The one that I want is Me or A beginner's guide to a miniature celibate sexual revolution

I'm drying my hair by the fire after an appalling walk home through the back streets of Newtown in the pouring rain with a bursting bladder. I met, had coffee and conversed with the experimental coffee date man, let's call him Bert. Let's call him not quite boring but getting there. I was hoping for something different, something wild or rude or horrid or obsessive about coffee cup placement or some damn thing but what I got was, I suspect, average citizen.

I came prepared to hold close the secret nature of the experiment but Annushka had filled him in even given my blog url, so cover blown I lost all my tactics and not a little of my sense of fun, just like the time I phoned Rupert. I thought I am not this serious. Why am I being so serious, this is twice in about a week that I found myself being inane and serious. So I looked for common elements. What do Rupert and Bert have in common? Fucking nothing, except that they were talking to me. Its all about context.

Once at the pub with a host of friends I fondly noted their strange and wonderful outfits, Spencer was wearing one of his inappropriate cowboy shirts and the others all looked like objects or ornaments, beautiful like blown glass. I was wearing a plain button up shirt and jeans, orange sneakers my only nod to anything. I mentioned my plain outfit to a friend and she looked me up and down and said Yeah, but your personality's edgy. But I've lost my point. The one that I want is Me.

I stretched out the one soy latte and politely only had two cigarettes, instead of smoking my damn head of, which is why cafes were invented. Bert was polite from start to finish, he phoned to say he was running late, he offered me his scarf when I said I was cold, he even paid for my damn coffee. He attempted his share at keeping the conversation going, but never quite made it. We had nothing in common. He's some sort of office having computer talking person. He's reading Moby Dick but not loving the strange shift in narrators and the over the top introductions of characters that just disappear. He's wearing a white jacket that zips up, he's got hair that he probably combs, he's not into creative self-expression. And I don't care because the one that I want is Me.

Bert seems like a nice man but I don't care because I've suddenly discovered that my best light is an in context light. I fit my backstory like a glove, I carry this bag of survival, sorrow and joy like a flag. I am one funny scary fabulous intelligent woman and I'm the hell done with giving a shit whether strangers like me or not. So thanks Bert for coming out in the cold wet to meet a stranger and share an hour or so. You're a nice ordinary man and I'm really pleased to discover that I don't give a shit whether you like me, or not.