Date #11 Dinner with a Man Who Set the Standard

If you haven’t read blogs #9 and #10, you wouldn’t know that all these dates and the one you’re about to read about happened on the same fateful Thursday. I was exhausted and running quite late for my third and final date of the night with a glass of red in my hand, finger on the pulse ordering an Uber, smearing make up on my face, changing my dress and pretending to look ‘fresh faced’ and ‘awake’ despite being jaded, tipsy, and feeling more like Ke$ha and less like Bey.

Date #11 and I had been in conversation since April before I had deleted Tinder during which time we made the Facebook friend commitment. He was extremely nice, non creepy and had a good selection of Facebook and Tinder photos. He was also from the Hutt after being overseas working for quite some time.

Date #11 had wished me a happy birthday in May and even remembered what we talked about before I deleted Tinder as he then asked about my recent trip to Melbourne. After that, we matched again on Tinder a couple of days later and he asked me out for dinner at Boulcott Street Bistro within a few days.

Fuck. Yes.

I was overly keen (which hopefully wasn’t too transparent) as I had heard such great things and it was a bold move to suggest a sit down meal at a nice restaurant with someone you’ve never met before in real life. I found it incredibly chivalrous and I immediately respected him for it, even though I was going with the expectation that I would totally pay half at the end (because I am a single independent woman who no need no man). Date #11 seemed to have his shit together, possibly because guys in their early 30’s have better things to do with their time than getting high over the weekend and getting drunk in Apartment Bar (I’m not dissing anyone, I’ll see ya’ll there this weekend!). Never the less, despite my initial enthusiasm, I found myself becoming drained from this weird, almost addiction of setting up dates with other guys so in hindsight I was blind at how incredible this guy actually was in comparison.

I was running 20 minutes late, it was 45 minutes since I had pashed Date #10 in the Barina, and I had already consumed four glasses of wine. I was rushing across the road up the street in my baby slut heels when an older guy had stopped me, having spotted me running.

Silver Fox: “Cold night huh”

Me: “Isn’t it!”

Silver Fox: “It’s not as cold back home”

Me: “Where are you from?”

Silver Fox: “Perth, I’m just here for business.”

He had just dined at Boulcott Street Bistro with colleagues and was about to go back to his apartment. I asked what he recommended to eat. I’m naturally probably on the flirty side which prompted the silver fox to ask if I would like to go into the Bistro for a drink after initially I said I was meeting a friend for dinner. I had to then confessed that I was actually about to go on a date and since I didn’t think Date#11 would appreciate a plus one a threesome wasn’t really going to be on the horizon for that night. The Silver Fox asked me for my number, which I obliged and he suggested we catch up for a drink another night.

When I finally got into Boulcott Street Bistro I was so grateful it had this fancy dining mood lighting as my cheeks were burning from the four glasses of wine, the urgent rush to get there and the brief five minute encounter with the silver fox. Date #11 was as lovely in real life as he was online. He was tall, slim, had strong features with the sweetest smile and he seemed relatively relaxed and not offended that I was tardy for our dinner.

I hope he didn’t realise how casually tipsy I was. He didn’t seem to notice, as we had never met before. Date #11 had an interesting life and only just came back to New Zealand after living overseas for quite some time launching his business. Suuuuch prospects. It was hard to not come across like we weren’t on our first date to our waiter who seemed overly keen to judge us (seriously, he reminded me of this guy below. I couldn’t tell if he was foreign or from Hamilton). I ordered after recommendations from the Silver Fox – the Roasted Lamb Rack with wild mushroom & shallot stew, confit potato & root vegetable tian. Yeah, buddy!

êtes-vous de la France ou Hamilton ?

The food didn’t take long to come out, that or I was remarkably quick to drink my wine and engrossed about life and love with this guy. When the food I came out, it became harder for me to maintain class since I was on wine #5 and wasn’t in any position or mood to stop drinking. I dropped my fork, then knife, on the floor about four times and scrapped my fork on the plate loudly at least twice like the classy Hutt girl I am.

Nom nom nom

We weren’t going to have dessert, but then we did and Date #11 excused himself politely to pay the bill. This guy was a gentleman. If I wasn’t doing 30 dates in 30 days, I would have been blown away by how charming he was and probably waited by the phone for him to call. He was tall, good-looking and seemingly intelligent. There sadly wasn’t anything bad to report, or I was too tipsy to even recall.

At the end of the date, he offered me a ride home. I declined and said I would get an Uber and refused to let him walk me down to the end of the street to get one (because I am an independant woman who no need no man). He kissed me on the cheek and then I tottered down Willis Street tipsy off on another adventure.

Date #10 After-Work Wines with a Local

After a short lunch with a short guy, I was in dire need of a stiff drink with someone who could hold a conversation and talk about more than the Greater Wellington region.

Enter, Date#10. A bit of backstory about Date#10 is that we had actually met in real life the night that I was dressing like Britney and acting like Ke$ha. I think we must have matched on Tinder before I deactivated prior to the 30 Day Challenge as we spoke in that classy establishment that rhymes with Pish Posh.

I dressed like this

And I acted like this

Because I decided to ditch Pish Posh to pash that short guy downstairs that fateful night, our paths never crossed again but we matched again on Tinder and even upgraded to Facebook friends to allow for maximum Facebook stalking (he friended me obvs). Since my success rate was still at 100% and I was getting a little sick of the “Hi! How was your day x”, I decided to simply demanded Date #10 to ask me out as I felt like I had nothing to lose except wasted conversation.

Me: “Are you going to ask me out for a drink or just wait until you see me in Mish Mosh again?”

Date #10: “Haha we can defo go for a drink when you are free? Ha back on Tinder I see”

Me: “I’m free Thursday or Friday”

Date #10: “Sweet as I can do either of those!!”

The classic double exclamation point. It always ends up making me less keen to pursue them since the double exclamation point means they’re either too keen or a psycho, so I ended up finding other entertainments (with other men) until he asked me to grab a drink the following Thursday. Yes, the same day as the short coffee with the short guy. I’m such a slut.

I suggested we meet at Fork and Brewer since it was close to my work at 5.15pm. He sent me a message at 5.17pm that he was running a few minutes (and I was still putting on make up to ensure I wasn’t the first one there) and I got there at around about 5.23pm.

He was already there with a beer in his hand, a move too similar to that of that first Irish guy the day before. The exception was that when I got there, he asked whether I wanted a drink and even though I was completely prepared to pay he kinda shooed my wallet away and took care of my $9.00 House Chardonnay. Woo!

When we sat down, my sober eyes got a better adjustment as when I was hammered I had assumed Date#10 was a babe and my drunken eyes thought that he looked like the gay love child of James Dean and Pierce Brosnan.

My drunken observation was slightly exaggerated, but not far off!. He was a babe! With muscles on his arms and shit. There was strong Dad-bod potential though, he seemed like he could let it all go as he aged and rock it ( A clear criteria for any long term potential – rank their Dad-Bod potential!)

Date#10 almost came across like there was a bad boy buzz about him, the kinda impression that would cause my Mum to warn me to stay away from and the type that would have been able to persuade underage me to send flirty text messages from my Nokia 2280. (Sorry Mum!)

That is possibly a heavily exaggerated suggestion, simply from his good-looks and slightly too cool vibe that he was already beginning to give me in the first five minutes. The conversation was pretty standard at the start, he was kind of from the Hutt and we bonded over our Hutt roots – which he was immediately defensive over since he only went to school out there. I used to deny being from the Hutt too, until I realised it gave me street cred and I could pull out the classic line of “You don’t me, you don’t know where I’ve been!” It also meant that I could wear ugg boots and trackpants with a pink hoodie in public “Because I’m from the Hutt”. Side-rant: There is something actually really special about the Hutt and no, its not Trevor Mallard. I genuinely love the people out there and only like, two of my teenage lovers who are from the Hutt have been arrested on drug or assault charges…

See Date #10 why would you even deny being from the Hutt having gone to school out there?  It makes you who you are! Even though your Hutt education was from state integrated boy’s secondary school, that was really shit at debating, relatively close to a high risk security prison and I’m really hammering this Hutt part of your life up, don’t forget your roots.

Respect the Hutt, respect yo’self

We literally spoke about the Hutt for like 15 minutes since its my favourite topic of all time before we discussed what we’ve done with our lives. I talked about my degree and how my job is going and he talked about what he does for a living, how he lived in England and used to play club cricket over there and how he now lives in the Eastern suburbs of Wellington (Why don’t you move to the Hutt?) . Despite not having much to report about in terms of the conversation as it wasn’t completely deep and meaningful, but there was great banter. When he asked if I wanted a second drink, I said hell-yes because I was having a great time and I had also downed my wine incredibly quickly.

During the second wine, I offered him a lift to dinner since he was meeting a friend for dinner. I joked that he was meeting another Tinder date for dinner and he immediately denied it. I’m surprised he didn’t turn the joke back on me since I was unashamedly going on a dinner date to an incredibly nice restaurant at 7.30pm to mark my total number of Tinder dates that day to be three. See, told ya’ll that I’m such a slut!

As I had two glasses of cheap Chardonnay in the space of about an hour, I was feeling quite sassy and tipsy as a result during which I discovered as I was driving Date #10 to his next location.  I made the cute and classic girl joke that I was just adorably bad driver.

Still under the legal limit, just a bad driver

We concluded the date with him extremely confused as to which Thai restaurant he was going to and as I pulled over to say good-bye, Date #10 engaged me into this kiss where there was a lot of pace and tongue for about fifteen seconds. Words couldn’t describe it more accurately but surprisingly, I was totally into it. I then drove off and cranked up my Beyoncé loud to hide my bad driving.

That kiss!

Date #9 Shortest Lunch ever with a Short guy

This date that I’m about to describe was the first to occur during a lunch break. Date #9 was one of my first matches during this Tinderventure and I gave him very little information at the beginning. Cue my shit chat, from the beginning:

He suggested that before our first date that we should exchange three things about ourselves, two true facts and one lie and the other had to guess which one was the lie. I would usually save my Tinder chats for deep into the night since during the day I would be working late and in the evenings I’d be full on with my other job. My ideal Tinder chat time was 9.30pm, which obviously suited Date #9 as well, except his bedtime was around 10pm. This was fine by me since his chat wasn’t good enough to go on longer. He started sprouted off random words to get my attention since I wasn’t enthused by a lot of what he had to say. He said “Bubbles! Hah” and I responded with “How tall are you?” to which he responded with “Short yo! Like 5ft.6 :)”

Well, that settled any future long term plans. There was no way I would ever get accidentally pregnant to him.

Date #9 continued with the weird chat, which upon looking over it now for the content of this blog makes me wonder why I met up with him in the first place. He said “Ah yeh! :D” which really fucking grinded me.

As above, we agreed to meet during lunch time on the Thursday following the pashfest with the Irish guy in my Barina. 12.30pm, at Nikau Cafe. See ya there bubbles! Ah yeh!

He then asked if I had met anyone off Tinder before. I said “A few.”I was clearly lying. Unless he was referring to simply, the last few days in which case I was in the clear. I asked if he was strange. His answer was relatively reasonable;

“Ha I hope not but I might be depending on what your perception of what’s strange 😛 You’ll have to make up your own mind. :D”

I was around 6-7 minutes late to which Date#9 prompted to text me to say “I’m inside standing around like a dork lol”

Lol?

LOL?

Why did I even turn up to this date with a guy who says LOL? I literally can’t even fathom. When I got there, I saw him – he was clearly nailing his Tinder photos with the four up-close face shots as he was incredibly short when I got there. He wasn’t as bad Danny Devito, but he was about the height of Daniel Radcliffe who peaks at 5ft 5. It didn’t help that it looked like he was wearing skater shoes too and wide legged pants to make him look tall. He really dressed up.

For a Date in 2002

Not as bad as Sisquo was in 2002, but you get the idea.

I wish I could say that he really lifted me back up with his chat but unfortunately, that was a let down too. He was sweet but was awkward and his interactions with everyone we encountered – the waitress at the cafe for example just went to show that social interactions just weren’t his thing. It was so bad, that I feel guilty admitting that I figured this out in the first three minutes and the situation even made me feel awkward.

Date #9 still lived at home, with his Mum in the Greater Wellington region.

Me: “Have you ever flatted”

Date #9: “Um… nah”

Me: “Did you ever wish you were flatting?”

Date #9: “Err, nah its just my Mum and I”

Me: “Oh cool! I wish my Mum and I still lived in the same city… you must be saving so much money living at home all this time”

Date #9: “Erm yeh I’m saving for a house”

Me: “Cool! Where do you want to live”

Date #9: “Probably will buy in *Inserts Greater Wellington suburb that his Mum currently lives in*”

Me: “Cool! Have you been travelling?”

Date #9 “Ahh, nah I’ve been to Australia when I was a kid but nothing since then”

Oh fuck. See, I tried. I really did. I mean, it wasn’t the most awkward thing I’ve ever done (as I once tried to clean my dog’s anal glands after watching a Youtube video to save on vet costs) but it was genuinely quite bad. So bad that I offered to pay for the drinks in order to round the date up. So bad that I then faked a text message from my boss saying I needed to follow something up. It was so bad that he awkwardly told me his Dad had passed away two years ago.

How do I react to this?

Date #9 texted me two hours later, saying “Thanks for the fun lunch date! :D”

He then texted me the next day saying “Coffeeeeeeee next week! :D”

He then texted me the next day and said “Or zoo! Ha 🙂 do you work weekends?”

I responded with “I went to the zoo over the weekend”

He said “Aww okay”

The following week he sent me a text saying that he saw the coffee place I liked.

I never responded again.

Date #8 BacktoBack Irish Episode #2

Date #8 occurred 15 minutes after Date #7 finished. I had lied to Date #7 and said that I was meeting a friend for a drink and that I needed to move my car, which was mostly true – I did genuinely need to move my car. Little did he know that I was about to meet yet another Irish Tinder lover due to my weird sense of humour “Hey, do you know what would be freaking hilarious! Two Irishman back to back!”

Upon first glance, Date #8 seemed like he would deliver in terms of Irish charm and had more of a Gerard Butler vibe in PS I Love You ( except for the minor detail that he was red-headed and not Gerard Butler)

Yep, this was pretty much what I imagined

Mixed with this

Date #8 opened the chat on Tinder with a bizarre accusation as to how I knew his flatmate ( I didn’t know his flatmate) but one thing I began to notice about Tinder since I was clearly becoming a Tinder expert was that it started to show you having lots and lots of friends in common with any potential match. This could have been disastrous as my mutual friends with Tinder potentials were 80% previous conquests. Not ideal, especially if word got out about this short blonde girl with big boobs. This was luckily just a glitch that Tinder was overcoming since it now (few weeks on) comes up with 1st connections and 2nd connections next to mutual friend icons. 1st connections meant friend of both of yours and 2nd connections was your friends who had a connection with one of their friends. Did that make sense? I don’t care if it doesn’t.

After we got over the hump that I didn’t actually know his flatmate, things went relatively smoothly and for once, it was me who was failing on the chat-game. Date #8 seemed super keen to converse with a minimum of four lines to each three or four words I was getting out – I was getting jaded by this stage of my 30 days. He had a pretty exciting job that required qualifications and was originally from a place in Ireland that was known as Stab-City. He used to live in Canada and Queenstown and used at least two exclamation points at the end of every two or three lines of text!!

Looking back on our conversation, I’m surprised he was even keen to meet. I was definitely failing at the chat and wasn’t giving him much to work with. He asked me how my day went a week before we met up and I said “Day was good. Coordinated an event and Phil Goff showed up“.

Christ, He’s from Ireland. No New Zealanders even know who Phil Goff is post-2012. How many Labour leaders have we had since him? I’m surprised he even wanted to hang out after I mentioned a political figure. Yuck.

He texted me during Date #7 and said “Hey Date#8 here, so rum bar for a drink or would you prefer cocktails at Chow or Library or I’m always keen for good food!

He followed up with a second text since I didn’t respond ( I was too busy getting my chest stared at by a short Irish guy with a bad haircut)

“Just home, what’s your plan? Do you want to meet somewhere or should we try this another night?”

We agreed to meet at 6pm at CGR Merchant and Co. He mentioned that it was upstairs if I had never been there before.

I had been there before.

I went there a few months beforehand to break up with my boyfriend at the time, and on a separate occasion  a month prior, when I took yet another fucking Irish guy home to meet my four poster bed and tiny dog. Since we hadn’t met yet, I didn’t know if it was appropriate to mention either of these stories related to our date location so I thought I would say that I’d see him there.

Date #8 was 10 fucking minutes late. I had never been the first one there before and I didn’t know how to chill or pretend like I didn’t look like I had just been stood up.

I’m so confused. How do I not act like an idiot when someone is late? Do I pretend to be okay with this?

Date #8 ran up the stairs at top speed to compensate his tardiness ( I will never forgive you) and I simply pretended like I hadn’t even noticed and was okay with him being tardy (I will seriously, never, ever forgive you). First impression was that Date #8 was genuinely a similar albeit ginger version of Gerard Butler’s character in PS I Love You. He was just as charming, energetic and infectiously happy.

Take me to pound town, Jerry

You could be forgiven thinking that Date#8 and I hadn’t seen each other in years by the way we energetically spoke and there was just so much infectious banter from the get-go. We immediately talked about all the things you should never talked about on a first date ( I told him about how the last time I was here I took a guy home afterwards and the time before that I broke up with my boyfriend at the time) and we bonded over our mutual love for awkward moments.

This guy seriously had the best chat. We talked about being that person who got way to drunk in inappropriate situations and I loved that he didn’t take himself too seriously. He wasn’t bad on the eye either. The conversation was going so well, we even settled for a second beverage, a rare sign that things were going well.

Which is when he dropped his bombshell.

We somehow got onto the topic of movies and I said how much I loved Mean Girls. Date#8’s favourite movie was “We are the Millers”

Wait, what was that?

I got down in my underwear for the 24th Best Movie of 2013

Number 23 was Furious 6

Apart from that bizarre choice of favourite movie, Date #8 was starting to seem like a second date was actually on the cards. I offered to drive him to his destination as it was getting late and he had to go to a Jazz thing with his friends at The Realm in Haitaitai (A tacky pub on a Wednesday?) and it took us about six minutes to drive there before we commenced pashing in the Barina, outside The Realm in Haitaitai for about seven to eight minutes. Not too much tongue, surprisingly tasting nice after two salted caramel rums before we said our Goodbyes and I tried to get over the horror of Date #8’s favourite movie.

Date #7 The Back to Back Irish Episode 1

Wednesday was a hump day and for the first time in a long time, I was on time to work by 8am. Because of my excellent time management skills I was able to arrange for a tinder date at 5pm.

Date #7 was the first Irish guy I gave my number to off Tinder. I possibly had a case of overly built up anticipation for the luck of the Irish to make up for two one night stands I had on separate occasions where I was too intoxicated to even consider anything further than their Irish accents. Needless to say, I didn’t end up in a situation comparable to Gerard Butler in P.S I Love You but I held onto hope and remained optimistic that an Irish guy would eventually charm me and say just the way Gerry did in P.S I Love You “I know I should know this darling, but are you mad at me?”

Gerry, how could we be mad at you? Love, every girl ever.

Date #7 had a bio outlining that he was “Irish and new to Welly”with only two photos. One face shot of a nice looking boy and another of him with two friends holding a drink. The conversation started as most do, with a “Hello Melissa” and a smiley face on the end. I didn’t respond (because I’m a cold-hearted bitch) and he followed it up with a “I’m not very good at talking via Tinder so bear with me I’ll be a lot more charming”. So I gave him my number to be courted by an Irishman. Just like that.

Unfortunately his Hey 🙂 on the Saturday night and his Hey 😦 on the Monday night got old pretty quickly with no response and the chat wasn’t getting my blood pumping but there was a possibility that his shit Tinder chat could be compensated by a stellar personality so I finally responded.

The eggplant says everything.

We agreed to meet at 5pm at Plum Cafe on Cuba Street for an after work coffee as I was unenthused to do anything else with him based on his shit chat and a coffee can last as long as you choose to drink it. He texted me at 4.55pm to see if I was there yet and at 4.59pm I replied that I was walking there now ( lies, I was still at my desk)

I finally got to Plum at 5.09pm to meet Date #7 in the flesh. I was getting too accustomed to meeting strangers on the internet and simply said “Hey!” with a smile. He had a little bit of stubble, slightly sticking out ears and had comparatively close to the scalp short hair. He had already bought his own coffee by the time that I was there and needed to order my own. Perhaps it wasn’t an Irish thing to ask someone what they’re going to have if someone meets them there first and then sat down with my self-catered Chai Latte.

He was a Chef and like he indicated in his bio, was new to Wellington. He was currently staying in a hostel with two friends and worked nights. Within 15 minutes he had made weird references to the fact that I could drive him around Wellington since I had a car and during the 50 minute coffee date, he was looking at my chest for at least half of that time. I even asked him to look at me in the eyes at one point to which he replied “But they’re so big!”

I have big boobs, does that give you the right to stare? Bitch, please.

During my Chai Latte, I asked Date #7 whether he had been to other countries “Nah, just NZ and the US”. Such a chatterbox, I could hardly get a word in. The conversation stooped to such tragic levels that he had to ask what my favourite colour and movie was. He had never seen Mean Girls.

When we said goodbye, it was fucking awkward. Turns out he had blown his flat viewing for this tinder date and seemed ultra keen for a second date. Little did he know that the date following this coffee date was a drink with another Irish Tinder guy.

He never heard from me again. The last text he sent me was

Date #7 “So date no 2 tomorrow?”

Date #7: “Or not”

Date #6 Cocktails with a boy from the Taranaki

After Date #3, #4 and #5 some of you must be wondering whether I was intentionally swiping on douchebags to get a better story for my blog. To clarify, this was absolutely not the case! My standard was to maintain true to myself and I made a rule before I started this challenge that I could only date guys during these 30 days who I genuinely found attractive and wanted to meet – otherwise I would purposely date bogans and relish the awkward moments that comes with dating socially awkward guys. Like this guy, who deletes and resets his Tinder every couple of days.

No really, resetting your Tinder every day will definitely make me want to swipe you more every time I see you pop up.

Upon a first glance, Date #6 seemed like a genuinely nice guy and looked like a massive babe. His selection of photos showed him surfing and snowboarding. The one up close photo depicted a great looking guy with amazing eyes, a genuinely nice smile and a strong jawline ( *swoon* “That Jaw though” said no one ever). The quality of the face shot didn’t seem to have originated from a camera phone with many MP’s – maybe he was yet to upgrade from his iPhone 3G or his first camera phone ever. I don’t know, I wasn’t going to invest much thought into it.

I lied. I invested a lot of thought into this. “Do you snap your phone shut after taking a poor quality photo for your Tinder profile?”

We had one mutual friend who was a guy that I had pashed in Madame Peacocks only a few weeks prior to the 30 Day challenge in town, after going to a work function wearing something that Britney Spears would wear in a music video (after the bald head days of hot mess Britney).

My drunk, blurry memory of that particular night consisted of losing BD in town and deciding that I was drunkenly content being a lone wolf in town before meeting said guy I pashed and bonding over girls who walked by us and rating them out of 10. He insisted he wasn’t into girls that he met in town. Then we started kissing and I drunkenly instructed him to use less tongue during our pash rendezvous.

I originally invited him back to my house guaranteeing him that there would be no action further than a pashfest (with minimal tongue) before Ubering home alone when I realised that I didn’t feel like sharing my bed with anyone. Probably a good thing since when I had arrived home, Richie had taken a dump by my door in my absence which I drunkenly had to clean up. Awesome.

Arrived home to my dogs poo wearing this.

Regardless of that mutual friend, Date #6 and I seemed to get along pretty well through Tinder chat and I decided not to bring up Richie’s bowels or how I had pashed our one mutual friend when we would finally meet. When he asked for my number because “his Tinder kept crashing”, I happily obliged due to my motives and that he was genuinely a massive babe.

Over a few messages, we established each others last names as he didn’t want to save my number as “Melissa Tinder”. When he made the comment that we both had unusual names I made the natural progression to how the conversation was clearly going by the third or fourth text in.

Date#6: “Both unusual last names”

Melissa:” If we get married we should make our kids have hyphenated names”

Date#6: “Pump. The.Breaks. Sounds good.

Melissa: “What? You aren’t in this for the long hall?

Melissa: “Hahaha haul* I’m exhausted”

Date #6: “We will need a long hall to fit all the bedrooms at this rate. Kids bedrooms that is.”

Melissa: “Haha Are you short?”  [German subtly is one of the less fortunate traits I inherited]

Date #6: “Mid level, 5ft 11 or so…

Melissa: “Great, I can work with this”

This slightly above average text banter continued over the next few days. Our conversation had sparked on the Wednesday and had allegedly agreed to meet on the Saturday. Problem was, I was bed shopping with Date#2 by the time he texted me at 3.47pm and I made up terrible excuses and pretended like I was too busy for him ( Busy dating other guys muahaha). Date#6 suggested that we go to the City Gallery on the Monday and by the time I responded (because I was in the middle of dating Date#4!) he was off surfing for the rest of the day but that he “was easy” and to “let him know when I’m free next”.

I texted him the next day. Meat only stays good to eat once its defrosted for a few days. (Worst analogy ever, but you get the picture.) We had agreed to meet for coffee that day, then life/work got in the way for the both of us and it ended up becoming a drink at 8pm, at Library. I then pushed it to 8.30pm since I had to drop Richie home after doggy daycare. God, I hate myself and feel sorry for anyone crazy enough to hang out with me for leisurely purposes. Thankfully I was only running four nine minutes for Date #6. As it was rainy, I decided to wear my work clothes even though I had enough time to change. I covered myself in more perfume to hide any potential wet dog smell (from Richie, not me!)

When I got to the bar, I saw him sitting at a table by the window. He got off his seat and we did this incredibly uncordiniated meet and greet gesture, I can’t put words to describe it… was it an awkward hug, or an arm grip? To top it off, the first I said to him was “Let’s hope you’re not a serial killer!”. Smooth Melissa. He was so confused by my upfront accusation and didn’t know how to respond and followed the awkward arm grip hug with a “Huh? Oh, um, yeah… haha”.

Our banter warmed slightly after that rocky start. He was a farm boy from the Naki and had just come back to New Zealand from travelling overseas for a few years. He was starting a business in Wellington and didn’t know many people, hence why he was on Tinder. He seemed clever and grounded although we didn’t have much in common past the travel banter. It was going smoothly enough to get two desserts to share as it was 2 for 1 on Wednesdays. He got the Peanut, Caramel & Popped Corn Ice Cream Sundae and I got the Organic Raspberry & Pineapple Sorbet. His was clearly better and I was shamelessly just eating his as well as mine because he was just picking at it. It got to the stage where they just ended up melting, to my horror. I couldn’t do anything about it without being incredibly hungus.

Before I excused myself to go to the bathroom, I dropped another terrible Melissa joke ” Don’t spike my drink when I’m gone” which fell flat yet again. Seriously, why do I do this to myself?

I reflected on my poor choice of words in the bathroom

When I came back, the date was wrapping up since our melted uneaten desserts had already been taken away and we were starting to outstay our welcome. I hate lingering. I started to put my coat on and got my wallet out prepared to pay except Date #6 was already four steps physically in front of me and had his wallet out even though I gave the bar my credit card when we arrived and ordered the first round. It was even more awkward that my card was then returned to me and I struggled to engage in conversation further than “thank you” and “this was great”.

Date #6 and I walked down the stairs out onto the footpath where we engaged in yet another awkward arm grip hug thing. He was a near perfect gentleman albeit, a shy one and I guess I overestimated him to be as funny as his texts. Perhaps I had built him up in my head that he was even better looking than his pixelated photos. Although he didn’t walk me to my car around the corner, I did offer him a ride home as it was rainy which he politely declined.

A few minutes after our final awkward arm grip hug, he imessaged me a pin to his current location which was somewhere near KFC was on Cambridge Terrace. For fear of having to find another Beyonce embarassed gif to describe what I could have said in response to this bizarre out of the blue notification of his location, I took a leaf out of Ronan Keatings CD and said nothing at all.

He followed up after the location whereabouts text.

Date #6: “Did I send that”

Melissa: “Yep”

Date #6: “I’m not even sure how? My phone was in my pocket… I don’t even know how to send that. Haha.”

Melissa: “I bet that’s what guys who send dick pics say”

Date #6: “Hmmm, FYI don’t follow that, you’ll go to the wrong house. Haha, yeah I think I probably would know how to send a dick pick but I’m sorry to say – ones not coming.”

Date #6: “But seriously, how does it send a location?”

Melissa: ” I’m not sure sorry! Was nice to meet you.”

Date #6: “Seriously I’m not sure how that happened – I’m not that bold. Anyway, yeah it was nice to meet you too. If you would like to do something again, let me know.

Following this nice touch to the end of the night and the satisfaction I received that he wanted another date even though I had dropped two awkward jokes, the conversation went on for a few weeks of plans and never quite cemented a second date. But I still maintained at that stage a 100% success rate asking for a second date and even got a free dessert!

Date #5 Zoo Times with another Londoner

After Date #4 it was becoming harder and harder to maintain enthusiasm and energy to meet these randoms. Why would I put aside time for those I don’t know when I was barely putting time aside for people I do know? The thing about friendship is that you talk about things you can relate to the other person with and you actually care somewhat about their life – depending on their ranking of friendship. With Tinder dates you have to introduce yourself, stick your chest out and maintain attractiveness for at least an hour. It’s tedious. Regardless, I’m the type of person who will do something to completion no matter how tired or annoyed I am with the situation (All my exes would agree). Since I refuse to give up, I was going to persistently continue to date no matter how tired, annoyed, or bored I was at the prospect.

Enter, Date #5. He messaged me with a relatively good opening line and excellent grammar.

Date #5: “Hi Melissa, I like your profile picture. You look dangerous – like ‘Don’t look at me! I will drink you under the table’. But you would lose.”

Melissa: “Most likely. I would go out trying. And collapse and vomit. But I mostly keep it together”

Date #5:  “Very chivalrous of you. Think I ‘d pop you in a taxi at that point. 🙂 your dog in your second picture is cute! I love dogs. I used to have an Airedale terrier that looked kind of like yours called rustic… he was naughty but adorable.”

The conversation continued with a little bit of dog banter, after which he revealed that he worked in sales, was originally from London, and came here a couple of years ago. The tinder conversation peaked with the brilliant line of “Mystic Melissa you are a lady of mystery…” and  he ended the conversation that night with “Just got into my amazing bed need my beauty sleep lol drop me a line 02********.”

Wait, why was there even a lol in there?

Inappropriate loling makes me go

Date #5’s photos consisted of a range of images with two shirtless self portraits, (not of his rock hard abs – he had more of a two back), one selfie, two photos of him with girls in them and one photo of him in suit and tie with his mouth wide open.

I wasn’t put-off by this point. Shirtless pictures are always a concern when you’re not a body-builder, a personal trainer or a model but hey, this is a 30 Day challenge and I’m open minded. Let’s hope his weight hasn’t changed too much, and that the shirtless selfie isn’t outdated – this is always a concern with guys who upload their Facebook profile picture from 2012 as their Tinder profile picture because “they haven’t got around to changing it” or “I don’t use facebook/take photos much”. Metabolisms slow down and being a single guy means more beer nights with the boys. Let me just leave it at that without directing this at anyone in particular.

Date #5 and I continued to converse over text and share pictures of dogs. At least I wasn’t going to have a repeat of #4 as he had photographic evidence of his dogs/friends dogs, and seemed entertained by my dog stories. He even suggested that we go to the zoo, knowing that I was a dog lover, and that he would pick me up at 1pm the following day. He sent through a picture of the weather forecast to assure me of what the weather would be like for extra brownie points.

On the day, I received a call from a random number and answered it relatively hastily. To my surprise, it was date #5 simply wanted to confirm the details and to push the time to 2.30. He recognized that I was yet to save his number (Do you know how hard it is to juggle Tinder boys?!) which he called me out on and I brushed it off as though I wasn’t even phased by his slight dig. There was also some persistence that he wanted to pick me up from my house to meet the ‘little fella’.

My being late to dates was finally coming to bite me in the ass, as Date #5 was running even later than he had predicted. Thankfully I was at home and able to resume life in the interim instead of waiting like a loser at a Café. His excuse for his tardiness was brilliant, and one that I definitely needed to utilize myself at least once throughout this 30 Day Challenge.

“I had a little bit of a dilemma what to wear and just found quite possibly the worst or best odd sock combo in the world” [Editor’s note: extremely disappointing sock combo upon inspection]

When he finally arrived, he knocked on my door and had this adorable British accent. He was much shorter than I had anticipated – crafty photo angles had worked in his favour and I’m sure he was stoked that he was taller than me. As we walked up to his car, it made so much more sense that he wanted to pick me up. He had a really nice car. This was the part where I was supposed to be gushing over his car and soothing his ego. I adhered to this to appease him and said “Omgah, kewl car!” when really, I was a lot less impressed and more focused on how well he had done portraying himself taller than he was.

Date #5 was relatively new to Wellington and it was agreed upon getting into the car that I would give him directions to the zoo from my house. For those who are close to me, I have a terrible sense of direction and can’t function as a human being very well if I’m the front passenger in a car (which isn’t very often these days). I prefer to treat it like an Uber ride and be silent on my phone the entire time, much to my ex’s anger “You don’t even talk to me, you just text on your phone!”.  I’m totally aware of this massive personality flaw, as many arguments over two years stemmed from this behavioural trait. Anyway, just to clarify – THIS WASN’T ONE OF THOSE TIMES. I was the most perfect travel companion as I had my good-Tinder-date-future-girlfriend game on. Within 90 seconds though, Date #5 was digging into me and gently mocking me for my shit direction-giving which had nothing to do with his lack of comprehension ( he could barely see over the drivers seat in his sports car). This was fine though, I could handle being blamed indirectly for him not seeing of the dashboard, especially since following the gentle mocking of my shit direction-giving he said that he hated it when girls took him too seriously.

When we got to the zoo we had to park a little further down the drive since Date #5 didn’t want birds to poop on his car as he had just polished his baby that morning. I was okay with that, I can walk 300 metres without crying.

“I really hate when birds crap on my car”

Kudos points went to Date #5 when I got my wallet to pay for the zoo and he pushed in front to foot the bill. Because I like to keep things relatively fair, I offered to get the coffees but once again Date #5 insisted on paying. We ended up having to look at the pygmy monkeys for like 15 minutes since the barista at the zoo couldn’t quite grasp the concept of making coffees within five minutes. When we finally did get our coffees, Date #5 was pissed and short with the barista that his flat white wasn’t a large.

As we started our tour of the zoo, I became super excited that I got to show this guy a kiwi within the first 30 seconds of being in the enclosure. We only had two hours or so of time at the zoo due to his odd sock debacle making him late.

During the time that we were looking at the leopard, Date #5 did a cringy impression of Borat “You’ll never get this”, which up until drafting up this blog I had assumed was a quote from King Julien in the Madagascar movie. Regardless of this minor detail, I had a brainwave of who this guy reminded me of. He was just King Julien!

Nailed it

Without boring my beloved readers of the relatively smooth sailing transaction of this date (which ended with a ride home, a walk to my door and a kiss on the cheek) the actions following the date and the arrangement for a second date were simply too good to miss out.

The night after our date, I received a call from Date #5 who proceeded to tell me about his day. I didn’t think we were at the stage of sharing how our day were details but I was glad he felt comfortable enough to do so. He was bitching about his flatmates and after 15 minutes of hearing about it, I was too tired after a day at work to care and made up the pathetic excuse that “I have to go… and have a shower before my flatmate does”

Wait, what did I just say?

During and following this phone call, we agreed to hang out on the Friday for Tapas (and a giggle according to his txt?). Organising second dates this early in the game was a risky choice as I still 25 dates to plough through and ended up double booking myself on the Friday night with Date#3. For some bizarre reason, I chose to ditch Date#5 because of the whiny phone call where he bitched about his flatmate and hung out with Date #3 instead only to get my crotch grabbed. Karma.

Conversations with Date #5 started to desist since he was a little pissed that I had ditched him on the day of the day ( I gave him eight hours notice!) but by this stage we were FB friends and he even added me on LinkedIn. Whilst I was doing the write up for this blog entry, I checked his Facebook to see what he had been up to only to find that he had blocked me! Possibly he was a little offended by the whole 30 Dates in 30 days thing even though I had notified most of these guys prior. To ensure there was no hard feelings, I thought I’d txt him.

Nope, no hard feelings!

Date #4 Coffee with a Cynic

Date #4 was assumingly a frequent flyer on Tinder as we had matched every single time I had signed up since I joined beginning of 2014. Tinder and I had an on again-off again relationship. Like Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee. With less Hepatitis C and hopefully less leaked sex-tapes.

Even though I don’t recall ever having a conversation with Date #4 worth remembering, I thought it would be a fantastic opportunity for Tinder to hopefully surprise me. He seemed quite good-looking and looked great in his photos with zero selfies. This was a good sign that he has a life or that he had his tinder perfected by the women in his life (which is also indicates that he’s also been friend-zoned by these women). First picture was him and a friend wearing a black t-shirt and sunglasses. The second photo showed him alone wearing a nice shirt and tie. The third, the same outfit ( let us hope it was the same day as the first photo otherwise he must really love that look). The fourth photo showed him once again, in a shirt, tie and this time a jacket. Bonus! He was next to a friend also wearing a suit and tie and one would hope it was taken a few years ago as he looked younger in this picture than he did in the first three shots (unless I’m about to date Benjamin Button?). He had two more photos which depicted him in the exact same outfits as two, three and four. In three out of six photos, he’s holding a beer.  In five out of six photos, he’s wearing the same tie. The last photo had him posed next his friend with his butt pushed out and his friend squatting on him at either at the races or a wedding. A classic photo to show that he has a sense of humour.

Fucking hilarious

Date #4 started off the conversation with a winning opening line.

Date #4: “Hi:)”

Melissa: “We’ve met before”

Date #4: “We’ve matched before. But not met:)

Date #4: “And I’d be happy to change that if you are.”

Melissa: “Ok. Guess you haven’t had much luck”

Date #4: “Define luck? 🙂 no I just realise we’ve matched twice now, and have intended to meet, but never did. So would rather cut the mucking around and find out if you’re keen or not!”

Melissa: “Yeah I’m keen”

Date #4: “Cool 🙂 free this weekend?”

Melissa: “For you I could be”

Date #4: “Provocative 🙂 and I’m assuming that’s a yes. Cool, I’m free all day Sunday”

We then agreed to meet at Midnight Coffee on Cuba Street at 11am the following day. Surprisingly, I was running 20 minutes late and rescheduled at 10.41am to meet at 11.30am which he was fine with. At 11.42am, I sent him a message saying “I’ve just done the world’s best or worst parallel park – see you soon” and at around 11.49am, I finally arrived. 19 minutes late is bad form and I could tell this was becoming a habit I would struggle to break.

Richie and I arrived at Midnight Coffee to quite a handsome dark young guy sitting down with his gym bag. We realised quite quickly that this establishment wasn’t dog-friendly and I suggested we went down to Dukes to grab a coffee.

When we finally sat down at Dukes, I finally got a decent look at him. He wasn’t bad-looking and definitely would look fantastic with a Dad-bod in years to come. He had nice features, strong dark brows and had a nice smile. For some pathetic reason, I couldn’t overlook the fact that his t-shirt had piles in it. He was also obviously semi-unenthused about Richie, something that I immediately couldn’t understand since he said he liked dogs.

Date #4 was a baby corporate in the big bad world of boring occupations. After about three minutes of conversing with him, I figured out why he was single and it wasn’t because of the piles in his shirt or his inability to be excited around Richie. I mean, I’m not asking for much. Just pat my fucking dog in a way that doesn’t look begrudging.

Richie was, needless to say unenthused about this lacklustre pity pat and refused to associate with Date #4 after that.

How every guy should act around my dog

Date #4 was a self-confessed bogan who listened to a lot of Rammstein growing up. Perhaps this was the reason why everything he said had such a negative undertone. The struggle was real to converse about anything without it resulting in something negative. He seemed to put a lot of blame on the fact that he was a middle child ( Lulz I’m a middle child too) and seemed to hate his job and was discontented with life.

Best Douche Bag moment of the day went to Date#4  when he made the brilliantly generalized, and sexist remark “Of course, you’re a girl” as a way of explaining why I was so excited about materialistic things.Which obviously meant that every single woman has a tendency towards shiny brand things. I was mortified. I just told him I was looking forward to upgrading my laptop?! The moment was emphasized when he started to go on a tangent on how we work to please other people and that he didn’t see the point in new things and that he just wanted to save money. He even sold his car because he didn’t see the use in it.

“Right? I just love the bus so much!”

It was getting to the point of the conversation where I was starting to feel bad for the guy. Possibly I was being too harsh? Maybe he made one stupid remark generalizing women loving shiny things and I over reacted? When we united over the fact that there was no step by step book and paint by numbers way of dealing with life once you graduate and get a job,  I started to really feel like he was deeply unhappy without even knowing he was and will be forever unsatisfied with life. When I tried to suggest that he needed to do things to make him happy, he made the comment that I just work hard to show others that I’m working hard.

SRSLY?

It reached crunch time during the date where I was starting to become genuinely offended by his incorrect psycho-analysis of me. I didn’t tell him that I found him to be an angry anti-feminist who hates shiny things, with piles on his shitty t-shirt but I did lie and say that I had to do other things in the afternoon (like stare at a blank space on my ceiling memorizing the lyrics to Gangster’s Paradise) and wrapped up the date. I offered him a ride to wherever he was going which he thankfully declined and got a bonus awkward hug to really seal the deal. He was off to the gym to get the best value for money out of his bus fare and I was off to look at shiny things and to show people how hard I work.

Did I ever hear from him again? Well, 22 minutes after we parted ways, Date #4 send me a message on Tinder “Hey was nice to meet you – sorry I meant to ask for your number if that’s cool? :)”

Needless to say, we never spoke again.

Date #3 Gin and Tonics with the first JAFFA

It is Sunday afternoon when I realise that I need to get my third date in for the day whilst I’m out in Silverstream taking some photos of a campaign for work. I’m already exhausted having to make an effort with these random guys to sort out and arrange these dates. Brunch was off the cards with any Tinder potential that morning since I had already arranged to have brunch with the BF who was down for the weekend.

Date #3 depicts himself on his Tinder profile as “Just an average bloke really”. Ooh, captivating! His first photo shows him on Oriental Parade looking like he’s playing table tennis with a backwards cap and is not facing towards the camera. Ooh mysterious and average. His second photo shows him with a bourbon and coke in his hand, shirtless, in tight, white short shorts displaying a tiny amount of pubic hair and is clearly intoxicated in the shot. The third photo shows him (one would assume) and four other friends butt naked with their backs facing the camera on a mountain somewhere holding what could be interpreted as their ‘average blokes’. The fourth photo is a face shot with once again a backwards cap and between two girls, neither of which looked like his Mother.

The conversation starts with him offering me a compliment.

Date #3: “You have great assets”

Melissa: “You have a nice butt”

Date #3: “Thank you, do you know which butt it is?

Melissa: “Nope, Not the black one?”

Conversation with Date #3 sped up pretty quickly as by the fifth message, he asked me out for coffee/nibbles over the weekend. On the Saturday, he texts me to remind me whether we were still on for Sunday to which I replied “Sounds good”. He then reminds me on the Sunday again and said “Heya, will I get the pleasure for a quick drink or you got cold feet? :).”

I texted him upon remembering that I had to get a date sorted at 5pm (I pre-arranged a lot of dates that never actually eventuated and constantly only replied to the top of my Tinder feed. Tough love!) We arranged to meet at Vinyl bar on Courteney Place at 6pm. I was somewhat ill-prepared driving back from Silverstream and was wearing the same outfit from Friday night with very minimal make up. Date #3 got extra brownie points when he said that my dog would be able to get into Vinyl and that “Richie McPaw is a legend, he’ll get let in anywhere.”

An obvious reaction to anyone who flatters Richie McPaw in my presence

Once again I was actually running early since I didn’t run home to get changed or ready. I had half an hour to kill at 5.30pm so I visited a friend’s house close to Taranaki St with Richie where I lay down on my friend’s couch (yet another ex-Tinder luver) and got my head patted for forty-five minutes before deciding that 20 minutes was enough time for Date#3 to wait and tottled down to Vinyl Bar.

When I got there, I was extremely apologetic to Date #3 for being late (Soz, was getting my head patted!) and insisted we sat in the outside area to avoid any other Tinder dates seeing me on the street view. I carried Richie through the bar and more or less declared that I wanted a gin and tonic before going outside, leaving my poor date to fund my lifestyle. Not very Beyoncé of me to assume he would pay and when he got outside, drinks in hand I profusely apologised and insisted I would get the next round.

Once we sat down, I got a good look and began my judgement. Date #3 was dressed somewhat in between a bogan and a used car salesman with slightly greasy hair and a receding hairline. Perhaps it was just the leather jacket and the fact that he possibly hadn’t washed his hair that day but I felt somewhat more enthused about him when the mystery offered just his ass facing the camera. He had lived overseas in the last year before returning back home to Auckland, coming down to Wellington for a job in marketing.

The chat was good and relatively free-flowing. We bonded over our love for Vietnamese food and he told he about a business idea was going to launch. To throw him off a little, I decided to add in exciting weird topics to test him. I told him about how I’ve gotten Colonics in the past and that I highly recommended them.

Me: “I highly recommend getting a Colonic, it is the best thing ever. Kim K gets them!”

I told him how I had investigated the cost of a vasectomy as a present for my Daddy’s 50th birthday five years ago after my Dad joked too many times about having another kid and that I was surprised that it wasn’t offered in the form of a gift voucher: This Gift Voucher entitles 1x individual to a vasectomy. Must be used within 1 year of the voucher date. Date #3 was seemingly unphased when I was just dropping these bizarre but truthful stories into the conversation. Richie seemed to be a fan of Date#3 and sat on his lap throughout the entire date, a seemingly good sign of things to come. We ended up having a second round after I basically sculled the first one to speed up the process and enhance my opinion of him and he said he felt a little emasculated that I had finished mine before him. (Wait, what?)

After two drinks, that he funded once again (I finished the second one before him aswell) Date #3 walked Richie and I to my car (no explosive diarrhea this time!). We hugged and lied to each other that it was good to meet one another and he kissed me on the cheek. He texted me once he got home

 Date #3: “Awesome to meet you and Richie, you’re good fun. Have a good night x”

Melissa: “You’re great fun. [Edit: Lie] Hope the Vietnamese was amazing

Date #3: “It was really good. Somehow still had an appetite after our conversation…

Melissa: “Surprising”

Bonus story about Date#3 is that we actually ended up catching up again the following Friday, since I couldn’t quite figure out whether he was a good guy or not and he offered me tickets to the FIFA final, which I bailed when I remembered that I hated football and couldn’t be bothered to go out. Instead he came over to my flat with a bottle of red and Vietnamese takeaway and we watched an average movie with Vince Vaughn. I immediately fell asleep in an awkward spoon position and Richie once again, took a unjustified liking to him. It was during this night when we discussed Tinder after I had opened up about my 30 Day challenge when he admitted to having two different approaches to girls on Tinder. There were the girls who he thought were good enough to have random sex with and would approach them with crass remarks like “Hey, want to fuck?” and “DTF?” whereas “girls like me” got the drink and date approach. He couldn’t explain in a non-douchebag way about what gave him the right to choose what type of girl gets which treatment and the night ended on a weird note reinforced by our grandma kiss after I made it pretty clear that he wasn’t staying over and he grabbed my crotch as he said good-bye.

Bye!

Date #2 Brunch with a Londoner

On my Tinder profile, it says that I like “Brunch and Dogs”. I only really started to appreciate brunch in it’s full glory four years ago when my boyfriend at the time introduced me to Marsden Village Café in Karori. We went there every couple of weeks when we lived together and it had the perfect brunch menu for those who liked big breakfasts and rugby. We also loved that it was dog-friendly – I literally used to dream of going to brunch with my future dog ( big life goals, I know). Last year when I started using Tinder, I used to take Tinder potentials to MVC for a third date only if they were considered worthy of my favourite brunch establishment. Sadly, the ownership of the Café changed twice since I started going there four years ago, the creamy mushrooms became less creamy and more grilled and they changed the type of hash browns they used.  After the last time I went with … I can’t even remember who, I decided that it was time I closed that chapter of my brunch life. Fruitless dates there with lacklustre banter and grilled mushrooms proved inferior to those fond big breakfast memories once shared with the guy who went halves on a dog with me.

Date #2 and I chatted on the first night that I reinstated Tinder. He was a self-proclaimed fellow brunch lover from London and needed to find some good places to eat as he had only been back in Wellington for a few weeks.

Ah, fresh meat! Delightful. This means that it is highly likely I haven’t been near any of his friends. When I’m stalking future prey on Facebook, seeing mutual friends and recognising one from an intimate grinding moment on the dancefloor at The Establishment always somewhat dampens the mood. I responded to Date#2 with

Melissa: “If you like dogs, then you can take me out for brunch over the weekend. I’m Melissa. I’m employed and not too weird”.

Date 2#: “Then brunch over the weekend it most certainly is.

Melissa: “We can resume talking over here. Or you can ask me for my number. What do you do?”

I clearly lied about not being weird. Over text, Date #2 further questioned what my ulterior motive was with Tinder and I said that I was genuinely here to date which, was not a lie as it’s totally the truth. I knew that if I had mentioned that I was going on 30 dates in 30 days he may not have wanted to meet me. I couldn’t risk letting my game plan slip within 24 hours of starting the challenge.

On Friday at 2.34pm, Date#2 messaged to ask whether we were still doing brunch the following day. At 9.50pm, he messaged me again since I had not replied. I hadn’t saved his number at this point and had already forgotten his name!

On the Saturday morning after I finished some work early preparing campaigns, I realised I had to get a date sorted for the day and vaguely remembered Brunch boy from London. I finally messaged him back at 11.14am and asked if 12pm would suit, at Arthurs on Cuba Street. Date #2 replied exactly 10 minutes later saying that he was walking back from the gym but that he should be home in 10/15 minutes and that 12pm was good for him.

I ensured that I was running late to pay homage to all my former Tinder lovers and pushed the date time to 12.15pm since I wanted to kill time by going to Animates. After a good 45 minutes of browsing, Richie and I departed with $27.86 worth of dog treats and off we drove to Cuba Street.

I chose Arthurs as it was dog-friendly and had an English breakfast influence to it so that I could appease my date (Plus I didn’t want to spoil Pre-Fab for myself on Date #2 if it was utter shit). By the time I got there at an appropriate Melissa time, it was 12.30pm and my date was already sitting down outside waiting at a table.

First impression of Date#2 was that he probably wasn’t joking when he said he was tall as he was over 6ft 4 which made him taller than anyone I had ever been with. He had an English accent, obviously and was relatively easy to get along with. He had a good looking face, a kind smile and a full head of hair ( with what I could see!)  Not skinny and erred slightly on the Dad-Bod band wagon *wolf whistles*. He lived here four years ago to work in New Zealand and loved it hence why he came back for another year. He had just got a new flat to move into and our chat mostly revolved around that and living life in New Zealand. He said that he wanted some ‘stability’ for a little while and thought that the life here was good.

Richie was immediately a fan of Date#2 as he jumped on his lap within the first five minutes and curled up on his lap. The conversation was relatively free-flowing which naturally tipped in his favour when he admitted his Dad-bod and said that he loved dogs. I ordered the Big Breakfast, like the tiny small Blonde girl I am and 6ft 4 Date#2 ordered Eggs Benedict, which came out with Eggs, Bok Choy and Crumpets. When it came to the end of the meal and we walked towards the cashier, I got my wallet out intending to pay (because I’m Beyonce) to find that he already took care of it. Like a perfect English Gent.

Because everything was going well we ended up walking up to the Pukeahu War Memorial to check it out and walk Richie before it started raining. This is where the date started to take a turn…

We were heading up towards the inside part of the War Memorial when I saw a friend from school with her beautiful newborn and her entire extended family. Because I hadn’t seen her in a while, we stopped and had a chat where I cooed over her new baby. When it came to introductions, I introduced Date #2 as “My friend, *insert Date#1‘s real name*” without even realising. Date #2 took it really well and still shook the hands of everyone he had just met and didn’t correct me in front of them. As soon as they were out of ear shot however he said:

Date#2: “You so owe me!”

Melissa: [Assuming it was because I introduced him to people he didn’t know in the first place!] “Oh, I’m sorry!”

Date#2: “Who’s *insert Date#1‘s name*?”

After that, I came clean about my Tinder challenge and admitted that it was the name of the guy who I previously dated the night before. Date#2 took it pretty well, probably because I later found out that he assumed I was joking about the Tinder challenge at the time.

Still, surprisingly the date was going really well. As we walked back towards my car, Richie paused to do what dogs do and took a massive shit. Usually, when my dog poops it’s embarrassing in the sense that immediately afterwards I have to pick up warm poo during a hot date, but it’s part of owning a dog and I try not to resent it too much. This time however, little Richie happened to get diarrhea and I had no choice but to attempt to pick it up. It was sloppy, runny and by far the hardest thing I’ve ever had to pick up. Ridiculous, strongly scented and mildly unfortunate.

The weather started to pack it in after this particularly bleak moment and Date#2 had said during brunch that he needed to buy a new bed. I offered to drive him to Thorndon due to the weather and offered him advice since I had recently bought a new bed within the last month. Neither of us were really that keen to round of the date at that point and I felt obliged to recover from my memory lapse and Richie’s explosive diarrhea. So for the next two hours I ended up accompanying my Tinder date on his bed shopping afternoon. We walked around different bed shops and lay on different beds , finalising the four that we thought were good on the price and comfort.

Three hours and forty-five minutes late into the date and on the way back to the last furniture shop where he decided he wanted to buy his bed, he leaned in for the kiss in the Barina. Naturally I obliged since a) he wasn’t horrible b) he was really nice and c) because of my overwhelming commitment to this blog! His nose was cold and a little runny but overall the kiss was sweet. Clearly not as passionate at the night before, but a kiss that suggested he had enjoyed the time we had just spent together.

After he bought his bed, I offered to drive Date#2 home as my best friend was coming around later that evening and he had a night planned full of supporting ARSENAL and going to the rugby. He invited me around to his apartment as I dropped him off, to which I declined (because I’m a classy bitch) but made the arrangement to him again the following Saturday night, where the night ended in drunken tears and my spew. Consecutively and at the time.

I’m all class.