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Ex and The City

By Ali Harris

On Saturday night I went out on an overdue, long-awaited date. I have not been on a date in months, its not really my style to date and do the whole relationship thing after one too many failed attempts. I am the 21st century man, we are new, we are hip, we are ambitious and fit and are not distracted by romance anymore.

On this occasion though my friends and I were excited by the anticipation of a date and the prospect of a relationship; since it was something I have not had since I was 20. This single guy has been working overtime, and previously any dates or relationships were not a part of the increasingly tight schedule, so all my friends were over-the-moon for me.

By early Sunday morning, in true Sydney style, the anecdotes of dating disaster began with my friends over some pancakes and coffee and all hope was suddenly lost as I began explaining what happened. My Saturday night date was cut-short because we just kept bumping in to ex-girlfriends of mine or her ex-friends. Is this what it had come down to? In a city the size of 4 New Yorks and suddenly we could not turn the corner without seeing an ex-something. It seemed like Sydney had turned in to ex-Sydney; ex-girlfriends, ex-enemies, ex-work colleagues, ex-friends. Are we living in a day and age of the ex? Has everything been tried and bought? Has the sandwich been eaten and the only thing left are the bread crumbs? If so then my date was definetly the crumbs. She was dull and hardly spoke unless spoken to and had multiple enemies. I have dated girls with bad personalities, but never a girl with no personality and more enemies than the mafia.

The resetaurant became a battlefield, from left to right, north to south, we were cordoned by her foes; I thought to myself, 'was I on a date with Hitler?' We left early, before we could even eat, to escape her ex-friends, ex-life, ex-enemiess and every other ex-something of hers except for "ex"-factor.

We drove around the suburbs and parked outside a club only to be interrupted by her sister who was also parked outside the same club and who was also hiding out in a parking lot with her boyfriend away from her enemies in the city. Suddenly I realised, I wasn't dating Hitler, but I was dating the Hitler family.

The next day my friends laughed and gagged over their food. Their hopes of finding me a girlfriend vanished in a matter of one Sydney Saturday night moment. It was back to normal, single guys eating pancakes, drinking coffee and smoking in a non-smoking restaurant followed by some bicep curls at the gym.

It was a predictable date with the all too common 21st century Seinfeld ending. Was this for real? Was this dating? If so, then waiting to date was waiting in line at the movies and dating was Vanilla Sky with Tom cruise. So why are so many of us still waiting in the line? The critics have been and the review is bad with a two thumbs down.

I'm not quite sure I would date again. I work overtime all week and Saturday nights are my nights off and they are so rare. Do I really want to be working on Saturday nights as well? As if dating the Hitler family was bad enough, who was next? The Stalins? The Tsars? Maybe the Bushes?

I know one thing that I'm certain about, that my Saturday night date with no personality was now my "ex"-Saturday night date with no personality.