My Dating Disasters

Location: A pub in a village near Kenley I squeezed in this date on the way back from a lovely weekend with my uni friends. I must have literally organised it for the same day we connected – efficient dating!  My friend Fi dropped me off in this random small town where my date had arranged that he would pick me up to take me to a nearby pub. It was a beautifully sunny day and as luck would have it, he had a BMW convertible, so felt very flashy driving along with the top down. Really can’t remember much else about the date itself though which isn’t a good sign, just that there were lots of dogs in the pub garden and they seemed to be getting more action than I had had in weeks! Nothing else came of it.

Location: The Milk Thistle, Bristol I accidently stood this date up! I had been trying to organise a badminton game with my friend Cherry for the Tuesday, but there hadn’t been any courts available so I swapped to looking for the Wednesday instead. Boring boring. Anyhow managed to get the days mixed up and I was with Cherry when I got a message from him saying ‘you must be running very late, because I thought I was late but you still haven’t arrived’ – oops! He forgave me enough to try again and we met at one of my favourite cocktail bars in Bristol – the Milk Thistle. He was running late this time (getting his revenge no doubt) but the drinks are so expensive in there that I didn’t want to get one in before he arrived (in case he didn't arrive), plus they’re super strong and it was a school night after all… He was quite good-looking, but very skinny legs. And I like chunky men. Prefer slightly overweight to underweight if I’m being fussy. He seemed like a really cool gu

Location: The Vittoria Rainy Monday. Monday evenings are for sofa cuddling and an early night, but for some reason I decided a date would be a more efficient use of my time.   I realised the error in my ways at around 4pm at work, when I messaged said date to call it off. It was another of those ‘not really excited by pictures or chat’ moments and I had a nice supper of poached eggs, salmon and avocado I was looking forward too. But, he didn’t take it lying down and actually sent some quite funny responses to my cancellation message that were enough to reluctantly convince me to change my mind again and give it a go. So I walked to the Vittoria (his choice) after work in the pissing rain. It’s not a pub I have ever wanted to go to before despite its close proximity to work, because from the outside it looks old manny and smelly.  I went inside and it was indeed old manny and smelly.  My date stood up to say hello and unfortunately I immediately knew I didn’t fancy hi

Location: Nettle & Rye (originality = nill!) Had some interesting messages leading up to this date. He had actually booked tickets for us to see a comedy gig, but me clearly having more dating disaster experience than him, managed to convince him into just going for a drink instead. As an aside, having discussed this with a few people now, I really believe the purpose of a first date is simply to find out whether you fancy each other - a quick drink with pre-arranged excuses in place on both sides to avoid any awkwardness if the fancying does not occur. If you are not instantly put off by each other then you can retract the excuses and stay for another. A first date is not about going to a gig or the cinema where you can’t talk to each other, or a meal where you are then locked in for hours! Anyway, back to the date in hand. In our messages we had gotten onto what we did for work (I should just copy and paste my response now as I’ve had to answer that question so many ti

Location: Tomtom Coffee House, London I squished this date in whilst waiting for my coach back to Bristol at London Victoria. Well, it’s a numbers game apparently! Felt quite surreal ordering a cup of tea rather than my usual jug of wine. And the lack of alcohol certainly didn’t help the flow of conversation, although I did try my best! Nothing really to write home about. We messaged for a bit afterwards, but he kept referring to a conversation I swear we never had about some owls that lived in the park opposite his house: Him: ‘Saw the little owl again today, he/she looked at me and everything!’ Me: ‘Which little owl?!?!’ Suffice to say it fizzled out pretty quickly after that…