Suli and Abigo

This has been what you might call A Week, hasn’t it? Let’s not even go into it, let’s padlock it in the shed, wipe off the workings-out on the whiteboard, Febreze the f•ck out of everything.

Because it is the weekend. This is the last Impeccable I will write in my current home. We move in two weeks, and next week I’m in Manchester at Love Stories Etc. (Hope to see some of you there!) Next week it’s also twelve years since I started reviewing the Guardian Blind Date. I know I don’t write these up every week any more – time and energy uncooperative as ever – but I know people really enjoy them when I do. So thanks for still ‘tuning in’.

Anyway, look, this week it’s the very handsome pairing of Suli, 26, a supervisor in retail (oooooh I really want to guess the shop, but don’t know, from the shirt, maybe Reiss?) and 25-year-old Abigo who is an animation graduate. I wonder how many times a day people tell her ‘Ooh I wish I could draw’.

Read what happened in full on the Guardian website and then return here for the unfolding of the jumpers.

Suli | Abigo

First impressions?
Abigo was funny and quite sure of herself.

Super friendly and genuine. Couldn’t tell if he was nervous or just naturally a little reserved. He was dressed very well and was super polite.

Overall first impressions, really, and both great. ‘Quite sure of herself’ gave me a bit of a warning tingle but maybe all Suli’s previous dates had amnesia or difficulty choosing between sorbet or a slab of red velvet for pudding.

Abigo noticing Suli’s clothes is a win. Few greater compliments, really, other than ‘terrific hair’, ‘good kisser’ and ‘excellent taste in Madonna songs’.

What did you talk about?
Quite a lot: our creative sides, working in retail, mental health, family dynamics …

Mental health. Dream jobs. School. Shoplifting. Music … and literally everything else. I had word vomit.

Mental health ✅ –  A match here. I wonder which aspect. Poor funding, maybe? Going to therapy? How the names of SSRIs often sound like nightclubs you might find in Blade Runner?

Creative sides/dream jobs ✅ – Just guessing that was a match.

Working in retail/shoplifting ✅ – These two are locked in. I have never shoplifted, except by accident when a till person has forgotten to scan something. Just not worth the hassle tbh.

Family dynamics – A tricky one. I find not talking to 75% of your family does work really well generally.

Word vomit – *pushes peppercorn sauce to one side* Well at least she didn’t say ‘verbal diarrhoea’.

Anyway this is going WELL, isn’t it?

Most awkward moment?
I didn’t really feel awkward at any point after the first five minutes – and that was only nerves and me arriving a bit late. We had good chemistry.

Arriving a bit late! Ordinarily I’d be roasting Suli for this but there’s nothing more rom-com than a shaky start to a perfect evening. ‘And I was actually late!’ he’ll tell his shocked grandchildren one day.

Most awkward moment?
He mentioned he has another date coming up. I could tell he felt awkward about being that honest, but I genuinely don’t think he knows how to lie or withhold information. It’s kind of cute.

I can’t believe Suli has managed to turn that potentially destructive bit of honesty into a plus! However, I would probably have left that off the table on a first date. Suli, Abigo is RIGHT HERE. You’re supposed to pretend there are no other women in the world at that point? Beyoncé who?! Never heard of her!

Good table manners?
No complaints from me.

Great. We exchanged bites of steak.

Bites of… How? With forks? Fingers? Did you cut off a piece? Or hand the steaks to each other like you were exchanging pizza slices?

On a first date, you have to be polite, you have to hide the crazy, it’s just the way the world works, so when a date asks you if you want to try some of their meal and you OBVIOUSLY say, ‘Oh no thank you, looks great, though’ and catch their expectant face eyeing your own plate, you must continue: ‘Would you like to try some of this?’ and when they inevitably say yes, you have to let at least one corner of your mouth turn up into what we will call a smile, cut them off a section that’s neither too small and makes you look stingy, nor too big that leaves you short-changed and means you’ll have to watch them chew for an age.

What you can’t say is, ‘Well, tough shit. We’re not at a christening in a flat-roof pub and this is not a finger buffet.’

Sadly.

Best thing about them?
I don’t think I can name just one: she was charming, confident, funny, intelligent, beautiful.

He’s so easy to talk to, genuine and very down to earth. He has a very calming presence. And kind eyes. I told him that two minutes in.

These twoooooooo. Suli’s giving his thesaurus some serious stick and Abigo’s in full glaze mode. Telling him he has kind eyes in the first two minutes?! Feels like it’s on.

(I definitely don’t have kind eyes. What are kind eyes, exactly? Do they pop out of your head while you’re sleeping and volunteer at a soup kitchen? Help little old ladies across the road, maybe? Fascinated. if I had one word to describe my eyes it would be: weary.)

Would you introduce them to your friends?
My friends are on a similar wavelength to me, so Abigo would be welcomed by them.

Absolutely. He would fit right in.

Describe Abigo in three words.
Feminist, influential, a diva.

Feminist, like, erm, it’s quite hard to make a joke out of this word these days for various reasons. Just imagine someone slipping on a banana skin and chuckle accordingly.
Influential, like someone on TikTok who’s telling you now guys, ever since I learned this hack, I’ve saved so much time, it’s changed my life, but before I tell you what the hack is, let me drone on for a good 90 seconds about some inconsequential bollocks as the graphic ‘watch to the end’ flashes onscreen. (The hack turns out to be a novel way to hang your sweatshirts that doesn’t actually work and stretches out the neck on all of them.)
Diva, like Mariah ordering her lackey to peel her a Rice Krispie, or Beyoncé choking the life out of her lighting director for a wandering spotlight, or David Beckham demanding the hairs on his toes be given the same coating of Just For Men (exact shade: Congealed Bisto) as the rest of his hair. Or maybe Suli just means she didn’t take any shit from him. Quite right too.

Describe Suli in three words.
Genuine, charming, layered.

Genuine, like a Rolex lent to a celebrity for a photo shoot even though he has no idea how to tell the time using a clock face.
Charming, like the toiletg paperg.
Layered, like an M&S salad. Or like your Auntie Elaine’s hair has been, since 1987.

What do you think Abigo made of you?
Laid-back, go with the flow, a sincere guy.

Haha, I love Suli but ‘laid-back’ after blurting out that he has another date coming up? No, darling.

What do you think Suli made of you?
Chatty, confident and medicated.

Medicated? Was the mental health chat about SSRIs after all? Or does she mean she had a few cocktails? Or is she on antibiotics for trench foot? Or statins?! We will never know.

Did you go on somewhere?
We went to a park nearby to talk for a bit longer. She had an early train the next day, so we couldn’t stay too long.

We sat in a park and talked.

Sat in a park! This is so cute! Very teenage! Well, in some places. Where I grew up, teenagers in parks either smashed bottles in the tennis courts, huffed glue in the derelict bowling green hut, or dry rode each other in the long grass. Sitting and talking much more preferable. ‘I suppose they’re all on their phones these days, aren’t they, getting groomed by Russian terrorists or doing silly dances on that there TokTik.’ – your Auntie Elaine.

And … did you kiss?
On the cheek, if that counts.

No.

Sometimes a kiss doesn’t actually have to exist to be true. It can be there in spirit. They didn’t kiss in a physical sense, but emotionally, maybe.

If you could change one thing about the evening, what would it be?
I should have made a move, but I’m not good at that sort of thing. Otherwise it was a perfectly pleasant experience.

‘A move’ – sometimes the terminology around dating gives me the giant ick. Men going on about having ‘moves’ – you’re not a game of chess. But if anything, Suli’s admission he would’ve *liked* to kiss Abigo only proves my theory of the spiritual kiss. Schrödinger’s Snog, if you will.

If you could change one thing about the evening, what would it be?
I would have liked to have gone on somewhere afterwards.

Oh Abigo, why didn’t you? Early trains, early schmains.

Marks out of 10?
9.

10!

That’s a shy ten from Suli and nobody will ever convince me otherwise, not even if they threaten to take a bite out of my steak.

Would you meet again?
We are planning to go to the cinema soon.

Yes.

Love these two. Suli and Abigo, thank you for your service.

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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. The steaks, tell me. And which film did you go to see?

Abigo and Suli ate at Gaucho in Manchester. Oooooh I’ve been there, it’s lovely. Fancy a blind date? Email blind.date@theguardian.com