This is a ridiculous story about the only time I approached a girl. She was an angel,
but then everything went to hell!
About 15 years ago, I was a recruit in the police academy. It was a pretty boring life,
but one day I was in the cafeteria just returning some dirty dishes and then I locked eyes with
a beautiful girl who I noticed was speaking Japanese with her friend. I had just returned
from living in Japan, so my Japanese was pretty on point. I normally would never approach girls,
but I found her fascinating. As I approached, her friend walked off to give us some space,
and I started speaking to her in Japanese. Based on her looks and demeanour, I guessed that her
mother was Japanese. I could only speak to her for a few minutes as I had to go to my
next class. She was adorable, and I could tell immediately that she was interested in me as well.
So after a couple of minutes, I told her I had to go to my next class. I knew she was only here
temporarily as she was a trainee detective from another city, but despite me having
the courage to approach her, I just couldn’t build up the courage to ask her out on a date,
or to give her my number or whatever. So I bid her farewell and walked off. But as I did,
I turned around to look back at her, and there she was still staring at me. Then suddenly,
she got up, ran towards me, and asked me if I’d like to go into the city that night with
her and a few of her colleagues. I hesitated a moment. You see, my gut instinct was telling
me that this was probably a bad idea. I don’t normally like groups. I started having feelings
of dread. I was a bit hesitant going into the city with a group of people I didn’t really know,
but I somehow convinced myself that she was worth it. The academy can be a rough place, but she was
like a rare glistening diamond. As I was standing there lost in my own thoughts, she said, “So,
are you coming?”, and I replied, “Sure, that would be great!”. She gave me the time and the place and
then smiled at me and walked off. In hindsight, I should have trusted my gut and never gone.
Anyway, five o’clock came around, so I got off work, went upstairs,
had dinner and got ready. I was to meet her downstairs outside the parking garage at 6:30.
6:30 came round and I headed down and saw that there were five other males
milling about. They had already started drinking and were kind of acting stupid,
but I played along and was friendly enough with them. They all turned out to be trainee
detectives. I was the only regular police recruit. Then out of the corner of my eye,
I noticed the girl walking out of the nearby building and she looked absolutely stunning.
All the others stood there gaping at her, and then she said in a very thick Australian accent,
“Come on you dickheads. Get in the car!”. I quickly realised there were no other females
coming along. I also realised that I had never heard her speak English before. She
went from being a kind, gentle, softly-spoken, reserved Japanese girl (in my mind at least),
to this Aussie bogan. I thought, perhaps she was just putting it on for her mates.
Anyway, as she was the only one who hadn’t started drinking already,
she was the designated driver and drove the van into the city. All the guys were being idiots,
and she was kind of playing along as well. It was like I was going on a road trip with
a bunch of high school students. I was 28 by the way, and I guess she was probably around the same
age. Some of the detectives were in their late 30s or 40s I suppose. She didn’t speak one word
of Japanese in the car — fair enough. It was hard to talk over all the rowdy blokes anyway.
We finally arrived in the city and she had already booked a table at a
restaurant-cum-night club. After sitting down, one of the blokes ordered a round of Sambuca shots,
which we quickly downed, although I noticed she wasn’t drinking, which was good, because
I normally didn’t drink either. But obviously, as the designated driver, she wasn’t drinking anyway.
So after their shots, all the guys got up and went off to the dance floor. I was hoping that
she would stay at the table and chat with me for a while, but instead she asked if
I could mind the table while they were all off dancing. Of course I said, “No problem”.
About an hour went past and I was bored silly. I was still waiting for them to come back from
dancing, but they didn’t. So I grabbed a reserve sign and stuck it on our table,
got up, and went out to look for them. I finally found them on one of the dance floors, and there
she was completely sober, dirty dancing with these drunk idiots. I thought, “What the f*** is going
on here? Is this some sort of joke?”. I mean, she was such a nice girl when I first met her. She
was almost timid and serene. She was the complete opposite to everyone else I knew at the academy,
but here she was dirty dancing with some 40-year-old men. I thought to myself, I can’t
just let this go on, I mean, for my own sanity. So I went up to her and spoke to her in Japanese,
“Why don’t you come back and we’ll chat at the table?”. She replied in Japanese and just said,
“Oh sorry, I’m still dancing. You’re welcome to join us if you like”. I just told her that
I’m not really into dancing and that I’d wait for her back at the table.
So I went back to the table and waited for another hour or so. Finally they all came back. The blokes
were fully drunk by this point and started hugging me and so on. She was just laughing.
We had another round of Sambucca shots (my second drink for the night), and then they all decided
that the best course of action was to go back out on the dance floor. The girl told me in a thick
Aussie accent again, “You don’t mind watching the table again, do ya?”. I just told her in Japanese,
“I’m heading back to the academy”. And then she said in English, “Oh well, your loss!”,
and then she walked off and started dirty dancing with the drunken idiots again.
I decided to save myself the expensive taxi fare and walked back to the academy instead.
It took me the good part of three hours in the middle of the night to get back,
but I just didn’t care. I was hoping to bump into some thugs who wanted to pick a fight,
but it never happened. Everyone I encountered on the footpath gave me a wide berth. I
think they could see the fury in my eyes. While I was walking, I thought to myself,
“What a f***ing joke that night was!”. I couldn’t believe that she had started out as this gentle,
charming, softly-spoken angel, and then transformed into this loudmouth, uncouth,
graceless Aussie bogan, basically. It’s like she didn’t even want to know me.
I get it, she had to act a certain way in front of her police mates. Police are expected to act
fairly tough. But come on! She knew I wasn’t like that when we first spoke with each other in the
cafeteria. She clearly was attracted to me at the start because I wasn’t the normal loudmouth
dickhead. But when we went out that night, she didn’t even seem to want to meet me halfway.
The following week was her last week at the academy. I bumped into her a couple of times,
but she just didn’t seem interested. Instead, she just continued playing the fool with her
boofhead detective mates. None of it really surprised me I suppose. I’m never any good
with groups of people, especially people I don’t know. I suppose I was hoping that
she would spend the entire night talking with me. I was hoping it would be a match made in
heaven. And that ended up being my downfall. Whenever I have these great expectations,
everything crashes down around me. I still don’t know what was going through her head. In the end,
it just doesn’t matter I suppose. I learnt from it. I learnt that I
should always trust my gut. The moment she asked me to go into the city with her mates,
was the moment I knew that I shouldn’t. Anyway, I’ve learnt my lesson and I’ve moved on.