The Date With The Swedish Backpacker.

Waiting to board their flight home from the big smoke, the MDM was not surprised when she turned around to find her mother engaged in deep discussion with a complete stranger. Her lack of surprise has formed over many years of witnessing this type of behaviour which, in all honesty, is quite the opposite to which the MDM would generally exhibit. Indeed, the MDM, upon noticing the interaction, rolled her eyes and inwardly cringed at the prospect of being drawn into the conversation when all she wanted to do was board the already-delayed flight.

Despite how she felt, the MDM chose instead to smile and engage in said conversation. In the subsequent moments, she discovered that the complete stranger was in fact a quite attractive, single, Swedish backpacker, travelling throughout Australia before completing his postgraduate study in nuclear physics. As you do. Boarding the plane, and genuinely suspecting that this would signify the end of the conversation, the MDM’s thoughts soon shifted from The Swedish Backpacker (TSB) to concentrating on falling asleep before the safety demonstration.

The aeroplane, however, had other ideas, and to cut a very long and arduous story short, after sitting on the tarmac for well over an hour, the MDM, her mother, TSB and all the remaining passengers had to disembark and re-board a different plane. (Evidently it’s much better to be safe, than take off with “technical difficulties”, albeit if one is delayed several hours.) During the re-boarding, TSB struck up conversation with the MDM and her mother once again. Again, cutting short a long story, the MDM and her mother ended up dropping TSB at a backpacker’s on their way home, taking a half an hour detour to do so.

As one does in contemporary society, TSB was keen to befriend the MDM on a popular social networking site in order to “stay in touch”. The MDM agreed to this, and the following day was rather surprised to receive a message from TSB, insisting that he come to visit as he had left his hat in the MDM’s car. Once again, for brevity’s sake, the MDM shall henceforth skip some of the peripheral details that ensued throughout the week, with one exception: the MDM was left in no doubt as to TSB’s intentions after receiving another message which ended with the ubiquitous symbol:

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The bottom line is this: yesterday, the MDM and TSB spent the day together. This definitely classifies as a date, albeit an unsuccessful one. Despite TSB being quite attractive, clearly displaying an intriguing intellect, and having that inherent desirable quality that arises from simply being foreign, the MDM soon discovered a lack of connection and chemistry on many other levels. In addition, to be frank, the maturity level of TSB did not quite match that of the MDM.

But, dear readers, please do not feel sorry for the MDM, nor pity her. She thoroughly enjoyed the day, and notwithstanding her initial reaction to TSB at the airport, very much enjoyed getting to know him. Indeed, although this date did not quite work out, the MDM has decided that she might choose her mother as a travelling companion more often…