The Midget, Part 2

Dinner with the Russian turned out to be so much fun. There was a moment at Watson's when I accidentally spilled some water on his pants, and while patting him dry grabbed his ass, so that he yelped and almost fell backwards into an old man walking behind us, who then glared in disapproval.

And the next day, Saturday, I spent a wonderful whole day with him. The day was 07/07/07, the day of Live Earth. At about 9 pm we tuned in to watch the concerts and got a shitload of Sydney's crappy line-up. Of course I hadn't bothered to look at the full list of artists performing at the 7 concerts, so I didn't even know who I was watching out for. So we waited and waited and just kept getting disappointed, which meant we ended up entertaining each other instead.

"Why don't they show something else? Something I can sing along to? Why do they keep showing Wolfmother?!" I whined.
"You should know by now," the Russian scolded me, "It is ALWAYS Wolfmother!"

It was lovely. Watching TV with the Russian is one of my favourite things in the world.  All thoughts of boredom and the midget were driven from my head.

When I reached home, though, I got a surprise SMS from him, the midget: How was ur day?
I replied, "It was nice. I spent a lot of time sleeping and now I'm watching Live Earth."
He said, "I juz came bk from my fren's wedding. I ate so much. Burp :O"

OMGWTFLOL. It was like a light switched on in my head. He was so banal. How had I managed not to notice how uncreative and uninventive his messages were? And what the fuck is up with the spelling?

I felt really stupid for letting a 2-month trip in Iran blind me towards a person's utter lack of personality. But on the other hand, I was also glad that it had happened. I'd had a small crush on a guy I didn't have, only to realise that what I did have was infinitely more exciting. If I hadn't been so intrigued by the midget, and hadn't carried on the conversations with him, I wouldn't have been able to notice the contrast between him and the Russian.

It was something like this:
1. Obviously the Russian is something special, which is why I fell in love with him in the first place.
2. Then this other guy comes along, and he seems to have some interesting qualities too, being talented and kind of cute.
3. But then, look -- gaping flaws! Bad SMS spelling, utterly vapid conversationalist, insecure about his height to the point of lying about it! All things that negate him from being anything special.
4. On the other hand, the Russian is talented, cute, visibly taller than me, not ashamed of his height and in fact writes about being short in the national news, sends me quirky and funny messages everyday (eg. "If you can find Generation Terrorist by the Manic Street Preachers, you can have my babies" and "Your honesty wafts across even the cold medium of telecommunications!") and is 99 times out of 100 a very engaging conversationalist who is willing to argue with me about the value of art.
5. Which means that I might get bored sometimes, and new guys might seem interesting in comparison, but the truth is, the Russian is always better.

So anyway I didn't reply, and I didn't hear from him again. Until the following Monday.

He sent me an SMS: How r u? Im on leave frm work for the nxt 2 wks!
Me: That's nice. I wish I could take a holiday too but I'm stuck in the office.
Him: Take leave!
Me: Can't, we're understaffed and I just took leave a few weeks ago.
Him: Work hard!

Are you not rolling your eyes? I began asking my friends for tips on how to get him off my back. I complained about how boring he was. I said, I've been spoilt by my boyfriend. Look at this message he sent me: "Hoof! The earth shakes. A hundred cows are stampeding in terror! They fear the sun's heat.. and the great happy cat in the meadow."

They said, Yasmine, anyone is boring compared to your boyfriend. Your standards are superhuman!

But then I showed them the message that the midget had sent me on Saturday night: "I juz came bk from my fren's wedding. I ate so much. Burp :O" And they said, EEEWWW!!! Ok I understand. Society will not look badly upon you for this. Next time he messages you, just mention your boyfriend.

And then, at 6 pm that same day:

Him: I noe this is kinda late but wd u like 2 watch Die Hard 4 at Cineleisure at 7 pm?
Me, totally panicking: I finish work at 7.30, sorry!

Who the hell asks someone out after meeting them once and then having sporadic SMS conversations over the next two days?

In Part 3: The Russian enlightens me, once again.