‘For the love of god never do this in Kmart’

Jana Hocking says there’s one thing men should never do in Kmart and she dodged a bullet when it nearly happened to her last week.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve got a serious case of dating app fatigue.

You’re tired of swiping endlessly, going on boring dates with people who look nothing like their profile pictures, or worse, have got a personality of a wet blanket. Seriously, there’s only so many times I can ask whether you have any pets, or how many brothers or sisters you’ve got. Give a girl something to work with!

So believe me when I say I am so up for meeting people in real life. Love the idea of it. Makes me feel like I’ve stepped back in time to the good ol’ days. But gent, and I cannot stress enough, there is one place you must never try and pick a girl up.

Let me set the scene for you … earlier this week I was walking around Kmart in search of a jaffle maker. (I know, I know, exciting stuff. But seriously, jaffles – so good). As happens in Kmart, I got distracted and ended up doing hot laps around the shop.

I started to notice I was bumping into the same guy along every aisle. When I was sniffing candles, so was he. When I moved to cushions, he appeared.

Jana Hocking had a strange feeling in Kmart. Picture: Instagram

My spidey senses started tingling and I got the vibe he was following me. I wasn’t too worried because he seemed harmless enough, so I bought my things and choofed off.

Later that night I delved into my DMs and he had sent me a message saying: “I just wondered (sic) around Kmart thinking about what sort of cheesy line I could say to get your attention haha when I should have just said hello!”

Jana Hocking had an admirer in Kmart. Picture: Supplied

Oh god, I quickly scanned what I had bought. Was it embarrassing? Did he watch me umm’ing and ahhh’ing over which granny panties to buy in the undie aisle? Was it the fluffy slippers I bought in time for winter that really won him over?

Oh cringe. For the love of god, never interrupt a girl in Kmart. Never. We are not at our finest, nor should we be. It’s a safe haven where we can go spend money we shouldn’t be spending on junk that we don’t need, without judgment.

Save the cold-call pick-up lines for the bars when we are looking sexy and have three white wines under our belt. Then you may proceed.

As brave as I’m sure he would have been there in the beauty aisle, I would have hated it if he tried to talk to me while I was racing around in a tizz. Seriously, imagine getting picked up with a packet of tampons in your hand.

Also, slightly controversial opinion, but stopping someone dead in the tracks when they aren’t exactly in a social setting is kinda rude. Yes unintentionally, but nevertheless rude.

Although I can get myself out of any tricky situation, a lot of women can’t. I had one friend end up on a date with a bloke who did something similar, simply because she didn’t want to embarrass him.

So yes, hats off to you good sir for almost having the gusto to give it a go, but may I suggest some better ways of doing it.

The first one would be the way you ended up doing it. Sliding into my DMs. That way we can have a look at your pics (kinda like the dating apps I guess), see if we have any mutual friends, and then decide whether we would like to proceed. No embarrassment required.

Another way, if you would like to stick to the whole ‘meeting IRL’ thing, would be to say yes to every social invite and play the slow game.

Meet new people through friends, see if anyone takes your fancy, if they do, get your friends to put in a good word for you, and take it from there. If they’re keen then happy days, hit them up for a date. If not, you haven’t awkwardly put them on the spot.

So, in summary, it’s a big YES from me to going back to meeting potential dates in real life first, just not at Kmart. Let a girl browse for daggy pyjamas in peace.

Jana Hocking is a columnist and collector of kind-of-boyfriends | @jana_hocking