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