Date 2 - John

Welcome to date 2 of 26!

Guy Profile
Name: John
Age: 28
Height: 5.8½
Occupation: Store Operations
Location of date: Banana Tree, Angel, London
Date: 20/01/2012

How I met John
I was introduced to John by a nice lady, who I met last year. She thought we might be interested in each other and gave him my number to call me after gaining my permission.

Communication duration before talks of a date
John and I spent just over a week communicating with one another on the phone and via blackberry messenger (bbm) before I hinted that we should go on a date.

Initial thoughts of John
When John first called me I thought he sounded quite nice. I have a thing for voices. The deeper a guy’s voice, the more attracted I am to him. His voice wasn’t extremely deep but he sounded like a man and not a boy or in some cases an annoying one. We had a nice conversation and he seemed keen to get to know me some more. We took each other’s contact details, i.e bbm pins and I added him on facebook and he accepted my request. When I first saw his pictures, I have to admit that it didn’t make me like him anymore. Instead it made me hold back a bit because he looked short. Height is the second thing that can really make me more attracted to a guy. I think at the moment my preferred height for a potential partner is anything between 5.11 and 6.4. Anyone who knows me can pretty much guess why I prefer tall guys. I love my heels and I want to be able to look up to my man even with heels on. I don’t want to have to buy heels that are only 2 or 3 inches high or be subjected to a life full of flat shoes.

As our first conversation went quite well, John and I pretty much contacted each other at least once a day on bbm from there on. A number of days but less than 2 weeks later I actually started warming more and more to him. He seemed like a real nice person. I think I even mentioned to someone that I was really looking forward to a date with him. At that stage I should have touched wood because things started to change for me. The more I learnt about him the more I thought: ‘No, I don’t think he is for me.’ He mentioned things that made me question his attitude and beliefs. For example, he mentioned that he once had a girlfriend that did things that he didn’t like and he was even persuaded by his friends to leave her. He chose not to end the relationship for a while because he wanted to wait for when they got married before trying to change the things that he didn’t like about her. This kind of thinking doesn’t go down well with me at all. I mean, I agree that once you get married, you should cut down certain things and think more about how your actions may affect your partner. What I don’t agree with is for you or your partner to attempt to change things about you that were obviously a part of you before you got married. You got married for better or worse NOT I will put up with what I can and change the rest. I was really uncomfortable with that statement and I made it known to him that you cannot change people, you’ll only just end up changing yourself. People change because they want to not because it has been imposed on them.  Now less about my prior thoughts of him before the date.

Pre-date arrangement

Like date 1 it was difficult to decide where to go for this date and because I want things to flow as naturally as possible I tried not to insist greatly on what we should do. After going through a few options on the phone and not reaching a decision we agreed to both go away and think of more options. By the day before the date neither of us had come up with anything so he mentioned that we should just go for a meal and see what happens after and I happily agreed. We agreed to meet somewhere quite local to me at 20:30 because he was driving.

The Date

Me - Just before I left home for the date

At 20:14 John sent me a bbm message, asking if I was at home. I said yes and he made his way to our agreed meeting point. At 20:40 he sent another, asking if I was at the meeting point and I said no because I didn’t expect him to be there by then because of where he was coming from. After a couple of minutes, I sent him another message, asking him to let me know when he was 10 minutes away. To my surprise he was already there, so I left home immediately and I got to the meeting point within 10 minutes.

Locating each other once at the meeting point wasn’t straightforward at all because he was searching for me in a different area from where I had actually arrived. He thought I would arrive by bus because he didn’t realise how close I live to the meeting point. Anyway when we finally found each other after my numerous waves in the air, in hope that he would find the weird person waving, he spotted me.

When he came closer, we hugged each other and proceeded to the direction of his car. On the way there we passed some nice cars and some average cars. Every time we came close to a nice car I hoped it was his but no we kept on walking pass and finally stopped by a car that in my opinion was the least attractive of all of the cars at the parking lot. Anyway that doesn’t matter. What matters is that he can get from A to B and besides at least he’s got a car. I can’t say the same for myself.

When I first saw him I thought he looked much nicer than I had anticipated even though he was short as expected. He was dressed casual smart; more casual than smart in my opinion. After 2 dates of not being impressed by my dates attire I’m starting to think my expectation of guys attire to dates may be too high, but I don’t want to lower my standards. I have been on dates where guys have really made an effort with their attire and I appreciated them for it. After these two dates I appreciate them even more for making the effort.

In case you are wondering what he had on; he had black jeans and a black jumper on. I didn’t really pay attention to his shoes because the upper layer failed to impress. I must say he was dressed better than Date 1, but because I am really into guys who wear suites, the very casual smart look didn’t do it for me. If he had a nice jacket on with the jeans and some nice shoes on like one of the pictures on the side and  below I definitely would have been impressed.

Me in Banana Tree

Moving on, he was a nice gentleman all the way through the date. He held the car door open for me each time I got into it and assured me that he was my bodyguard for the evening. In other words I should feel completely safe because he had my back. He was willing to try Banana Tree’s not so Chinese menu, even though he wanted Chinese food and paid for both of our meals. The conversation in the restaurant was ok. We weren't engrossed in any particular topic and there were a few silent moments that I had to break each time. After the main meal and one round of drinks we left Banana Tree. He dropped me somewhere near to my house and I walked the rest of the way home.

Like Date 1, I don’t feel any romantic feelings for John. The date was very mediocre. I don’t think it will be on the list of my most memorable dates out of the 26. It definitely hasn’t put me off blind dating but I think the next time I go on a blind date I will try to do something more active.

If there’s anything that I’ve missed out readers please leave me a comment below and I will reply as soon as possible.

Thanks for reading My dating year – Date 2

Date 1 - Ray

Welcome to Date 1 of 26

Guy Profile:
Name: Ray
Age: 24
Height: 6.1
Occupation: RAF Officer/Postgrad student
Location of date: Southbank Centre, London
Date: 07/01/2012

Before the Date
Deciding on what to do was very difficult. The original activity that I wanted us to do was boat riding at Hyde Park or Battersea Park but after checking online I discovered that it wasn’t available during the winter season. As I really wanted us to do an outdoor activity I browsed the internet some more and horse riding, rock climbing, London bus tour, boat trips and even cooking lessons were just too expensive for me. I have to keep to a budget, especially as I have to go on 26 dates over the course of the year.

Some of you reading this might be asking yourselves: ‘Is she the type that pays her half on a date?’ The answer is No, but I always bring cash with me just in case I need to. I did find myself in a situation once, where the guy asked me to pay for the cinema tickets and he will pay for our meal. I can’t say I was happy to do so because I’ve grown up with the mentality that the guy should always cover the bill, most especially on first dates but I did and besides the date was fun so I wasn’t too bothered.


Back to pre-Date 1. On the night before Date 1, I went back to Google to search for an outdoor activity as I was determined to start this challenge with an outdoor activity. London Eye came to mind, even though I’m not a fan of it because I thought it was just too slow when I went on it on a school trip at the age of 12. I called Ray at midnight and he was happy with the location and we arranged to meet at the Southbank Centre at 12:00 noon.



The Date
At 11.57 I called Ray to ask where he was and to my surprise he was already at the Southbank Centre whilst I was still at home. I know it was terrible of me to still be at home. All I can say is that my time management on this day was bad and I apologised to Ray and he didn’t seem bothered by the fact that I told him I’ll be half an hour late.

12:30 - I arrived at Southbank Centre and discovered that London Eye was not open to the public for 2 weeks. I think it was under repairs. Whatever the reason, I wasn’t disheartened as I had accepted that everything I had hoped to do, before deciding on London Eye weren’t meant to be for this date and the same goes for London Eye, besides there were other activities available in the vicinity.

It took about 5 minutes before Ray and I found each other in the sea of people. I must say that at first glance, I was surprised by Ray’s choice of attire because I was expecting him to make more of an effort than he did; but after getting to know him on the date, I think his choice of clothing was a representation of a somewhat unique style, which he is using to physically display the journey that he is currently on. I appreciate that he is on a journey but I am usually impressed when guys make an effort on their appearance when they meet up with me for a date because it says to me ‘I value you and I care about what you think of me’.

As for my attire, I had difficulty deciding what to wear because it was a day date and since I turned 18 I have not been on a day date. I tried my best to dress up but didn’t go as far as I would if it was an evening date. You can see from the pictures below.

Back to the date, as the London Eye was not in operation, I asked Ray if he was happy to go to the Arcade instead and he accepted so we went there.

We went on the bumper cars and danced on the dance, dance revolution. I kicked Ray’s ass on this by the way- but it was only his first and my second time. I felt hungry after this as I had not eaten anything that day, so I asked if we can go to Wagamama. On our way there we saw a number of the human statues that are usually at the Southbank Centre. We were intrigued by one of them because he got the public involved in his act. After watching a number of children pose with him, I got involved and Ray took the picture below.

The human statue & myself posing

After posing with the intriguing human statue, we went over to Wagamama and queued up for about 20 minutes in the cold. From here until the end of our meal Ray and I got to know more about each other. We talked about a variety of things, from art/galleries to books/weird fictional/non-fictional characters to past dates, the army and more. I ordered Yaki Soba (a noodle meal) whilst Ray ordered a rice meal. We both had a taste of each other’s meal and I had a taste of Ray’s dessert too, which tasted like apple pie but looked very different. Ray wasn’t interested in my lemongrass and passion fruit yoghurt so I had it all to myself.






After the meal, to my surprise Ray offered to pay for our meal. I say ‘to my surprise’ because Ray knows about my blog. I wasn’t expecting him to pay at all for this reason but he did and I thought it was very nice of him. On our way to get our buses we went pass the Arcade again and I asked if we could go on the bumper cars once more and again he went along with me and we had fun being kids again.

Overall I think the date went well and Ray was a nice gentleman. In terms of romantic feelings I have to say there weren’t any on my side. It felt very much like two friends hanging out. I did have fun with him but I didn’t feel any spark at all. This could be because of the way I approached the date, as something that I have to do for my blog and the fact that we didn’t have the build up of nice text messages and calls beforehand like I’ve had with my past dates.

As from now on I am going to approach my dates as if they could potentially lead to a relationship rather than just seeing it as an activity that I have to do so that I can have something to blog about. This is obviously a more painful approach than the one I had for Date 1 because I am allowing my emotions to get involved. If I am to understand more about dating I have to get as involved as I did in the past. I hope I have covered everything that there is to cover.

Readers if there’s anything you’d like to know please leave a comment below and I will respond as soon as I can. Please subscribe to my blog so that you’ll get a notification every time I post a new blog.

Thanks for reading My dating year – Date 1