D8

So I survived my date. I’m going to try and write down as much as I remember so I can look back and scrutinize this later!

When I described the meet-up as a date, my mum was horrified. I asked her why she was reacting like this and what exactly she thought a date entailed. “Doesn’t it include kissy-wissy stuff?” – I genuinely face-palmed and assured her that everyone would be on their best behaviour.

Now the dude, let’s call him Mr K. He was travelling from Stoke to London which is a lot of effort so he got brownie points for that straight away. I met him at Euston and beat him there so we played ‘who can spot the other first?’. I told him I was near the information desk but actually I was a few metres away so I could run if I needed to. Safety first, ladies! But I spotted him and he did not look like an axe murderer so I approached him.

I had no idea how I was going to greet him. In the hour or so it took me to get to Euston, I stress farted several times. I also found myself becoming self conscious over really stupid things like how I walk and if my lips looked chapped. My mind was basically like this:

But I managed to pull myself together. I even napped a bit on the tube. The soundtrack to my journey was “Back to love” by Chris Brown because apparently I am a sap.

When I saw him, he hugged me and I responded on instinct. Thank god he took care of that decision because I would have been just stood there awkwardly if it was left to me. Or worse, gone in with a handshake as if it was a work meeting. Anyway the hug broke the ice and we said hi and stuff and starting discussing Avengers End Game (will post about that separately!).

I’ve been talking to him on and off for over a year but it’s been predominantly over whatsapp. We didn’t do phonecalls or videochats though I’ve received the occasional voice message so I was taken aback when I heard him speak. I should have put two and two together. He’s from Stoke. He’s a Northern boy so he’s going to have an accent. It was actually pretty charming.

I think the whole day could be summarised as “City girl meets Northern boy”. It was obvious he’s not from London. He let people off the tube first; he asked how literally everyone was; he didn’t walk aggressively fast.  In comparison I must have looked like a pushy angry Londoner lol. One of thing he said that cracked me up was when he said “wow everything is contactless in London”.

We made our way to Piccadilly Circus where he bought snacks and then we went to the theatre to watch Book of Mormon. He had an umbrella with him and joked that he’d probably leave it behind. I said I’d remind him (famous last words).

I’d been warned several times about Book of Mormon, that it was offensive and controversial. Those warnings were well deserved but I enjoyed it anyway. It was witty and crude. If I saw it online, I probably wouldn’t bat an eyelid but hearing it live in an audience of well mannered people made it shocking. We had awesome seats which Mr K paid for; I’m still trying to convince him to let me pay for my own ticket. He promised he would as long as I let him pay for dinner (which I did after some convincing). He sat quite close to me during the show and it didn’t feel awkward which is something.

Afterwards we went to Masala Zone for dinner. We have different attitudes towards food which to be fair is not surprising given I am annoying person to eat with i.e. I eat boring plain food and am not very experimental whereas he is a lot more foody and really enjoys eating. I eat to live, not live to eat, though my weighing scales may dispute that. During dinner, we had a proper chance to talk. It was nice that we could gloss over the bullshit opening questions because we already know each other. And it was nice to have this conversation in real life, and to be able to match words with a voice and face and gestures. Made it all real.

After dinner, we went to Snowflake Gelato for desert and I got chocolate ice cream *grin* and he got an Eton Mess. This was my favourite part of the evening because it felt like we were sitting in a little bubble and I got to ask him the real stuff… if I was what he expected, if it all felt weird, if he was happy we met. He answered pretty positively. I like that he didn’t try any mushy stuff like say he thought I was pretty or any other crap. Am super non-receptive to that.

It was here that the umbrella got left. Face palm.

We then headed to Oxford circus and parted ways. I hugged him – I had to to tip toe which he found amusing. Whilst I got home fine, turns out he couldn’t get a train home so was stranded for a while. He eventually took a train to another destination and got his cousin to drive him home. This must have been an expensive date for him…

After I got home, I got a mini interrogation from my mum. She went a lot easier on me than I expected… Are you okay? (I made it home, didn’t I?!) Did you like him? (Yes I did) Did he like you? (I think so) Will you see him again? (Yes most likely)

We’ve spoken a bit since then and one of the things that has cropped up is that he is a specific type of Shia Muslim whereas I’m technically a Sunni Muslim. These labels mean very little to me. I think they’re a minor issue for my parents but ultimately if I liked someone enough, they’d be fine with it. The rest of my family would likely kick up a fuss but I’m less bothered about that. Unfortunately my “Sunni-ness” might be problematic for his family. Call me egotistical, but I never expected to be a problem for anyone’s family! Either way, we both agreed to cross that bridge if and when it arose.

Why can’t anything be simple?!