Yes, the title is ironic.

Guest Post: Lost Hope

Guest Post!

When I first started this blog, my very first follower was Greg, from the excellent blog Greg is Dating. Greg writes about his experience as a European male dating in the USA. It’s essentially a series of hilarious (and sometimes a bit sad) fish out water stories, a bit like Beverly Hills Cop if Axel was chasing skirt instead of drug dealers. Anyway, I asked Greg to write something for me, and I was honoured that he did. Here’s his offering, the epically romantic Lost Hope.

A few days ago, I received an email from Jon of “The Things I’ve Done To Impress Women” fame, asking me to contribute as guest blogger to his tumblr blog. He asked me for: 

Maybe a short anecdote about a particularly disasterous date, or indeed, an example of something grandiose you’ve done to impress a lady?

I thought I should try to meet both those requirements, and really, I am the owner of only one story that could meet such lofty expectations. 

I was still in high school. I was a senior and Hope was a sophomore. In my ignorant, confused, testosterone-pumped, still-adolescent mind, I was convinced I was in love with her. I have to point out, I was not only a complete tool back then, I was also still a virgin, and completely clueless about girls. I only had 1 girlfriend before that, and might had kissed one other girl, if memory serves correctly. 

I mean, my grand idea of how to impress Hope was to cold-ask her to be my girlfriend. When bluntness didn’t work (shocking, right?), I resolved to woe her with my romantic nature, so I found out where she lived and sent 31 beautiful red roses to her home. I was sure that at the very least that would get her attention. And it did, but not only her attention, but also that of her parents, who turned out to be extremely strict and grounded Hope for a month for flirting with boys. The next day, an upset and almost tearful Hope begged me to leave her alone and stop getting her into trouble.

And I did leave her alone. I never went through with my next big scheme, which was to write a poem for her and give it or read it to her at an opportune time. What I mean to say is, I had already written the poem, I just never went ahead with the second part of the plan, respecting Hope’s wishes. 

But a month or so later, we were given a poetry assignment in Language class and, not feeling much like doing my homework, I decided to submit my love poem instead. What was the worse that could happen? The only one who would read it would be my teacher, and I could just pass it off as a poem about desperation, sadness and what not. I got an A on the assignment, and never thought about it a second time, until I found out that my teacher had liked my poem so much that she had unilaterally submitted it to a student poetry competition. The poem won one of the prizes, and was subsequently published on the first page of our school’s student literature journal, which meant that every student in school read it (or at least the ones who could read). I also found out that my teacher had given my untitled poem the worst possible title: Lost Hope. 

And as if that wasn’t enough, at the end of the school year, there was a small ceremony to honor student achievements, and I was on stage as a member of the basketball team. Near the end of the event, I realized with exasperation that our principal was going to give out literary awards as well. Being the only senior, he decided to honor me last, and I had to stand there smiling during his dramatic reading of my poem to the entire student body, while several of my friends and fellow students were laughing knowingly. 

As I accepted my award, thankful that this twisted form of torture was finally over, I caught with the corner of my eye a glimpse of Hope running out of the hall. Good times.

So to close (I know you’ve all been waiting for this), here’s my infamous poem. I had to translate it from my mother tongue, which means that rhythm and rhyme were regrettably lost, but hopefully you are still getting the gist:

Lost Hope

I travel at night on the seas,
like an old, haunted ship.
You, cold and cruel maiden,
have broken the serenity of my dreams.

I beg the Sirens to stop
and sweet Dawn to arrive,
But at first light, a scream echos,
as the fires of loneliness are lit.

The Sun rises bright
breaking the darkness of the deep.
But as hard as it tries
It can throw no light in my heart.

I am drifting in the winds of Aeolus
towards the depths of the gray sea.
What happened to me no one will know
once Triton blows his horn.

My life’s petty threads
will be cut in the eye of the storm.
The soul that I had given to Her,
I now deliver to the waves.

In my last gaze I saw Her
but no words can reach my lips.
I am crossing the Gates of Hades.
I have now lost all Hope.


Thanks for that Greg, brilliant work! Don’t forget you can check out more of Greg’s writing at ‘Greg is Dating’. 


Posted: 12 months ago

18 notes

  1. gregisdating reblogged this from impresswomen and added:
    Jon writes The Things I’ve Done to Impress Women, one of the most creative dating blogs I’ve read. I urge everyone to...
  2. gregisdating said: Thanks for unilaterally giving that title to my guest post, Jon. That didn’t bring back bad memories at all.
  3. beeesides said: That is the BEST story I have heard in a while. Brilliant!
  4. impresswomen posted this

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