Playing house on the first date

Someone once told me a theory that a couple’s first date, viewed retrospectively, is often a microcosm of the relationship that follows. I don’t know whether this argument has any scientific basis, but it’s certainly interesting when I look back on my first date with Heather. Although I wouldn’t necessarily say it was a microcosm of what followed, certain elements of that night that have interesting metaphorical implications.

By the end of the week that we met, Heather and I were having coffee fairly regularly. I decided I should organize an event that involved alcohol. So I told my officemate Emma of my plans to seduce Heather, and we planned a social activity. I told Heather that I was asking a few postgrads along to the campus pizza restaurant on Friday night, and I hoped she could make it. In truth, I only asked Emma and Heather. We ate pizza, chatted, and drank beer. Emma managed to disappear after dinner, and Heather and I were left alone. Since neither of us had other plans, we decided to get a six-pack and keep drinking. It was Orientation Week, and there was a concert on campus that night. Undergrads swarmed all over the place, and the music was so loud we could barely hear each other, so we needed to find somewhere quiet.

We bought beer and went to a park just outside the university grounds. We sat on a park bench in the dark and talked and drank. My flirting became more and more overt, and finally I made my move. As you have probably guessed, Heather didn’t reject me. In fact, things went so well that we soon moved from our bench to a little cubby house. The kind of cubby house found in suburban parks—made from treated pine, with a simple roof and walls. It was raised off the ground and accessed via a ladder. We sat in that little house and talked and kissed for a long time. It was so exciting, but so easy at the same time. It was clear that we really liked each other.

Students crossed the park from time to time, but they didn’t see us hidden in our house. But later, a group of guys came to the park. They were drunk and loud, and they came straight for the cubby house. Heather was lying down, and they couldn’t see her clearly, but I was sitting up. They came right up and looked up at me.

‘What’s this?’ one asked.

I was pissed off, and didn’t immediately notice the threat.

Another asked, ‘What are you doing in there?’

Stupidly, I said, ‘Minding our own business, what are you doing?’

‘No, no, not minding your own business,’ he responded. ‘What are you doing?’

I knew we could have a bad situation if I didn’t handle things right. Heather stayed down and kept quiet, thank goodness.

‘We’re just talking, that’s all,’ I said.

‘Well that’s our cubbyhouse. We want it back. Now.’

‘Okay,’ I said calmly. ‘We’ll head off then. Just give us a couple of minutes to pack up our stuff and we’ll be gone.’

I couldn’t believe it, but the guys agreed without argument. They went to another cubbyhouse nearby and waited while we packed up. We were really scared that they would come after us when they saw us leave. But they probably didn’t know what was going on; how could they?

We were scared, but it was all okay in the end. I went back to Heather’s place that night, and never really left.

When that friend told me the theory about first dates being a microcosm of the relationship, I thought about that night. And I thought about same-sex marriage being illegal in this country. Marriage is the cubbyhouse. Right-wing politicians are the boys. Idiots who claim to own something that everyone could share.

World's greatest handyman

In my Department at uni, there are heaps of postgrads whom I've never met. And yet I somehow managed to meet Heather almost the minute she began her PhD. I was heading to the common room to make coffee before heading downstairs for a smoke, which is how I spent most of my time at uni before my scholarship ran out. Just before I reached the common room, I saw Heather at the computer room door. She was a cute, new dyke in a drab, brown corridor; of course my interest was immediately piqued.

Before we got swipe-card entry to the computer room, and because there was a shortage of keys, postgrads often had to knock on the computer room door to get others to let them in. I always knocked loudly and persistently, because of the Department’s preponderance of surly, antisocial types who refused to answer the door unless severely disrupted. Since it was her first day, or close to it, Heather was knocking on the door very tentatively.

‘Knock harder,’ I told her. ‘Don’t be shy’. (Ah yes, full of meaning in retrospect, isn't it?)

Heather said, ‘Oh, I’m not being shy. I was just in there a minute ago, and I don’t think there’s anyone in there.’ She was clearly not timid at all.

We got to talking and I offered her a coffee. She accepted, and then I realised I only had one cup. I remembered my officemate had recently stolen a cup from the common room, and it was still in our office.

‘We do have a spare cup,’ I told Heather. ‘I don’t know whose it is. And I’m really sorry, but it’s kind of ugly. It says in big letters: World’s Greatest Handyman.’

Heather laughed, and said, ‘That’s alright. That's perfect. Because I am, in fact, the World’s Greatest Handyman.’

I think I began to fall in love right then and there.