Radio Songs #30: First Date

I picked her up in my dad's Ford Sierra. I'd only passed my test a few weeks earlier. I didn't tell my parents where I was going - just to the cinema. Which wasn't a lie as such. I don't remember what I wore, I don't remember what she wore... but I think it's fair to say she looked a whole lot better than I did.

We'd decided to go to the cinema because that was all I really knew. But I also knew a nice pub nearby that I'd been to with friends. We went there first. At 18, I didn't drink (that came later), but I probably used the excuse that I was driving. Or maybe I was quite up-front about the whole not-drinking thing. I wasn't embarrassed about it, it was part of my whole ridiculous anti-teenage rebellion.

I don't remember much of the date, but I do remember how proud I felt, how puffed up, how GROWN UP, I felt when we walked into that pub together. I could well have been on stilts. She had a half of lager... somehow I'd expected her to have wine. We talked about work, about... she probably had more to say than me. I wasn't the greatest conversationalist back then.

The film we ended up seeing was hardly a classic, but it was quite appropriate. Crazy People. Not because we were crazy, but because it was about how ridiculous the advertising industry was, and we both owed our jobs to that. I'm sure that gave us something to talk about.

Afterwards, I drove her home. I had no idea how she felt the date had gone, but looking back, it was hardly a house on fire. It was pleasant - but who wants pleasant when you're 18? So I was rather surprised when she asked me in for coffee. Obviously nobody had ever done that before, and I wasn't really sure of the implications. She said something about how her brother would be home soon, so I guessed I shouldn't read too much into it, but still...

I didn't drink coffee either in 1990. (I've made up for that since.) But I accepted when it became clear that coffee actually meant coffee. (Back in the minefield.) I remember that I didn't really like it. Too milky. I even drank tea black in those days: milky drinks have never been my thing. But I drank it. And I guess we chatted some more.

And then I went home. (I think it was before her brother got back.) Not really sure what had happened or what any of it meant or whether I would ever see her again. Other than at work. I must have asked her if there was a possibility, and she must have indicated that there was, because I drove home glowing. Listening to George Michael's Faith album, which I'd recently bought on CD to play on my newly purchased CD player (having previously owned the album) and then taped to listen to in my dad's Sierra.

This seemed appropriate under the circumstances... more for the fool than the kissing (of which there was none).

30. George Michael - Kissing A Fool

People
You can never change the way they feel
Better let them do just what they will
For they will
If you let them
Steal your heart from you

You can guess the rest... or maybe I'll tell you next week.