Ella and John

Today’s contestants are Ella, who is 20 and a student, and 25-year-old John, a civil servant. Student of what? We may never know. What kind of civil servant? That’s classified. Readers, the word of the day is ‘vague’.

Read how the date went in the Guardian and then come back to see the reheated leftovers.

Ella | John

What were you hoping for?
Something interesting to do on a Saturday afternoon.

I remember being a student quite well, those acres and acres of time where you would be doing nothing but sitting in your room, with either music you thought other people would think was cool blasting out, or music you actually liked playing more gently so nobody else could hear. Long afternoons watching the rain fall. So much free time you had no option but to squander it, blissfully unaware you would never have the opportunity again. However, I’d never be bored enough to spend the afternoon on a date with a stranger for a magazine – do you not have a library card? An addiction to prescription drugs you could be cultivating?

What were you hoping for?
A meaningful connection or to make a new friend. And nice food as a bonus.

A meaningful connection – avoid Three broadband, then.

First impressions?
We’d been seated separately, so it was confusing finding each other. He seemed excited to be there, but I think we were both a bit nervous.

Look, I’ve read ahead and I think maybe staying separately seated might actually have been the best option.

First impressions?
A lovely smile – I could tell we were going to have interesting conversations.

Again, I have read ahead and… no, you did not.

What did you talk about?
We’d both recently seen Challengers so we discussed Zendaya’s career and its trajectory from KC Undercover.

Whether dark chocolate belongs in chilli con carne. Cultural differences between London, Cambridge and Manchester. Ella graciously taught me the Brownie promise.

Challengers! God, in the never-ending, constantly shifting timetable of viral content that all seems like a hundred years ago. When did the date take place? 2006? Not that Zendaya isn’t a good topic of conversation, of course.

Dark chocolate in chilli – one of those ‘little bit of something special’ things that a Love Islander would add to their recipe thinking it made them a Nigella in Boohoo separates. See also: ketchup in cottage pie; Worcestershire sauce in ‘spag bol’; marmite in baked beans.

The Brownie promise – I can only imagine what the people at the next table were thinking.

Most awkward moment?
At the end of the date he asked me to send him the selfie we had to take. I suggested AirDrop but he asked for my phone number instead. Or when he gave the manager feedback on the food I ate – on my behalf.

Boundaries. Important. What I find hugely interesting about Ella’s very reasonable reluctance to give out her number is how different things used to be. When we all first got email addresses and stopped relying on landlines, we couldn’t wait to give out our information! We were excited to be contacted! The drawbridges were well and truly down. We were careless with our data because it was so novel to be able to manage our communication personally, and so directly. Now, of course, corporations and certain individuals have ruined this for us. Spam emails, clingy exes, sociopathic presenteeism-obsessed colleagues, companies selling our information, or forcing us to reveal it to get access to the very basic of services. We have lost trust and, not just that, but we now see being contacted as possibly one of the worst things that can possibly happen to you. The burden of reply, the obligation to read and react. We now glamorise being a digital hermit, don’t want to answer phones, ignore the doorbell, lock our Instagram accounts to keep out the hundreds of faces pressed up against our window. Sad, really, but totally understandable and necessary.

I wonder why he didn’t want to AirDrop – maybe his phone’s nickname is ‘John’s Giant Wang’ or something.

And that’s before we get to the food feedback thing – men, here is some brand new information for you: you’re not a knight of the realm in the court of King Arthur. When a woman is asked by a server whether she enjoyed her slug and avocado salad and cheesy fries, she can answer for herself. Thank you.

Most awkward moment?
I was seated at a different table until the waiter brought us together. We were also taken aback by the edible beef fat candle served with our bread.

I saw Edible Beef Fat Candle doing spoken word and beatboxing at Latitude in 2018.

Good table manners?
Perfectly good, although he did over-order substantially.

Impeccable. She tackled her burger and chips with finesse.

Hahaha, mmmmm, is it ME or does Ella really not like John that much? Just a hunch. I suppose it is a free meal, so you would think Ella would be cool with over-ordering, as a student, unless she’s one of those rich ones who lives in those towering luxury high spec halls of residence that all have their own jacuzzi. Maybe she thought he was being greedy, or was worried that the restaurant thought they were taking the piss.

Ignoring the ‘impeccable’ there, I am fascinated as my low boredom threshold with allow by Ella’s apparent ‘finesse’ when eating her burger and chips. I looked the restaurant up and it is a posh Italian steakhouse and the burger is one of the cheapest things you can have on the menu so I actually think this might be a bit of shade here. John’s sitting there like Henry VIII with all the finest dishes known to humanity while Ella daintily tucks into an upcycled Happy Meal. I’m guessing ‘with finesse’ = ‘used a knife and fork’?

Is there a vibe of polite, ceaseless loathing running through this date or have I been watching too much Interview With The Vampire this week?

Best thing about them?
He held a conversation well, always fully expanded on a story, and asked me follow-up questions.

Her subtle wit and love for learning.

And then this is quite nice! What’s going on? I have no idea how people work anymore.

Would you introduce them to your friends?
Maybe. We’re at different stages of our lives, so I don’t think he’d be compatible.

I would be glad to.

I do think when you are a student it is so difficult to imagine a life beyond that and meeting people who’ve already done all that and are now out in the real world is somehow really off-putting for reasons you can’t quite explain. You have your bubble, you like it. And you don’t want it pricked.

What do you think they made of you?
We didn’t have a great deal in common. He suggested I get in contact if I was in London, but maybe he was being polite.

Perhaps a bit of a curious eccentric – but honestly, I am not sure.

Ella doesn’t answer the question at all, here, and John is sticking to the theme of vagueness. This is kind of a spoiler for the end. I wonder if the pair of them needed to cook a little longer before coming on a GBD, meet a few different kinds of people. Do you really not have an inkling what someone thinks of you after a good couple of hours spent eating FREE MEAT in front of them? I wonder, seriously and without judgement, whether covid has something to do with this. We’re all kind of stumbling around, even now, trying to remember how humans used to behave and working out what’s better and what’s worse after our very weird last few years.

Did you go on somewhere?
No, I was meeting a friend afterwards.

No, Ella had already arranged to meet a friend elsewhere.

Ella, not unreasonably, doing everything she can not to get kidnapped on a date. No phone numbers, friend waiting for her somewhere. I think if I were going on a GBD I would be fully miked up and would have security operatives at adjacent tables and possibly my mum on a FaceTime call on my phone, secreted between my knees.

(Unless the friend didn’t exist and Ella was trying to teleport herself out of the situation as kindly and calmly as possible.)

And … did you kiss?
No. There was a distanced hug when we parted ways.

We hugged before parting ways.

Fascinated by what a ‘distanced’ hug might be? Does Ella have long go-go-gadget arms so she could hug John from across the street?

Anyway this sounds like they had a GREAT time. I am so invested.

If you could change one thing about the evening what would it be?
I’d change my order as the chips were not the most graceful thing to eat.

First John said she had finesse when eating her burger, now Ella is concerned she wasn’t graceful when eating her chips. It’s like two Hyacinth Buckets have gone on a date. How do you eat a chip gracefully? How do you do it, DISgracefully, for that matter? Do you not eat chips often? They’re just there. They are the food version of air.

Honestly, reading this date has been like trying to make sense of a ChatGPT article about restaurants. Quick, someone get the full-length pic of them from the Guardian and count how many fingers they’ve got.

If you could change one thing about the evening what would it be?
To meet in the evening – the ambience is different.

The AMBIENCE. Okay, Lestat, calm down. Tbh, I don’t think even having this date in the dead of night at a restaurant where the burger and chips were transferred to you digitally would’ve saved it.

Marks out of 10?
For a date, 6. Otherwise, 7.

Marking a human being out of 10 feels so reductive, sorry! But if I have to, 7.

Okay, none of us were expecting Ella’s score to be stratospheric but admit it, were you, like me, expecting John’s score to be much higher, given all his compliments and “gee, I just don’t know what she thought of me”? And then he hits us with a seven. The call is coming from inside the house. He knew!

Would you meet again?
It would be pretty unlikely.

You don’t say.

Would you meet again?
If we were in the same neighbourhood, it would be nice to meet again. Who knows?

I think I know.

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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. Ella, real talk, did you clock his number after the date? And John, what did you order, exactly?

Ella and John ate at Macellaio RC, London W1. Fancy a blind date? Email: blind.date@theguardian.com