Matthew and Izzy

St Valentine may have packed up his giant helium balloons, petrol station flowers, grotesque life-size teddy bears with matted plush, and cheap massage oil, but your favourite romantic dynamic duo – the Guardian Blind Date and me – are still clocked on. Trying not to chew unsexily this week are Matthew, 24, a tax consultant, and Izzy, 25, an advertising executive – with jobs they feel twenty years too young to be working on but who am I to judge? I type for a living, and anyone can do that.

Read the full uncensored version of the date on the Guardian website and then return here for the reheated, over salted leftovers.

Matthew | Izzy

What were you hoping for?
The chance to cosplay Carrie Bradshaw and spice up this dreary winter.

Where are we on tiresome Carrie Bradshaw discourse these days? We must be due another generation reappraising her soon, no? I feel like we are still at ‘Carrie is an arsehole’, which is true, but perhaps we’re not quite at ‘but this is what makes her a great character to watch’ just yet. A bit like Liz Lemon from 30 Rock. The worst! A product of their time! But, truly, only people watching the show ironically, or through 2020s goggles can tell and everyone else was duped all along! Or something. Look, we all know Samantha (a gay man) was the best one and Miranda was underrated at the time and Charlotte was also there, but Carrie is a fascinating character to watch. That friend who, at your grandmother’s funeral, tells you they have herpes and starts crying really loudly in front of everyone. That ex who calls you up drunk all the time and wakes up with amnesia every morning and ghosts you. Your deadbeat relative who vomits in your dishwasher. Awful! Compelling! Not a role model! But entertaining!

First impressions?
Izzy was smiley and chatty from the offset – and conversation flowed until the end of the date.

He cycled in an effort not to be late, so he was very cold, but I appreciated the valiant effort.

Any true Carrie Bradshaw cosplayer would’ve BAULKED at a man turning up for a date on a bike! Have none of you actually seen this show? The only guy allowed to arrive at a date on two wheels was JFK junior and, baby, he is dead.

What did you talk about?
Each other’s housemates. What makes for a good pub vibe. The importance of yapping.

The tribulations of coaching preteen touch rugby. Platonic soulmates. What makes a good pub.

Housemates – I was talking to someone about house shares the other day because they’re writing a book about how to stay sane in a house share (preorder link, why not, eh) and I realised it’s over 20 years since I’ve been in one. I remember one incident in that final house share, I opened the electricity bill, which was not in my name but needed paying and the nominated flatmate was away, and when he got back, he went ballistic that I had opened ‘his mail’. From Southern Electric (as was). A bill. Not a love letter. That was when I realised I simply could not do it anymore – be at the whims of someone else’s volatile personality. Cracking up at you because they thought they could. Needless to say he was heterosexual and once the removal van pulled away, I never heard or saw of him again. (I was not a very good housemate either, tbh; I hated everything about the flat, and used to drink their wine while they were out.) In my experience, the fewer housemates the better – and that includes being married with children.

A good pub vibe/what makes a good pub – Errrr, dunno. The parameters have shifted for me over the years. In my twenties, I would rather have been flayed alive than a) sit down in a pub on a weekend night b) go anywhere that didn’t have earsplitting dance music you couldn’t talk over c) leave anywhere sober. Swizzle forward twenty years later and my ideal pub ambience is ‘everyone is a bit subdued because there’s a funeral tea happening in the function room above’ and I’m drinking a peppermint tea.

The importance of yapping – The re-emergence of the word ‘yap’, which has spent a good thee decades in the wilderness used only to describe dogs’ shrill, ceaseless barking at stuff (aside from a very effective usage by Jay Z in ’99 Problems’) , is down to TikTok in case you were wondering. I don’t often use it myself, but I have seen people of all generations liberally spraying it hither and thither so good luck to them. It just means talking a lot about nothing and seems to have found its niche in self-deprecation, usually by people who like to pretend that they don’t think what they’re saying is actually really important even though they are, unwittingly, quite correct – they are indeed spraffing absolute bollocks.

(I have a hunch these two are actually much more interesting and bright than they might see themselves. It may be only ‘yapping’ to you, but the art of conversation is an endangered species and sometimes all it takes is one brilliant and beautiful opinion, or a one-liner that’ll keep them giggling for days, and you can make someone yours immediately. One man’s yap is another man’s music.)

Most awkward moment?
Realising she’d missed a digit off her phone number. For a second I thought it might have been deliberate … Izzy claims it wasn’t.

Accidentally missing a digit off when giving him my phone number, and giving feedback on his Hinge profile.

End of chapter two of One Digit Out the new Emily Henry rom-com about one man (twist: he’s missing a finger on his right hand) and one woman (twist: she has an extra finger on her left-hand) and a smartphone with a cracked screen that keeps dialling the wrong number.

Giving feedback on a Hinge profile doesn’t really bode well tbh – almost as horrifying as going through each other’s ‘on repeat’ playlists on Spotify – but I suppose you have to do something in between ‘yaps’.

Best thing about Izzy?
How charismatic she is. I really enjoyed listening to her chat – even when she was giving me constructive criticism on my dating app profile!

This is sweet. I wonder what the ‘constructive criticism’ entailed. ‘Look, believe it or not, women do not like photos of men in Coors Lite T-shirts, holding a giant fish’

Best thing about Matthew?
He had an engaging energy and matched my ability to yap.

Not the yapping.

What do you think Izzy made of you?
That I matched her on the yapping front, and maybe that I was a little nervous.

And again with the yapping. We get it, you have slang. Congratulations.

Did you go on somewhere?
We did, to a bar for a glass of wine … that became two … that became three.

To a bar near the station with a great orange wine on tap.

I suppose in among all that yapping they must have talked each other into having a few more drinks. Three glasses of on-trend, generation-specific wine! On a school night! In Peckham! In your early twenties! The possibilities are endless!

And … did you kiss?
A lady doesn’t kiss and tell!

So NOW you stop yapping? (This means no.) (And, yes, this is Matthew’s answer, not Izzy’s.)

And … did you kiss?
Just goodbye on the station platform.

Told you. And it turns out the lady does tell. No kiss. Lips too busy yapping, I guess.

Marks out of 10?
9.5 (marking myself down for being late).

I have the distinct feeling Matthew has never seen a Blind Date column before.

A solid 8.

The correct score. A perfectly lovely evening, a connection, some wine, plenty to yap talk about, but no snogging. That is, canonically, an 8.

Would you meet again?
There was discussion of a second date, so fingers crossed.

We spoke about going for dinner again.

I’m delighted. The future is all right with these two. May you live YAPPILY ever after. 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. YAP AWAY, my darlings.