The marriage interview
MEET
Africa Utopia was a great time. The South bank hosted events and I got to reconnect with some old friends from Africa and maybe meet some new ones.
One such guy was sitting next to me at a feminism talk. I was getting out a business card for someone else and he asked for one. Fair enough. He was an African Journalist and no harm in us meeting for coffee as he suggested. The next day I got an email asking for coffee as he had read the blog and wanted to discuss it. A business meeting? Sure, I could do that.
Lunch
We arranged to meet on the same day as the African Fashion Week London launch. As we met he said “You look sexy as per usual”. The dude has met me twice? Strange comment and not very business-like but as lots of women out there know men in meetings are often inappropriate. It’s the burden we bear. I ignore any sexual comments and focus on my rumbling stomach.
So we go to a Planet Organic and I order some curry which claims to have meat in it but just seems to be a lot of white kidney beans and brown rice. As I play hunt for the lamb he starts telling me about himself. It begins to sound like he’s interviewing for a position. I find a piece of lamb and smile. He takes this as encouragement. He tells me about his notoriety in his home town. It all starts to sound a bit too far removed from London for me but hey, we all come from somewhere.
UNCLE
I get that he’s traditional in an African older man way and he reminds me of one of my uncles. Yes you know the ones. Anyway he is closer to my Dad’s age than to mine, he has a child and he’s a Gemini. He lives in a part of London outside of my 45 minute dating zone and talks about money struggles. All of this wouldn’t matter if I fancied him but I thought this was a business meeting? But then he tells me that he wants kids, loads of them and that he wants to get married. Oh goodie, I could match him up with one of my older friends maybe?
PROPOSAL
I tell him how bad the food is (I had just found another piece of lamb but still) and he asks if I can cook. I tell him yes but that I don’t cook. I’m way too busy to bother. Then he says “Then you should marry me”
[scratch record] huh?
He says he doesn’t want to do it [cook] all the time but that I meet a lot of his criterion for a wife and that we should get into a relationship with a view to have kids together. Huh?
I say no. He asks why and I, not in the mood to explain the laws of sexual attraction tell him it’s because he’s a Gemini as was my ex husband. Besides my psychic was clear that I was going to marry a water sign and definitely not an air sign. He looks at me like I’m crazy. Good. He can’t argue with crazy AND a psychic prediction can he. Besides I’m closer in age to his daughter than to him. Nah!
LESSONS
I learned a few things from this interaction
1) Always check that there is a real business reason before setting out to East London for coffee
2) If a guy buys you lunch chances are it’s not business.
3) May be worth upgrading from Planet Organic
4) Older men don’t date. They just don’t have the time anymore I guess?
5) Your psychic can also be your best friend.
Luckily he’s taken the news well and now thinks I’m a bit too crazy to be the mother of his children which is fine by me. I just have to find a water sign who loves him some crazy cosmopolitan chick.
© Chelsea Black 2012