Jo Thornely recaps First Dates Australia 2017 episode 4

THIS date between two old people escalated far too quickly. And just when we were ready to hurl — it got much worse.

IF THERE’S one thing First Dates teaches us, it’s that there are lots of different types of people — different cultures, different interests, different ages — and that those people are no less munted than we are at finding love. It’s enchanting, the muntedness.

If there’s another thing that First Dates teaches us, it’s that the interesting people find it a lot more difficult to find love than … well, the less interesting ones.

TOMMY AND KELLY

Okay, Tommy and Kelly are lovely — all sparkling eyes and big smiles and owning their own businesses and stuff. Two clearly delightful human beings. Just not, y’know. Interesting.

Yes we’ll have the two most normal drinks you have please.

One of their first conversations is about the fact that they both snort when they laugh, and that conversation continues for five minutes, with lots of laughing, but just to keep the fascination graph on a steady flatline, no actual snorting. In fact, the most interesting thing on this date so far is the mild suspense generated by the possible expectation that somebody will snort.

BUT WAIT, WHAT’S THIS?? Kelly refuses a glass of water!

No thanks, water is too exciting.

“I don’t really drink water. It’s like saliva” says Kelly, and we feel like maybe this is going somewhere good. “I actually really enjoy just eating ice” she adds, prompting a five-minute conversation about eating ice. Oh.

The thing is though, they’re perfect for each other, and they laugh silently with each other — sans snorts — for a further five minutes.

“I’ve been married” she tells him, and the graph spikes again. “OH, WOW!” he exclaims, but sensing that’s too much excitement for one day, the subject is dropped almost instantly.

THAT’S AMAZING let’s never speak of it again

Tommy and Kelly talk about the best way to look at someone when you’re down the shops.

They talk about whether or not broccoli and cauliflower know they’re related.

They talk about their aesthetic expectations versus their lived reality.

They are uninteresting but still, amazingly, completely adorable.

And then.

It happens.

She snorts.

THRILLS BEYOND THEIR WILDEST DREAMS

The most important thing is that they love each other. Go on, you crazy kids. Go chew ice in the sunset.

STEPH AND MATT

Under no circumstances should you play a drinking game in which you take a shot every time anyone says the word “nerd” during Steph and Matt’s date unless you want to be dead very, very quickly. You know, like Greedo in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

Matt had a shot first.

Both of these nerds tell us to camera that they’re great big nerds, and pretty much from the first time Steph gets a fellow-nerd blip on her nerd radar, we’re all cheerleaders for nerd love.

A presence I’ve not felt since …

She explains and utterly owns her childhood speech impediment when she says “hot and spicy, like a killy?”, he asks her what her favourite Star Wars movie is, and by the time they’re discussing the pros and cons of travelling by flight versus teleporting, the whole country is cheering on this awkward, delightful pairing.

I’m Luke Skywalker, I’m here to rescue you.

Aren’t you a little short to be a Stormtrooper?

Steph tells us that she gets lonely, and Matt says that he doesn’t go on dates much, and we want this to happen more than we want the Millennium Falcon to make the jump to warp speed.

But … no. They live in different states, and due to distance alone, Matt declines a second date. DAMN YOU KIDS AND YOUR NERD PRACTICALITY.

Fine, freeze my heart in carbonite.

PETA AND DES

Look, I think I speak for everyone when I say: we GET it, old people. You’re randy.

Fifty-nine-year-old Peta from last week is back, and she’s here to meet 67-year-old Des.

I’m sinkle and ready to crinkle!

Peta remarks upon how good Des looks for his age, but I dunno. After about 65 they all just look like different variations on a Sid James theme to me.

Tell you what dawlin’, you look like a right goer

“I’m used to handlin’ me meat, and you’re used to handlin’ a parcel,” quips Des when their butcher and post-office-worker vocations are revealed, as the viewing public fight desperately against their gag reflexes. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SUBTLE ART OF ROMANCE, DES.

“Maybe not the question I should ask over dinner, but are you still sexually active?” pipes in Peta. I’d say it’s a better question during dinner than say, immediately after sex, but honestly we’d prefer not at all.

“I’m a big fan of nudity,” she continues, at the exact moment we hit our bawdy-talk limit. They might as well just show each other their tongues and go at it on the table.

Are you thtill theckthually active?

Very much tho

By Awkward Question Time, Des is in heat. “If I knew where she farted I’d roll in it like a dog” he says, and I’m about done.

Interestingly, so is Peta. She rejects Des, claiming his is “a different zest from mine”.

So we sat through all that for nothing. NOTHING.

ROCHELLE AND REGGIE

Both Rochelle and Reggie are — and we’ve learned a new word — “Findian”, or Fijian Indian.

She’s an utterly gorgeous speech pathologist who at 25 is considered “expired goods” in the Findian community.

If she’s expired, the rest of us are bin juice.

He’s got two degrees, a great sense of humour, and needs to be better than this picture.

Wasssuuuuuup

Both Rochelle and Reggie are under a lot of pressure from their families to get married, and both fulfil the criteria valued by their respective mothers. High five!

Ah, the sweet eroticism of parental approval

As the date progresses, we realise something terrible though. With their easy humour, intelligence, natural humility and incredible accomplishments, these are two of the very best humans on earth, and the rest of us are garbage. Even though her mother likes to brandish a machete at people when she’s drunk and he has a hairstyle exactly twelve years out of date, we can’t help but feel inferior.

They’re ideal for each other’s families, but are they ideal for each other? Will they go on a second date?

No, sorry.

HA! PSYCH! THEY TRICKED YOU BECAUSE THEY’RE BETTER THAN YOU AND A LEGITIMATE JOY TO WATCH! Of COURSE they’re going on a second date. You idiot.

Wasssuuuuuup

Jo Thornely is a writer who loves it when you explain her jokes back to her on Twitter. Follow her @JoThornely