The first date was with a guy named Brad*. He was quintessentially American: tall, tanned, with very white teeth. He told me to meet him at a bar on King Street around 7 pm. It was a particularly balmy night, and despite having showered just an hour before, I was getting sweaty. I was feeling irritable because of the heat and the fact that he was late.
When he arrived, my mood lifted, and we entered the joint. It was full of frat boys and sorority girls, already inebriated, despite the fact they only served Bud Light. Everyone was clad in the orange and purple regalia of the Clemson Tigers, the local college football team. Brad was my age and had graduated some years before, but it was clear he hadn’t gotten over that phase of his life. I found myself wondering if he still had flags up on his bedroom wall in the team colours, and if there was a letterman jacket hung in the wardrobe.
Although it wasn’t necessarily my cup of tea, and Brad wasn’t my usual type, I found the experience eye-opening and rather endearing. After all, when you think of American youths, you no doubt picture this exact scene. The saving grace for me, however, was discovering what he did for a living.
After some time talking about the Tigers and all the sports he enjoyed, Brad finally let slip that he now has a grown-up office job, working in the sales team for a hospitality booking site. I had tried to get into a top-rated Italian restaurant before I arrived in Charleston but had no joy. Might it be possible that Brad could help me get a reservation? Before I knew it, I had unashamedly asked him about the restaurant, and we’d made dinner plans for the next evening.
I awoke the next morning to a message from a different man I’d matched with, asking if I fancied a trip to Folly Beach. Having no car, I was somewhat restricted in terms of getting about and exploring places beyond the centre, so I decided to take him up on the offer.
We had been speaking for about two days prior, and in that time, I had learned that he supported Tottenham Hotspur and had a dog named Toro, or bull – and boy, did it live up to that name. As I walked up the path to his house, the dog came bounding towards me, almost knocking me off my feet. “She’s jealous of other women,” Cameron* informed me, in his unique southern droll.
It did strike me, while sitting in the passenger seat of his rattling car, flying down the freeway, that he might have been an axe murderer. But I reassured myself by thinking about the dog – after all, how many psychopaths do you know who have such an energetic, labrador-coded pooch?
The sea was calm, the sunlight playing hide and seek on its surface, as the gentle ripples became waves on the sandy shore. I took a deep breath and placed my towel down next to his, before shimmying out of my shorts and laying down in my swimming costume, stealing a glance at him as he peeled off his shirt.
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