Usage of Grindr and all the other "men seeking men" apps must've crashed through the floor, given the sheer volumes of gay guys now using the Guardian Blind Date column as their preferred way to hook up - and score that all-important free meal, of course. Yes, eating is back, in a big way; adjust your number of squats accordingly and tuck in.
This week, Jonathan! And Oliver! Jonathan is on the left with the face-beard and shirt-beard and is a 30-year-old civil servant - has never knowingly run out of envelopes and is expert at doodling during meetings. Oliver is the other one, with the glasses and - GAY BLIND DATE CLICHE KLAXON - the roll-neck and is not, as you may expect, a French exchange student that you fall hopelessly in love with during two scorching weeks in Aquitaine, but a 28-year-old masters student. In what, you may ask? It doesn't appear to matter; we must feed off the scraps life has given us and hope for the best.
I have a second novel to hand in within the next few days, and I'm behind because I have also been ill, so let's be brisk. Read what happened on the date before I blunder in and ask Jonathan to burn that belt.
Jonathan on Oliver| Oliver on Jonathan
Spoiler: Jonathan abSOlutely falls in love with Oliver and this ardour is so thinly disguised it is the romantic equivalent of Clark Kent's specs.
"Reader, I fancied him." But, Jonathan, if you wore a turtle neck, how would you show off that impressive chest-wig? Knowing the "community" as I do, I'm willing to bet it gets you around 30% more dates than a chin-skimming jumper would.
Have we ever had the mutual "intention to bone" notification so early in the column? Whether its interior design, memes, or content for our prurient minds, men who sleep with men DELIVER. (FYI, I feel the "was" there is significant. More on that later.)
Olivia Colman, politics and his master's in witches.
Politics - ✅ Ugh.
London - One of my favourite things to do when I see friends who used to live in London but have moved away is ask them what they miss most about London. If they pretend "nothing", the conversation ends and I make haste to the nearest Tube station to get as far away from this LIAR as fast as I can. I love lots of cities and regions - so please don't write in - but London is London is London and I will never be anything other than obsessed by it.
Hogwarts - I bet you're expecting me to say "READ ANOTHER BOOK" aren't you? I've only read one Harry Potter and seen just one of the films - fifth one, at the IMAX, I took my baby sister, and her English teacher was sitting right in front of us which was MORTIFYING for both afterward - so I don't really have any strong feelings one way or the other. Who cares? If people want to live their life according to fictional ideals, who are we to judge? I mean, take a look at some of the real-life morals and ethics people are only too proud to display - I can see why you might want to disappear into a made-up world of wizards and bizarre retconning of character traits in pursuit of wokeness. A date once asked me about my Patronus and I had no idea what he was talking about and the evening never recovered. The sex was awful.
Yeah, if your answers are anything to go by, I don't think your intentions were particularly hard to read. Oliver's got eyes.
Good table manners?
Exemplary. Even when I ordered the pig's head. Hufflepuffs like me need a Slytherin to encourage them to order the most expensive wine.
I see they ate at the Sanderson. I have such an AMAZING, MORTIFYING story about eating there once - twice, in fact! - that I wish I had time to share. Oh my GOD I am curling up at the thought of it.
"I just wanted to bone him sooooooooo bad."
"Yes, that's right: I'm deep."
'Course. He seems as mad as my mates.
✅✅
Do you think Oliver's mates are really mad? How mad? Are people with roll-necks in their wardrobe generally "mad"? Are we talking clinically insane and in need of urgent treatment or "has three Sambucas and knocks over a wheelie bin IN A ROLL-NECK"?
Interesting, like the decision to wear odd socks to a funeral.
Sophisticated, like a roll-neck.
Handsome, like he is. Oh he is. Come on. The bastard.
Interesting, like that belt Jonathan voluntarily wore to be photographed in.
Passionate, like the snog at the end of this date that I cannot help think is looking increasingly unlikely.
Inquisitive, like that squirrel fascinated with the guttering above my bathroom. What does it want? What is in there? Why does he always call over another squirrel to have a look at it. Is it made of NUTS?
Jonathan, do you know how thinking works? You have to, like concentrate kind of hard and... IMAGINE. Anyway, I've read to the end and the answer seems to be... not a whole lot? Dunno.
Oliver is really quite keen on appropriating some kind of mental health issue as a personality, isn't he? I can tell you exactly what Jonathan thought of you, Oliver, but I'm worried the details may be too shocking for your tender ears.
Homosexuality is broken. Jonathan clearly wanted the D and yet did an early dart because he had WORK the next day?!?!? These are not my people. Work will ALWAYS be there another day; Oliver will not. (And I mean he really will not; read to the end.)
One does not kiss and tell.
Oliver, I know you are wearing a dark jumper but no need to try to be as mysterious as the Milk Tray man; it doesn't really work when the other dude says nothing happened.
"I'd have asked him back to mine."
If you could change one thing, what would it be?
That we'd had more wine.
"And drunk enough, I would've gone."
The 8 in itself is a massive under-marking - the waiting staff in the restaurant spent untold hours cleaning up Jonathan's saliva once they'd left - so I'm going to call it a 9, which is a nervous 10.
Oliver's six-point-five is quite something. His answers throughout have been delivered with the robotic distance of a pen pal who writes back only once for every three letters you send, with a leaky biro, across just two pages, in large, hurried, dismissive script. So we can surmise that Oliver was not hugely into it and wanted to make this kind of clear. Note that "was handsome" way back in the first impressions question. It's very detached, already in the past for Oliver, not an ongoing situation. Handsomeness is, arguably, a continuous state unless you wake up one morning to find you've been recast as a warthog, yet for Oliver it was a thing, then, a done deal, not now. The handsomeness was a first impression, not a lasting one. Hence the 6.5 kill-shot.
I'll keep everything crossed for you, J.
Oh, Oliver! Oliver! Never before has a boy wanted more.
Jonathan and Oliver ate at The Restaurant at Sanderson, London W1. Fancy a blind date? Email [email protected]. If you're looking to meet someone like-minded, visit soulmates.theguardian.com NOTE: The comments I make are based on the answers given by the participants and not what they may actually be like in real life. The Guardian chooses what to publish and usually edits answers to make the column work better on the page. NOTE 2: NOTE 3: The Impeccable blog is usually published on Sunday mornings, but was on a Saturday this week. LOL I'm so random.. Buy my book, The Last Romeo. It's how I eat. Get in touch if you want to give me your side of the story; I'll publish whatever you say. But, please, other kinds of sweater exist.
