Tinder and Blind

Latest date: 19th March

Source: Tinder

Place: Southbank- Founders Arms (my choice, naturally)

Firstly I had made the mistake of eating a tube of mints to curb my chocolate craving throughout the day. Then was told by a colleague ‘you do realise they have laxative effects?’ well yes, I did know that, but did I think that when I was eating them? No.

My mint binge resulted in me heading straight for the loo’s upon arrival at the date venue on the Southbank. I received a text while holding onto my stomach saying ‘I’m here, have a table outside by the entrance’. Great, it’s good to be ‘fashionably’ late I thought, let’s just hope I can get off the loo by the time it becomes ‘taking the piss’ late. I make a tactical exit out the back door before walking around the pub to make it look like I’ve just come in from the outside.

I spot him, tall, nice looking, different from his Tinder photo but then again I picked my best *airbrushed instagrammed the shit out of* photos so I can’t really talk. Anyway we greet eachother, I order a gin & soda then we start talking..about work. About 20 minutes in and we’re still talking shop. It’s fine, I’ll change the subject. We get onto the predictable ‘have you been travelling?’ convo.

I asked if he had ever been to Vegas and he said: “no it’s somewhere I would never want to go. I’ve never been to a strip club, I don’t really drink, Vegas is very fake and I like more natural places like Cape Town and I would rather trek round the Himalayas than look at tacky hotels and gaudy shows.” This was after I said I’ve been 3 times and love it but really want to go on a girls holiday there..

THEN he slagged off Victoria Beckham. Those who know me will be surprised that I didn’t chuck my drink over him. I kind of held my tongue..kind of. This came about after he asked about previous jobs etc, I’m a trained fashion journalist & had a column reviewing VB’s collection in 2009 and I loved it but it didn’t pay the bills, he said he didn’t even know she ‘did’ clothes. Well that was just blasphemy in my book.

He goes to the loo and I text my dad saying “he’s SO posh” my dad replies: “that’ll be a communication issue. Easy on the drinks though, a lady shouldn’t get drunk, espcecially on a first date.” Dad, I’ll be lucky if I get offered another- I think to myself.

So we finish our drinks and he doesn’t offer another (knew it), he tells me he needs to be in Manchester for a meeting at 8am and ‘can’t wait for my bed’ he also tells me he needs to make dinner which will be chicken & kale, the former is thawing in his fridge (erm, so you’re not feeding me then?).

So after my ONE drink I just said shall we go, we walked to the tube, talked about bed linen and his ex (whom he’s still amicable with and ‘good friends)..then.. I ask how long it will take him to get home, he says he recently bought a kindle so time goes quickly, I bought one last week so we had that in common at least, apart from the fact I only bought mine after only being able to afford a kindle case in the Mulberry sample sale, so I had to buy the kindle after.. he turned his nose up at that.. I said I really am enjoying reading again though and it makes the time go so much quicker on the tube, especially as I’m so engrossed in this amazing book at the moment and I just look forward to reading it every morning.

He asks what book I’m reading. Well I couldn’t tell him the truth which is ‘Shopaholic and baby’ (I don’t care, I love Rebecca Bloomwood) but I can’t really say that to this posh guy who hates Vegas. I say ‘oh it’s by Dan Brown’ (first bloody author that pops into my head) he says ‘oh great, which one? I’ve read all his books’ oh god, oh god I’m screwed. The only Dan Brown book I know is The Da Vinci Code, I can’t fall back on that after I’ve just said I’m reading this amazing book, surely I would’ve just said I’m reading the Da Vinci Code straight away? So I just dug my hole even deeper and said ‘I can’t remember the name of it’ to which he replied ‘you don’t know the name of the book you’re reading?’ ahhhhhh I can’t just say ‘actually I’m not reading Dan Brown, I’m reading the bloody Shopaholics series and I thought tonight I would be meeting my Luke Brandon who would’ve taken me to the OXO tower and we would’ve sipped Bellini’s all night while you tell me about your amazing life and we laugh about things we have a lot in common with’. So I just said ‘oh my kindle came with a free Dan Brown book and I’ve gone blank at what it’s called.

He took the Jubilee line, I took the Northern line and that was my 63 minute date. Don’t think we’ll be in touch again, worlds apart! He’s obviously very intelligent- an Oxford graduate, but his social skills clash with mine/ are non-existent.

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