#1 - The worst date I've ever been on

Over the coming weeks I'll be covering some of my more memorable experiences in China, Uzbekistan and other far-flung places. But I wanted to start this blog much closer to home, both geographically and spiritually, with a delightful tale about the worst date I've ever been on. Enjoy!

About a year ago I decided to give internet dating a second chance. I'd tried it briefly once before in 2010, but didn't really get into the spirit of it and only met one person. Much to my surprise and delight though, the one girl I did meet was adorable and we hit it off from the start. We were only together for a short time, but I look back on that experience fondly. 

Secure in the knowledge that sometimes internet dating can work, I signed up with another website and made more of an effort to meet people this time. As a result, I had my first date lined up within a few days. We agreed to meet at a pub in East London and the scene was set for what promised to be a pleasant evening.

How wrong I was.

The date was doomed from the start. She was an actress and a published poet, who usually spent her evenings performing; either on stage in theatrical productions, or in bars for her poetry evenings. By contrast, I'm an introverted self-confessed nerd who likes to spend time learning Chinese, constructing things out of paper and travelling alone. To say that we had nothing in common would be an understatement. I tried my best, but we simply spoke different languages and within minutes the conversation had dried up to the point where we were both contemplating our exit strategies.

Before we could escape though, a member of the bar staff came over to our table and asked us to move downstairs to the basement, as the show was about to start. "Show?" I inquired of my date, slightly confused. "Yes," she said, "there's a free comedy show in the basement this evening. Let's go down!".

Caught slightly off-guard by her sudden enthusiasm for this date to continue, I followed her downstairs, where the only remaining seats in the room were located on the front row. My stomach churned as we squeezed through the audience towards the one spot where clearly nobody wanted to be.

While we waited for the compère to begin the show, my date recounted her last experience at a comedy club. "...so I got dragged up onto the stage by the comedian, who took off all of his clothes and then forced me to shove a bar of soap up his rectum. It was disturbing at the time, but pretty hilarious looking back on it". A little shocked, the only words that found their way out of my mouth were "That doesn't really sound funny to me. More.... illegal". And with that we had reached our conversation quota for the evening.

After a brief warm up by the compère, the first comedian sprung onto the stage and looked around the audience. "So who here is on an internet dating website?" he asked. My jaw dropped. This was the opening line of the opening act of the evening. "You've got to be shitting me" I thought to myself. I suddenly felt like a sitting duck on the front row. I glanced nervously at my date to see if she'd put her hand up. Thankfully she had not.

Barely had I breathed a sigh of relief though, when she started heckling the man on stage. The first of what turned out to be many heckles that evening. When asked by one of the acts what she does for a living, she responded "I'm an escort", at which point I buried my head in my hands and cursed myself for not escaping when I'd had the chance.

Mercifully the last act eventually took to the stage and, as had become customary by that point, engaged in some banter with my date, asking about her life as an escort. "And who is your date?", asked the comedian, suddenly turning his attention to me, "You guys have been sat together all evening and he hasn't said a word to you!". It was a bit of a low blow, but undoubtedly a fair point.  Without missing a beat I piped back "I'm her manager!", which got a laugh from the audience. A minor victory in the midst of a train wreck.

After the show finished we headed back upstairs and went our separate ways. Needless to say we didn't contact each other again, but I felt like I'd established a new low, and that was something. From that point on, any date I went on couldn't possibly go worse.