Mr #35 - Duffle Trouble

The preamble:
Mr #35 was one of the more unusual preambles, as it originally came about through Twitter. He's got in touch after reading my friend Ritzi's rather fabulous blog, and decided he was up being one of the 52. In the past my experience of dating guys who've known about 52 First Dates hasn't been a good one, take Mr 6 for prime example. But the blog has come along a long way since then, 28 dates longer to be precise, and now I've started to have a new fear - of the glory-hunter date. There's now an ongoing concern that self-aware dates could go in a new direction, of the guy that goes to ridiculous unrealistic efforts to be the one to put an end to 52 First Dates, and get some sort of medal for it. I'd been emailing Mr 35 on and off for a while to ascertain the basics, because I suppose from the blog and my Twitter profile I may appear to be somewhat of an enigma. 

I had ascertained a certain amount from Mr #35's Twitter profile too: mainly that the people he tweets consist of 98% hot girls. That was one observation that led perhaps to a presumption that Mr #35 might be a touch on the arrogant side, perhaps someone who's a bit of a player, and perhaps someone who rather fancied himself as a contender. This was the presumption, and we all know these are incredibly easy to make, and equally as easy to disprove.

The man:
Age: 27
Profession: Teacher of language to grown ups

Random factoid: Lives with and cares for his gran.

The date:
I met Mr #35 outside Covent Garden tube. For once I was the late one, unintentionally so, but it pissed me off for a start as that's a pet hate of mine. Mr #35 didn't seem to mind much. He turned up in his woolly hat, mittens and duffle coat, and my first impression was that he was an Eton schoolboy in London on an exeat weekend. 

He was cheery enough, had a venue already in mind, and proffered me an elbow to escort me to the venue. This anatomical offer wasn't something I expected, and I have to say I dealt with it in particularly and spectacularly awkward fashion. 

A few minutes later we'd turned up at a rather cool Belgian place with a vast array of peculiar-sounding beers on offer, so we grabbed a couple (I plumped for the cherry beer, a shamefully girlish choice for a non-beer connoisseur) and grabbed the only seats in the place: right by the front door, in prime position to absorb the icy blasts as groups of people arrived, dithered in the door debating whether to wait for seats or not, chilling the entire venue to polar proportions in the process, and then going out again. That happened ALL night by the way. 

Once we'd unwrapped from our wintry garb I managed to get a proper look at Mr #35, which I'd not really been able to do from one of those teeny tiny Twitter profile photos. He was sweet looking, with dimples and quite a lot of dark sticky-uppy hair, and he reminded me slightly of Beaker from the Muppets, only with his mouth the other way up. He was dressed smartly for the most part, with a nice checked shirt (I like checked shirts), but I couldn't help noticing a Superman t-shirt underneath. Yup, definitely schoolboy. 

Once we started chatting, it became evident that Mr #35 was no arrogant glory-hunter, he was just a nice guy, possibly a bit on the shy side. It was difficult to hear him at times as we were sat next to a couple of very loud American guys who kept saying words like 'miasma', which was somewhat distracting. As was the fact that they both ordered the most amazing smelling burgers, and since I hadn't eaten, I did find myself wrestling with the conundrum of whether to put my face in a stranger's plate on a first date or not which, for the record, I did not. 

Conversation for the most part felt very much like formal first date interrogation...where did you grow up, where did you go to uni, and it did feel forced until the Belgian beer got to work. We covered Twitter, languages, grammar, booze, supermarkets, soft furnishings and his grandmother. 

There were a few awkward silences, but Mr #35 did have a good list of date-safe questions up his sleeve to keep things moving. We spoke at length about his teaching of languages, and it was obvious he loves his job as he talked about it A LOT. And he kept correcting me on my pronunciation of foreign words which rather reminded me a lot of Ross from Friends. 

We stayed for a couple more drinks, and since I'm not much of a beer drinker (especially not those of a fruity nature), we called it a night. Being a gentleman, Mr #35 offered to walk me to the bus stop, although I think had he known how far away it was in the opposite direction, he probably wouldn't have offered. We stood at the bus stop waiting for my bus, said our goodbyes and he Googlemapped  himself back to home turf. Date done.

Memorable Quotes:
'I can't roll my rs'

'Did you see that uproar on Twitter about Unilad? Perhaps rape anecdotes aren't the best on a first date...' 

'Does your bedding look nice?' Yes. Take my word on it. It's as close as you'll get.

'I have adaptable gloves. They were very expensive in glove terms'

Events of note:

Two girls having an asparagus fight on the tube en route to the date. Technically it wasn't actually on the date, but the thought entertained me for the duration of the evening nonetheless.

The Verdict:

Mr #35 was a nice guy. I'd formed a misguided opinion of him from seeing his dialogues and posts on Twitter, which was in some ways refreshing, as the unusual online dates rely on you finding out select titbits about prospective dates only from what they choose to tell you.

We had a pleasant evening, I discovered a quirky new venue, and I learnt the correct grammatical rules of using a or an with words beginning with vowels. But getting down to the nitty gritty side of the date, there was just no chemistry there for me. However, Mr #35 has restored my faith that dates knowing about the blog isn't necessarily a bad thing. He did enquire about a second date despite my merciless ribbing of his duffle and mitten combo, but I gracefully declined.

Mr #34 - Chavvy Metal

The preamble:
Mr #34 and I had been due to meet at the end of last year, but I had to cancel on account of having the lurg. We then rescheduled for over Christmas, and then he had to cancel for the same reason. So by the time we actually came to meeting, to be brutally honest I just wanted to get it out of the way as it had been lingering along for AGES.

He had also begun to irritate me quite a lot, texting me every day calling me babe this, babe that, and doing things like randomly ringing me drunk from the curry house to plot our meeting.  

As he lived in High Wycombe (having lived there myself, I can confirm this is warning sign number one), we decided to meet in London because he'd come into town to watch his football team play. And, bless him, he was very concerned about what to wear, so called no less than three times to see if he needed to bring a change of clothes, and to see if it would be okay if he wore jeans and trainers. 

By this point I was beyond caring, and was secretly hoping he'd turn up in fancy dress. He didn't.

The man:
Age: 30
Profession: Painter / Decorator

Random factoid: Is one of nine children. NINE!

The date:
We'd arranged to meet at Oxford Circus, nice and public, and close to a few of my favourite haunts. I got there first, and hung around inside the entrance of Nike Town. Mr #34 rang to try and find me, I described my coat, and stood and waited. Five minutes later, I was grabbed from behind and a rather boozy Mr #34 who planted a massive smacker on my mouth to the tune of 'awight Baybe!'Just brilliant. Brilliant, in the freakiest creepiest way imaginable. 

Buoyed on by the success of his team, he was perhaps a little more over-enthusiastic and drunk than most of my previous dates, and have to say I was filled with the fear of further facial burglary from the off. 

He was quite an unusual looking chap - a long greasy bob and a couple of crackers of front teeth, but he'd obviously dressed for the occasion in his finest Kappa tracksuit top the likes of which I'd not seen since the nineties, stone-washed jeans and white trainers. 

Once again I was the tour guide, so I carted him off to one of my favourite pubs which was not too far from the station, just in case another attempted oral assault required rapid escape. Small talk en route was tough, the best I could do was ask about the football game, league standings and match highlights, in constant fear that I was on my prime conversational handicap. 

Once in the pub he got the first round in. I settled for a bottle of beer, and he opted for Bacardi and Coke, his tipple of choice apparently. Novel. We commandeered a table, and I was treated to quite the show as Mr #34 removed the Kappa jacket to reveal extensive tattoos covering the skinniest little arms I have ever seen in my life. They were like little painted Twiglets. He can't have weighed more than 7 stone, which I have to say is not something that I look for in a man - what girl wants to feel like a whale compared to a sprat? 

His tattoos extended onto his hands, on the one hand was his favourite football team, classy, and on the other a girl's  name which, judging from how faded it was, was no longer his favourite. 

Anyway, once he'd sat himself down the date commenced, and I kept thinking that maybe I was on  a date with a fictional character, He was hilarious. He was keen to know about my romantic history, success on the dating site, what I was looking for and about the worst date I'd ever been on. What did become a little unnerving was how he kept bringing up how long I'd been single for. It's not as if I don't already have enough of a complex about it, thanks! 

He also seemed to have a photographic memory for the pictures on my profile, and decided to talk me through them in detail, which was in no way disconcerting at all. We chatted about football even more, the recession, him living with his elderly parents, and finally we moved onto the main common ground of the evening - metal music. From the look on his face, it was like all his Christmases had come at once when I revealed my fondness and knowledge of death metal and hard rock bands from the mid-nineties onwards, and I even had to produce my iPod to prove I had the likes of Soulfly and System of a Down amongst my music collection. 

Four drinks down, we'd done better  than expected, but the evening was starting to drag a little and I was aware that the more he drank, the greater the chance of a salival reprise would be, and I wasn't going to have any of that. Despite him offering another drink, I had to insist it was time to call it a night, and we headed back to the tube. Once at the tube, I tried to preempt off a snog offensive by giving him a peck on the cheek and saying goodbye. He just stood and stared at me and tried again to suggest another drink, and I just couldn't do it. I went in for a final quick peck and ran off before he had a chance to stare at me again.

Memorable Quotes:
'To be honest I worried for you meeting me today babe, you know it's different for girls meeting boys on the internet. I mean, you're safe with me and everything babe, but I did worry for you. Does anyone know you're here babe?' Yes, yes they do...

'I'd drive you around in my Transit babe. I'd take you wherever you wanted to go.' Who says romance is dead?

'I don't like poetry except when you write it for your girlfriend and that...'

'I did some flyers for my painting business the other day, took 'em round all the local posh estates, hit the rich and all that eh babe!'

'I think you're the only one that replied to me on that site babe'. 

'Do you want to go and see Cradle of Filth sometime babe?'

Events of note:

Without doubt the highlight of the evening was when I returned from the loo to find Mr #34 sat at the table of this old boy diagonally behind us. He'd plonked himself there to use the power point to charge his phone, and was in the middle of talking his dad through the process of opening a bank letter to read his pin number out to him. He stayed there for 15 minutes whilst this poor old guy was trying to eat his roast dinner in peace. They looked like the weirdest couple ever.

The Verdict:

Bless him, he was a really funny little chap, but he reminded me more of a character that a comedian would come up with rather than a real life human being. And I just couldn't be doing with anyone who uses the word 'babe' as punctuation, had arms thinner than my 9 month old nephew's neck and who's idea of an introduction is a full on tonsil invasion. He did message me on his train ride back to illustrious High Wycombe asking if I'd see him again, and I did have to gracefully decline.

Mr #33 - Job Security

The preamble:
Mr #33 and I hadn't really spoken a tremendous amount, but from the few messages we exchanged I thought he sounded polite and sweet, and the fact he wasn't determined to take me out to get wasted was a bit of a bonus.

The man:
Age: 39
Profession: Security guard

Random factoid: Recently had to process 800 security passes at work. Mmm, riveting!

The date:
For once, this was a quiet Sunday afternoon date with coffee in mind, which was rather refreshing given how boozy some of my dates have been of late. 

We met at Waterloo, and my first thoughts were 'is that him, or is that an Italian tourist from the nineties?' He didn't look a lot like his pictures, which were obviously selected from about a decade ago. Let me paint the picture for you: flat top salt 'n' pepper hair. swarthy tan, leather jacket, Burberry scarf, those very contrived over-frayed jeans, gold chain and Timberland boots. Quite a picture. He also had some expensive-looking shades by some designer that I can only assume is entirely fictitious, and he picked them up on the market for a fiver. 

But he looked very nervous bless him, and for the brief walk to the coffee shop he was a little tricky to get chat out of. Once perched with froffee coffees he warmed up a bit after we covered his home town in great detail, as it happened to be where I went to uni which was a bit of a conversational godsend given his skills at making small talk. 

I'll be honest, he wasn't the brightest star in the galaxy, and it wasn't the most stimulating of chats, even though he was nice enough. We talked about Jack Russells, flatpack furniture, people being rude, supermarkets and bomb scares.  Oh, and he lives with his mum. At the age of 39. 

It was all very nice, but after one hot beverage it was definitely time to call it a day. We said our polite goodbyes and went our separate ways.

Memorable Quotes:
'I was talking to my daughter the other day...I mean SISTER!' Hmm...

'I've got a 40" telly in my bedroom'. Hmm again...

Events of note:
Trying to negotiate a cappuccino-tash. New territory. I think I won against the foam though...it's a shame he didn't...

The Verdict:

Nice guy, nothing in common, no attraction whatsoever, and I'm sorry, but STILL LIVES AT HOME? Nup, not for me thanks.