The Blind Date Marathon: Date 10: Martins Retaliation!!!

I had to edit out names and one line that contained a few personal details about someone else! I put illustrations in for fun. Otherwise it's all Martin! Happy reading.
LagerBlush

Blind date marathon – A different perspective
By Martin (Date 10)

I'm sure a fair percentage of you reading this are in the same position as me... you were one of the guys taking part in the dating marathon. And if you're like me you will have gone through the same process of thinking through the date and trying to foresee how lagerblush was going to blog about you. In doing so I found that I pretty much had a blog post of my own formulated in my head, so why not put it down on paper? lagerblush's a fun girl so I'm sure she'd be entertained by the opposite perspective, who knows she might even publish it if I'm not to scathing about her... just kidding... I'll be very scathing.

First of all let me say that I haven't read her blog post about me yet, that would be unfair, and would probably end up being coloured by me trying to justify any criticism she may have of our date. I have however read all the blog up to guy number 5, so I'll try to keep to a similar format.

A bit about me, my thoughts on dating in general and my connection to lagerblush. I'm not going to describe myself in much detail (I'm sure lagerblush will do a much better, more entertaining job of that), but I will say that I'm pretty laid back, friendly and I enjoy meeting new people (I'm guessing blind dates would be pretty daunting if you didn't). I've been single or practically single for most of my 20s, and as such I've had my fair share of dates. In fact I've been on so many I have a bit of a reputation for it... not THAT kind of reputation, but sometimes I think people misconstrue it as that. I rarely meet girls I end up falling for, and when I do they're mainly friends of friends whom I get to know by seeing at various social occasions. Falling for a girl after dating is even rarer, whether it be a blind date, after meeting in a bar or an … ahem... internet date. Although it has happened to me once.

Anyway, my connection to lagerblush is her school friend Rhona. It would be worth mentioning at this point that the date wasn't the first time I met lagerblush. Rhona made a half hearted attempt to set us up before as she told Dom (my brother) that lagerblush had seen a picture of me on Facebook and thought I wasn't too bad looking – or something along those lines. Nothing really came of it at the time, although Rhona did introduce us at her birthday with the ever so tactful, slightly drunken line of “This is my friend. She wants to sleep with you”. Unsurprisingly, lagerblush looked pretty embarrassed, a little bit shocked, said nothing and walked off, which I was pretty happy with at the time as I would have found it hard to save that situation from the inevitable awkwardness. In fact I'm quite surprised I was Rhona's choice – she and I have had a rather tempestuous relationship after I tried to convince my mum that Dominic was in fact gay and was going out with a man named Rhonan.

About the date

I have a fairly standard formula for how the first three dates with a girl should go. Date 1 is drinks, nothing more, date 2 is an activity and drinks (e.g. a gallery, museum, comedy, gig, etc etc), date 3 is potentially a meal and drinks. But as I felt I was in some way competing with another 19 guys, I thought I'd better step it up a little on date 1. The plan was this: Meet up in Soho for some Mexican fast food at Chipotle, then on to some comedy at the Soho theatre, then drinks somewhere in Soho.

I'll admit at this point that comedy on a date is cheating a bit. The thing is no matter how badly you perform on a date yourself, hopefully your date will remember having a good time and laughing a lot if the comedy is half decent – score.

So we agreed to meet at 730, but I got a text from lagerblush around 710 saying she was there already if I could make it any earlier. Now, if I was a true gentleman I would have rushed right over and got there maybe 5 minutes earlier than agreed. However I was in a pub with some work friends supping on ¾ of a pint while they gently ribbed me about my upcoming date, and gave me a few tips. I decided to finish my pint. I turned up about 5 minutes late after getting completely soaked in a rainstorm. Not the best start.

I looked around the pub hoping I'd recognise her. It's a weird quirk of mine that whenever I go on a date, and I mean literally every time, with a girl I've only met briefly before I have this paranoia that I'm not going to recognise them, and that I'm going to go up to another girl thinking it's them whilst they look on wondering what the fuck I'm doing. I secretly suspect that everyone has this paranoia? No? Just me then.

I eventually find her by a pillar and I'm pleasantly surprised. That sounds bad. Really what I mean is I'd met her before and seen photos from Facebook (thanks Dom/Rhona), and I found her attractive, but they didn't do her justice. To put it bluntly and kind of rhyme a little bit (sorry – this is tragic), She is a hottie... maybe I should have turned up on time. I was also suddenly felt very conscious that I was soaked and my hair was hanging in rat tails over my face.

It transpires that while lagerblush was waiting patiently at a pub near Chipotle for me she had a couple of drinks... of the non-alcoholic, but rather caffeinated variety – Redbull. I don't know about you, but caffeine makes me edgy. And Redbull frankly makes me go loopy – I mean 15 year old drunken antics loopy. The last time I had too much vodka Redbull I rugby tackled my friend to the floor whilst he was chatting up a girl and licked his face. Not the best next morning, hung over memory!

Anyway we had a drink in the pub whilst we waited for the rain to subside, and chatted quite amiably, mainly about travelling if I remember correctly. The typical kind of conversation you engage in on a date before you settle down into a rapport with someone. Now, as we moved onto the Mexican place I noticed lagerblush had a habit of doing something … not annoying, but rather disruptive to conversation. In the middle of a couple of stories I was telling she interrupted me halfway through and completely changed the subject. It was to the extent that it left my half story hanging in the air like some mangled cat after being hit by a car which I felt like I had to rescue by changing the topic back to my story (that reminds me of a mangled cat story – but that's for another time). I would probably have been better putting it out of it's misery as I'm sure me changing the subject back to my story sounded like I wasn't interested in what she was saying either. Not good and both of our faults. The way I see it was that it could have been down to 3 things: either the caffeine was making lagerblush edgy, she was nervous and trying to think of entertaining stories to tell me and hence not to listening to mine, or I was nervous and was coming up with story after story not letting her get a word in unless she interrupted me.

Another thing I noticed was that lagerblush kept starting to talk about drunken stories, but would then stop herself, and would refuse to tell me the rest of it. Kind of like someone telling you they have a really interesting secret but that they're not allowed to tell you. Not frustraing at all! Judging by her earlier blog posts that was a conscious effort. I have to disagree on lagerblush's rule here, I think on a first date you should just be yourself and tell self deprecating stories to show that you can laugh at yourself, and that you're confident enough to have your date judge you for themselves. But maybe I'm too honest.

The Mexican fast food was more of a success. I actually really like this set up for a first date, an informal fun setting, sitting at a high table with stools and just a quick burrito or taco and beer before heading somewhere else. Although I have to say at this point, I think 2 of lagerblush's dating tips may well have applied to me here. Don't brag and don't demean your date's job... Guilty.

The thing is I love my job. It's stupidly good, and I'm incredibly incredibly lucky to have it. When people ask me about it I tell them about it enthusiastically and I'm sure more often than not I spill over into bragging. Don't get me wrong I don't talk about money, that's not why I love my job and I would never do that, but I do get some pretty ridiculous perks, and that's where I need to shut my mouth from time to time. I also think I took the piss a bit for lagerblush working for a large retail company, this is mainly because I worked at this large retail company as a software consultant and hated it. And, let's be honest, because large retailers are evil and trying to take over the world.

After the Mexican we headed to the Soho theatre for the comedy. At the bar we ordered more drinks and while I had a beer lagerblush wanted a coke. I have to admit I was a bit taken aback by switching back to soft drinks (also – caffeine again? Really?), it's kind of a sign to me that the girl is giving up on a date and thinking about waking up without a hangover in the morning. Anyway, the comedian, Sam Simmons, was fairly good but a bit hit and miss, a bit like an Australian Noel Fielding that didn't quite get it quite right.

We then tried to find a bar to have another drink or two. This was a mistake on my part. I should have had a plan. I was kind of relying on lagerblush at this point as in a previous text she mentioned that she knew Soho really well, and I was hoping that she'd just say “I know this amazing bar around the corner – lets go there”. So we did the thing that everyone hates doing on a night out – wandering the streets of Soho trying to find a half decent place to have a drink that fills the following criteria: quiet enough to talk, loud enough to have an atmosphere, trendy enough to be suitable for a date, not a gay bar (we were in Soho after all. Having said that, I have ended up in a gay bar on a date with a girl in the past). So we eventually found somewhere fairly average had some cocktails and some more not quite relaxed chat.

Lagerblush produced a dress and asked “What would you have said if I'd have turned up in this?” I complete missed the fact that it was a rather revealing dress and that it was an attempt to start a bit of flirting I probably said something like “er... I dunno, nice dress?” Good work Martin – flirting FAIL. What she was getting at was the wholly inappropriate nature of turning up in a “slightly slutty” dress (lagerblush's words) on a first date and seeing how I'd react. I rate this type of banter. I like it when someone is willing to make a fool of themselves to see how people will react. I really hope she does this on another of her 20 dates and blogs about it!

We finished our drinks and headed to the tube. Now this is where another of my dating theories comes into play. I will always try for a kiss on a first date if I find the girl attractive. It's a way of knowing whether she enjoyed your company or not. Not to sound too much like Cher, but you can tell a lot from a kiss. Anyway as we said goodbye there's that usual bit where you either go in for the kiss or a hug or a kiss on the cheek. Now I hadn't really had any strong signals from lagerblush, it was a bit of an odd date, we hadn't really developed a rapport, but she had stayed out later than she should so she must have been enjoying it a bit? Surely? So my tactic here was this. Go in for a kiss but be ambiguous about it. Don't go for the cheek, don't go for the lips, but somewhere in between. The idea being that she'd either give me a proper kiss or give me the cheek. I thought at the time this was ingenious. Fool proof. Either it would be a comfortable kiss on the cheek or I'd get a proper kiss. Win-win, no risk of embarrassment or awkwardness. WRONG! The result of me doing this was that lagerblush ended up with the same panicked look on her face as when Rhona first introduced us and I had to dive for the cheek myself. Smooth Martin, smooth.

In conclusion, the overriding feeling I got from the date is that we didn't really get to know each other, which is kind of the point of a date so I guess we failed in that respect. However, something gave me the impression that we would get on pretty well once we did get to know each other.

Would I go out with her again?

I would, because we didn't really break the ice, and I think we'd have fun once we did, but I think it's more likely we'll get to know each other at social occasions like Rhonan's inevitable welcome back drinks.

This was Martin's version of our date (date 10 in my dating marathon). To Read my version of our date or to read about other dates in my dating marathon, click on the links below.