Wannabe Casanovas
I met a guy. Six three-ish, blonde, gorgeous blue eyes. Casually devastating.
We put him on camera. He looked into the lens, gave it a smouldering look, and told it solemnly, “I love you.” To a camera. When you played the film back though it suddenly wasn’t an inanimate object he was speaking to, it was you. You felt like it was real, you felt like all he wanted to do was rip your clothes off and show you just how much he loved you.
That sums him up. He’s attractive in the classically perfect way. When you separate each feature off they’re good, but when combined it’s magnetic. Basically he’s just sexy as hell. But his appearance, while gorgeous, has absolutely nothing on his personality. He’s a man who’s turned charming women into a true art form. The guy does lines, looks, and even the whole knight in shining armour thing to the many women who fall at his feet and happily turn themselves into distressed damsels for his attention.
But it’s to the camera. Every woman is that lens- inanimate. He wants us, he thrives on our attention, and he needs us. He’s a guy who needs women. As in the plural sense rather than singular. He knows what it takes and he does it, but he never does it because he feels like it’s the right thing to do, it’s just there as a ploy to get us. He’ll tell you he loves you, and the only response can be, “Oh yeah? Like hell you do.” He loves every woman he wants to sleep with, but that won’t stop him leaving the next morning, or later on that night.
And I want him. I want him because I already know all that stuff, he doesn’t hide it, but I want him because I’m still thinking, “what if it’s different with me? What if this time it isn’t the lens he’s speaking to, it’s the person behind the camera?” I’m thinking that somehow I can reform him; somehow he might not break my heart.
It’s stupid. It means that I’ll be just another female in a very long line. And that, inevitably, means that of course I won’t reform him, others couldn’t, I’m not going to bring any new ideas to the project. So I played it safe. I flirted, I let him play the knight in shining armour and seducer all at once, and I thanked him when he showered me with compliments. I even managed not to laugh when he did the whole “I’m undressing you with my eyes,” look while drawing out “Good evening” for approximately thirty seconds longer than is really required.
I want him. I think it might even be worth it simply for the sex- god knows he’s had enough practice to make it one hell of a ride. But I’m not going to pursue it. I’ll meet up with the safe guy. The guy who won’t fuck with me. The guy I sat with and lost three hours with in a pub in which it’s hard to make three minutes pass quickly. The guy I went out of my way to make arrangements with after flirting with the wannabe-Casanova and then leaving him standing.
I guess I was cruel. He stuck around for me. He made a fairly spectacular effort. But while I’m sitting here thinking, “at least he liked me more than the other girls who were trying to win him,” I’m also thinking that in truth he probably didn’t. I’m just another girl, so yeah he definitely tried, but he’s tried for so many others, there isn’t anything that makes me special. He’s too practiced, too sure. So yes, I was a little cruel, but if I hadn’t been then I would have slept with him.
It’s nice to think that after that I’d have gone to work the next day and seen him leave without any regret. It’s nicer to think that he would have wanted more and that it would have been longer than one night. But nice isn’t real. He wouldn’t have left a number, and I would have been miserable, pathetic, and worse: used.
But still he’s the one with longevity, if only in my memory. I may not have left with him, but the one I did leave with didn’t come home with me. One was nice, but the other was electric. I’ll see nice on Friday, but it’s electric who’s been giving me such vivid dreams.
