20 hours with an Irishman

It's Monday morning, and I should be working.

I should be blogging about the exhibition opening I attended on Friday night (A Constructed World's idiosyncratically wonderful Increase Your Uncertainty at ACCA), or the somewhat subdued opening night of the play I went to thereafter (Hoy Polloy's production of Irish playwright Conor McPherson's Shining City). I could blog about the excellent Is Not magazine's second birthday party, which I attended on Saturday night as Miss Libertine, or the fun I had hanging out at Murmur that same evening, celebrating MsKP's 30th birthday in the company of many excellent bloggers and other peeps.

But no. I'm going to blog about the bloke I went home with on Saturday night, instead.

So there I am, happily tipsy after a cocktail, an absinthe and a couple of champagnes, leaning against a wall at Miss Libertine, happily surveying the crowd in the courtyard and thinking about nothing in particular, when a drunken brogue mutters, "You're that bloke what runs Q + A. I like what you're doing with MCV as well," into my ear.

Somewhat startled, I turn and see a stocky, dark-haired Irishman looking at me very intently, albeit somewhat blurrily. Very handsome in a scruffy sort of way (which is, you might have guessed, exactly my type - I don't go for show ponies). We talk. His mate turns up, who doesn't know that Mr Irish is bisexual, so I obfuscate. I'm not, at this stage, planning anything other than a conversation. But perhaps the half-a-pill I was given earlier has given me confidence, because out of the blue, I ask Irish if he wants to come home with me. To my surprise, he says yes.

We walk, we talk, we fall into bed and immediately both fall asleep. In the morning - and the afternoon - there are cuddles and conversations but, surprisingly, no sex, which suddenly seems unimportant. It's as if we've cut straight to the post-orgasmic afterglow and the 'getting to know you' sharing of intimacies instead of all that sweaty, awkward, first time fumbling. We sleep some more, talk some more, touch some more. Repeat. Rise at 2.20pm.

We walk into town. I decide to skip the debut performance by the Melbourne Complaints Choir. We have lunch instead, in Chinatown, then a drink afterwards. There is a sense of easy rapport with this man. We go back to his place in the city. We open a few beers and he plays me some of his favourite bands. We talk more, about films and relationships and moments of pure joy. He says he's not really looking for anything serious at the moment. I tell him I'm definitely on the market.

It's 7pm by now. Out for another bite to eat, then into the Exford Hotel for Guinness and cider and sitting at the bar listening to a covers band and talking some more, and laughing, and drinking, and then back to his place again.

At 10.30pm he walks me a couple of blocks to Spring Street so I can catch a tram and we kiss goodbye. I press my business card into his hand and ask him to call me. I hope he does. I'd like to see him again.