Alfie and Sam

My first Blind Date review of 2026 just happens to be two fellas – what are the chances? (Quite high, actually, I refuse to spend my Saturday mornings encouraging heteronormativity unless the couple bonk in the middle of Regent Street or blast each other with tasers all night long.)

Anyway, today’s contestants – aka the Pride representatives at the company you work for turn up at your desk to ask why you haven’t had your fringe trimmed yet – are Alfie, 31, a playwright, and Sam, 33, who works in tech. Could be anything, couldn’t it? Programmes vending machines to take a second longer to drop your Twix to maximise desire for the product, or feeds prompts into Chat GPT to make friezes for festival marquees. Let’s never find out.

The full date is here for your delectation on the Guardian website, but the real meat is here, below.

Alfie | Sam

What were you hoping for?
To meet a silly softie with a penchant for the occasional deep chat.

‘Be cute and frivolous, a veritable Bambi! Until I mention Laura Kuenssberg.’

What were you hoping for?
To be surprised and to surprise myself.

Never too early to deploy a Cilla gif. Not sure *how* surprised I’d want to be on a blind date. Taller than I was expecting? Freckles? Fine. A traffic warden in full uniform? Winner of the James Corden personality-a-like contest 2024? Not fine.

First impressions?
Great smile and lovely energy. We got seated at separate tables, so there were a few awkward glances until the manager figured out we were on a Blind date.

I do not understand how this happens. Someone, somewhere, who works at one of these restaurants tell me how ‘I am here for the Blind Date’ ends up with the dates at two separate tables. It doesn’t make sense. I think the waiting staff are sent hysterical with boredom and enjoy the idea of a real-life video game.

Oh, and that’s a great first impression btw, well done Alfie.

First impressions?
Bubbly and outgoing. Tall. Great smile. Punctual (which is an A+ in my book).

Yes, Sam! Punctual! It is possible! There’s Citymapper and Google Maps to offer you terrifyingly forensic journeys to wherever you’re going, so there’s little excuse other than traffic or the Tube getting a cough. A matching ‘great smile’ there too – so very encouraging.

For some reason I find ‘bubbly’ hilarious. Is he an AERO? Part-Wispa on his mother’s side, maybe?

What did you talk about?
American versus British-isms (you say trunk, we say boot etc). Politics. Our ins and outs for 2026.

Dating horror stories. Trash TV. Questions we dislike being asked on dates (me: hobbies, him: music). The travails of one’s 20s. The beauty of one’s 30s.

Questions we dislike being asked on dates – Do people still have hobbies? What is a hobby? Crafting? Yoga? Pogo sticks? Smoking weed with This Morning on mute? Back in the day, it used to be quite common to put your hobbies on your CV. I didn’t have ANY. ‘Cinema,’ I lied, ‘and socialising with friends.’ I mean – WOW – it’s up there with putting ‘I like going in and staying out’ on your Hinge profile.

The travails of one’s 20s – so DRAMATIC being in your twenties. Unless you had a very traumatic childhood or happened to grow up in a house without a television, everything bad that happens to you in your 20s is the WORST thing that could POSSIBLY happen, and the talks you have with friends so ridiculously DEEP even about the most trivial and ephemeral problems. I loved it.

The beauty of one’s 30s – Hmmm, don’t count your chickens just yet, baby. You’ve seven years to go.

Our ins and outs for 2026 – look, there’s only one ‘in and out’ any of us are interested in hearing about in 2026 and it’s not your decision to start making your own granola or cancel your Amazon Prime.

Good table manners?
Sam’s were excellent. Mine diabolical.

They far surpassed my unrefined American dining skills.

It was a Turkish restaurant. Menu looks quite nice and fairly easy to eat with some grace. Not sure how unrefined you can be eating hummus, unless they were dipping their cocks in it and windmilling.

Best thing about Sam?
I love that his mantra for 2026 is saying yes more, and also very cool that he’s relocated to London for a fresh start.

SPOILER: There is one thing he will not be saying ‘yes’ to, very very soon!

Best thing about Alfie?
Incredibly warm and engaging. He also asks great questions – an underappreciated skill.

Asking great questions *is* an underappreciated skill, as anyone who has watched [REDACTED] flailing on the red carpet will attest.

Describe Sam in three words
Confident, fun, irreverent.

CONFIDENT, like ordering something online in a size below because you’ve not had a Creme Egg since last Sunday and it’s a ‘new you’.
FUN, like going to a school reunion and discovering the worst of your bullies won £20,000 on a scratch card but it blew out of his hand on his way to collect the money.
IRREVERENT, like wearing flippers to a funeral.

Describe Alfie in three words
Energetic, funny, curious.

ENERGETIC, like a dog hearing someone open a bag of treats three streets away.
FUNNY, like Jack Whitehall will definitely not be when he presents the BRITs yet again this year.
CURIOUS, like your extremely straight and borderline homophobic cousin flicking through Sky to find Heated Rivalry but only because he heard one of the guys – ‘Oh can’t remember his name, Colin Sturdy or something?’ Please, bitch, you know his name – had a ‘great glutes routine’. You agree never to speak of this again.

What do you think Sam made of you?
I do tend to yap, and I could sense him zoning out at times. But he did say I had a great personality.

What do you think Alfie made of you?
Hopefully he found me funny. But then again, looks aren’t everything.

And … did you kiss?
No, but two hugs and a follow on Instagram.

We exchanged Instas, which among gay men is close to the same thing.

No, it isn’t. How bad are you at kissing, exactly?

I dunno, not talking about these two very nice guys in particular here, but there’s a fake intimacy that comes from handing out your Instagram @ to people when you meet them. It’s nice, in a way, as it says, ‘I liked meeting you and it would be good to stay in touch’ but nine times out of ten, you’re just being added to a gallery of people who become increasingly unfamiliar and alien to the user, an audience member experiencing someone else’s life passively, without ever being invited or included – and we are willing to accept this now.

Social media has done many, many wonderful things and has revolutionised how we connect with others, but it’s also made it normal to engage with people at arm’s length. It has destroyed small talk when people *do* actually meet up – ‘Oh the other day, I went to the… oh, right, of course, you saw it on Instagram’ – and instead of actually strengthening the connections we make, we leave them dangling, curating a lifestyle that is suitable for others to view, but not experience with us.

As everyone says ‘Instagram is only the good stuff, you never know what’s really going on’ and that is absolutely true, but… who are we posting the good stuff for? What do we want to make the people watching us feel? Is it like a diary? A promotional tool? A reassurance that maybe we’re doing okay, actually? Or to remind the viewers that this is what it’s like to be in my inner circle – shame you missed it (not that I ever invited you). Ugh. It alters my brain chemistry and I hate it.

Marks out of 10?
A solid 7.

8/10. The date itself was great, but I think we both got the friend vibe early on.

‘We didn’t want to fuck each other.’ And I think that’s fine. Good that they made a connection anyway. Making friends is an underrated challenge.

Would you meet again?
There wasn’t a romantic vibe there for me, but absolutely as friends.

Definitely.

‘We’re going to spend the rest of our lives liking each other’s photos and maybe DMing funny videos of American vs British sayings.’

See you on the ‘Gram boys. x

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Something to remember about the review and the daters that I put at the end of every post

The comments I make are based on answers given by participants. The Guardian chooses what to publish and usually edits answers to make the column work better on the page. Most things I say are riffing on the answers given and not judgements about the daters themselves, so please be kind to them in comments, replies, and generally on social media. Daters are under no obligation to get along for our benefit, or explain why they do, or don’t, want to see each other again, so please try not to speculate or fill our feeds with hate. If you’re one of the daters, get in touch if you want to give me your side of the story. Let me know how the rest of your thirties go – and follow me on IG, obviously.

Sam and Alfie ate at Nora, London, E22. Fancy a blind date? Email blind.date@theguardian.com