Almost after the first date, Spring was busy trying to plan the second. Initially, we had settled for a film. Spring, after all, was incredibly intent on watching the latest masterpiece from the director behind Your Name and Weathering with You: Suzume no Tojimari. Unfortunately, the date for when it would arrive on western shores was still a little far off. And so, Spring scrambled to find a replacement film for the two of us to watch in an attempt to keep the time between the first meetup and a second date shorter than three to five months. A considerable period of time – especially if one is hoping to pursue the hope of something romantic.

At first, he suggested Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. A film I had already watched recently with a work colleague in the best (and most expensive) way possible. Yes, that’s right dear readers. I spent $44 to be pampered in Gold Class with its reclining seats and food deliveries! 

Was it a ridiculous waste of money? 

Yes. But it was a nice enough novelty to experience at least once in my life.

But was Spring going to cough up that kind of cash for a unique experience? Hell no!

Running out of options, he then wondered perhaps if we ought to go for karaoke instead. A sudden change from what would have been an innocuous movie outing. Annoyed at his inability to stay the course, I sternly chided him on his decision to switch to karaoke with just two people AND while only on the second date when we were still testing the waters.

It didn’t help that I could already predict the songs he would be selecting. And I did not relish having a sober karaoke session with a man that was already giving me bad vibes. Especially when it seemed that all he wanted out of a relationship was a female version of himself.

That, and the fact that he thought it was a sign of old age to just ‘listen to the radio’ instead of throwing up Spotify to listen to his curated playlist. Reading that text message, dear readers, was enough for me to roll my eyes at the inanity of his ‘observations.’ 

Let it be known here and now that I’ve been listening to the car radio for as long as I can remember. Was 5-year-old Kyndaris ‘old’ because I hadn’t been able to listen to anything except the radio and was unable to put music that I was interested in?

Realising his faux pas, Spring then tried to backtrack, racking his brain for any film that would entertain. But rather than pick a date and review what might be available during those times, he just offered up Black Adam – a film that he had already seen and was about to end its run in cinemas. So, I pivoted to a few other films by checking to see what was available in cinemas in the back half of November. The Menu and Matilda: The Musical were the ones I selected as being the best choices from the paltry selection available. At least for the day that we finally settled on to go on our second date.

Spring was picky about that too. He had hoped for a weekend, but being the busy little bee that I was, I couldn’t find time to cater to his request on the weekend that Matilda: The Musical was showing in cinemas. I did offer up a Thursday but Spring didn’t want to go out on a work night. This was despite the fact that he wanted a Monday date when he had just got back from Europe and therefore had plenty of free time.

In the end we opted for a Friday.

But I still feel obliged to say my piece: Mate, I’m sorry but the world does not revolve around you! And just because I’m ‘flexible’ doesn’t always mean that your ‘preferences’ will come first. Please think about what might be convenient too for other people or compromising should schedules potentially clash!

As you can see, dear readers, Spring had certainly pressed a few of my buttons. And not in a good way.

So, finally after settling for a date on a Friday to watch Matilda: The Musical (Spring was keen to tell me that he had watched two other musicals before. Never, of course, at the theatre, but film versions. Grease and possibly Hairspray? I can’t remember the second one he mentioned), we set up a time to meet up on the day. 

Unfortunately for Spring, bad traffic on the way home meant he was running a little late. By the time he had arrived, I’d purchased a few cheese tarts for my family and already had the movie tickets in my wallet, ready to whip them out as soon as we were asked to show them for entry.

Although he was late, we were still able to sneak in a quick dinner at Sushi Rio located close to the cinemas without cutting too much into the viewing time of the film. After all, there’s always 20-30 minutes of advertisements now before the feature. 

As we were eating our plates of sushi, I happened to glance to my right  and saw a friend and her boyfriend also indulging in a few plates of sushi after a shopping adventure for anime figurines. On the premise of just checking the time, I’d subtly texted her. To my dismay, he was not one to check her phone messages. And seeing that my message had gone unread, I then tried desperately to remain unnoticed. A very difficult feat because, mind you, this was at a sushi train and I had to look in their general direction to see what delectable sushi I might pluck off the conveyor belt. And they were less than ten metres away. 

Suffice it to say, my efforts were in vain.

After they had finished their meal, they approached and said ‘hi.’ Embarrassed a little that I’d been caught on one of my many ‘dates’ to find the one, I don’t recall if I introduced Spring. I do think I might have mentioned that the two of us were watching a film but I didn’t want to exactly define our relationship as yet. In my head, after all, I knew it wouldn’t go much further than this second date if I had any say in the matter.

So, after a brief catch-up chat with the friend and her boyfriend, Spring and I headed into the cinemas to watch Matilda. 

And I’ve got to say, it was an excellent film. While people online have compared it the 1996 classic starring Danny DeVito and Mara Wilson, this was a beast of a different nature. it was an adaption of the stage musical, which was itself an alternate interpretation of the novel by Roald Dahl. The musical itself had visited Sydney a few times though I hadn’t been able to catch it live.

But from the opening number, you could see that it was meant to be a fun, quirky and magical experience. Although I did feel like Matilda’s precognition abilities were a ham-fisted attempt to provide some backstory for Miss Honey. Honestly, Miss Honey’s parents being an escapologist and trapeze artist was just a little…unbelievable.

Still, I liked many of the songs. Be that: Naughty, When I Grow Up, School Song and Revolting Children.

And even Spring was mightily impressed by the dance choreography. He even said that it was more impressive than the cinematic blow-by-blow of superhero films because of all the editing tricks and the green screens. Gosh, my dear readers, wait until he sees musicals live on the stage! Then he’d be really blown away!

Okay, that was probably a little unfair on Spring, but I was already tired of his ‘gosh, work sucks’ attitude and ‘I’m surrounded by such normie work colleagues’ chatter. It just seemed like he simply wasn’t interested in getting to know those around him on a human level. Rather, he’d write them off as one-note side characters in his main story life.

It was honestly not the best experience to see how callous and ego-centric he saw the world. And while he might have explored more of the world than an ex-friend of mine, the narrow way that they perceive the outside world was just tiring to endure. All of ‘his’ observations were apparently new and sudden and unique. No one else was singing his song. And oh, how wonderful would it be if he could just find someone that could like what he liked.

Did I mention that one of the people he dated was someone I knew at university? No? Well, there you have it.

And I’m not sure if it was a red flag or a green flag.

Regardless, when we went our separate ways at the train station after the film, we exchanged a few messages afterwards about the fact that common sense is no longer really ‘common’ anymore and that was about it. I’m not sure who ghosted who but at least it was a mutual one.

And thank goodness for that.