Zula and Leyla

Spring is finally fighting its way through, but if you miss the endless chill of the first four months of 2023, I have some good news – today’s Guardian Blind Date has a thin layer of frost, much like those long forgotten soya bean cutlets you found at the back of the freezer and chucked on the barbecue anyway.

But before we come to that: a public service announcement. The paperback of my third novel THE FAKE-UP is out now and you can buy it wherever you like to get your books. Support your local bookshops, please, because they are run by lovely people, but if you’ve been barred from your local bookseller for ‘an incident’, you can also find it on Bookshop.org (which supports indie booksellers), Bert’s Books, Waterstones, Foyle’s, and Amazon.

(The Kindle version is 99p for the next few days too.) Please do buy it – it helps me have what my parents begrudgingly call ‘a career’.

Right, on with the show. As Pride Month approaches, we’ve got Zula, 32, and a photographer and lecturer, and Leyla, 27, a communications worker and art curator. They both seem to have two jobs. This is how it is now, I suppose. Either one job alone doesn’t pay enough, or the world expects you to be hustling nonstop from the minute your phone alarm pings in the morning to the second the same phone drops onto your face because you fell asleep scrolling at midnight, so you feel guilty if you don’t have multiple metiers and aren’t constantly creating. Recently, I’ve noticed a slight increase in people telling me what job they think I should do – standup comedian being one of them, which is ridiculous, I have never intentionally made a joke in my LIFE and all my best quips are insults – and I find myself stating the bleeding obvious: I’ve got a sodding job, I’m a writer. How many hours in a day do you think I have ffs? Anyway, behold our multi-hyphenates:

before returning here for the real talk.

Zula | Leyla

First impressions?
I was early, so walked up and down the street to not look too keen. When I went in, Leyla was already nursing a glass of wine, and we both laughed about being super early. I should’ve gone straight in.

God I am early for everything and it’s the bane of my life. If it’s true that your life does flash before your eyes, I’m pretty sure a large chunk of my greatest hits will be reels of footage of me walking round the block or ambling around Sainsbury’s Locals trying to kill time so I don’t look like the keenest bitch on the planet. I cannot do late, I just can’t, it’s ugly, it’s horrifying, unless… unless… and this is a very strange phenomenon, unless I am going somewhere very nearby, say somewhere ten minutes from my house. I will misjudge this hugely and end up rushing there – I arrived at a hospital appointment the other day heaving breathlessly as if I’d just done the Royal Parks Half in full army fatigues – and even if I get up and ready in plenty of time, I will end up late (by about a minute, but as I always say, if you arrive bang on time, you’re LATE). Anyway this is as decent an icebreaker as you’re likely to get this side of a company away day.

First impressions?
Warm with good energy.

Instead of answering this question, Leyla has accidentally pasted in her review of the Dimplex ML3TSFTie7 3kW Turbo Convector Heater, which she meant to leave on the Argos website.

Most awkward moment?
Leyla asked if I’d Googled her before the date. I said of course I had, but hadn’t found much – she told me I was lying.

It’s the ‘of course’ for me. I mean… I am a good fifteen years older than Zula so I was romantically active before the internet was a big thing (I say ‘active’; dormant might be more apt a term), and thus Googling to me feels like something you should still pretend you didn’t do. Like, we all do it, but it’s best to let someone reveal themselves to you. And if you don’t Google someone before you meet them, you definitely should. They say Instagram is only the nice stuff that people want to present but that doesn’t make it any less eye-opening. Bad opinions, racist tattoos, and dodgy friends… it’s all there. And if it’s a locked account? ?

Anyway, even if Zula had pretended she hadn’t googled her, Leyla wouldn’t have believed her. Now I can’t help but wonder what Zula did find, why she might say she didn’t, and/or what did Leyla expect her to find, and why did she say Zula was lying? Is she ‘someone’? I’m afraid I have places to be so I won’t be Googling either of them myself. The one downside of pre-meeting Googling – or conference call Googling, which I constantly did while stuck on work calls – is that often the one thing you find about someone is that they are, sadly, a boring shite.

Most awkward moment?
It was quite a busy night in the restaurant and I’m kind of deaf. There’s only so many times you can ask someone to repeat themselves from across the table.

Oh this is me. Well, almost. I don’t think I’m going deaf – I went to have this checked out because I was constantly asking people to repeat themselves, but everything was fine – but I do find myself feeling very lost in noisy bars and restaurants now. It’s usually down to the acoustics (I tell myself) and now that I am older, my tolerance levels for the joyful shrieking and hyena laughs that ring off the walls on nights out has sunk way too low. It seems to have gone hand in hand with my desire for a seat, which would’ve been ANATHEMA to the younger me. If you’re sitting down, you’re tired, go home; I’d rather have done star jumps in barbed-wire underpants than sit down in a bar or club when I was in my twenties and thirties. Now, I stand up for two hours and my lower back starts pneumatic drilling and my knees decide there’s never been a better time to crumble to dust. Interviews with famous (rich) people that bang on and on about how great getting older is – ‘I feel so much wiser now!’ ‘I just don’t care anymore! I feel so free!’ conveniently ignore the impracticalities of ageing, and just how quickly the independence of youth is whipped away from you. And I am relatively fit and healthy!

Something for you to look forward to there.

Would you introduce Leyla to your friends?
For sure – she is nice and easygoing – but not in a romantic sense.

She’s super open so I’m sure she’d get on with anyone, but only as a pal.

Brrrrrr. I mean, we have questions later on SPECIFICALLY to elicit the friendzoning, but Zula and Leyla have sent someone ahead with the details so we don’t need to get our hopes up.

Anyway, as I am always saying (to people who never agree with me), friendships are much harder to forge than romantic relationships so if they have made a friend here then it’s all to the good.

Okay, next answer where it gets REALLY confusing.

Did you go on somewhere?
No, Leyla ended up leaving after we finished our mains. I confess that I stayed behind and ordered an incredible slice of pistachio tiramisu.

No, I suggested going for a drink but wisely we didn’t, as we both had work the next day.

So… Leyla suggested going for a drink but left after the main? And… rather than walk her out, Zula stayed and had the tiramisu? Wh—what? How does that work? Did Leyla know Zula was staying behind and decide to leave her to it?

I don’t like putting words in the participants’ mouths, but it feels to me like a ‘cards on the table’ moment was reached – that Leyla maybe suggested a drink out of politeness, but Zula saw no point, and offered Leyla the opportunity to parachute out, before availing herself of the free pudding. What you have to understand is that, unlike heterosexual dates, there is much less pissing about among the rainbow crew. Maybe it’s a hangover from having to put our trust in each other when homosexuality was still illegal and dating was a furtive, dangerous act. We can be direct, we’re maybe less concerned about conserving fragile egos (although gay men… eeeeesh, what can I say) and we are happier to release someone/walk away smiling and wish them well on whatever comes next.

Unless… something else happened. Something big.

Pistachio tiramisu, though. Sounds RANK.

If you could change one thing about the evening, what would it be?
It was nice to meet Zula but there was no connection.

And there we go.

Marks out of 10?
7.

6.

A 13 in total. Not exactly a flaming hot score in the compatibility stakes – although probably still a better match than Charles and Di – but maybe they can meet up one day, once they’ve had a proper Google.

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Something to remember about the review and the daters that I put at the end of every review

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. 

Zula and Leyla ate at Firebird, London W1. Fancy a blind date? Email blind.date@theguardian.com