feeling a little feisty after all those Martinis, but I keep telling myself that in just a few minutes the train will be pulling into Victoria and I can escape.
‘Granted, things are a bit easier now with the Overground, but it isn’t the same, is it? I mean, you might as well live out in Surbiton or Croydon for the time it takes you to get in.’
He rattles off more than a few reasons why I should be moving postcodes, all of which make me despise him more, so I tune him out. Instead, I start to wonder if Tinder needs to have an outlet to be able to leave Tripadvisor-style reviews. I can imagine what highlights – or lowlights – I’d mention now. He might look great on the outside, but five minutes of interrogation – I mean conversation – and you’ll be wishing you’d swiped left. Egotistical, self-absorbed and darn right dull. Wouldn’t go back to his for coffee. I’m just mentally awarding him one star (well, he was chivalrous enough to not let me pay that extra ￡1.35 that I would have done if we’d halved the bill), when we arrive at Victoria. Hallelujah.
‘Well, thank you for, um .?.?. ’ I struggle to finish the sentence. I can’t thank him for the food or drinks as I paid for them, and it’s not like I can lie and say that we had a nice evening. ‘For the company.’ Though that’s also a stretch.