Em Rusciano is finally ready to tell this story. Prepare yourselves.

I think there has finally been enough space and time from this event, for me to finally tell you all about it.

Trust me, I’ve been bursting to. As it was happening, I suppressed an urgent need to excuse myself from the situation and write this very post.

Also the person involved has moved overseas… And they don’t have the internet there, right?! Right.

A while back, I briefly felt I should maybe try dating – in an attempt to get over my marriage finishing up.

I have seen the light now and have vowed to be alone and tend to my chooks until the end of time. I will never date again. But at the time, I was feeling brave and frisky. I had had a few dinner dates and then liked one man enough to progress to an at-home DVD date.

This was next level stuff, y’all. I even went to the trouble of shaving down (like a greyhound preparing for her next race. Wait, do greyhounds shave down? I’ve never seen a bald greyhound? You get the drift though).

I did the matching underwear thing and sprayed perfume on my hard to reach areas. I even checked my nipples for the presence of bubes. (That’s boob pubes for the ill informed.)

I had generously allowed him to pick the movie and vowed to myself that I wouldn’t judge him on his choice. This excluded snuff movies, hardcore porn or anything starring Rob Schnider – I simply could not transcend negative evaluation of the bloke, should any of the above occur.

And then…. it turned out that the DVD he presented me with was much, much worse.

As I had not seen this particular film and only had the title to go by, I initially thought it sounded fun!

I imagined a fantasy movie, I pictured a heroine with billowing golden hair and a most excellent velvet frock. I felt a white horse with equally luscious follicles would be involved in the on screen drama. Possibly a handsome man and definitely a few sassy woodland creatures.

I deduced all of this from the title of the DVD, which was: Requiem for a Dream. I mean, it had the word “dream” in it!

For those of you who HAVE seen this film, I imagine you’ve had some sort of violent physical reaction to me revealing the movie title that he had chosen for our date.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, allow me to give you a brief synopsis.

Starring Jared Leto and Jennifer Connolly, Requiem for a Dream is  the delightful (read: catastrophically horrific) story of four addicts.

Their problems range from hard drugs to game shows. Over the course of the film the characters’ lives slowly decent into shit.

I mean it, there is no happy ending: this film starts bad and ends even worse. The final 10 minutes is THE MOST TRAUMATIC passage of film in the history of the world ever.

SPOILER ALERT:

Jared Leto’s character is having his needle-track-ridden arm sawn off, while Jennifer Connolly’s character is forced to have anal sex with a very frightening lady and her giant double ended dildo. This is phased in and out with the other main character stuck in prison, inexplicably mixing mashed potatoes in a giant pot.

Then we cross to Jared’s character’s elderly mother (who is the game show addict) getting electric shock therapy. Back to Jarred who is completely sans arm, then flash to mash potato guy spewing into the pot and then EVERYONE IS DEAD.

After the movie finished we sat there in a strange silence; I felt shellshocked. There is no other way to put it. I felt raw, frightened and damaged. This is not one of those movies that you can move on from once the credits start to roll.

I didn’t know what to say, as the situation was approaching a level of weirdness even I had never encountered.

But then, as I glanced over at my DVD-watching date, I saw something. Something that took the evening completely into wrongtown.com.

How do I put this delicately? He was at attention. He was wooded. He was aroused.

Oh God, there was a party in his pants, all up in his junk, and I was the guest of honour.

What the actual what? I mean the cinematography WAS beautiful but really? This is what got him going?!

Guys, I realise I haven’t dated since the late 90s and might not be up with what’s happening these days.

But that’s not cool, right?

Why did this bloke felt that this was the kind of movie we should be watching together?  I mean, I wasn’t expecting The Notebook but surely something like Empire Records or, I don’t know, any other movie that didn’t involve the forceful removal of limbs, anal rape or spewing into mashed root veggies.

Am I looking too deeply into this? Was he just trying to widen my cinematic experiences or is he a potential serial killer that has a woven coat hidden away somewhere that is made from strands of my hair?

I made a graceful exit: “Something something, I think I may need deep psychological therapy after this, something, something, I’ll call you.”

Anyway, funny slash disturbing stuff hey?

Needless to say that is the last time I bothered with the dating caper.

Imma just focus on dating myself… Yes, I actually hate myself with the blinding rage of 1000 burning-in-hell suns for writing that last part. Who actually says that? “Dating myself”. What a dickhead! But I’m still going to stick with it.

From your friendly spinster pal,

Em

What’s the worst movie you’ve ever watched on a date? Or your worst dating story in general – we’re open minded here!