I was in a coffee shop this week when a first date walked in. I’m going to name them Jake and Clare.
Nobody likes going on a first date; you don’t know what to wear, and you hope they don’t wear something weird. It’s exhausting thinking up impressive answers and conversation starters for 2+ hours while trying to dodge the dreaded awkward silence.
Saying that, observing a first date is gold.
Clare was a pretty blonde, and Jake was short and wore one of those thin scarves that does nothing.
Clare ordered a Diet Coke whilst Jake ordered a latte. Already it’s odd. At least be in sync with the drinks. The choice of the latte told me that Jake is quirky and comfortable in his own skin, (along with his scarf). If he went for a Cappuccino, I would say he was a people pleaser. A black coffee… intense. Anything else he would be a knobhead.
Anyway, drinks were delivered and the date commenced.
They launched into the topic of the first time they met. This is a perfect opportunity for a man to make a woman feel special. The man could say something like, “I saw you across the room laughing with your friends, and I knew I just had to talk to you.” He’ll likely be fibbing, but let’s live in the fairy tale.
“You were full of cold when I first saw you,” Jake said.
I closed my eyes disappointedly.
“Was I?” Clare said, sounding a little creeped out that he remembered this. “Oh yeah, I was. Bloody Amber gave me that. I was so angry with her.”
Jake went on. “Yeah, and then the next time I saw you was on the training day in March, where we were put into a team together.”
Clare doesn’t seem as enamoured with this experience. “Oh yeah…” she replied.
“I remembered thinking, this is fun.”
“Yeah…”
I had concluded at this point that Jake has liked Clare since March, and it’s only now that he has mustered up the guts to ask her out. I reckon Clare has always known Jake has liked her (because, well, women always know) but hasn’t quite felt the same.
However, with another single Christmas looming, Clare has agreed to the date. I don’t blame her; the Christmas season is a particularly vulnerable time for us singletons, meaning expectations are dropping for the month. The date could be demonstrating how to drink mulled wine through their eye, but at least you are not drinking mulled wine alone.
The conversation led to past dates. This is a delicate subject and probably should be avoided, but we tend to go there to show that other people have wanted us.
Clare tells a vague story of a date she had in an escape room. “It was odd but fun. I think he would have liked another date but….” she drifted off. Jake didn’t ask any other questions about this previous date, instead, he launched into his own story.
“And she tells me at the end that she likes me, but I didn’t feel ANYTHING for her. So, I told her that I didn’t feel ANYTHING, and she got SO upset, and then….”
(This is the part when the waitress came over with the bill, which I rapidly paid and then tuned back into the live date, only to find the mood had now shifted significantly).
Clare broke a long silence. “Do you not find that weird?”
“You can’t win these days…. you can’t ghost them, you can’t confront them,” Jake said as he leaned back into the chair with a laugh. Clare remained silent. Jake laughed again. “Do you think less of me now?”
“Yes,” Clare replied, and then added a polite, “Joking.”
It was at that point I left the café. I don’t know how Clare and Jake ended up, but I’m sure it’s not going to be the next Christmas love story.
Blog Soundtrack
THE QUACK 