Fuck it dude, let's go bowling.

This has never been a place to come for answers.

It's the classic story - boy meets girl, gets her phone number, after two-ish years of occasional texting they agree to meet up, do that a few times then boy loses his fucking mind because he's not good at this shit.

There is no catharsis when it is this hard to get started.

I started typing and it was the usual obscure and highly generalised bullshit. I made sweeping statements and none of it really helped. None of it really made any sense. I think for that to happen I might have to tell the story and make my observations on the way. See what we can see.

I sometimes forget where the irony stops and I begin. I became a parody of myself once and the truth of who I was got lost. I've changed enough since then that I don't think it really matters whether I was me or the parody - they were both cunts.

I can't remember exactly how this started. I go on about things that while I know others don't care about I talk about anyway. Battlestar Galactica was one such thing and a colleague of mine was one such girl who couldn't give a fuck. Coincidence would have it that she had a friend, a single lady friend who also liked the show. However it happened, I got her number.

So began the flanter - flirty banter, if you will. I asked her out soon after and she said no. So continued the occasional flanter.

We met once, in passing, and I gave her one of those fluffy little sticker things I had just gotten for donating to some animal welfare charity. The flanter continued and the fluffy thing adorned her mantle piece. My colleague, now friend, regularly mentioned my finer points and overlooked my failings and still the flanter continued. I will some day thank her properly.

I became comfortable. I had no expectations and we exchanged only occasional messages, a birthday wish, a Valentine's greeting. Flirty in tone but few in number. Having been shot down I didn't think to ask again. I don't know if I would have.

One conversation in work, I mention to my friend a book I really like and I'm met by the response that this is the young lady's favourite book. Naturally this occasioned a text message. After all it had been several weeks and any excuse for a flant.

Whatever the alignment of the stars - she asked me out and like any man that has been asked out by an attractive girl that he had long since given up hope on - I strutted.

Those were the salad days.

We met and it was less awkward than it could have been but thanks to her we got through it.

Any date that ends with a kiss is a success. A maxim to pass on.

The second time we met was delightful. I think delightful is the right word, I say it and I think of lightly fruit flavoured beverages on cut grass on a warm summer's day. That's the feeling, more than pleasant but stopping short of a line of coke.

Any date that ends with a kiss is a success.

At this point the texting back and forth had ramped up. This is not a medium I like to converse in. I like pithy smart assed comments or practical messages telling me what time to meet you at the cinema. Emotional depth and text messaging do not go hand in hand. It strikes me as odd, the preserve of teenagers and people with poorly formed and even more poorly expressed ideas.

So, I try. I keep it light and interesting and I avoid the mundanities. I quip and I flirt, my observations are wry and the third date is cancelled.

FUCK.

The reason is genuine. In some respects I'm flattered that it wasn't cancelled earlier - she was prepared to soldier on through no small discomfort but alas was overcome by serious pain.

So the texting continues but slowly comes the self doubt.

So here we are. Crippled. Every move debated, analysed, every keystroke a carefully planned disaster. The fretful panic when the reply doesn't come quickly enough. The loathing when it does and I see my once proud flanter sink to the level of asking how was work. Where once I soared now I crawl. The fear that delay and the descent to mediocrity will drive a wedge between us. That chance being what it is I may now miss mine.

The inexorable conclusion.

That I like her more than I can be certain that she likes me. My other relationships are either of the rock solid type stretching back for years with no hint of upset or relationships where I know that I give less of a shit than the other person. I enjoy the latter. The sociopath in me loves the power. This third kind is unsettling. I'm on the back foot and out of my comfort zone. In moments of prescience I can see the path that leads towards disaster. I see myself shuffle unwillingly down this way, wishing I could turn around or stop or say something that doesn't make me question my own sanity the second I hit send.