This story is a bit long, but bear with me - its marked a key point in my life.
Its fair to say that the weather here in England at the moment is gorgeous. Okay its summer – which does normally conjure up mental images of bright sunshine, heatwaves and hose pipe bans - but believe me, those things don’t automatically occur here on this Sceptred Isle. But with weather like this I was hardly surprised when, on Sunday morning, I found myself in possession of several invites to impromptu Sunday barbecues from a number of friends, relatives, and business acquaintances.
As is common practice and using the method my dad taught me, I quickly set about filtering down the invites, discounting those from people I didn’t really like or whose spouses hated me. Once this had been done I narrowed down the selection further, ruling out the invitations from those people who I knew where most likely to give me food poisoning or – most importantly – who I owed money too.
Finally out of the vast throng of invites (four) I had narrowed it down to one – GariMate. He could cook, he always had plenty of beer and he owed me a few quid.
In fact, I was just about to ring him up and tell him the good news when suddenly, without warning, I received a text message from GariGirlfriend:
Straight away I sprung into action. Using my superior man-logic skills, I set about decoding the message. Comparing myself in my head to those master code breakers who had tackled Enigma during WW2 I slowly broke through her female encryption:
Quickly I realised that my hopes of a beer and burger with GariMate were now dashed. I had to attend the parents Barbecue and GariGirl knew it. She’d realised the pain/suffering/effort involved for any boyfriend meeting her parents and had precisely calculated when to spring it on me and probably exactly how “grateful” she’d need to be afterwards so that I couldn’t complain.
She’d Won.
Or so she thought. 
You see she’d forgotten that two years earlier I had actually met her father.
Back then (cue shimmery “flashback” effect), before we were dating we’d already been friends at university. After our graduation ceremony, a number of us (with parents in tow) had ended up at a pub until late into the night – I’d met her father and we’d done some serious drinking together and got on like a house on fire.
So I figured that meeting her parents wouldn’t be as painful as she thought. Okay, admittedly things were going to be slightly different this time. When I had last met her father we were just two guys sharing a love of unusual lagers and texas hold ‘em poker. Now of course, he would see me as the guy who was shagging his precious only daughter. Understandably that was going to affect his impression of me.
Hopefully though, as long as I had my answers well prepared and didn’t do anything too stupid, this would be a relatively painless meeting and I’d actually be getting MORE of a reward that night than I’d actually earned.
Woohoo! 
So smug in this knowledge, I set out on my journey. We met – as planned – at Waterloo East. She pretended she was sorry for springing this on me and promised, again, to reward me later. In turn, I told her I didn’t mind and that this wasn’t a big thing (whilst making it clear that it was through my body language) and we boarded the train to Dartford – a nice empty carriage at the front of the train so, she told me, we’d be nearer the exit at Dartford Station.
As the train slowly pulled out of Waterloo, I thought through my automatic answers again and secretly and smugly congratulated myself on my secret victory over her attempt to manipulate me.
Ten minutes later she sprung her trap.
“So tell me about your previous girlfriends.”
For a second I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think and I couldn’t move. I glanced around looking for an escape, for some reason not to answer - but she’d picked her ground carefully. The carriage was empty and the train was already moving. I turned this way and that, desperately seeking some escape like a fish caught on a fishing line.
But there was none. I vainly hoped that this was a spur of a moment thing, that I could still wrangle my way out of it…
But then I saw her face. The cool calculating look, the slight smug up-turn of the lips and the finger slowly playing with her hair in a deceptive act of nonchalance told me everything I needed to know in an instant.
She’d known I’d met her father before. She’d known I’d been avoiding talking about myself for months. She’d known that I’d never talk if others were around or if I could escape somehow. She’d also got me so focused on building defences against her parent’s questionning that I had none built which could protect me from her.
This had been her plan all along.and she had completely, conclusively and utterly beaten and manipulated me.
Coolly and calmly she interrogated me, as if working through a list of pre-arranged and carefully thought out questions in her head. I told her about my previous girlfriends. I told her how I’d felt about them all – which ones I’d “loved” and which ones I’d merely dated. I told her about my family and agreed to her suggestion that she meet my parents. With a final flourish she even managed to get me to agree that I needed to take her away to prague.
Dazed and broken I answered everything. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t fight her. I was a pathetic, confused beaten mess. The sheer breathtaking beauty of her plan and its perfect execution even prevented me from being angry with her.
In that moment I knew exactly who was the boss in our relationship – no matter what I thought.
The meeting with the parents went fine, and she was certainly very grateful that night but that changes nothing.
I may only be 22 but I have learnt a harsh lesson and I will bear the scars of that lesson for life.
I know my place now. I acknowledge the superiority of Women.
Garius
