'Personally I don't like to be paid for on a date; it makes me feel uncomfortable, like you are not parting on even ground.' Photograph: GettyEver since I started writing about dating in Manchester, there has been one topic on which everyone I bump into has an opinion or anecdote: the first date.
The general consensus is that this primary stage of courtship holds the potential to be a universally soul-destroying experience – and a far cry from the image of two impossibly attractive people falling in love over champagne and tapas that dating sites would have you believe. It can all too often be a few hours of awkward conversation while staring intently at the emergency exits of a local bar working out your exit strategy.
Vacuum cleaners: not a good first date accessory. (Alamy) You only have to scroll down the comments section of my first blog to read some absolute belters of first date stories. My favourite was the guy who admitted turning up on a first date brandishing a hoover and a shredder he'd just purchased from Argos, the latter of which his date carried for him to and from the restaurant. There was no follow-up date for the guy, or for his hoover, or his poor, lonely, loveless shredder.
Many of my friends have also come forth with tales of dating woe; these include one friend who ended up in the back of a police car due to his date thinking she was being kidnapped by their taxi driver (she wasn't); or the friend whose date repeatedly stroked a mole on her face and referred to it as her "pet" throughout the whole day.
One of my good friends has just embarked on her maiden voyage of internet dating this month and has managed to rack up quite a repertoire of disappointment in just a few weeks.
Her first ever internet date was rudely interrupted by her immune system, which inconveniently announced she had caught a stomach bug. So rather than concentrating on stimulating conversation, all her efforts were channelled into clinging on to some dignity in her local pub in Marple.
Her second date, who she was really looking forward to meeting, proceeded to repeatedly remind her it was her round as soon as he'd finished his drink, asked her for money to go to the bar and then ended the date by staring deeply into her eyes and announcing their "children would be beautiful". Which, she felt – after knowing someone for a grand total of about four hours and having no money left to start a family due to excessive round buying – was slightly jumping a massive cannon of a gun.
The issue of who pays on a first date is a subject close to the heart of Manchester-based blogger Cubicgarden, who wrote a blog about how my first column had irked him. Which in turn irked me a bit right back. So I got in touch with him to see if we could meet up on a non-date and iron out the irks.
Cubicgarden turned out to be a brilliant chap. He's a human dating Wikipedia, taking great interest in – and blogging about – everything from the technology to the dynamics involved in meeting someone new. His top topic being Who Pays On A First Date? We debated the topic over breakfast at FYG in the Northern Quarter last week. Personally I don't like to be paid for on a date; it makes me feel uncomfortable, like you are not parting on an even ground.
He regaled a tale that qualified my feelings about this further. A lady friend of his on a first date offered to pay her share but graciously accepted being paid for on the insistence of her date. She was then asked to pay back the money by said date when she turned down seeing him again due to there being no spark. Wow.
Over breakfast he also flagged up a couple of dating-themed TV programmes that have popped up recently on Channel 4. Dates, a dramatised series of first-date scenarios, for the first 2 episodes seemed a little far fetched. A bit like the cast of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps had grown up, found themselves in that there London and were being taken advantage of by savvy southerners they had met off the interwebs. But it was still very good TV and worth watching. By episode three the gorgeous Mia had gone on a date with a doctor, managing to convince him to smuggle her into his hospital where she posed as a doctor and wreaked some medical-related datey havoc.
I was about to go on my first date with Mr Facestalk from my last article around the same time. He too is an A&E doctor and so I was expecting great things from this first date. According to Dates, and from memory at least one episode out of every series of Casualty, I was destined to end up in A&E scrubs, pouting while performing a tracheotomy with an empty biro.
The diagnosis of bum scabies is not a first date winner. (Getty) We met up at Parlour in Chorlton, and immediately my pupils did that dilating thing that subtly gives away your synapses shouting "I fancy your face!!". I already knew his profile pictures were not raging lies due to my outing myself the week earlier for having a good flick through his Facebook pictures, but in the flesh he was even lovelier.
We hit it off immediately, and so without thinking I broke two of my first date rules and went for a quiet walk in secluded woodland, down the side of a deserted river with a man I'd just met off the internet. Luckily, doctors come with a CRB check so I figured this would be OK. Well, to be exact, it was a walk through Chorlton Waterpark over to Jackson's boat pub. He didn't murder me, nor me him. So far so good.
We were getting on brilliantly when the drunkest person in the pub stumbled over. He approached us because I am "a ginger", and so was he. And in his drunken state I appeared to be a big ginger homing beacon attracting him like a pissed moth.
On asking my date what he did for a living and my date replying that he was a doctor, the drunk then stood up, dropped his trousers, bared his backside and presented us with what was "one of the worst cases" of bum scabs my date had ever seen. I thought putting on my anorak on because it was raining had killed the romance a little, however bum scabies pretty much batted the romance out of the beer garden and over to the other side of Sale.
My date then dutifully diagnosed him and advised him to stay off the beer as that was likely to be causing the issue, to which the drunk gracefully told him to fuck off and waddled back over to the other side of the beer garden.
It was time to leave; there had been no biro tracheotomies or flirting with a defibrillator, but this was Chorlton and not telly so we kept it real, went back to his and ate a couple of kebabs in the back of his campervan while listening to some music. (Not a euphemism!).
As for who paid? We split it down the middle.
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