Whilst our singles dinner may not have been a resounding success, I have started to realise that the bigger the city, the more singletons there are and therefore, the more events there are catered especially to them. One such event is ‘Lord of the Flings’. The premise is simple; you buy a ticket then fill in a form about yourself. You can then choose whether you would like to go on a one-on-one blind date or a double blind date. You are sent an email with a time and a location where you join your date for dinner before all the daters congregate in the ever-classy Bunga Bunga. Always keen to try something different, I opted to go for the double option and signed up with a friend.
The form was not dissimilar to setting up a dating profile but the final question did provide particular enjoyment. ‘If you could be any fictional character, who would you choose and why?’. After much deliberation I opted for Baloo the Bear – I’m big fan of bear hugs but also pretty nifty when it comes down to the Bear Necessities (I was pretty pleased with myself for that one, if I’m honest). The day of the date arrived and armed only with the information that we were meeting two guys called Jack and Joe, Libby and I headed to a rather strange bar in Clapham that seemed to serve craft beer and over-priced chicken sandwiches. I had never been on a double blind date before and it was only when I got to the venue that I began to think about the potential pit falls: how do you tell which pair of men walking in are the right ones, what happens if one of them is a minger, what happens if we both fancy the same one – whoever said there was safety in numbers was clearly either exceedingly poly-amorous or did not intend for the phrase to be applied to dating.
Eventually we managed to identify Jack and Joe and headed to our table. Things were already more positive than they could have been: there was no significant difference in attractiveness and no immediate calls of ‘shotgun him’. The evening opened with general four way conversation that was not desimilar to the interactions of dogs in a park – we were strangers and still relatively open minded so warily sniffed each other’s metaphorical bums before hedging out bets. We learnt that Jack and Joe were flatmates, it was Joe’s idea to come to the event and nervous of flying solo on his first blind date, had roped in his flatmate, Jack. By the time the food had arrived, it was clear that Libby and Joe were getting on well so as the supportive friend and well-trained wingman that I am, I turned my attention to Jack. If I’m honest, Jack was more my type anyway – with a good strong jaw line and thick brown hair, I hadn’t completely ruled Jack out of the runnings for potential Bae. Then he said he was a banker. He explained that as he usually gets up for work at 5am, after going to the gym in the evenings, he doesn’t have much time for other interests – thrilling. I was hoping he would prove the banker wanker stereotype wrong but as he sat there in his suit, giving off the impression that I was really very lucky that he had managed to fit the evening into his busy work life, I wasn’t so sure. In fact he absolutely fitted the stereotype, to the point of disappearing to the loo every fifteen minutes, wiping his nose as he returned with a heightened interest in the sound of his own voice.
I was relieved when the decision was made to call an Uber and head to Bunga Bunga. Jack got straight in the front to monopolise the aux cable. I sat in the back with Libby and Joe who were by this point exchanging numbers and was glad to see that Libby had been having better luck than I was. Upon arrival we bumped into my flatmate Ed, who had decided it wasn’t worth forking out for the date part of the evening but would join for the after party purely consisting of single people. Not quite drunk enough to face the meat-market that awaited us, Libby, Ed and I, plus Ed’s friend Harry who had been one of the attendees at our singles dinner, headed to the pub over the road. What I have failed to thus far mention was that Libby and Ed had matched on Bumble before I moved to London and had been on a solitary date that had not been repeated. This all made for a slightly awkward but highly entertaining drink.
Eventually we headed back to Bunga Bunga to face the incredibly cheesey music. We hadn’t been there long when a guy approached me. His opening line was ‘You must be Occy, you were on a date with my friend Jack this evening. He was just saying how great you were and what a fun evening he had had’. This line would have been slightly more plausible if Jack hadn’t been in my eye line at the time. His posture: slumped alone against a wall, staring into the gin and tonic he was cradling did not scream post-date high. I politely excused myself and headed off in search of friends and a drink. I hadn’t got far when I was blindsided by Joe. I was rather surprised to see him as I had assumed he would be with Libby. I was even more surprised when he blurted, ‘oh hey, Occy. I’m glad I found you, I just wondered if you would like to go for a drink next week?’. It was his turn to look surprised as he got a sharp ‘No’ in response. I went on to explain that he had been openly flirting with Libby all night, hadn’t paid me any attention at all and was clearly just trying to hedge his bets and secure a snog out of the evening. He had clearly watched too many rom-coms and at this point starting grovelling, pleading that it was me had fancied all along and that we were meant to be together and I couldn’t just walk away, it would be a tragedy if we never saw each other again. At this point I did just that and walked away.
Luckily I quickly found Ed who had had enough of the event by that point as well so we picked our way towards the exit, through the crowds of cavorting couples. There were several jeers and wolf whistles from those in the smoking area as we got in our Uber – clearly assuming that there was to be at least one sexually successful date story to come from the evening. Little did they know that we returned to the flat for tea, toast and marmite before snuggling up in our respective beds!