I’m afraid the content of this post might seem a little dull after the glamorous Caribbean romance. To be fair though, this one does involve two people meeting in real life and going to the pub for a drink, which quite frankly, feels about as distant and exotic as the Antiguan shores at the moment.
I arrived back from our trip with a major case of the holiday blues. Katie’s romantic success had motivated me though and I returned to the apps with a renewed energy. The art of positive thinking worked a treat and it wasn’t long before I matched with Bryn. There are only so many ways I can describe cyber small talk, anyone who has ever downloaded a dating app knows just how monotonous this part can be and how difficult it is to get across any iota of actual personality which distinguishes you from the other awkward online conversations without making you sound like you’re purposefully trying to be off the wall or are downright bizarre. There was a bit of flirty banter between Bryn and I though and no major red flags so we agreed to meet for a drink.
He suggested a Tuesday. A date on a Tuesday felt rogue, especially as I was still recovering from jetlag but in the spirit of true love and failing that, entertaining journalism, I agreed. To give Bryn his due, he did offer to come up and meet me in Soho when I finished work and he also suggested a location so two ticks for Bryn there. He had chosen one called The Fitzroy. I had a wee Google before I left the office and found out that it used to be the regular watering hole for Dylan Thomas and George Orwell – a pub with a literary connection? Another tick there from me! As I was on my way there I got a message from Bryn, “Heya, I’ve got an awesome seat upstairs by the window” –not only was he organised, but enthusiastic as well.
One of the worst parts of first dates is usually the issue of actually finding the person. It’s normally a lose-lose situation. If you’re the first one there you’re faced with all sorts of social dilemmas; do you get yourself a drink, if so do you get them one as well, if so how do you know what they like, do you message them to see what they would like, do you wait for them at the bar, do you try and find a table, do you try and look casual by doing something on your phone, do you try and look intellectual by reading a book, do you look up as each person comes in the door to check if it’s them, do you ignore the door altogether and pretend to be totally engrossed in whatever you’re doing until they come and find you. So many decisions! If you’re the second one there you have to walk in and immediately do a scan of how many men are there on their own. You then have to play a mental game of Guess Who to speedily reduce it down to the person who most closely resembles the six-picture highlights reel you have seen of them and make an approach, hoping for the best.
There was to be no awkward skulking here though, Bryn had given me clear directions. I arrived and walked into exactly what a good London pub should look like – it was entirely covered wood panelling and contained the glint of ample brass, old fashioned lights that are modern models but look like they could have possibly been adapted out of old gas lamps, frosted glass and framed prints of 18th century London. I know that, having lived in the city for three years now, the novelty should have warn off but these pubs still give me the warm and fuzzys. They feel like the epitome of history and cosiness and pints and long evenings of drunken debauchery all rolled into one. Please excuse my tangent into rose tinted nostalgia; the current absence of these establishments in my life has made my heart grown fonder.
I headed upstairs and Bryn had indeed got an amazing seat. He had found a small room off the main bar with an open fire, a sofa, shelves full of books and two high-backed leather armchairs tucked into an alcove by the window. As I arrived he was deep in conversation with one of the bar staff who was giving him a thorough briefing on the very serious responsibility of keeping the fire going. I waited for this to end before introducing myself. We got our pints and settled into our armchairs.
Bryn, it turned out, was Welsh. I mean, I may not be Sherlock Holmes but I had deduced that much already. The name was a rather obvious clue. His father was a sheep farmer in North Wales – strong rural roots, a good start. After finishing uni Bryn had moved to London and worked in media for a while before a need for change took him to Canada for a year where he worked on a farm on a small island off the coast of Vancouver. Weirdly, it was exactly the same seventy square mile island that I had been to on holiday so we already had some common ground to bond over. Since returning from Canada six months ago, Bryn had been working as a buyer for one of the world’s largest chicken restaurant chains.
I was fascinated and jumped straight in with the barrage of questions. Suddenly I didn’t see myself on a date but as a Cumbrian, female version of Louis Theroux, doing my very own research into the secrets of the world of fast food. In the spirit of my new whistleblowing role and to avoid the risk of any of my extensive three person readership sharing the following highly confidential information, I won’t reveal which restaurant chain Bryn works for but yes, they did have a branch of the restaurant in their office and could have it for lunch everyday. Yes, he did get a free uniform. Yes, he did have a spare as well as all sorts of other branded merchandise. Yes, their claim is true: the chicken is all produced in the UK but everything else is imported. Most interestingly though, and what would have been the big reveal moment if this was an actual poultry based expose rather than a first date, since working there Bryn has been to visit one of the chicken farms and consequently decided to become a vegetarian (you can see why I’m not specifying which chain this is now).
This led to an interesting discussion about the more general stigma against agriculture at the moment from an environmental point of view, whether or not we should eat meat and whether meat production was uniformly bad for the environment. We both agreed that it wasn’t. Our farm-based upbringings weren’t the only thing we had in common though although it may have been the reason he had also read my favourite book, The Shepherd’s Life (by James Rebank, just in case anyone is in need of some lockdown literature); we also both loved to cook and both listened to Radio 4. So basically he was also a seventy-five year old in a millennial’s body. As the evening continued and the common interests racked up I found myself experiencing something so alien that it took me a while to identify what exactly the sensation was, I think I was starting to fancy him. He was attractive, relaxed and easy to talk to. The flowing conversation may have been somewhat aided by the equally flowing beers but the alcoholic social lubrication was absolutely needed in order to survive the series of curve balls Cupid was testing us with in the form our fellow imbibers.
As I mentioned, we were in a tiny alcove of the pub that only contained the armchairs we were in, a fire, and a sofa. We had hoped given the size of the space we would have it to ourselves but this didn’t seem to be the case. Whilst we were sitting there, three couples occupied the sofa immediately next to us in turn. Now, I’m not sure if these couples had drawn up a rota and plan of action between themselves in advance but they each followed the exact same series of events, it was totally bizarre. Each couple arrived, sat down next to each other, made polite conversation for five to ten minutes, shared a chaste kiss before moving swiftly on to full-blown-face-sucking-snogging. They then proceeded to use their tongues to perform a thorough inspection of each other’s wisdom teeth for a solid twenty minutes before getting up and leaving. This sequence was repeated three times!!! Let me tell you, it is so fricking hard to try and maintain a normal conversation when two people are nigh on dry humping on the sofa next to you. Eventually the last of these couples left though and the fire warden/ barman returned to tell us the pub would be closing soon.
The evening had flown by – a good sign I would say? An even better sign was when Bryn offered to walk me to the station. What happened next, ladies and gentlemen, was a Dater Analyst first, a monumental moment, up there with the moon landing and the Gavin and Stacey Christmas Special… WE SNOGGED! It may say something about my dating luck or pulling ability that this is the twenty eighth Dater Anaylst post I have written and it is the first time I have actually snogged one of the datees but let’s not focus on that at the moment. Hell, it was the first time I had actually fancied one of the datees! It was everything you would hope for in a first date snog: moonlight, streetlights, clammy hands, awkward lunges and a little bit of teeth clashing. We continued our walk to the station, giggly and hand in hand. All too quickly we arrived at Goodge Street (this may now become my chosen euphemism for sex but in this case it was the actual Goodge Street). As we went to say good-bye Bryn asked for my number. “Sure” I replied, attempting to ooze effortless nonchalance as I typed it into his phone, gave him a parting peck and disappeared down the escalator. This was it. We had snogged. It must be true love. I had found the one. I started checking my diary for the best weekend to get him up to Cumbria and contemplating who I would pick to be my bridesmaids.
I woke the next morning with a slightly sore head and checked my phone. Nothing. Ten minutes later, nothing. Another ten minutes later, nothing. Throughout the rest of that morning, nothing. Shit, in my attempts to play it cool I had failed to double check the number I had written in his phone. After three pints and no food there was a very real chance that I could have accidentally typed my number in wrong. That would be just my luck, twenty-seven failed dates and when I did find someone that I actually liked, I had given him the wrong number. For the next forty-eight hour I reverted back to a teenage girl, checking my phone every two minutes, waiting to see if he had texted. My god, fancying someone is exhausting…