What women want

Fucking women, eh? Contrary bints: I don’t know how boys stand us sometimes, with our bloody contradictions.

Take me: sitting here right now, vaguely insulted that a man in whom I (obviously) have absolutely no interest in dating has not called to ask me out.

Allow me to explain.

Last week. One of those really, really boiling days and I was at the WACA. Not, like a cricket loving freak, to watch some organised loafing but to attend a shareholder meeting. (For work, obviously. I’m too poor to own shares even these days when you can pick up a junior miner with the spare change down the back of the couch). Having obtained directions (which I swear involved an improbable four left turns) to the meeting room I was hopelessly lost when I stumbled across a man whose face bore the unmistakable impression of someone exactly as lost as I was. In a crisis, the brief stint as a Brownie sixer has taught me, it is important to stick together. That applies to situations that aren’t getting lost on a field trip at John Forrest National Park. And so I asked him if he was looking for the same meeting as me and when he said he was we thought we would look together.

I’d like to make it clear that it was his idea to cut across the WACA. Honest it was. Though I went along with it: the heels of my beautiful red heels sinking into the grass as I did so. And only when we got to the other side did we notice the perimeter fence on the other side.

“So shall we jump it?” the shareholder asked me.

When my hysterical laughter had subsided I told him what I thought of that idea, even had I not been wearing an uber tight black dress and said heels.

“I’ll give you a lift,” he insisted.

When the second wave of hysterical laughter had passed I think he realised I was serious.

It was about then that a man on a grass… mower?... cutter?.... um, flattener? … thing, came along and told us politely to get off the grass. Whether or not this was related to the trail of heel-induced holes I’d left behind me in the grass was, shall we say, unclear. The grass, um… cleaner?... man wasn’t all Fuck You though – he also pointed out that there was a place a little further along where the fence was lower and we could probably get out a bit easier.

Well yes and no. Because while he was correct in that the fence was lower, he had neglected to mention several key points: a)It was still fucking high, b)It was less of a low fence and more of a high fence with a hole in it, meaning you had to sort of launch yourself upwards as you crouched down to avoid smacking your head open on the top bit, c)the place where you came down on the other side was not solid floor but a platform thing ON FUCKING WHEELS.

I got over the fence eventually. Let’s not go into details about who did what and who saw what. Let’s just bury that thought, and those memories, waaaay waaay down where my future psychologist can find them. Importantly the shareholder saw nothing. At least that’s what he told me.

And so we went to the meeting and chatted and blah blah blah the meeting was dull. Afterwards I killed time chatting to the shareholder before he asked if he could see me again. Maybe it’s the effect of having been saddled with both glasses and braces for many of my formative high school years but I pretty much never assume anyone is asking me out. Unless they are actually saying “I fancy you” I also never really assume they fancy me either. This shareholder, who happened to be in financial services, probably just wanted to talk business, I figured. Just in case though I thought I’d give him my business card, as though to underscore how business-related this all was. Unfortuantely I didn’t have any cards left and was reduced to scrawling mymobile number on a scrap of paper he had with him. Not quite what I was going for.

And when he called me later that day to ask if I was free that night it seemed I may have to revealtuate my thoughts about his intentions. Being too much of a pussy to brush him off properly I went for the time-honoured tactic of delaying him, insisting I was just SWAMPED at the moment but er maybe next week… possibly. We parted on good terms but for the next few days my stomach churned as I wondered how I could nicely dispatch him without hurting his feelings.

But clearly I NEEDN’T HAVE BOTHERED. Because that little WACA incident was a week ago and has he called?? No he has not. Fucker. Suddenly I feel like I know what those glossy magazines are talking about when they bitch about boys who take your number and don’t call. And while I am overwhelmingly relieved I don’t have to deal with letting him down gently, I still find myself a little… peeved. Did he not think I was cute enough? Was my banter not witty enough? It was my hair wasn't it? I KNEW I should have brushed the hair. Superficial fucker.