Lethargic Girl In Love

Go girl. That's what it's all about these days isn't it? Girls going out, girls going up, girls going for gold, girls going down... on boys.

Maybe if I classify my desperate need to remain stationary as rebellion against the women's movement I won't feel so lazy?

My name is Danni and I'm tired. I have been infected by an insidious disease, which knows no cure, no known cause, no particular victim. It just is. Yes friends, I'm talking about lethargy. I'm sick of going. I want to go home. Go to sleep. Go bye byes. I want to be a chain-smoking, peace loving, rastafarian blues singer. I want to take over the world, one nap at a time.

But I didn't always use to be this way. Just nine months ago I was glowing with vibrance and youth, like all women do in the first flushes of love.
His name, was Jacob.

Picture this: A very grubby bar, complete with the black pool tables that used to be green, the cigarette burns in your jacket within five minutes of walking in the door, the floor that sticks to your shoes like velcro.
I soberly obtain drinks orders from my two very pissed friends, and make my way to the bar, pondering the drink that would be most likely to get me drunk by the time I returned to the table.

And then I see him.

He glows in the green light of the Midori sign, avoiding eye- contact with the people he's serving, nodding his head to the music like theres something he knows about it that we don't. Dark eyes. Brown hair that's almost to styled for the bar that he works in. Thick arms shining under his dirty coopers t-shirt. I slide my $20 note over the sticky bar and play with my necklace, catching my relection in the glass behind the bar. The almost offensively sexy bar girl catches my eye but he gets to me first, and nods impatiently.

"Three vodka tonics please."

He looks sulkily at me for a minute, and I smile. He smiles back. I grab my vodkas and run.

Later in the night, after numerous trips to the bar (by my friends) I'm chain-smoking to The Killers and The Cure, trying to convert my 'Video Hits' style dance moves into the more alternative, jerky style of my surrounding dancers. The friend I've chosen to bond with on this particular night is Skye, of the vodka variety. Having been convinced by my roasted friends that my stone-pipe jeans, newly straightened red hair, and green eyeliner are all working a treat, my (Skye)high self- consciousness finally bids me adieu, and I sidle snake-like up to the bar. My Priceline club-card with name and phone number scrawled on it in hand, I ascertain from the glassy that the 'tall one' aka Jacob, is on his break,and is currently sitting at the tables in the front. I give the glassy a confident smile and return to my friends on the dance floor.

Jude waves her cigarette in the air in an act of confusion.

"What did he say?"

"He's on his break."

"Lets go find him!" She trills, excited by the prospect of a new mission.

"Yeh, less find im" my other friend Jess agrees, with somewhat less conviction. She has become somewhat too intimate with another good friend of ours, Jim Beam this evening, but I am proud of her ability to still follow the gist of a conversation.

We stumble off the dance floor, Jess sending what she believes to be, sexy, come hither smiles to each male she passes.

"Mebe hes in the toilet?" She drawls to me and Jules, "Iss that him?" she continues, pointing to a young girl of about fifteen puking into her friends hair outside the loos.
We choose to ignore her and continue to trawl the packed bar. Jules spots a guy she knows from work and we stop suddenly, nearly losing our drinks in the process.

And suddenly, like a song from the dirty dancing soundtrack, I see him.

Leaning casually back in his chair, holding his cigarette in thumb and forefinger like a gangster, he laughs at something the guy sitting with him says and watches the people on the dance floor. I stand casually, smoking and pretending to listen to Jess's rambling monologue about groupies, while plotting my next move. I vaguely hear Jess say something about 'fucking leotards' and then suddenly I see her making her way over to his table. They arent close enough for me to hear what shes saying, but just before they all turn to look at me I hear the words 'Isnt she hot?' and see Jess openly spitting all over them in her haste to get the words out before I storm over there and kill her.

I'm just about to turn around and run in complete mortification when he catches my eye, smiles, and leans over to Jess. Shes too busy rummaging through his jacket pockets to notice what hes saying, but I watch, horrified, as he makes his way over to me.

He stops in front of me, looking me up and down, and takes a slug from his beer bottle.

"Are you as drunk as your friend over there, or do you really want to have my babies and publish our family photos in Myers catalogues?"

I smile inanely and fold my arms so my boobs look bigger.

"She did not say that" I protested, trying not to notice as Jess and Jules made obscene gestures at me from behind his back.

"That's a ahame, he grinned, I actually came here in the hope that I'd find the future mother of my children."

We were drunk. We were sarcastic. I was in love.

Which brings me to my current state of under-whelmed melancholy. Lying, coma-like under my quilt in the loungeroom. Ashtray full of Port Royal hand-rolled cigarettes. Gloriously straight chestnut hair reduced to Medusa- like mass of brown coils. Unplugged phone due to repeated calls from somewhat miffed work colleagues. I'm like an elderley dog with arthritis; a rebel without the energy (and/or cause.)

Sure, I could tell you about the special times we spent together. I could go into voracious detail about our backroom sexual exploits, our three weeks of long-term love declarations. I could write a long, detailed account of the demise of our torrid love affair, but unfortunately, the true story just isn't that interesting. After a few weeks, he just kind of stopped calling. Only answered text mesages if they included a friendly, unconcerned question, eg 'how's work going?'

He just kind of stopped caring really. But hey, this happens all the time right? I'm a modern girl in a modern world, so why am I bothered by yet another anti-climatical romance?

It might be ok if I was suffering from the usual reppercussions of good love gone bad, like crying, eating too much, and burning photos of him at one o clock in the morning. But I can't be bothered with all of that. I'm to tired. He was a pretty laid-back kind of guy, maybe I've been infected by a deadly strain of apathy?

I must find out what has gone wrong. Maybe I'll just have a little rest first though.

Three hours later my phone rings, and I answer to the sound of r 'n'b music and hysterical laughter.

'Danni! COME OUT!" Jess screams out of my Nokia.

I look at the clock. I look at my clothes. I check my frozen limbs for signs of atrophy.

"Where are you?"

Some time, and many drinks later, my old girl Skye and I are back on track. My haze of indecision is now a voluntary, alcohol-fuelled state. I am at one with the clubbing community.

As I sway next to the bar and try to decide between another drink or a smoke, Jules waves me over to the packed dance floor.

"Danni, check that guy out, isn't he hot?"

I follow her line of sight to the center of the dance floor, where a group of cocky, over-groomed guys are standing.

And then I see him.

Tall. Ropy and with a slight stoop. Dirty blonde hair and the straightest, biggest teeth Iv'e ever seen. Jules waves at the group and I catch his eye. One of his mates says something to him and they make their way over to the bar near us while we pretend not to notice them. I can see him trying to catch my eye while he's standing at the bar, and not long after he appears next to me and hands me a vodka and tonic.

"I'm sober" I smile, cheekily.

"Lucky i just dropped that pill in your drink then." He replies, straight faced.

We were sarcastic. We wee drunk. I was in love.