Another day, another date. I hate to boast, but as my hunt for love continues I am becoming a pretty competent Tinderer. I have learnt my lessons and now know to be wary of too many group shots, sunglasses and zoomed out pictures. I also tend to avoid pictures with tigers, bathroom selfies and my pet peeve: car selfies. I just don’t understand this trend. Do you think your best lighting is in the car? Are you trying to emphasise the fact that you can drive? Have you gone and sat in your car with the sole intention of taking a new Tinder picture? Or even more worrying, have you taken this photo whilst driving? There seems to be no answers to these questions that make the habit permissible. Maybe I am just narrow-minded and through my blanket rules I am missing out on a wealth of possible baes, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take. The longer I tinder (not sure if it can be used as a verb), the quicker my swiping gets and I can now juggle several conversations at once - I know, a CV-worthy skill.
This week bought me down a peg or two though. I was getting a little bit too cocky. Dates no longer made me nervous and I treated them with a rather blasé attitude. I would slap on some make up and a pair of heely boots and trundle off to that week’s bar. This week was like no other, I got dolled up and off I went to meet Matthew, a physiotherapist based in West Cumbria. As I walked into the bar and saw him sitting there, however, a terrible thing happened. I completely forgot his name. I was about 70% sure it was Matthew but didn’t want to risk saying it incase it wasn’t, a faux pas from which I don’t think it would have been possible to rescue the date. I therefore just had to hedge my bets on this being the right guy: walk towards him, make eye contact, and go for a big ‘heyyy….’. His lack of total surprise in witnessing this greeting suggested that I had at least approached the right person. It got worse though, I hadn’t bothered to read back over our previous messages so not only did I have to avoid all use of proper nouns, but I had no idea what aspects of our lives our banal small-talk had already covered. Was this the guy who lived with his parents and their two spaniels or had this guy recently moved up to Cumbria and was living in a share house in Cockermouth? I was getting all my tinderees muddled up! I approached all conversational topics very tentatively.
My flippant approach to the date could just about be masked but my next blunder could not as we headed to the bar and ordered drinks. Back in ‘Hell and Below’, I was missing my Opihr but ordered a gin and tonic nonetheless. What came next should be music to any twenty-four year old’s ears: ‘Sure, can I see your ID please?’. Flattered, I opened my purse, only to realise I had taken my driver’s licence out earlier in the day to fill in a form and hadn’t put it back in. There was no wriggling out of this one. Whilst Matthew tucked into a pint I had to sheepishly sip away on my lime and soda.
In terms of my actual date; Physio Bae was friendly, polite and engaging. His keen interest in running and his rugby-playing background were clear in his impressive physique. I did notice that as he ordered drinks he pulled a pair of glasses out of his pocket to do so before quickly replacing them. He was clearly embarrassed by his imperfect eye-sight, sweet! I was therefore somewhat surprised ten minutes later, when he started talking at great length about his lazy eye. I politely commented that I hadn’t noticed it to which he replied, ‘Oh, it get’s way worse when I’m drunk’. I wasn’t sure whether this was supposed to impress me, consolidate his story or evoke sympathy. It achieved none of the above. He was on a role now though, and having explained his lack of vision, moved on to show me how he could dislocate his thumb on demand and his scar from his shoulder operation. With a list of ailments as long as his arm, I’m sure he could easily relate to his patients!
He made the usual gag about the play on words between ‘physiotherapist’ and ‘physio-the-rapist’ to which I gave the required chuckle. This was followed by him saying how he likes to turn off his head-torch when running at night. An unfortunate progression of anecdotes on his part that I’m hoping was nothing more than coincidence. Luckily, no questionable exit strategies were needed on this occasion. Matthew clearly hadn’t had high hopes for the evening either as he had only put an hour and a half’s worth of money in the parking metre so had to leave before his time was up.
I was wondering if I had been too quick to judge Matthew. But then he got up to go and donned his anorak. This seemed to summarise him to a tee - practical, outdoorsy and sensible but lacking slightly in imagination. Matthew clearly loved his exercise, but I think I can safely say he will not be getting physical with me!