Sunday 4 September 2011

Date number 4: Christian – The Hot Trinidadian

 

Who set me up this time
Carrie
I met Carrie at school and she is one of my oldest friends. On the other hand, we never really talked much until we discovered that we were both going to university in central London. Even then, the few times we met involved a lot of alcohol and while this was such fun, I don’t think we actually spent good quality time together until recently. Carrie is fun-loving and I expect her matchmaking skills to result in an enjoyable evening for me.
What do I know about him
The details I was given: He modelled for GAP and United Colours of Benetton. He is tall, good looking, from the Caribbean and grew up in Islington. He’s got a great sense of humour and an obsession with TV game shows. He’s been a contestant on several shows. I don’t really watch game shows so the only one I could remember was Deal or No Deal.
From this description I was really excited to meet him. My only reservation was that he sounded as if he might be a bit too fame hungry (attention seeker).  

First impressions
My first impression of Christian was great. He is attractive, smiley and refreshingly down to earth. I was comfortable with him straight away. He had the North London accent that so many of my school mates had and he had a no-nonsense, polite but straight-talking attitude which I love.

What happened

Christian took me to a Caribbean style restaurant in Camden called Mango Room. I had a delightful fruity chicken curry that was absolutely gorgeous. Conversation started with the usual small-talk where do you work, where do you live etc. It was easy and relaxed. It felt like we were old friends catching up. I heard about naughty tales such as when Christian and his friend snuck into the VIP area of Raffles only to unexpectedly vomit under the table and then leave. As hilarious as this story was and as much as I enjoyed it, I must admit that stories of drunken debauchery should probably be saved for a later date! We’ve all done naughty, silly things in our time but it’s sometimes good to reveal these slowly otherwise you risk giving a bad first impression. 

Revealing many crazy stories might also make you seem like you're bragging about how wild you are. Limit bragging on a first date. It is much better to just talk as if you are just trying to get to know your date and have nothing to prove about yourself. (Despite the fact that on a hot date, you will normally feel like you have something to prove). I must admit massive hypocrisy here as I also made the common mistake of sharing drunken tales. Still, when someone shares a drunken story with you it is only natural to reciprocate. Plus they are very good stories.
It turned out that Christian was not at all judgemental about my blind dating marathon. He was after all a huge fan of the show ‘Take Me Out’. I was grateful for this and enjoyed his fun loving approach to meeting new people.
In discussion about the restaurant, Christian explained that the food is good but as with all cuisines, it is never the same as home-cooked meals. It is adapted to Western taste and far more heavy and indulgent. Christian admitted that if I were from Trinidad, where he is from, he would not have taken me to this restaurant. He prefers to take non-Caribbean people there as he finds that bigging up his ethnic background and culture helps him ‘get lucky’. This cracked me up. Firstly, because he said it straight and secondly because I know exactly what he meant. In an earlier post 'My Type', I tried to summarise a list of traits that turn me off and on. In the post I mentioned some of my friends’ types. One friend likes Scandinavians, one likes Gujaratis (although she actually is Gujarati so that is a bit different)  and another friend likes South Americans. Perhaps this is because there is something about the stereotypical traits of that culture that genuinely suits them but I don't think that that is the full story. It sounds shallow (or maybe racist) but for whatever reason, a lot of us have ethnic fetishes. Just a side point, a number of men from Goa, my Dad’s place of origin, say that they are Brazilian when they are trying to pull. According to them, their success rate when pretending to be from the fashionable South American ex- Portuguese colony is reliably high in comparison to when they are honest about being from the beautiful Indian ex-Portuguese colony. Sad but true. Our Libido tends to be racially prejudiced.

Perhaps this is the reason that the question I most commonly get asked in bars is 'where do you come from?' If asked too soon or too randomly this question annoys me. 


Christian might come from the sexy land of delicious fruity curries and I felt like there was some sort of rapport between us, but I believe this date was downgraded from romantic to matey very quickly. He is polite, kind and hilarious. Christian is the type of guy I would love to meet to talk about the dates that I’ve been on recently but he is not the type of guy whom I can imagine myself properly dating. This is definitely not a criticism of Christian. He is gorgeous to look at and fun to talk to. But he somehow reminded me of an older cousin or a big brother. I think it might be because we were talking so frankly about things. Or perhaps it is because Christian is a self-confessed player. Whatever it was, there wasn’t much romantic chemistry.

Would I go out with him again?
We met a second time at a friend’s birthday a fortnight later. It was good to catch up. The week after we met for group drinks. And we are going for a drink next week just us two (I think). We both said that we get along very well but we see each other as mates.

What other people have said
Other people think Christian sounds interesting and I should consider getting with him.

Would I recommend him to a friend?
Yes.
Date Planning 7
Rapport 8

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