There’s nothing worse for a girl than to think she’s safe in the knowledge that she’ll never, ever, ever fall for a cricketer or footballer. Enter, stage right, that wretched swine Murphy and his damn Law. Well, your man Murphy and I have quite the history together, and I’m always the loser in this dysfunctional relationship. He seems to enjoy picking up a bat and belting my brains to Sunday with it just when I’m feeling comfortable in life.
As with all things that knock you for six, it happens suddenly and when you least expect it. These are precisely the kinds of situations that I always imagine entertain God in the extreme, and keep Him amused for days, if not months, on end. He and Murphy must be business partners together. I certainly would have found it highly amusing had it happened to somebody else, but since it happened to me, it’s not bloody well funny at all. It’s sheer torture.
I met Mr Wonderful at a dinner, where I sat next to him throughout the evening. The best and worst part of that was that I had no idea who he was when we met. Even though he was there in a professional capacity, he was a very last minute inclusion. I had only been told the barest detail about him about 2 minutes before he walked in the door, and my brain hadn’t really had time to process any of that before we got involved in conversation. I’d never even clapped eyes on him before, let alone see him play. My excuse for that is that the last time I’d seen the team play, he wasn’t in it, and you’ll have already gleaned from previous posts that I’m just not interested in players anyway.
The best part about my appalling ignorance of him was that, because I had no preconceived ideas of what I should expect, conversation came very easily between us, partly because he is just so absolutely delightful there’s no help for it, and also partly because we evidently have loads of things in common. We didn’t really discuss his career, focussing instead on our mutual likes and dislikes, food, travel, fast cars, funny events, famous people we’ve met or would like to meet etc. Had we not been in a room full of people on a school night, I could quite easily have stayed up until sunrise with him without even noticing the time.
He did speak about his career at one point in the evening, although that was directed to everybody in the room rather than to me. I must confess that I wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying, as I was far too engrossed in checking out what he was wearing (I don’t think men truly have an appropriate appreciation of how a woman can sum up anatomical proportion; hair, eye and skin colour and texture; shape of the face, and size of mouth, hands and fingernails; general level of attention to personal hygiene; fabric, texture and exact shade of colour of shirt and pants and whether the belt and shoes complement them; quantum and quality of jewellery, if any, worn with the outfit; and the general ‘aura’ of a man within approximately 0.64 seconds of first looking at him, and then be able to recite, whilst blindfolded, with precision up to .999% accuracy, every detail of what she’s just observed. She will be able to recite such information verbatim for the next 136 years if ever called on it). And before you ask, yes, I can recall every single detail about Mr Wonderful from that night, but am choosing to keep that to myself.
Apart from committing to memory the salient points of this visual feast before me, the other reason why I wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying was that I was desperately trying to stop thinking of how much I’d like to crawl into his lap and bite him on the mouth. It took every shred of self control I possess to actually not do that when he returned to the table. I may be a Good Catholic Girl of solid moral fibre, but I am also neither blind nor in a coma, and he is drop-dead, toss-your-skirt-over-your-head gorgeous. Enough said.
He is seriously the most delightful person I’ve met in a long time, and apparently this opinion was not mine alone. Whilst I was thinking that I was the only person in the room totally in love with him by the end of the evening, apparently he was also impressing quite a few of the older ladies there, some of whom have since commented to me on how fabulous they think he is.
This made me feel so much better, as I’ve been known to be very, very wrong about people on first impression. On the odd occasion I’ve found deeply disturbed sociopaths to be charming and delightful in the beginning, so I’m not confident these days about my judgement calls. A great backup was that my friend Mary-Rita, who was also there that night, and who is always an excellent judge of character, agrees that he’s a lovely person, although she doesn’t quite get why I find him gorgeous. He doesn’t do it for her in the slightest, but that’s perfectly fine with me. Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder, and I do enjoy that what I see in him is not necessarily obvious to others. When I look at him, all I can think of is that a girl would have to be blind, stupid and very possibly in the grave for a year or two not to want to give him a very long, very serious second look. However, as I said, my opinion isn’t shared by some others, who think I have no taste at all except that what’s in my mouth.
What does seem to be obvious about him is that the essence of his character literally jumps out of him from the minute you meet him. I could say that he is gorgeous, kind and seemingly sensitive. Yeah right – he is indeed those things, but so is my dog.
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what made him so attractive to me (apart from the blatantly obvious it would seem). He came across to me as being genuinely grounded, generous, honest, open, friendly and intelligent (always a huge bonus in a professional sportsman, as that trait can never be taken as a given). What was abundantly clear to me from the get-go is that he is professional and completely dedicated to his sport; he has high standards and tries to live up to them always, and he is loyal to his family and friends. I value these qualities very highly in a person. He didn’t have me at hello, but he had me pretty shortly after that (that statement will probably only make sense if you’ve seen Jerry Maguire).
Clearly though, the man isn’t a saint, and I also sensed in him a simmering edgy naughtiness that he wouldn’t necessarily show to many people. I have no doubt whatsoever that he could be a filthy little rodent when he's with his mates doing boy-things. I think the slight glimpse of that flaw was what really caught my attention. I could be completely wrong about this, but I had a very strong feeling that his dark side and my dark side could be almost mirror images. Deeply scary, yet very alluring indeed.
At the end of the evening, I was almost ready to cry at the thought of walking away from him, which I just didn’t want to do. I kissed him goodbye (on the cheek of course), which is not something I’ve ever done before when I’ve met a couple of his team-mates or other people I’ve had to talk with in a similar situation. It surprised the hell out of me that I did it, but I was just so overwhelmed by him that I couldn’t help myself.
I drove home in a cloud for a bit before reality thumped me good and hard. You think Murphy’s Law bites? Well, reality bites too, and a lot harder. Just as I was settling into my romantic (and admittedly impure) thoughts, it hit me like a train. He is a professional sportsman, and I am not a blonde stick insect. Look as long and hard at him as I might – he won’t be looking back at me. Cloud suddenly turns black, and there are tears before bedtime.
God and Murphy have a lot of explaining to do.
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