The 3rd A.D. is Not My Boyfriend

I crush easily.

No, Natasha Bedingfield is not about to talk over the top of a perfectly fine Chicane number, I mean I develop crushes the way some people break out, or hiccup, or blink their eyes. I do it lots.

Usually, all it takes is a couple of baby blues, an in-joke, and a cutesy nickname thrown my way, and I am PUTTY.

A few weeks ago, it happened to me on the set of a cop show. Sometimes, I am an extra. Let’s be clear, I’m not one of those I-hope-the-director-notices-my-awesome-mime-talking-and-gives-me-a-Logie extras. I’m more your garden-variety please-don’t-talk-to-me-I’m-cool-to-hang-here-by-the-tea-trolley-and-eat-Anzacs type of extra. I enjoy turning my phone off for a random eight hours every now and then, tuning out my life, earning some pocket money, and watching the people in the parkas make the TV.

Occasionally, it’s mind-blowingly awesome, a-la being in an end-of-the-world looting scene in a Hollywood disaster movie (a story for another time. We’ll call that post “Nicolas Cage’s stunt double is N.M.B.”) but more often than not, it's dull.

I turned up expecting to develop an instant crush on one of the main cop-actors, but I stood next to them all in the breakfast queue while I got porridge, and the porridge bowl didn’t land upside down on the ground, so I knew I was safely crush-free at that point.

I made my way out to the shooting location, (a dodgy suburban street - how deliciously Aussie cop-show!) with the last instalment of the teenage vampire fiction and planned for a day of bloody teen angst, broken up by bits of standing, and some staring at pretend crime.

“Hi, I’m Simon Baker Denny. I’m the Third A.D.”
Said a giant pair of blue eyes.

Oh no.

Half an hour in to a 10-hour shift before a crush hit. Personal best!

Now, this guy’s name ISN’T actually “Simon Baker Denny”, but he sure did look like him.
I know, I know, Sime’s dropped the “Denny” now, but he’s kidding himself if he thinks we’ve forgotten about it. TV Hits told me that was his triple-barrel name in 1992, and I’m going to have to stand by my mag on that one.

I DON’T actually have a thing for the Mentalist; this fair, blue-eyed, film-set guy resembled him a bit, but he was way hotter. And I'm disguising his name because I don’t want to embarrass myself in case he, I dunno, somehow finds this obscure, anonymous blog.

As the third assistant director, Simon Baker Denny’s job was to make sure all the actors and people-props like me were ready on the set. And the crush hadn’t fully set in until the moment he tapped me gently on the knee to get my attention, and pointed out a folding chair for me to sit on so I wouldn’t have to kneel in the gutter.

CHIVALRY IS NOT DEAD!

(I proceeded to sit in the chair only to topple backwards out of it. Retarded crush manoeuvre= check!)

Signs it was a mutual crush:
We had humorous banter involving polystyrene cups at the tea trolley. I can’t remember what it was, but at the time, love.

Twice, he referred to me as “My Dear”.
Swoon.

At the lunch queue, he tried to find me with his eyes to make sure I was getting something to eat.
Sigh.

All day I was brainstorming possible parting lines. I wanted to leave it on the most amazing conversational note so that Simon Baker Denny would be compelled to scan the call sheet after my departure, find my number and call me to profess things.

This was what I came up with:
“Simon Baker Denny, it’s been a pleasure”.

“See ya!”

The 3rd A.D. is Not My Boyfriend.

In the old days, you could sit with a crush for days, months, years on end - and brew a real heart-rending saga with the thing. Not anymore.

A couple of clicks through to a friend-of-a-friend‘s Facebook and three words put a quick stop to that.

“In a relationship.”

I miss the past.

Other People's Boyfriends Are Not My Boyfriend.

Sigh.
That's all.

Can't hurt to have a reminder up somewhere.

Virginia Woolf is Not My Boyfriend

Yes, she’s dead. Yes, she’s a chick. Etc. My concept here is casting a wide net.

I’m not saying I have a girl crush on Virginia Woolf. Well, her wikipedia pic does her way more justice than Nicole Kidman’s Oscar-winning fake nose in The Hours, but that’s not it. I just have this strange inkling that if I were alive in the early 1900s, we’d have been pals. Gal pals.

We were born 100 years apart and our names start and end in ‘V’ and ‘A’ so that automatically means we are kindred. All “V” names are kindred. I’ll bet it’s the same deal with “X”s and “Z”s. And redheads. Our minority binds us.

She had a half-sister called Stella and so do I. And I think stream-of-consciousness is cool and she like, broke literary ground with it. Plus, she had mood swings and I’m not saying that my mood swings are as severe as hers but I can go from up to emo-down in a minute if a fat day coincides with a bad hair day so we‘re counting the mood swings thing too.

And maybe she would have had a crush on me… I’m sure I’d have given Vita Sackville-West a good run for her money, and that’s another “V” name. Perhaps me and Vita and Virginia would have formed a kindred “V” triangle. Like an early 20th Century “L-Word” with “V”s.

‘Gin broke my heart in a “A Room of One’s Own” by pointing out that we will never know the work of a girl-Shakespeare because society would never have allowed her to write in her time. Thinking about the millennia of women’s voices that will never be heard, I swear I teared up for the Sisterhood (not of the Travelling Pants, just like, for chicks through history, yeah?). So much perspective we’ve missed out on…

It just makes me bloody thankful that we are living in the era of the Blog, and the Facebook status and the Twitter; in which every Tom, Dickhead and Harry has a voice, even if all it says is, “Today I went shopping and I couldn’t decide between full cream, skinny, semi-skinny, goats’ milk, rice milk and soy.”

I’m looking to buy a room of one’s own, too, just like Virginia (although she had an aunty die and cash her up with an inheritance so let’s be realistic - “A Shoebox of One’s Own” is where we’re at here. The first homeowner’s grant is good but it’s not THAT good). I plan to hole up in it and write things just because I can, and I’ll crank Destiny’s Child’s “Independent Woman”, realise that’s now a dated reference, quickly download Beyonce’s “Single Ladies and crank that instead and try and make up for the fact we'll never know a girl-Shakespeare and we'll never get our history back. But at least we have Beyonce and at least she's giving it a red hot go for the sistas.

Not that I’d have been able to admit it if Virginia really had had a crush on me in my "Me in the 1920s" fantasy. I couldn't even fathom the possibility of reciprocating because of social moirés I wouldn’t have had the guts to break two days ago let alone a hundred years ago.

The least I could do nowadays is start up “notmyclandestinefemalelover.blogspot.com” if I want. As long as my dad doesn’t read it and yell at me. Ginny would be proud.

The Man from the Internet is Not My Boyfriend.

There comes a time in any socially awkward, unattractive-in-high-school-but-came-good-eventually, single gal’s life, when she muses, “I wonder if my boyfriend is in the Internet. What if he’s been there all along and I missed him because I was spending all my energy waiting to be trapped in a broken-down lift with the guy I have a crush on for hours until we have nothing left to do but make out?”

I don’t think you’re supposed to meet the people that live in the Internet. I know we’re living in future times, but unless the Jetsons did it, I’m not interested. One bad decision on the other side of that Narnia-wardrobe, and you upset the natural order of things.

For one thing, it makes me nervous thinking that all of the nerds in the world will meet and marry and be too loved up to strive for anything and then we’ll have no one left to cure cancer, which will be annoying.

It’s been getting kind of tedious waiting for my new boyfriend to bump into me at the supermarket.

Particularly in the bread aisle.

Ain’t nothin’ sexy about a gal who takes 25 minutes to decide between Whole Grain, 7 Grains, and Stone Mill Grain.

I figured since I’d started a blog, I was modern enough to fire up the information superhighway, and see what was on offer. I have to be honest, it‘s slim pickins‘ out there.

I did find a pool of self-proclaimed “easygoing” types, “new to this”, sick of the “pub-and-club scene“, who write “your” when it’s supposed to be “you’re”; or “ur” when it’s supposed to be “you’re” or “your”. Call me picky, but I refuse to back down on the Your/ You’re thing and I have a 14 038 members of the Facebook group, “Good Grammar is Hot” to back me up on that one.

The You’re/ Your embargo puh-retty much eliminated everyone on the Internet for me.
Which left the following categories: people too smart for me (see aforementioned point about cancer. I will NOT be distracting our nation’s nerds!). People I know (AWKWARD CITY. Delete! Block! Already been there in one case!)
Andpeopleupforit. There, said it. This category is the blanket over all subcategories.

Look.
I know you’re supposed to strike up a chat-versation, build to a phone call or two, exchange photos and then arrange to meet in a restaurant holding a rose and your hopes up high.

OR.

Or.

You can rip that band-aid clean off and agree to meet a motorbike-riding stranger in a park. And that's what I did.

“I’ll take the ’let’s stop living like a Victorian lady for five minutes’ briefcase, thanks Andrew O’Keefe.”

All those years hearing “don’t talk to strangers” over and over again, wasted.
Sorry, Mum. Sorry Miss McCormick, Mrs Golic, Miss McCormick again, (primary school teachers prep, 1, 2.) Sorry, Benita from Play School. I don’t know what I was thinking. Well, apart from, “you know what I haven’t done in my youth is pash a stranger in a park”. That's pretty much the beginning, middle and end of what I was thinking.

It doesn't matter how, or why or even what the hell, but I went to the park. On my own. YES, I went to the park! Do you think I backed out? I went down to that park, my friend, and all I can say is thank god for the park ranger for shutting down that plan.

Well, shutting it down in my mind. The stranger hadn't arrived yet, and I hadn’t seen a park ranger since I was 8 and watching Yogi Bear on Agro’s Cartoon Connection; and I've seen how angry they can get about pic-a-nic baskets, let alone random internet park rendezvous. I took it as a sign to reshape the plan into, “Let’s Meet a Stranger at the Movies!”

The thing about waiting 45 minutes in a shopping complex for a stranger on a motorbike you’ve exchanged three sentences with to navigate the city during Chinese New Year is, you have a lot of alone time with that squishy pink thing in your head. Particularly after you give up trying to decide whether it’s better to mack with a stranger during “Bride Wars” or “Slumdog Millionaire”. And so meeting a stranger from the Internet, whilst at first seeming impulsive, exciting, audacious, suddenly seems like something good girls sure as heck DO NOT WANT TO DO. EVER.

I almost vomited four times before he arrived. I thought of Mum, and the Prep, 1, 2 teachers and Benita. They’d be so mad at me for this. Like seriously, yelled-at, put-in-the-corner-with-no-playlunch, not-allowed-to-look-through-the-arch-window mad.

But I was at the point of no return. And then he walked in, wearing cargo pants, a motorbike helmet under his arm and NOT looking at all like the picture on the profile. N.Q.R.

Well, for the sake of the dregs of the fantasy I did NOT bolt. I got up, said hello to the stranger from the Internet, to whom I had not had the guts to even give my name, because my mum says you should never give personal details out on the Internet, and forgot all of my objectives.

I opened my mouth to try and somehow reopen the internal Bride Wars/ Slumdog debate I’d been having with myself when the stranger said,
“You know. I don’t want to waste your time. I might go.”
“Okaybye.”

Thank. God.

I turned 180 degrees and ran until I somehow ended up in Sanity. Not insanity, like crazy. Sanity, the multimedia store. Where, ironically, I laughed to myself like the madwoman in the attic for a good five minutes before I went up to the counter pretending to enquire about Flight of the Conchords.

* * *
I did receive word from the motorbike-riding, profile-photo-faking Internet man. Apparently I was “cute” but he'd got nervous that day, and was hot after all that motorbike-riding.
I have decided to see this as a win. Although he’d spelt “nervous” wrong. I'm scarred for life, but I'll take cute.

I stopped browsing the manalogue after that in case I agreed to something else ridiculous. Plus, when I logged in the other day, I discovered the one month free trial I didn’t know I was on was up and that I would have to start paying for correspondence with potential suitors.

I’m not sorry to inform, I will not be paying for love unless Andy Lew and Pete Laser appear to whisk me off to Chadstone with a credit card, a catchy jingle and 15 minutes on the clock.

If anyone is looking for me, I’ll be sitting in a lift, waiting for RomCom Man to get in, and then for it to break down.

David Brown the Weatherman is Not My Boyfriend

It’s true. Unfortunately, he isn’t.

He is and will always be, however, the first celebrity I ever met and YES, ‘celebrity’ is the right word, thank you.

The year was 1994, Grade Six at St Albans South Primary School. The location: the General Purpose Room (or, as we kids all liked to refer to it, the “GP” room). David Brown the Weatherman from Channel 7 was giving us a talk on “meteorology” (or, as we all liked to refer to it, “the weather“). Did you know David Brown is the only TV weatherman who’s actually a qualified meteorologist?

I knew that.

Because he told me.

Well, he told all of Grade 6T and Grade 6M.

To this day, I don’t know how a humble public school from the western suburbs of Melbourne managed to pull a star like David Brown the Weatherman.

We hadn’t had a celeb in to give a talk since Grade Two when Michael Salmon came to read aloud from “The Monster That Ate Canberra”, "Grunt Goes to School", “and Who’s Behind the Door at the Zoo”. And I’m pretty sure that was at a different school.

I guess there was also our emergency teacher, Mr Gardiner, who was once a contestant on Sale of the Century... But every school in the west met him because he subbed everywhere - and he whored himself around to all the game shows anyway so we were all like, "Whatever, Mr Gardiner. Come back when you've won the car." And he was like, "People didn't start saying whatever till the late 90s." And we were like "fine; rack off."

And he didn’t give a special talk; he just did yard duty a lot.

At 12, I knew very well that David Brown the Weatherman was handsome. I'd already been in love with Jason Priestley a.k.a Brandon from Beverly Hills 90210 since I was 10 and I had the doll and a copy of the "Just Jason" novella to prove it.

David Brown was TV-handsome AND real-life handsome. He had that Prince-Eric-from-the-Little-Mermaid thing going on, which to a 12-year-old-in-the-90s, was essentially Brad Pitt. And yes, it can be confirmed I have crushes on animated men. That is some penmanship, Disney.

After David Brown's meteorology talk, of which I remember something vague about cold fronts, and something else vague about a blue screen, he let us all go up to him and shake his hand and say hello. Then, he handed each one of us a Channel 7 News bumper sticker, and an autographed picture of Jennifer Keyte.

There was not one Grade Six kid that didn't think that was friggin' awesome. (Or, as we liked to call it then, "grouse".) And we'd just lived through New Kids on the Block chewing gum collector cards.

I went home and watched the weather on the TV that night (even though I never ever watched the news) and pointed him out to my mum even though she could tell who he was on her own, and then I showed her my Channel 7 sticker and Jennifer Keyte signed picture again and she was as enthused as she was the first time I showed her.

Even now, when I tell her, "I met Pink", or I met "Home & Away's Alf", or I met "INXS", she's like, "Okay."
(All right, I'll pay her disinterest on that last one - meeting INXS minus the dead one so doesn't count.)

I confessed my thing for David Brown the Weather Man to one of my colleagues and she said she didn't think I should be going around admitting things like that. Well, why would they cast attractive weather-people if we weren't suppposed to like them? As if Livinia isn't appealing to the bi-curious.

I can kind of see my colleague's point. When I see David Brown on the Channel 7 news, I can’t help but be aware that he is Not My Boyfriend, and can never be, on account of he met me when I was 12 and that would be creepy.

And also because according to the final paragraph of his bio, he is married, which makes this whole entire post creepy.

Whatever. As if I'm serious!

The Man Who Sat Next to Me on the Plane is Not My Boyfriend.

Largely, because his girlfriend was sitting on the other side of him. And, she had the window seat. Lucky break for her.

You know what I’m sick of? Losing the love lottery every time I board a plane. A relative of mine met his wife-to-be when they were seated next to each other on a flight. I don’t want to start sounding like a John Cusack movie (well, THE John Cusack movie - I can be specific because I saw it; it’s ‘Serendipity’ and that’s the second John Cusack movie I’ve referenced in a post - see "Hugh Jackman with Facial Hair in Australia is N.M.B." - which makes me sound like I have a fetish. I don’t. Well, he did make a very attractive Dimitri in ’Anastasia’, which means I think a cartoon man is hot, which I'm pretty sure is some kind of fetish…) BUT, that’s some hardcore destiny action going on there. And I want in on that!

I was flying to Brisbane. I’m flying back out of Brisbane in a few days’ time and I will bet my bottom dollar I will not meet my boyfriend on that plane either, because now I’ve invested too much thought in it. Which is totally unfair but it’s Murphy’s Law and that shit is airtight.

Not to be one of those annoying people who talks about their holiday… but… I went on a ferry. There. Show and tell. I’ll send you a postcard later.

I like Brisbane because for four dollars and forty cents you can drift aimlessly up and down a river all afternoon without even a destination. The CityCat is also handy for being pensive on. I bet a lot of my fellow ferry-ers had blogs to go home and write.

I was thinking about this potential plane boyfriend thing on the CityCat and as a result kept sizing up every guy that got on board, which made me feel as creepy as I probably looked.

I walked out to the front of the boat to wait for a space at the rail. It’s hard to get one of those spots because everyone wants wind-hair. I waited a few stops until I saw a small gap, beside a 20-something couple. I should ask them to make room for me, I thought. No, but then they’ll think I’m annoying and I'll be embarrrassed. Who cares, it’s my holiday and I deserve a good view of water. Now ask, you pansy. I like it when Wuss Me loses and argument with Ballsy Me. It makes for a nice change.

“Excuse me, do you mind if I squeeze into that gap?”
“Yeah!” The guy answered. “You want to get in before it gets crowded?”
“Yeah.”
He was wearing sunglasses; and sunnies make everyone look good, so I was trying to mentally subtract the sunnies factor when I realised I was checking him out.
Girlfriend standing next to him! I reminded myself and then an even bigger ferry sailed past our little CityCat. An old man on board with a bushy moustache waved to our boat.

“Do you think that moustache is glued on?”

Is he asking me? ...Yes. It was to me.
I laughed.
Pointing out a comical moustache is exactly the kind of thing I find funny! I was going to attempt to say something else but then I didn’t want to seem like a hussy to his girlfriend. So I stared at water.
And stared at water.
The ferry made a few more stops and no one spoke. And then out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the guy turn his head, look at me for a second, before shrugging and walking away to get off the boat.
The girlfriend stayed behind.
Which I suppose meant she wasn’t his girlfriend. SHE WAS JUST ANOTHER RANDOM GIRL ON A FERRY!

For the rest of the day I thought of amusing things I could have said after his moustache comment: “Yes, they probably made him buy one along with his boat licence”; “Yes, and on weekends he works as Yosemite Sam down at Movie World“; “No, maybe he’s doing Movember and forgot it ended.” Gold, GOLD, gold.

Nothing, I said nothing. I’m so mad at me. Ballsy Me isn’t even speaking to Wuss Me.
There I was, waiting for Destiny Man to sit next to me on some form of transportation and he was right there and I missed it! The best tell-the-grandkids story ever.
Elderly me: “We met on a ferry.”
Ancestor of me: “Cool, Yiayia!” (What, I’m Greek, I may want my grandkids to call me Yiayia.)
No grandkid would baulk at a met-on-a-ferry story.

But I blew it. Because I didn’t think it would happen to me.

If this were that John Cusack movie, a friend of his would be reading this now and then say to him, “Hey, man, did you ride the CityCat on Wednesday the 7th of January? Because some chick was checking you out. Then she blogged about it, which is freaky so maybe don’t go there.”

Hey, fair call, City Cat Guy’s Friend, but I’m trying to be facetious! Can you please add that!? ADD THAT I’M TRYING TO BE FACETIOUS!
“Okay, but you’ve told, what, 12 people about this blog? It’s unlikely that the random friend of a random guy you stood next to on a ferry who made you chuckle and may have looked attractive under his sunglasses and may have been single and may have looked at you for a second too long would be reading this.”

Shut up. I’ve imagined you. Stop raining on my parade.

He’s right, though. The chances are slim. Then again, to quote John “Whispering Jack” Farnham. Farnsy. “Have a little faith.” Yeah?

Hugh Jackman with facial hair in Australia is Not My Boyfriend.

Look. Hugh should just go back through his resume, jump on to imdb, have a look for any film he ever did without facial hair and do a big ol’ DELETE.

I haven’t seen 'X-Men'.
Haven’t seen 'Van Helsing'.
Haven’t seen 'Paperback Hero'.
Did see a bit of (okay, all of) 'Someone Like You' but it wasn’t my DVD, it was my housemate’s - and it was my housemate’s burnt copy, at that - and I know that doesn’t make it okay but I was bored one night and I’d already watched 'Must Love Dogs' the night before so I had a hankering for another mediocre rom-com that starts out with promise but that just ends up leaving me wanting.

It’s a very narrow genre.

So, basically, I’m new to Hugh.

Many did not like 'Australia'. But I stuck it out. I was there for the highs and the lows (and by lows I mean that part in the middle where he doesn’t have any facial hair for a bit). And you know what, I’m better for it.

You see, I’ve been wondering about my femininity. When colleagues discuss shirtless tradies, I usually drift off and think about the necessity of showers. When gal pals are firing up the age-old ‘Would You Prefer to Be Mrs Bloom or Mrs Depp’ debate, I’m usually thinking about the pretty dresses Keira Knightley wore in POTC, and that if I did get married I’d want to keep my own name and that if I really did have to choose, I‘d choose neither because I think Orlando is pointy, and Johnny will always be that pale guy with stationery instead of fingers.

The authorities were about to come and take my Straight Girl Licence off me.

So, it was kind of a relief that for almost three consecutive hours all I wanted in life was to be that tree that Hugh leaned his rugged, Aussie, manly, bristly self against...

But hey, Deborah Lee-Furness seems like a good egg and the two of them are my last hope for a happy Hollywood marriage (I will NEVER get over Tom and Nicole, I don’t care how many babies they have with other people) so no way am I getting in the way of that. And so, Hugh Jackman with facial hair is Not My Boyfriend. Which is for the best. I would be very bad for Gillette sales.

But thank you, Hugh for reinstating my sexuality. And of course, a big thanks must also go to Baz. Great call on the facial hair, my friend. Gonna go out and buy another Red Curtain Trilogy box just to do you a solid.

Liquor Land Man is Not My Boyfriend

There’s not a whole lot that housemates can bond over aside from brands of detergent and how the friggin’ hell to put together the clothes horse in one go.

So, it was a momentous day when I was planning an excursion to the local bottle-O and the housemates decided to come too. Usually we drown our sorrows separately.
“I hope Liquor Land Man is working,“ Girl Housemate #1 said, eagerly.
“Ooh, yeah!“ said Girl Housemate #2.
“Yeah, Liquor Land Man!“ I chimed in. “Hang on - you guys have noticed him too? I thought I was the only one!“
Giggles.
Squeals.
Pillow fights.
Friends 4 eva.

Liquor Land Man has some serious charisma.

It’s not like I’m a booze hound. I don’t go to the bottle-O like it’s Coles and I need a litre of milk. I just pop in every now and then to replace my mint chocolate Baileys or for a bottle of vanilla champagne (when I do drink, I go very hard.) But, in the few times that Liquor Land Man has sold me my grog, the banter has been lively, he’s given me a big old grin and I’ve walked out of there happier than when I went in.

Yes, I do realise this is the customary emotional pattern for a bottle shop experience. But when Liquor Land Man is not rostered on, I just don’t get the same vibe from Liquor Land Girl. Liquor Land Man always seems to have had more than the recommended two standard glasses of personality. (Bit of alcohol humour there.)

Liquor Land Man is Not My Boyfriend because I saw him last night, NOT AT LIQUOR LAND!


It was New Year’s but I was most certainly NOT doing that panicked last-minute scan for a random to pash. In the last few years, some schmo decided we’re all in an American sit-com and that a kiss at midnight is the be-all and end-all of New Year’s Eve. It isn’t and I wasn’t. I swear.

I just happened to spot a vaguely familiar tall man walking towards the bar and said to my friends, “I think I know that guy.”
(Why do we always insist on pointing out that we’ve seen someone we know? It’s not like it ever elicits a response.)

“It’s Liquor Land Man!” I gasped. No one cared, of course.
What would I say to him? We normally talk about alcohol…
Maybe he would be interested in hearing about my attempt to make cider my new ‘thing’… Although, I don’t actually know any of the names of cider so I would hit a wall and look like an idiot.

He turned up at the bar and ordered a drink. He stood next to me, tall and sans-Liquor Land t-shirt. I opened my mouth a few times to try and say hello. My friends were moving away from the bar and I told them I’d rejoin them in a minute.
“I just want to see if this person I think I know is the person that I know.”
I don’t know what the point of this mission was. But I felt it was my duty to the Girl Housemate bond to report back with something.

Liquor Land Man got handed his drink.
Last chance to say something. Last chance to say something…
“You work at Liquor Land!”
I may as well have opened with “See Spot run” or “I think I like green eggs and ham.” He turned to face me.
“Do I?”
“Oh my god, you don’t?”
“Don’t what?”
“Work at Liquor Land?”
“No, I do.”
“Thank god, I thought I was going crazy.”
“Well, you do look crazy.” (See? Charisma!)
“I am pretty crazy.”
He got his change from the bar and I realised we were almost at the end of the conversation. I had to stall him with a question.
“Um… I don’t really look crazy do I?”
“It’s okay, we’re all a bit crazy.”
I threw in a bat of the eyelashes.
“Yep.”

He walked away, then. And I felt that remorse you feel when you’ve just met a celebrity and tried to say something really amazing and friendly and funny so they would automatically want to be your best friend but what it actually came out like was: “Hi, Delta, I harmonise with you in the car.”

I went back to my friends. The guy has helped me pick out cheap wine twice. I don’t know why I thought I was going to have some kind of Sex-and-the-City cut to us cheers-ing on a date, cut to us at his place surrounded by empty bottles of plonk, cut to us as boyfriend-and-girlfriend, buying a winery. I know life’s not like that. It’s just that sometimes I hear stories from people that life is like that!

He walked past me again half an hour later and I thought I just hadn’t given it enough of a crack before. So, I got his attention and mustered up everything I had to give it another red hot go:
“Liquor Land Man, I’m always going to call you 'Liquor Land Man', okay?”
“Okay.”
“My name’s…”
But he was gone.
Today, when I went to get goon, I went to Dan Murphy’s.