Persistence and unwanted visits

I saw an old friend again yesterday. Gareth. He now coaches hockey at the school where I coach netball. I don't actually know if he can be classified as an "old friend" as we never really got around to the friend stage because being friends generally involve having conversations about the weather and about how your day was and what you did this weekend. I don't think "take of your shirt and get over here" can be classified as a conversation.


We met at varsity in Psychology class. He was the one always late for class and not giving a shit if the lecturer gave him the stank face. I think I'm a magnet for those kind of guys. You see: of all the empty seats in the whole room he chose to plunk down next to me; not next to the sexy red head with a sluttish shirt matching her sluttish make-up or the brunette with the I'm-going-to-put-on-my-teacher's-outfit-and-then-spank-you-all-night-long-you-naughty-boy-face. I guess blondes have all the luck.



He always smelled like freshly cut grass and sweat and good times.

"What did I miss?" he asked me the first day he invaded my personal space.
"Invaded" because I put my bag on the seat next to me as soon as I saw him enter the room, but he merely picked it up nonchalantly and put it on the floor next to his shoes.

I didn't bother answering as I didn't feel like drawing any more attention to us and having to answer impossible questions from a spiteful lecturer who knew no one ever prepared for his boring class. I even considered offering to get him laid to just get a reaction out of his sour old prune face.

Gareth didn't stop there. Of course not. He took my notepad and wrote a number on it.

"Call me when you can't handle not being sexually satisfied by your boyfriend anymore."

Not exactly the type you take home and introduce to the family.

I didn't phone him. Of course not! I didn't feel like getting grass burns on my but, because something about the way he walked and the clothes he wore told me he was probably playing some kind of sport.

Just like he ignored the lecturer, he ignored me ignoring him. He started charming my friends who all just fell at his feet with wide spread legs for a single smile from his lips; he even attended my Afrikaans classes even though he was a pure bred English yuppie from Johannesburg who could only say "hallo" and "when do they come out" in Afrikaans; he waited for me at my dorm when I came back late from doing research in the library and that showed true, pure determination because it was so cold I think his penis shrank to the size of a baby carrot.

That determination night after night reminded me of soldiers slugging through muddy waters and without saying a word, I pulled him up by his hand on one of those cold nights and kissed him with my one hand behind his head and my other on his crotch. It didn't take long for us to get in his car where I started taking off one piece of clothing at a time while he tried to keep his right hand and eye on the road and the left hand and eye on me.

His flat was messy with clothes and plates and empty bottles everywhere so we found the only semi clean place there was: the carpet in the passage right next to the front door. After my first "visit" he at least started cleaning up his bedroom as I also didn't sign up for carpet burns.

He played hockey for the varsity (I suspected rugby, but hoped for a guy with more intelligence) and I went to all his games. I used to think hockey was for sissies and desperate boys pumped full of testosterone with a stick trying to make up for their, uhm, inadequacies. Gareth proved me wrong. He was daring, fearless, skilled and smart on the hockey field (in bed as well) and he was a great dancer. His music collection was so different to the image I always had of him before I got to know him; he always listened to the oldies like Sinatra and BB King. Sometimes he would pull me up and just start swaying from side to side, humming along to the tune and never stepping on my toes once.

The whole thing was pretty doomed from the start, I guess. His father passed away and being the eldest son he basically had to take over and run the family business with his mother. I stayed on to do my honors and masters degree and never heard a word from him since. He never really was the "I'll call you" type. That was four years ago.

And now he's here. In my small hometown far away from the hubbub of the city that is Joburg.

I think if I was better prepared it would've been fine, but everyone just talked about the new hockey coach for the first team of next year who used to play for the university nearby and never really saying his name. The ladies were all flustered and blushing just talking about this "catch." Any man that doesn't wear a kaki hat and socks pulled up to his knees with a comb tucked inside is considered a "catch" in this region.

I never pay much attention to the Gossiping Clan and was thus rather shocked when I saw Gareth walking across the rugby field to the netball courts; so shocked in fact that I glanced away for one second and got a ball in the stomach. Not the best feeling with the sore muscles and all from the other day.

There was no reuniting scene like The Lion King because first of all: Gareth was not as hairy as Simba and secondly I hurried the girls into a huddle, had our little cheer and then I quickly moved (not run) to my car and left.


It's not as though we just hit the pause button and all of a sudden we can pick up where we left off. I'm a respectable, grown woman now with common sense. I'm happy with my life, thank you very much.