Monday, 15 October 2012

Dating Mr Vain

When I was in Standard 9 (Grade 11), I was a drummie. I was also dating a guy, whose best friend was Mr Vain. Even though this guy and I broke up, Mr Vain stuck around on the periphery, stopping in to say hi to us girls once in a while. We also share the same birthday, though he’s older, so I would get an annual phone call as well.
 
Anyway, while he was hanging around the drummies, he used to wear cycling shorts – not the long ones, the mid-thigh length ones, and in white. Yes… white. Very Axl Rose! We were also convinced that he stuffed said cycle shorts, my mother included. I have photos of us girls ripping him off by stuffing T-shirts in our pants while doing spring holiday training.

At about the same time, the song Mr Vain by Culture Beat came out and what do you know, we had the perfect poster boy for it! If anyone loved himself and spent hours on his appearance, it was him!

He once entered Mr South Africa. He asked everyone he knew to vote for him. He won the best body section but sadly came last (12 out of 12) in the personality section.

Time moved on and the one day I bumped into him at the gym. He was looking hot. He’d been training hard, tanning, highlighting his hair and had had his teeth fixed. I must admit it was the body that sold me. So we started chatting again. While catching up, I discovered that he was a stripper/male pageant entrant, though he called himself a ‘dancer/model’. His stage name was Tristan Pitt. Yes, Tristan as in Brad Pitt’s character in Legends of the Fall and well, Pitt is pretty obvious. It turns out that depending on who was hot at the time he would try and copy their look… Enrique Iglesias, Ricky Martin, Brad Pitt and so on.  

We then ended up dating for a while. I have to say I was SO curious about whether his pants were actually stuffed or if we were just being bitches. We did the normal dating stuff, around the occasional stripper tour, sorry, ‘dancing tour’. They really toured a lot to fancy places like East London, PE and Bloemfontein… ahhhh, how he loved the life of an ‘entertainer’.

Anyway, one night he invited me over to his place for dinner and a sleep over. My mother was almost as excited as me to find out what was really in his pants! We’re close like that. So off I went, all ready to go. He cooked and burnt Woolworths lasagne. We watched a movie, had a couple drinks and then, it was time!! Just before it came to crunch time and the inevitable pants removal, he sat up and said, “Sorry I can’t do this, I have heartburn.” WTF?? Really? Apparently not even a Rennies could cure it. So that was that, I turned over and went to sleep.

A couple weeks later, all communication suddenly stopped. And when I say stopped it was like he had joined the Amish and disappeared forever. He changed gyms, didn’t answers smses, emails, calls. I thought maybe he had been attacked and kidnapped by a crazed fan (well I hoped so!). So I gave up on that and carried on with things.

At that stage of the social scene, Ladies Night at Bourbon Street on Thursday nights was HUGE! We went every Thursday, drank for free and laughed at the male strippers. I had never seen “Tristan” dance and it really was inevitable that we would cross paths again. Lo and behold, one night we were graced with the dance moves of the Cowboys and Angels, led by Tristan Pitt (backed up by his younger brother – their mother must be so proud!). they danced, we laughed… he took all his kit off, but held a vest or something in front of his (still mysterious) junk. I felt quite nauseous – quite a reality check that! Aaaaand, OVER IT!

A few weeks after that, I bumped into him at gym again. Apparently he disappeared because he didn’t know how to tell me that his dad wanted him to move to Malaysia to run their business there. Really?!? Apparently there were no balls included in that alleged package.

Since then, he still hasn’t won any personality competitions, he’s tried to break into the singing market, both English and Afrikaans and didn’t make it – who can’t make it as an Afrikaans singer?!? I once heard him sing at a fundraising charity fete. I was quite hungover and was suddenly subjected to someone trying to hit Justin Timberlake’s super high notes. It was horrifying! It was Mr Vain. Singing on a stage with no audience. Kinda sad really… My BFF also once bought me his CD for my birthday (she happened to be in the same beauty salon as him). We listened to it at the party and ended up crying with laughter, it was that bad! He now does Verimark and Homemark exercise adverts. Even sadder…

So that is the story of when I once (and only once) dated a stripper. Sorry, I mean ‘dancer’…

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