dr.jekyl

I'm not entirely sure what he, my modern day Mr Jekyl was expecting, but it sure as hell wasn't me.

I wonder if he was expecting me to be taller, blonder, more demure? Thinner? Solemner?
But I am not. I am me. Walking out to meet him in boots and a black coat, curly hair untamed.

I cannot be anyone I am not, nor do I want to be. I have shed skins, moved cities and towns, felt heartbreak and joy and all the while struggling to be myself, to feel comfortable in my skin.

He does not laugh, barks at the waiter and barely smiles. Nurses his one beer then excuses himself to go to the loo when the cheque comes. I peel out crisp notes and lay them on the table, wait too long for change.
When he returns, he makes a half hearted attempt to pay and insists on walking me home. I cannot politely decline, he lives 3 buildings away.

I wonder how I got it so wrong, how I read him. He had seemed charming and witty, pursued me for weeks with emails and phone calls until I was intrigued and agreed to meet him one rainy Sunday evening. Whatever he was expecting from me, it wasn't what he got. And that charming witty man he had earlier impersonated was left safely at home.

A few weeks later I see him in my local chemists, rain soaked and tired with a box of Tampax in my one hand and deodorant in the other. We are all human after all.

And I am human enough to duck down the first aisle and hide. Sometimes Vancouver is just too damned small.