Single in Sydney: Sarah lands a blind date for her fancy ferris wheel dinner but does it leave her spinning?
SARAH takes a blind date for a spin on Sydney’s quirkiest, if not fanciest, dinner rendezvous at Luna Park. With sunset over Sydney Harbour as a backdrop what could possibly go wrong?
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JOURNALIST Sarah Swain has been single (but dating) for longer than she cares to remember.
That’s because it’s tough out there, as any single will tell you, so to bring hope to others across the city, she’s sharing her no-holds-barred adventures on the Sydney single scene every Friday.
Wheel of Fortune
As Kylie once said, sometimes I feel like I’m spinning around (sadly without gold hotpants) when it comes to dating.
But a few weeks I actually did. All night in fact.
You might remember I was signed up to go on ‘Sydney’s fanciest date’, a $400 dinner aboard the big wheel at Luna Park.
But it was all pie in the sky, as I didn’t have anybody to go with.
And I’m slightly embarrassed to admit I put a call-out in this column (online and in the Manly Daily) to see who wanted to go with me.
I can’t believe I’ve resorted to adverts in the paper — well at least not in the engagement announcement section, like Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall.
Anyway, in response, I got a bunch of emails, a couple of tweets, and a whatsapp from somebody I vaguely know.
I skimmed through and, to be honest, most weren’t great.
There was one from a guy with an email address from a video game, something like hackermurderer1989@gameplayer.com.au.
Another sent a selfie with a doughnut stuffed in his mouth.
I mean I love a Krispy Kreme, but being able to fit a whole one in your mouth at once isn’t top of my list of qualities I’m looking for in a man.
I mean, who does he think he is, Homer Simpson?
Anyway, I decided to go with the whatsapp man, a business-type I’d interviewed once on the phone, who seemed pretty nice.
He seemed keen, and I was quite excited to see what he was like.
Until he messaged me just a week later to say he’d “just met somebody” and could no longer go, because he could only date one person at once.
Well, we know how rubbish men are at multi-tasking. And I think he was about half my height anyway.
Then, few days later, I got chatting to a twitter hopeful, who seemed pretty nice, and looked like he’d set up an account just to tweet me. Which is pretty dedicated.
He also liked musicals. Big winner.
So, I invited him to join me.
He said yes. I was back on board.
Except a few days later, he pulled out to go to his mum’s cousin’s funeral.
Well, what could I say?
Now I was starting to get worried.
I really didn’t want to take a girlfriend.
Surely an independent, attractive woman like me could attract some kind of man to go on an all-expenses paid date with?
And not a male escort. Though it did cross my mind. I wasn’t sure I could stick that on expenses though.
Anyway, I decided to go back to the emails, and have another look.
There was one I’d only skimmed over before, from a bloke who worked in radio (similar job), he was tall (phew!) and had a dog (I’m a cat person, but, you know, any animal is good).
He lived in Penrith, but as my colleague Julie pointed out, I’m from a place called Grimsby, which is pretty much the English equivalent, so I can’t be fussy.
Jono, his name was, agreed to come along with me — and would even get his photo taken — which was not something I’d expected of my date.
What a good sport.
So I arrived at Luna Park on The Big Night, and there was a man waiting outside with a huge bunch of flowers. It wasn’t my date.
Jono my date was around the corner.
And after a glass of champers at Deck Bar, we climbed aboard the big wheel. With a photographer.
We posed for some really embarrassing photos — and the waitress asked if we’d just got engaged.
As we whirred around, stopping every so often to be served the next course, we had a good chat, and seemed to have a lot in common.
Except when we got off, I was a bit dizzy. Or was it tipsy?
Anyway, I walked straight into one of those little metal fairground fences, which made a dent the shape of a square in my thigh. It became a fruit-salad-coloured bruise.
Apart from that, I had a lovely night.
And Jono’s asked me out again, so I’m going to give it a spin.
Details: thedecksydney.com
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