Mr #38 Comedy Threesome

The preamble:
Mr #38 is a very unusual case in 52 First Dates because he is the only date I've been on where I'd seen his profile online and sent the first message. I've not been proactive in messaging people online so far, because in the past, I've not had a very high success rate, very rarely they'd reply and I'd be left feeling pretty shit about myself. So for the most part my dates would be reactionary, depending on who'd emailed me, some might say leaving it up to fate, others laziness, and that would be fair. But I think you'll probably agree, that hasn't really worked for me so far, so from now on I'll have to be more proactive and will just have to get a thicker skin about the ones that don't see me fit enough to reply to.

I had messaged Mr #38 way back in November, because his profile was just awesome. He had a brilliant sense of humour, wrote really well, had the same sense of nonsense surrealism as I did, loved all things creative, and to top it off had a wicked mass of curly black hair. So I sent a silly little message, no sense in a great long persuasive introduction, and the banter started from there. We emailed for ages, and then over Christmas exchanged numbers. We would text regularly, about the most ridiculous things, and some sort of virtual relationship kicked off. In the past, this has been a dangerous tactic, building up so much pressure prior to the first date that it'd almost inevitably be a disappointment. Both of us we were well aware that this could happen, so a month or so before we met we'd agreed to carry on with the foolish banter regardless of the outcome of the date. Perhaps this was a wise idea, perhaps not. 

Mr #38 was not the most forth-coming in suggesting a meet, but I rather liked that. For once, this would be a date that had taken a natural path, rather than something hurried to meet either my dating quota or their impatience. Finally, after three months of preamble, we met.

  

The man:
Age: 30

Profession: Theatre technician and stand up comedian.

Random factoid: Makes music using the Nintendo Gameboy.

The date:
As we both shared the same appreciation of comedy, Mr #38 volunteered a stand up night at a pub south-side for our first date, which was an excellent suggestion. This was one of the few dates I've been on that I was properly nervous, real stomach-churning, toxic-butterfly nerves, the sorts of nerves I used to get before dates prior to 52 First Dates. Because my hopes were really up, I wanted to like him and I wanted him to like me. I even took him a little bag of home made chocolates, as he'd become a bit fascinated by my domestic undertakings, so I thought I'd see if I would win over the stomach as well as the man. 

I turned up at the pub and he was perched in the corner. He looked exactly as I expected, tall, slim, with the same amazing shock of black curly hair, smart glasses and a textbook beard. He stood up to greet me and was an absolute gentleman, taking my coat and popping to the bar to buy me a drink. He was a really nice guy, delightfully geeky, bright and funny. But there was one thing I wasn't expecting about our first date - and that was his best mate.

It turned out his friend was doing a set at the pub that night, and within 10 minutes of us being sat down, this character clad in an aubergine trenchcoat wafted in, introduced himself, and sat in the corner rehearsing before his stint. We only had about half an hour before the comedy began, during which time we covered musical instruments, retro computer games and novelty cookery. We were then ushered into the back room, where the comedy began. 

It was a novices night, so anyone who fancied themselves as a little bit funny could put themselves up for doing a short set, so from the get go I wasn't expecting Billy Connelly. Mr #38's friend was first up, and I did feel sorry for him as the compere had done a rubbish job of warming up the spattering of humans in the crowd. Eleven acts later (ranging from 'pretty funny' to 'was that actually comedy or just a guy whinging about his water bill'), I'd still not spoken to Mr #38 an awful lot, so we grabbed some more drinks and tried to continue the date. With his mate, now buoyed on whiskey, also in tow. 

We carried on jabbering on dissecting comedy techniques, Dungeons and Dragons, Dr Who, Roland Rat. After one drink, his friend decided to call it a day, leaving Mr #38 and I to try and carry on with our date. The poor guy was riddled with cold, and he kept apologising for not firing on all cylinders. We got on really well, and although there was the odd pause in conversation, it didn't feel that awkward. By the end of the next drink though we were both flagging, so we wandered off to the tube and headed home.

Memorable Quotes:
'What actually goes on in the apocryphal hole in the tube map above Tower Hill? I've always wondered...'

Events of note:

The compere chatting to one of the old locals about their Valentine's Day plans. It turned out one went on an internet date with a woman he'd met online. I could've sworn he was one of the fifty-somethings that has tried their luck with me online. The compere then asked the crowd if anyone had done online dating, Mr #38 and I both went red and looked at each other awkwardly, and our psychic connection agreed to confess to nothing.

The Verdict:

This was a really unusual date, mainly for the fact that I wan't just meeting Mr #38, but his partner-in-comedy crime too. He was exactly as I expected, and I thought he was really cute, I really wanted to ruffle his great big barnet, so I was far from disappointed. My main concern was the fact that maybe we'd gone beyond the window of romance and had got ourselves into the friend zone, which can be very hard to come back from. But I was left thinking I'd really love to see him again, just the two of us, so he could feel like he was on form, and we could get a bit irresponsibly drunk and see how the chemical side of things worked between us. There certainly wasn't that instant thunderbolt of clothes-ripping chemistry, but there was something about him that fascinated me. I really hope he felt the same, and that he wants to see me again too. We'll just have to wait and see. Yikes!

Mr #29 - The Man is the Moon

The preamble:
Mr #29 and I had been bantering to and fro by email and text for a few weeks, and despite slightly poor texting etiquette, on the whole we seemed to have a fair amount in common, he seemed like a good enough sort so we arranged to meet. Slap bang in the middle of Christmas. Pretty brave move, for both of us...!

The man:

Age:37

Profession: Freelance web designer for a TV production company

Random factoid: He had the roundest face I have ever seen on a real life human being. It was literally a perfect circle; the moon, with hair. Amazing.

The date:

We met outside the station and although we'd both clocked each other standing in the cold trying not to look conspicuous, we had to send the cursory identification text just to avoid that eternally embarrassing situation of 'Hi, are you Mr #29? 'No, I'm not'; stranger clearly knows you're on an interweb date; you die inside. 

Apart from his perfectly circular visage that I have previously mentioned, he also had an awesome head of curly hair and one very pretty set of  baby blue peepers on him. He was definitely a lot cuter than I had been expecting, even though he wasn't a lot taller than me, he was cute enough for that not to matter. 

We ambled off to one of my favourite pubs, although once in we did a prompt 360 when we realised a. there were no seats, b. it was playing Slade so loud our chances of conversation were drastically low and c. 90% of the revellers looked and smelt but a cider away from sick. Not to matter, the next pub along was both with-seat and without-cider-sick. Bonus. 

I have to say right now, this will be a relatively short write up. Not because he had nothing to say. Oh no. He had plenty to say. We covered everything from John Terry to Twitter, Mexico to Masterchef, and football to Facebook. But I have to say, I can't fault the guy. He was cute, polite, bright and really good company. We chattered non stop for a few drinks, time at the bar was called, and we went our separate ways, snog-free but smiling.

Memorable Quotes:

He was so nice and normal, I literally don't have anything to add here. Genuinely.

Events of note:

Again...he didn't fall over drunk, didn't spend the night talking to my chest, didn't offend me, had no errant bodily functions and didn't appear to have a criminal past. I think this is probably also notable in itself.

The Verdict:

Well 52 First Dates readers, I feel in some ways I've let you down here; by going on a date with someone rather nice, and not having some ridiculous anecdotes to take away from the evening. But for me, this just goes to show quite how many 'unusual' dates I have to go on to meet someone pleasant, and out of the 29 dates so far, he's one of only about 3. Those aren't great odds. So I suppose the question now is would I see him again? Yes. Did I fancy him? Yes, I think I probably did. Was he good company? Yes he was. Did we have any ROFL moments? No, sadly not. Was there chemistry? I don't know, I really don't know. But I'd certainly be up for meeting him again just in case. But the kicker is he's off to Mexico for 3 months next week, so whatever happens, I'll have to hang on a little bit and keep on dating and see what happens when he's back in Blighty. But I think this is where time really tells.

As I've mentioned before, I'm not going to be chasing anyone for a second date over the course of 52 First Dates, as I've done on many an ocasion in my undignified past. I'd like the guys I meet again to want to meet up enough to actually ask the question, which funnily enough seems to be rarer than you might think. I've had a few pretty successful dates before where they've just not been arsed to get in touch again which questions both their motive and I suppose also my view of how well the date went. So I guess for now, this is a 'watch this space' scenario. But if this is as far as it goes, I'd just like to thank Mr #29 for being nice, normal, and nothing like Mr #28. Faith in men once again restored. God bless 52 First Dates.