Laurine and Theo

Years ago, before social media became all jackboots and your nan’s nan posting AI cartoons of kittens asking for money to be be allowed into Cat Heaven, this blog was scarily popular with more readers than I cared to think about at the time. As a result, people would often go on the dates just so they could be reviewed here (they would often tell me this!) and it was never quite the same. The GBD column itself is an institution without my contribution, so it stands to reason that some people will want to appear on it just because they want to be on it. I mean, it’s a national newspaper, you get a nice photo shoot, and dinner somewhere you might not usually go. It’s an experience! Anyway, you’ll see why I’m mentioning this later on. But first, a word from our sponsor, which this week is… me:

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Yeah, not having the best time ever right now. But on with the show. Laurine works in forensics and Theo is a financial adviser. They are both 27. Here are their shoes:

Laurine on the left in case you were wondering. Very chic. And Theo is also here.

Read the date on the Guardian website first and then return to boil the whole thing down to bone broth.

Laurine | Theo

What were you hoping for?
Love! Or someone new, great conversation, a free dinner and feature in my favourite Guardian column.

See? It’s like going up the Eiffel Tower, or puking up into a mega-sized plastic cup when you hobble off the Big One at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, or smoking a rollie watching the sunrise at Angkor Wat. An experience. A rite of passage. Something some people – insane ones, perhaps, yes, but still human – want to do.

What were you hoping for?
A date with someone who I would never choose. And for something to have started that wasn’t on an app.

Why would you want to go on a date with someone you would never choose? What would Theo have done, I wonder, if he’d turned up to his date and there was a big burly sailor there with arm veins like hiking boot laces, or three pekinese dogs in a raincoat?

First impressions?
Very nice to staff, punctual and happy to be here.

Nice to staff: a big plus. Often trotted out now as a sign you’re not on a date with a horror. And rightly so. How we treat strangers isn’t just a signifier of how they might treat a romantic partner, it suggests the world will be less difficult for you generally if you go out with them. Someone who is *nice* to you but treats everyone else like a dose of the clap is still bad – everywhere you go, you’ll be one half of a hated couple and waiters all over the world will clock you immediately. Punctual also very good. So far, Theo is acing the format.

First impressions?
Laurine is very pretty, not to point out the obvious. She asked loads of questions, so it seemed she had a lot of interest in getting to know me – which weirdly feels rare on first dates.

I don’t know what it’s like for 27-year-olds on the dating scene these days, but I didn’t realise asking questions wasn’t a thing anymore. What do they do instead? Sit there scanning QR codes? Watch TikToks together? Anyway, Laurine sounds like she’s pretty good at the whole blind date thing too.

What did you talk about?
Inheritance tax. What animals one would have on their dream farm. How he had never read a single Blind date column and didn’t even know the questions he’d be asked.

Politics, which is risky on a first date, but it was an interesting conversation. There wasn’t any judgment.

Inheritance tax – *takes deep drag of a Rothmans* This is not something I am going to ever have to worry about so my sympathies reside somewhere in the Mariana Trench.

Dream farm – What kind of farm? Are you slaughtering these animals or just walking round the farm every day hand-feeding them? Imagine if one of them said they wanted little lambs, and bunnies, and goats nibbling the grass, and then the other plotted out their dream farm on a napkin, comprising four gigantic milking sheds and thousands of miserable cows, and a farm shop attached that sold bags of pheasant-flavoured crisps for £6.50 (for 35g).

He had never read a single Blind Date column –

What? Never? Then… how did he end up here? Was he dragged off the street? Was he in the loo on a plane and accidentally ejected along with the frozen block of passenger poo? Is he visiting from another planet? Why would you agree to be in a national newspaper column if you had no idea of the format? What if one of the conditions of appearing was that you had to fight six panthers in Trafalgar Square, or have your nuts nailed to a 185 bus? Nobody is too cool to read the GBD column, baby.

Politics – ‘There wasn’t any judgement.’ Uh-oh. Haha. Which one of them has the terrible ‘strong opinions’? Maybe we should go back and have a look at those shoes again.

Good table manners?
Great. Except when I said he could have the last bite of our shared burrata and he forgot to eat it. I ate the last arancini instead, so it’s all water under the bridge.

Sharing plates claim another victim. Family flowers only at the memorial service for the last bit of burrata, please.

Good table manners?
Honestly, I’d never have noticed, but she said we’d be asked about them, so I looked out for them. They were fine.

This has to be a wind-up? Performance art? Workshopping a Fringe show or something. What did you THINK this was? A date arranged by a 1980s dating agency? Ugh this is so annoying.

Best thing about them?
He was great at conversation and had many topics he wanted to debate.

Debating on a first date. Sounds like a f•cking blast. Why not bring a laptop along and do your taxes?

She’s unapologetically herself. I only got an evening but if you’re like that with strangers then I’d imagine it’s amplified in your normal life.

Okay so at least one of these daters is a terrible person and unfortunately I can’t work out WHICH ONE. ‘If you’re like that with strangers’ has the tone you might expect from a disapproving grandparent about a child who’s just shat on the cake at a birthday party. How do both their ‘best thing about them’ answers sound like… the very, very worst thing? Am I on camera, right now?

Would you introduce Theo to your friends?
We come from different worlds, so I’d be intrigued to see what would happen.

Uh-oh, she’s clocked that he’s a martian.

Describe Theo in three words.
Chatty, confident and entrepreneurial.

I’m afraid I’ve got strangers coming to maraud all over my home to see if they want to buy it so I am going to have to wrap this up quicker than usual, but the ‘confident’ and ‘entrepreneurial’ here are so LOUD.

Describe Laurine in three words.
Intelligent. Very French. Prepared.

Four words, babes. ‘Very French’? String of onions? Baguette poking out of her Galeries Lafayette tote? Almost manic attitude to casual adultery? Lighting a Gauloise with the one she’s just about to put out?
‘Prepared’ – this isn’t a compliment, is it?

What do you think Theo made of you?
Hopefully chatty. At some points in the evening he said I was being political.

Dodgy politics, maybe? Like Marine Le Pen dodgy? Or maybe she was too socialist for him? Did she try to get all the waiters to go on strike? What’s going on? I feel like I just fell down some stairs in front of loads of people.

What do I think Laurine made of you?
We had a good time and I think we got on, but I feel like taking part in Blind date was a lifelong thing she wanted to do, so maybe she was more wrapped up in that than the actual date.

And obviously you’ve never even heard of the Blind Date, you’re only there because Milady from Dogtanian and the Muskehounds pressed a note into your hand and told you to make haste to Rossella, NW5, where your secret mission would begin.

(I think maybe this is a bit of a shitty thing to say about someone in the GBD column – ‘oh, Blind Date fan was excited about being on the Blind Date, how curious, what a strange creature, how uncouth’ – but maybe she was advocating for a return to capital punishment or something, I dunno. And I guess it can be off-putting to be ‘too aware’ of the format, like being on Big Brother with someone who wants to talk about nominations all the time. But maybe SOME awareness of the format would be useful.)

Marks out of 10?
7.

8.

As a regular reader of the GBD, Laurine will know that a seven is a one that sends you a thank-you note out of politeness. Theo’s 8 is based on goodness knows what, given this is his very first day on Earth and he’s never even heard of dating.

If you could change one thing about the evening what would it be?
I would have tried the garlic bread.

You should’ve.

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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. Or at least explain to me what really happened here.

Laurine and Theo ate at Rossella, London NW5. Fancy a blind date? Email blind.date@theguardian.com