Jack and Heather

Know how I’ve clocked that I have entered my Hyacinth Bucket ‘era’? First thing I did when I saw that knitwear pairing was shift my eyes straight down to their shoes. What footwear would you wear for a photoshoot for a magazine in a national newspaper? Something you wouldn’t mind being photographed, I assume. Ones you’d bought or borrowed specially? Or a pair of favourites that are unmistakably you? Behold the footwear of today’s (very attractive!) couple:

Maybe this should be a regular vibe check. Dating shoes. Jack, 31, a nature consultant has gone for ‘old favourites’ and Heather, 23, who works in marketing for a homelessness charity seems to be wearing a pair from Spider-Man’s new hiking trainers range. No offence to Jack, but the trainers I wear to take the dog out are cleaner than that. Mind you, what do I expect – a 16-eyelet military boot polished to glass?

Anyway, read their date on the Guardian website before I wade in wearing my slightly stained Birkenstocks.

Jack | Heather

First impressions?
Pretty, stylish and smiley.

I don’t know whether Heather wore that jumper on the date, but I do like it a lot. Style is subjective, isn’t it? I know from the looks I get sometimes as I trudge around in fairly ordinary clothes that, to some, I may as well be dressed as Big Bird. I feel I have to go on record and say that Jack’s jumper bored me so much I got up and kicked the skirting board just to feel something.

First impressions?
Kind and a good listener.

Kind. What’s happened to that word, eh? Fridge-magnet famous to the point where it can mean anything from ‘bought me drinks all night’ to ‘didn’t punch me in the face’. I suppose it has replaced ‘nice’ in the ‘describing person adjective’ library. Anyway, it’s no insult to be described as kind (yet), so well done, everyone.

What did you talk about?
Charity shopping. Travels to Vietnam and Japan. The grim reality of Covid self-isolation. My love for turtles and tortoises.

Charity shopping. Dating. Our travels.

Charity shopping ✅ – Oh I’ve tried. Books and knick-knacks and accessories yes, but clothes: I have the wrong face and body. Some people can float into a charity shop and exit again looking swish as Colman Domingo or Gauthier Borsarello. I look like I’m appearing in two SNL sketches at the same time, during a hurricane. Any item I do find charming in the shop to buy will, once home, look like someone shot me with a T-shirt gun filled with rags from under the sink.

Travels ✅ – Well at least they’re not spoiling two other conversations somewhere.

Covid – Heather will have been 16 when the pandemic kicked off. Jack… not. Age 31 feels way too young to be referring to huge events in the fairly recent past and having your date say they were still at school.

My love for turtles and tortoises – the ancient Creature Comforts animations – and subsequent adverts – with a claymation tortoise who gulped a lot used to make me feel sick so I do not share Jack’s enthusiasm, sadly.

Most awkward moment?
When we were presented with the bill and thought we’d been pranked.

Getting handed a bill at the end of the meal. The staff didn’t seem to realise that the meal was covered, so we had to get the manager involved.

I don’t blame the waiting staff but this kind of f-up happens way more often than it should. PR managers – please send emails that staff actually want to read.

Good table manners?
Very good. I found myself thinking I was the one with the poorer manners with all the bread dipping!

This date took place in the north of England – Manchester, to be precise – where bread-dipping in ANYTHING is seen as normal among most. Gravy, houmous, ‘bean juice’ – maybe even oil and balsamic vinegar if you’re on the la-di-da side (or still going to the same Italian you’ve been frequenting since 1982). Not okay: dipping your bread into wine, trifle, or your date’s bum cleavage.

Best thing about Heather?
She is really passionate about her hobbies, including thrifting and charity shopping. I have a lot to learn.

Are… thrifting and charity shopping different things? Or has second-hand shopping now moved on from being ‘vintage’ to ‘thrifting’? Thrifting sounds a little less ‘Joan Crawford sliding giant sunglasses down her nose to better see a burning orphanage’ than vintage, doesn’t it? More wholesome, like you’re trying less hard, which is very popular at the moment and, conversely, takes a lot of effort. I’m all for it – I decided not to but any ‘new’ clothes this year, and have been looking instead on Vinted and in the aforementioned charity shops. However, as virtuous as it feels, it’s still feeding the beast of consumption, isn’t it?

Best thing about Jack?
He was good at pursuing any conversational tangent.

What in the ChatGPT…

Would you introduce Jack to your friends?
It would be good to have a visual for my blind date story.

‘A visual.’ Has Heather been replaced by Ananova (RIP) halfway through the date. Also, if you want a ‘visual for your blind date story’ how about you… show them the magazine?!? Crazy, right? (I assume this is a polite way of saying… but those would be the only circumstances I would introduce him to them.)

Describe Heather in three words
Passionate, engaging, warm. She claimed she was usually shy but I wouldn’t have guessed that from our meeting.

That’s eighteen words, Jack. If you’d stuck to three you might have had time to run a Scrub Daddy over those trainers.

PASSIONATE, like someone who judges you for your one ASOS delivery a year but buys three (ugly) crochet vest tops a week from Save the Children.
ENGAGING, like two trains coupling I dunno why do people say this like they’re doing a presentation to the sales team?
WARM, like your tapas will no longer be once you’ve debated who should take the last of the albondigas.

Describe Jack in three words
Conscientious, kind, thoughtful.

CONSCIENTIOUS, like someone on EDF Energy’s green tariff.
KIND, like a stranger who hands in your lost wallet at the bus station and clones only one of your credit cards.
THOUGHTFUL, like a call centre worker staring at a poster on the wall of a kitten in a business suit wondering what the hell it has to do with refusing insurance claims.

What do you think Heather made of you?
She thought I was a good person and a decent date, although she was disappointed about sharing small plates with a vegan (fair enough).

Aw man now I’m going to have to go look at the menu. Sorry, menus. This place has no fewer than four regular food menus, and that’s without counting the afternoon tea menu, dessert menu, Sunday lunch menu, and kids’ menu. God. They have a ‘feasting menu’, a set list of ‘plates’ with a flat charge per person (£47), so you would hope their ‘dining menu’ is actual main courses, but no!

‘All our plates are best enjoyed to share’ says the strapline at the very top, which means the portions of the ‘small plates’ are actually tiny plates with a dod of sauce and suggestion of potato on them, and their freezer has 25 different drawers.

Please, restaurants, I am begging you, serve mains. One of my bigger hates about sharing isn’t all my usual complaints but… there is nothing wrong with two people eating DIFFERENT dishes. It’s not selfish, or antisocial, or unromantic – it’s DINNER. Good lord, that spaghetti-sharing scene from Lady and the Tramp has a lot to answer for. WE ARE NOT DOGS.

And … did you kiss?
Isn’t the mystery better than knowing?

And … did you kiss?
No.

Marks out of 10?
8.

8.

Ah well. 8 has become the ‘thanks but no thanks’ replacement for a stingy 7. And that’s fine. They seemed nice, they had a nice time. Goodbye. Nice.

If you could change one thing about the evening what would it be?
I think we both would have preferred to meet someone of a more similar age.

Age gaps are a very hot topic these days. Years ago, when I was younger, I don’t think anyone would’ve blinked at an eight-year age gap. With culture being less siloed than it is now, it was easier to feel in the loop, or at least to blag that you were. Mind you, certain niche interests attract all age groups – Doctor Who, Eurovision, wishing Lee Mack were on TV much less, for example.

There appears to be a lot of suspicion around age gaps. Younger people assume elders are creeps out to drain their youth and older people surmise the young are more interested in their cash and status. Oh I don’t know. 31 and 23 are quite different life stages if you are looking to do (or avoid) the boring life stuff like marriage, kids, arguing with neighbours over boundary fences, and getting hooked on low-grade painkillers.

If you could change one thing about the evening what would it be?
Much more intentional food ordering – the sharing plates were difficult to navigate with a vegan.

Honestly I am so bruised and battered by AI slop I automatically assume anyone using multi-syllable words is buddying up with bots to fine-tune their answers. But yes, I agree ‘write that I would rather eat a main course than share beetroot borani and “cauliflower bravas” with someone who can remember the 2004 Olympics’ was the right prompt to use here.

Would you meet again?
I had a nice evening but I think the age gap was insurmountable.

Do you know how I learned the word ‘insurmountable’? It was when the much maligned Farrah Franklin quit the rejigged lineup of Destiny’s Child, claiming it was due to ‘insurmountable pressure’. Translation: ‘Beyoncé told me to sling my hook every single hour, on the hour’.

Would you meet again?
Yes, maybe as friends for some charity shopping or a cheap gig in Manchester.

I know Affleck’s Palace loves to see these two coming.

Good luck to you both, and here’s to main courses. 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. Do you need me to send you some sneaker cleaning fluid?

Heather and Jack ate at Refuge at Kimpton Clocktower, Manchester, which sounds nice but also a pain in the arse. Fancy a blind date? Email blind.date@theguardian.com