Mr #26 - Halfway Mark (if only his name actually WAS Mark. But it wasn't...)

The preamble:

I've been messaging Mr #26 for bloody months it seems! We're talking well over 80 messages, and would the bugger suggest a date? Would he hell! So I did, and we swapped numbers and that was that. My only reservations about him had been that he was rather vocal about telling me about other dates he'd been on, and could occasionally be a little too cheeky in his messages, but he still piqued my interest, so I met him.

The man:

Age:32

Profession: IT bod working in a massive bank

Random factoid: He is half-Irish half-Jamaican,

The date:

The date was another 52 First Dates first - the venue? Docklands. Hmm. I have to say I wasn't entirely convinced, but since I'd never been out there, perhaps it would be worth a whirl. 

I met Mr #26 at the Tube. My first thoughts? He was a little miniature, and probably weighed less than I do. My second thought? What a cracking smile and a delightful set of gnashers. Well done him and his orthodontist. 

Without a final destination in mind, we wandered off in search of some bar action, and finally we came across an establishment that I thought was the name of a popular strip club about town, and it was as Mr #26 pointed out (and that he'd been there a few times before), but that this particular venue was fortunately tit-free, couple on date notwithstanding. 

My first impression of the venue was that it wasn't actually in London at all, it felt rather like we were somewhere like Colchester, and the bar was very much in office party mode. We grabbed some booze and pews and started chatting. Before I continue, so you get a real sense of the mis-en-scene, that my date was sat right in front of a light, so actually I couldn't really see his face, but his perfectly circular cranium cast a spectacular silhouette. My eye was also periodically drawn to the couple sat diagonally behind him, not because they were interesting, but because they had chosen to take a big sack of cat litter with them. 

The soundtrack to the evening was also nothing short of shocking, with Five, A-Ha, Peter Andre and the Spice Girls being cracked out in rapid succession early on. Amid the aural assault, I was aware of another 52 First Dates first. My date had decided to wear a zip up fleece. A zip up fleece he chose not to remove all night. Hmm again. 

Fleeces aside, the conversation was some of the best I've had on 52 First Dates yet, it turns out we have loads in common, in music and film terms at least. We covered musical guilty pleasures, top 10 bests and worsts of 2011, the merits of Florence and the Machine, the demise of Hard-Fi,  a track by track analysis of Pendulum's Immersion, horror films, the publishing industry, book recommendations, Christmas presents, his obsession with Harry Potter, and how diabolical the guy singing karaoke was (oh yeah, it turned out to be karaoke night - we didn't partake). 

It also emerged that he's quite a garrulous chap, and could out talk me by about 120 words per minute. He also spent at least 10 minutes telling me the plot (and ruining it) to a book he'd been trying to sell me, and another 20 minutes showing me every picture he had on his phone of his dog. Yes, it's cute, I get that. Stop with the pup shots now. Stop it now...

Anyway once he'd finally stopped showing me pet pictures and we'd sunk a good few cheeky vodkas, my 5am wake up came back with a vengeance, and I proposed a conclusion to the evening on account of the fact my eyelids were getting rapidly more intimate. We moseyed off to the station said our goodbyes with an attempted half-grapple from Mr #26 and a cheeky snog-dodge from me, and went our separate ways.

Memorable Quotes:

'The mens' loos here are awesome - there's some great big wooden trough that you sit on'

'Shakira has been banned on Radio 1'

'Ooh the YMCA, I love this song'

'Jo Whiley is quite frisky, apparently'

Events of note:

A quite spectacular murdering of Alanis Morrisette's 'Ironic'. And not a moment too soon...

The verdict:

Tonight has genuinely been one of the nicest dates I've been on, as we had an inordinate amount of things in common. Yes he's small, yes, he wore a fleece, yes he's a little too obsessed with Harry Potter for a grown man, but you know what, I actually didn't care. Did I fancy him? I'm not sure, but I would definitely meet him again to see, if anything to carry on our systematic review of every horror film ever made. So what a way to mark the halfway point of 52 First Dates...with something positive. Yay, go me!

Update:
It has been a week since our date, and I've not heard a word from Mr #26. When I started this challenge, I vowed not to do any chasing, as I have done in my undignified former life, and if someone wanted to see me again, I would leave it up to them to ask. I say I've not heard a word, but this was until an hour ago. On different dating site. The message read 'have we been on a date?'. Er, yes we have. My my, what a fantastic impression I must've made! When I replied saying yes we had gone and done a date, he asked when it was. Jeez, that's some frighteningly short memory you have there sir! Needless to say I told him, and he's since blamed it on the booze. That's a pretty poor excuse when you meet someone stone cold sober sunshine. No second date for you!

Mr #25 - King of the Swingers

The preamble:

I'd not been messaging Mr #25 that long actually, but the emails were lenghty and grammatically correct enough to pass my strict muster. Plus he happened to live and work just down the road, and it seemed only logical to arrange to meet. 

We were originally due to meet on a Saturday, which is rather controversial for me in first date terms, sacrificing a weekend night, but since I was planning on a relatively quiet one anyway and it was closer than a tube ride away, I agreed to the date. However, all came rather unstuck when I awoke that morning to a head like the inside of a burns victim's bandage with the cold from hell. I normally tell myself not to cancel first dates unless I have a damn good reason, and the idea of waging potentially lethal germ warfare on someone who could turn out to be the man of my dreams struck me as good enough reason to reschedule. So reschedule we did.

The man:

Age: 37

Profession: Bar owner

Random factoid: The band Hot Chip are regulars in his establishment.

The date:

What I really liked about Mr #25 was his choice of venue, a delightful little pub just off Brick Lane where the locals were friendly, the music was not imposing, and the array of Japanese whiskey behind the bar was impressive to say the least, if that's your sort of thing.

Mr #25 was pretty much as I expected him to be visually, although what I didn't expect was for him to bear an unnerving resemblance to the Evil Antipodean, a gentleman of my past whose memories are not exactly fond ones. But he was very smart even if his choice of Mulberry-coloured shirt was slightly questionable, and ever-the-gentleman, he scurried off to the bar to commandeer me a wine. 

He was exceptionally eloquent and unfeasibly relaxed, although his uber-laid-backness could have been construed as cockiness. His hair was a rough attempt at a fifties quiff, and he had a peculiar crease across the bridge of his nose that gave him a somewhat angry brow. He also seemed to prefer speaking out of one side of his mouth, which I didn't attribute to anything medical, but only added to his slight arrogance. 

Conversation was healthily varied: work, play, star-spotting around Bethnal Green (the little Italian cafe on Bethnal Green Road is the current celeb haunt, FYI), the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and the etiquette of wearing football shirts on Christmas Day. 

He had also done a brief spell working in film, and he did try and sound like he knew what he was talking about when it came to the industry in which I work but it was a little cringe-worthy to be fair, so I politely steered him onto conversational pastures new. 

One thing that had really appealed to me about Mr #25 before meeting him was the fact he had a passion. And that passion? Swing dancing. Now that to me sounded awesome, I've always wanted to have a go. And to begin with, getting him onto his topic of choice proved an excellent and interesting plan. However after managing to crowbar the conversation back to swing dancing on no less than four occasions after the subject had reached the end of its natural life, the tedium began to set in a little. I mean, how do you get from the life and works of Andy Serkis to the Charleston? Oh you can, believe me. And he did. 

Two drinks down and last orders was approaching. Ordinarily I would have stayed for a third drink, but I was feeling a little on the knackered side, and faced with a ballacher of a day at work, I suggested an early night going our separate ways, just as rather awkwardly he was trying for a third. I donned my cape and furry muff, and bid him farewell, but not before he tried for the third time to recruit me to his local swing dancing club. I see...on commission are we? I should have guessed.

Memorable Quotes:

'Tom Cruise is definitely on a contract marriage'

'John Travolta is definitely gay'

'Brad Pitt. Lovely guy. I definitely would'

Legal note: All of the above quotes came from Mr #25 and are his own personal opinion. They are in no way reflections of the views of the author. Does that cover it? Good.

Events of note:

The hot barman giving me the wrong change. And me being honest enough to bring it to his attention. Sadly he wasn't generous enough to give me his phone number as compensation. The bar steward.

The verdict:

Mr #25 was on the whole a nice guy. Perhaps it was his age or his line of work, but he seemed a little too over-confident for my liking. I did feel a little bit that I had to match up to his exacting standards a little more than usual, and to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure that I did. But it was a pleasant enough evening, but I don't think I shall be hunting him down for a second date. I could, however, be tempted if he proposed a second date where there was lots of fun dancing, as long as I didn't have to listen to him talk about it.

Mr #24 - Nigel Blandsell

The preamble:

I'd been messaging Mr #24 on an off for a month or so. His emails were good, we shared common ground in our love of Garth Marenghi's Dark Place and Nathan Barley, he owned a cat, and he had excellent command of grammar. He was also a former racing driver, and his multitudinous photos in his blue racing onesie did catch my eye a little. He wasn't exactly a model, but he looked nice and smiley, and he was so polite in asking for a date I thought why the devil not!

The man:

Age: 36

Profession: Media wrangler slash part time racing instructor

Random factoid: Recently won a poker competition. Albeit a crap little local one where the prize was a little plastic trophy.

The date:

I felt a little sorry for Mr #24 before I met him, as I had been in full on shambolic mode all day. Since being up since 5am, I'd had a bonkers day at work, a tactical 4 hour mid-afternoon snooze, the unwise idea of cooking sausages in my dating ensemble, an embarrassing episode at the doctors whereby I got stuck in my dress then tearing it trying to present my arm to a hot doctor for the taking of blood pressure. Plus I was 15 minutes late and honking of chipolatas. But he was very sweet about it, so I thought I'd managed to get away with it. Just. 

We met at Oxford Circus, a cunning venue I thought as everyone has some idea of their favourite pub in the locale. But not Mr #24. Once again I was in charge of choosing the venue, so we pottered off to a quiet little pub that I knew served Sailor Jerry's, we found a little pew and set to with the date

He wasn't an unattractive man, but he'd certainly been cleverly selective with his choice of photos. He was paler, more petite, and his hair was somewhat greyer than I'd expected. But he had a nice friendly face, that is, when he wasn't eyeballing my cleavage or pulling odd faces like a 1920s schoolboy. 

Conversation was on the whole very safe: school life, university, public transport (literally the dullest but most universal of safe topics), Made In Chelsea, various injuries sustained over our lives (mine was a soup-related scalded leg, his was a broken cheekbone thanks to a run in with a fist in Portsmouth) and cats. 

He showed slightly uncomfortable over-interest in my tattoo, a little too much sympathy for my anecdotes, and literally agreed with everything I said all night. He was on the whole a very sweet guy, but I just found him blander than an average vanilla cheesecake on a white porcelain plate in a dining room recently painted floor to ceiling in magnolia. 

I wasn't entirely sure of his grasp of acceptable first date conversation either, especially as mid-evening he inquired as to the nature of my doctor's appointment. The temptation to tell him it was to sort out some fictional intimate infliction was almost too much, but I resisted. In hindsight, I wish I hadn't, because I reckon he'd have had to dug deep into his personality reserves for some sort of reaction had I mentioned the words 'syphilis', 'thrush' or 'haemarroids'. 

After two drinks, I was really flagging, and his persistent agreement was sapping the life out of me, so I had to turn down the offer of a third beverage and leg it to the bus. But, being the gentleman he was, he insisted on waiting for the bus with me which, as it turned out, took twenty awkward minutes to arrive. Thanks 25, thanks a bleeding lot. He didn't strike me as the face-burgling sort, so I thought I'd be able to escape snog-free, but I'd used up all my good small talk, so the best I could do was suggest how many routes he could take to get the train so he didn't have to wait for me. But wait he did. Two rather insipid air kisses and the arrival of a double-decker later, and I was away and dreaming of my beddy byes.

Memorable Quotes:

'I've watched all of the Lord of the Rings in one day before. On a number of occasions'

'I have eleven different types of tea at home.' And then, he listed them. All. He lives alone, just in case you were wondering...

'I got you a straw for your drink so we could tell which one was yours and which one was mine. And you're drinking with it. That's good'

'Did you know the right way for a ying and yang is for the white bit to be on the top. But Bruce Lee put the black on the top, and that's wrong.'

Events of note:

The couple sat in the corner of the pub virtually having sex. It was off-putting to say the least, and I hoped my date wouldn't notice and take it as an idea.

The verdict:

All in all it was a disappointing evening. I'm sure there are lot of ladies out there who'd love an agreeable chap to kowtow to their every word, but I like someone with a bit more balls to them. Come on love, have an opinion! Disagree with me about something for god's sake, challenge me! And don't spend the entire time agreeing with my chest, it's not going to be any more forgiving than my face you know...