The real dirt on China Dirt

Someone blogged about me over at China Dirt, but their "version" of the story gets crucial details wrong. So here's what really happened:

Yesterday, I met a girl. Not in a bar, not in a club, not somewhere sleazy. We met at 798. I'm giving out this detail to indicate why I was more receptive than usual to chatting with this girl since we weren't in a cheapie, hookup joint. She seemed nice so I agreed to meet her that evening for a quick drink at Centro. Ok, not the most creative location but hey, it's a "signal" kind of place. If a girl agrees to meet later at Centro, you know it's a sure thing. If she wants to meet elsewhere, you know you've got a bit more work to do to land that fish. (Hey, when you're horny, any bit of fluff looks beddable!)

I paid for the first round of martinis, of course. Girls may pretend to be modern, but they always seem to wait until the second round to do the "dutch" thing, and sure enough, she insisted on covering the second round. "Ah, you Western girls," I said appreciatively in my northern European accent, hoping to make up for my bad English with sincere compliments. "Nice to be out with a girl who can treat me." She smiled, pleased.

Two martinis for each of us later, the mood was relaxed and the chat was getting flirtatious. But it was a work night so around midnight, I indicated that I was ready to go home. "Your place or mine?" I asked, leaning closer.

She moved away as if she'd been burnt. "I'm going home to sleep."

"Sure you are," I laughed and winked.

"No, really."

I was a bit shocked. Talk about mixed signals! Women want men to read their minds, to not have to ask, there we were at the Centro after some fine conversation and some excellent beverages, and she was going home alone!

She seemed to realise something was wrong. "Now I bet you think I'm one of those 'damn hardass Western girls'" she said, mocking my accent and sentence structure.

Suddenly I snapped back to where we were. Oh yeah, in China. Nowhere else can a sophisticated evening with someone, where you get seven different kinds of come-on, end with basically an accusation of pre-meditated sexual harassment.

If "hardass Western girl" means that you react angrily to a hint of a one-night stand, if you haven't yet learnt the art of polite refusal to a very low-key and no-pressure suggestion, then, yeah, I guess that's what she was.