Ben and Maxim

Time was, I would review this Blind Date column every week, but nowadays it’s very rare for me to do two weeks in a row. Time gets away from me, my brain doesn’t work on Saturday mornings any more, I no longer wake up still drunk, so the inclination isn’t always there. So what has raised me from my coffin two Saturday mornings in a row?

What else, but the magical pairing of GAYS* in GREAT SHOES**.

*Yes, they might not be gay, please don’t write in.
**Would I wear them? No. Are they still great shoes? Yes. (Actually I might’ve worn them a few years ago, but these days I get catcalled by bigots for wearing the most vanilla clothes you can imagine so… perhaps not.)

And who’s wearing these shoes? Why it’s Ben (on the left), 36, a writer, and Maxim, 35, a freelance interior stylist. Read what happened on the date in the Guardian to keep their ad revenue big and bouncy, then return here for the Great Deflation.

Ben | Maxim

What were you hoping for?
A fun night getting to know a new person.

SPOILER:

What were you hoping for?
To meet the man of my dreams – or at least enjoy a free meal.

What is a ‘man of your dreams’? Six-five and working in finance like that awful song? The kind-hearted type whose hair falls perfectly over his eyes when he hands over the flowers he’s just bought for you? Someone who throws away your empty Citalopram blister packets so you’re not confronted by them in the bathroom? I don’t think I’ve ever had a ‘dream man’, aside from Jake Gyllenhaal circa 2010 in a soaking wet white formal shirt, holding a mushroom-double-swiss burger in each hand.

First impressions?
I know you! We laughed and hugged immediately as we used to work in the same building about a decade ago and went on a date or two.

Hmmm, haven’t we met before? We went on two dates eight years ago when we worked for the same magazine. He’d not wanted a third, so that was an interesting icebreaker.

Oh this is so deliciously awkward but also the beginning of chapter 3 of a GAY ROM-COM. Years and years ago I was chatting to a man on… well, let’s call it a private chat application for likeminded gentlemen, and he claimed to have ‘seen me around’ which was mildly intriguing and then it turned out he worked on the floor above me in the same company and the tone of the entire chat changed. Anyway – ‘he’d not wanted a third’ versus ‘went on a date or two’ is a peek into two VERY DIFFERENT narratives, isn’t it?

What did you talk about?
The last decade! We reviewed why things didn’t work out, which was enlightening for us both, I hope. Conversation flowed for five hours without letup – we covered everything from family and Christmas to Paris and Istanbul.

Spending time with our mothers. Our last date. Solo travel. The future of print publishing. The Simpsons.

We reviewed why things didn’t work out, which was enlightening for us both, I hope/ our last date – I… honestly I can taste the first ten minutes of this date. I could take out a bit of piano wire and slice into it. I reckon it’s like popping a Tangfastic into your mouth without taking much notice. That first innocuous chew, then the sour tang hits you, your eyes disappear into your face as every muscle in your cheeks tries to steer you through the chewing to safety, and then… you get accustomed, the bitterness seeps away, the acid moves from attacking your tongue and moves on to start bumming your tooth enamel to death. But you can breathe again.

Family/ spending time with your mothers – They are GOOD BOYS. (Who perhaps helpfully don’t have mothers who make Joan Crawford look like Princess Diana.)

Most awkward moment?
Among many things, the date made me realise how less awkward I am now than I was in my 20s.

This answer was LOUD, wasn’t it? Awkwardness doesn’t disappear once you sail into your thirties and beyond, it takes on new shapes and they can be devastating, but there is such a unique horror to looking back and realising who you were in your 20s and the impact you had on not only the world at large but your own development as a person. I have friends who didn’t think much of me in my 20s but like me now. What is it about that first decade free of the confines of childhood? It can be physical, your bones feeling too long for your body and your thoughts are all jumbled up. But it’s emotional too. You’re downing pints and sitting at desks and paying rent but you also like being taken to McDonald’s by your parents and still sulk in the back of their car when they won’t lend (give) you the money to buy something stupid. You’re a baby who pays bills.

And you will make a tit of yourself of course. Romantically, professionally, sartorially, aesthetically. If I could, I would round up all the haircuts I had in the period 1996–2005 and shoot them.

My educated guess here is that while both these guys seem lovely now, eight years ago, Maxim was annoying (I can tell by the glasses) and Ben had his head up his arse (the hair is a dead giveaway) and that’s why date number three never happened. (How do I know? I had similar hair and taste in glasses and was both annoying and had my head up my hole.)

Most awkward moment?
None at all – convivial conversation and eye contact from start to finish. It didn’t even matter that we were the only diners for the entire evening.

Love the word ‘convivial’. Less in love with constant eye contact. You do need your date to politely look away while you try to untangle a nest of noodles or scratch up inside your nostril. And I’m not sure I want eyes to follow me as I head to the loos (and open two wrong doors while trying to find them).

Good table manners?
He is so chivalrous – he claimed some of the mess on the table when it was cleared (it was all mine).

Impeccable. He used his napkin and apologised for being messy, which I hadn’t noticed.

They’re gonna do it.

Best thing about Maxim?
A lovely balance of sophistication and humility.

His genuine interest and ability to engage on a wide variety of subjects. That and his smile.

I mean, this definitely sounds like a prelude to doing it, right?

Describe Maxim in three words.
Smart, cultured and fun.

SMART, like the watch on your wrist, the phone in your pocket, and the store detective in the Apple Store taking you back to the office to call the police.
CULTURED, like an Activia left out on the worktop all evening.
FUN, like watching a mid-range nemesis slide on a StarBar wrapper outside a really long queue for the pub (that you are at the front of).

Describe Ben in three words.
Eloquent, handsome and entertaining.

ELOQUENT, like you want to bang him but have to find a non-sexual way to describe that the way he speaks makes you want to reach up under your chunky knit and tweak your own nipples.
HANDSOME, like you want to bang him but have to find a fairly safe, yet still inherently sexually complimentary way, to describe his looks that don’t make you sound like you’ve been in prison for seven years.
ENTERTAINING, like you want to bang him but have to use a word that celebrates his personality rather than leaving a ten-minute voice-note that could be distilled to ‘I want your leopard-print brothel-creepers to crush my neck until I start seeing My Little Ponys dancing behind my retinae’.

What do you think they made of you?
I hope he reads how entertained and comfortable I was in his company.

I managed to get him laughing, always a score. He asked for my number and suggested we meet up again, so I think I polled better this time around!

I love them. I love that this has happened. How often do you get the chance for another go-around on something that, okay, may not have been pivotal but maybe a tiny sliver of regret lodged somewhere deep in your psyche? Life is not all about the HUGE moments, anyway, it is; as Kurt Vonnegut famously said, for ‘farting around’. And you can be happier not by wasting your time wallowing in counterfactual ‘choose your own adventure’ scenarios and regretting everything , but by fixing the smaller things, going all kintsugi on the hairline cracks that can turn into crevices if left unchecked.

You will never have the perfect life, you will never meet the man of your dreams, you will never be able to retry the forks in the road that took you to darker places, but it doesn’t mean the past is 100% unchangeable and the future is 100% out of your control. The two timelines – what was then, and what’s to come – can work together in the smallest of ways to make the now a lot more bearable.

Anyway. They’re gonna do it, yes? At least once. Just to see. Surely.

Did you go on somewhere?
He was riding his bike home but walked me to the station with it.

No, it was Monday and I was on my bike.

And … did you kiss?
A friendly goodbye kiss on the cheek.

Not this time. Though, annoyingly, I still find him attractive.

Marks out of 10?
10.

9.

No way was Maxim giving that date a 10 without getting his ‘tache wet. But well done Ben for the ten.

Would you meet again?
We’re already planning to have dinner.

I’d like to. Ideally before another eight years passes by.

Prediction:

As I have always said: LGBTQ+ crew get it DONE. I wish you all the best. Forget eight years ago, there will never be another now.

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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. Was I right about Maxim being annoying and Ben having his head up his arse? 

Maxim and Ben ate at Epicurus in London NW1. Fancy a blind date? Email blind.date@theguardian.com