The Twitchy Eye Guy

Location: All Bar One, Clapham

My very first online blind date! I was super nervous and had no idea what to expect and no idea how I would recognise him. I had dressed up to go to work and made lots of effort. More fool me.

We had decided to meet at the entrance to Clapham Junction Station. Looking back, what on earth was I thinking? CJ is the busiest station ever and not a good place to meet a blind date for the first time. I was standing with my back to the coffee house watching all the people come through the barriers, when I spotted a guy waiting across the way from me who I thought could be my date.

We made eye contact and he smiled. I thought ‘jack-pot’ as he was seriously good looking and I was just about to saunter over when a girl (clearly his girlfriend!) tapped him on the shoulder and kissed him. My first taste of disappointment, but definitely not to be my last.

When my date did finally appear, he wasn’t quite what I was expecting from his pictures (understatement of the year), and he had an unfortunate twitch in his left eye. We had an ok time, although I bought double the rounds of drinks that he did and I needed those drinks to keep the conversation flowing. 

The worst part though was that by the end of the date my eye was uncontrollably twitching back at him in some weird sympathetic mimic activity! I just really hoped he didn’t think I was doing it on purpose and taking the piss out of him.

But obviously it was ok, as he messaged me the next day asking if we could do it again sometime. I didn’t want to reply and say ‘no because you have a twitchy eye’ so I made up some chat about there not really being a spark (I have since realised that this is actually a great get-out-of-second-date card, as it’s so subjective and no one can say otherwise!) He replied saying, ‘oh that’s really surprised me. I thought we got on really well, what made you change your mind?’

This was the first of two guys (to-date) who have basically asked me for feedback following our date. As impressive as it is that they want to find out what went wrong in order to potentially do things differently for their next date, it did put me in a bit of an awkward position. I am a friendly person and like making people feel at ease - laughing at their jokes, smiling and asking questions. With hindsight, I guess I gave him the wrong impression and he probably took that as signs that the date was a success. But it would have been way worse if I had been mean and rude just because I didn’t fancy him, right?

More disastrous dates to follow soon...