Lauren and Ben

October! When Haribo finally gets its sh•t together and launches 1,200 different types of foamy gummies shaped like skulls. Kicking off ‘Pumpkin Spice/Instagram collage/I’m wearing a scarf 24-7 even though it’s still 18º outside season’ are Lauren, 26, a charity programme manager, and Ben, 24, a pricing analyst. No idea what either of those jobs mean and, even better, it doesn’t matter, but I’m guessing they would enjoy explaining them to you at a house party while Vengaboys’ ‘Boom Boom Boom Boom (I Want You in my Room)’ thumps away in the background.

Read the full date – spoiler: drink a large coffee beforehand – on the Guardian website and them return here for the sweepings from the barbershop floor.

Lauren | Ben

First impressions?
Very fashionable – a colourful flowery shirt, cool glasses and metallic teal nail polish.

Nail polish – I see it a lot more on men these days. I’m all for it, better than the usual craggy, fungal shells that adorn many a man’s finger-end out there. It wouldn’t be for me personally because I have the annoying habit of biting my nails, a quirk I don’t especially love about myself but as crimes go it’s fairly tame. I do remember years ago a man – it’s always a man, isn’t it? – catching me having a quick prune of my nails with my teeth and exclaimed, loud enough to be heard over the sound of a Tube train braking into Embankment station, ‘Ugh, how disgusting to have your fingers inside your mouth,’ to which I replied, ‘Rather that than put them inside you.’ Oh how we laughed.

First impressions?
Pretty and brought a warm energy to a very dreary afternoon, weather-wise.

A warm energy. Lauren is half-lightbulb on her father’s side.

What did you talk about?
Music tastes. Favourite comedians. Hobbies and sports.

Lots of things. What it was like growing up. What we do in our spare time. Work.

Hobbies and sports/what we do in our spare time – ✅ is it me or does this date feels on the sandpapery side? A bit dry. Rough-going. I feel like I want to throw a tarantula in the middle of them or shout out ‘OMG Leicestershire just launched a missile attack against Cumbria’ to liven things up a bit.

Most awkward moment?
I was quite surprised by his attitude to food. He said he wasn’t too worried about where he ends up eating, so long as the place doesn’t make him sick. That is very much the opposite to my approach.

Lauren’s approach is ‘happy to be made sick so long as I like the menu’? I’m assuming Ben was trying to be accommodating here, trying to be appear open and adventurous. Being immensely picky about food or restaurants – especially when it’s a freebie – isn’t very romantic. You’re supposed to hide all those quirks until date five or six, once you’ve reeled them in and have the PIN for their credit card.

Most awkward moment?
They seated us separately, so I asked the staff to make sure she was my date so I didn’t approach a random woman.

Literally no idea why the restaurants do this – can someone explain? Unless it’s for their own amusement. According to most waiters I’ve known, once you’ve banged all your colleagues at post-shift drinks and finally got your amphetamine habit under control, there’s not much left in the way of entertainment other than slowly torturing the restaurant’s patrons. The Venn diagram of people who became waiters and children who tore the wings from butterflies is a circle.

Good table manners?
Barbecue and ribs are maybe not the easiest, most demure food to eat on a first date – but on the whole, yeah.

Oh God. Okay, I take back what I said about being picky. Oh no. Oh my. After I read this sentence, I looked at my hands and they were covered in BBQ sauce and my hair smelled like I’d been sitting next to burning petrol, like I was in ‘Hereditary’ or something, such is the power of my aversion to eating with my hands anything that has not been cooked in a room with a ceiling. I snooped on the website for the restaurant. It seems to be in a yard and the tables –which fold away – are surrounded by beer kegs and what appear to be large bottles of gas or CO2 or something, I have no idea what any of it is but I am out. Like eating dinner in the back of a lorry. I am sorry to say I would’ve not turned up to this date.

Also, they were doing the whole ‘mindful, demure’ bit on Strictly last week so safe to say that particular trend is now stone-dead.

Good table manners?
Yes – she was a little nervous about spilling her burger everywhere before she bit into it, which I found cute.

The only way to prevent this.

Again, I have to inch back on what I said about being picky earlier because one of my biggest food horrors is sitting opposite someone who orders a burger and takes a bite big enough to take half the restaurant with them and a load of SLOP tumbles from the burger and onto the plate/table/a passing child. Oh man I feel really ill. This date is hell. I would have to tackle a messy burger wearing a hazmat suit and using a chainsaw and a garden fork.

I once went on a date with a man who ordered a burger and kissed him afterward and when we broke apart he’d left me a gift – a sliver of onion, on holiday from his mouth, and now in mine. See? Biting your nails doesn’t seem so bad now, does it?

Describe Ben in three words.
Outgoing, forthright and stylish.

OUTGOING, like the person at work who always seems to be in the kitchen/breakout area when you go in there, like they’re just waiting for someone to invite them to an after-work drinks so they can have two (2) Aperol Spritzes (May–August only) and confess their innermost secrets to you, which include various thefts of work-owned tech over the years and a torrid affair with the post-room boy who smells like three steak bakes left on a hot radiator.
FORTHRIGHT, like Anna Wintour telling you exactly what she thinks of the jeans you’re wearing, which you fished out of an ‘Everything £2’ bin in the Oxford Circus Topman (RIP) in 2007.
STYLISH, like the fabulous older woman many gay men seem to meet in their early twenties who wears sequinned overalls, drinks red wine out of champagne flutes, uses her most recent decree nisi to blot her lipstick, and becomes a lifelong style icon to them even though they only met her once and barely spoke to her, merely allowing her to strike a match (for her Consulate) on their stubbly chin.

Describe Lauren in three words.
Insightful, warm and fun.

INSIGHTFUL, like the horoscopes page of Bella magazine. ‘Librans will be reaching for their scarves this October. Love comes knocking at your front door, mid-month; to avoid an awkward start to you romantic destiny, make sure you move the draught excluder out of the way before opening.’
WARM, like Lenny Kravitz’s scarf that time. I can’t post a photo because of copyright, but you know the one.
FUN, like being stuck in a lift with a standup comedian who turns out to be seven crazed chihuahuas hiding under a Uniqlo foldaway rain mac.

What do you think Ben made of you?
I think he’d say we had a nice time, but agree that we weren’t the right match.

What do you think Lauren made of you?
I reckon she might think I was fun, expressive and respectful.

Did you go on somewhere?
Ben seemed to be in a bit of a rush to get back to evening plans back home.

No. Unfortunately, I had to be somewhere else after the meal, so we went our separate ways.

Did they go for lunch? Plans after the date? This is happening more, right? Not just my imagination? Has it replaced the ‘text me at 10 and say there’s a family emergency in case I need an escape chute’?

And … did you kiss?
Afraid not – just a quick hug.

No. I don’t do that on first dates.

Look, if you don’t want to kiss someone on a first date that is fine, but why are they so keen for the rest of us to know it? ‘Kiss on a first date? I don’t do that, unlike the rest of you, you depraved BUNCH OF SLUTS?’ Dunno, always feels like I’m hearing that from a pulpit. Like, you would NEVER do it? Not ever? Not even if – God I have no idea who any heterosexual sex symbols are, so I will have to guess – not even if Linda Lusardi or Des O’Connor, or, er, Elsie Tanner from Coronation Street gave you the old come hither? Thanks but no thanks? Personal mottos and rules and guidelines can be useful – they keep us safe, anchor us if we’re in unfamiliar situations – but there’s no prize at the end for sanctimony.

Mind you, after all that sticky rib sauce, I don’t think I’d be puckering up, either.

If you could change one thing about the evening what would it be?
It was a shame to be in a really cool brewery courtyard while the rain was pouring down.

The weather. It rained the whole date, and we were at an outside bar.

Among gigantic metal beer barrels and God knows what else. East London, man.

Marks out of 10?
6.

Marks out of 10?
9. It was a great date: no awkward silences, the conversation flowed well.

Would you meet again?
Ben felt a bit young for me and we weren’t quite on the same wavelength in terms of lifestyle. Had a nice time together, but am happy to leave it there.

Yes, I would definitely like to.

Looks like Lauren and Ben won’t be meeting up to talk about ‘lots of things’ again anytime soon, but at least they’ll each have treacly BBQ sauce jammed under their fingernails for the next several years or so to remember the date by.

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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. Who were your favourite comedians? What are your ‘music tastes’? The public needs to know.

Ben and Lauren ate at From the Ashes, London E8. Fancy a blind date? Email blind.date@theguardian.com