I Don't Date By Proxy

You know when you first start realising that the opposite sex is different from you but kind of cool at the same time? The distinction between that of a friend and a boyfriend or girlfriend suddenly becomes terribly important, as does the acquiring of said boyfriend or girlfriend. For some of us, that happens in primary school and what occasionally ensues is a rather bizarre network of friends that actually allow you to carry on a quasi-meaningful relationship - without ever having to in fact talk to the other person let alone hold their hand. That’s kind of sweet in its own weird and quixotic way. When you’re ten. Trouble is though that some people don’t quite grow out of that.

When I was in high school I had the rather amusing experience (in hindsight at least) of being asked out by someone I didn’t know. Although to be perfectly honest, he didn’t actually ask me out, The Messenger did. We were all away on a school camp when I was approached by a classmate. ‘Hey, you know The Button?’. ‘No’. ‘Yeah you do. That guy who hangs around with Mr Pot? The Button?’. ‘Ah...No’. ‘Oh. Well he really likes you and wants to know if you’d like to go out with him.’. I suggested that since I didn’t know who he was let alone what he looked like, my answer was not going to be a resounding 'yes' and that maybe he’d like to, you know, talk to me sometime. He later did talk to me but what I didn’t realise was that there was a queue of people outside the food tent we were in, passing updates down the line and stopping anyone else from entering. I was a tad embarrassed by that.

Now I will admit to my fair share of neurotic preoccupation with how my personal relationships do and do not work out but I try to stay away from involving absolutely everybody else in my dramas. I select one or two people and just annoy them stupid instead. No seriously, I dislike actually asking mutual friends and acquaintances things like ‘Do you think he likes me?’ or ‘Has he said anything about me?’. If anything, I think I’m more likely to go up to a guy and say ‘My friend wants to know if you think I’m cute’ than ask my friend to find out for me. When something is truly bugging me, I will usually go for the more direct approach. There is someone who can attest to the fact that I sat them down in a shopping centre once and rather eloquently asked ‘So whats the go?’. Not one of my finer moments perhaps but it did the job.

So on the whole I’m not a big fan of managing my relationships via proxy. I’m more a believer in direct communication. As in if I can’t communicate with them myself, theres probably not a lot of point in trying to pursue something anyway. Of course, that having been said, it should also be noted that I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve and I rarely if ever make the first move. That does make things kinda difficult but no one ever said life was going to be easy.