Back up

I was in my teens. He was in his thirties. I reached his shoulder. We shook hands when we met and, after our last meeting, he kissed my hand. He’s the only man who swung me around a tree, a la Tarzan, and I was more than happy to be his Jane because it’s not every day that a little Indian girl gets to clutch on to Patrick Swayze (may he rest in peace). Yes, ladies and gents, I have danced with the Dirty Dancer himself. When I read about his passing the other day, I realised just how insidious the impact of bad movie-making is. In my head there rolled a soft-focus flashback of me and Patrick Swayze whizzing around a fake tree in the middle of a film set. Add some falsetto singing and it could be a moment from “Pocahontas”.  This is particularly ironic because I honestly didn’t find him particularly lustworthy. When I met him, I’d been expecting Johnny Castle. Instead I met a man who was blonde, strangely square and much shorter than I’d expected. It was entirely disappointing even though Patrick Swayze was very sweet. After all, he did voluntarily take a hefty teenager in his arms and swing around tree (and only because I’d mentioned how much I envied Tarzan being able to swing from tree to tree). Patrick Swayze remains to this day the most buff man I’ve clutched and I do remember being a little unnerved by how bumpy his muscular body felt. It was a bit like being clasped to a road paved by giant cobblestones. It was at that moment that I decided that never again do I want to meet anyone I have a crush on: I imagine them much better than God or genetics did.