Jo Thornely recaps First Dates episode 5: Mistakes happen
SARAH has a long list of dating rules, which you’d expect to come in handy on a show like First Dates. But the moment she met Reece, she ditched them all.
IT’S the fifth round of First Dates, and the outlook is not rosy.
This might be the episode with the lowest success rate so far, but it can’t just be because nearly everyone says “long time no see” when they meet up afterwards in the Awkward Question Time room. They must be making some mistakes.
Mistakes like:
BREAKING AN AWKWARD SILENCE WITH A RECTAL EXAM
I’m fairly sure the only things doctor Jessica and banker Melvin have in common is the fact that they’re here for dinner on the same night.
From the moment they’re introduced we can see they’re different. He likes giving it some muted blue steel in one of his beloved suits.
Whereas she likes using her stethoscope to pretend she doesn’t have a heart.
There’s just no part of this date that isn’t painful.
When she tells him to guess what she does for a living, his first guess is “fitness model”, which admittedly is an assumption that people make about doctors all the time.
In return, he refuses to tell her what he does for work, claiming it would “kill the night”. Ironically Melvin’s answer instantly kills off at least part of the night.
It’s almost a relief when a waitress asks them what kind of mustard Melvin and Jessica want on their steaks, but peculiarly neither of them ask for it to be smeared directly onto their eyeballs in order to make this date more comfortable.
As far as I’m concerned, they’re both at fault.
In the red corner we have Melvin, who breaks one of two hundred awkward silences by saying “As soon as this date finishes, I’m going to buy that same dress”.
In the blue corner we have Jessica who, when asked about what it’s like to be a surgeon, leaps straight for a visual description of a rectal exam.
By the final round, nobody is surprised when Jessica says she doesn’t want another date. In case this scenario is too comfortable, Melvin starts an argument with her about the nature of attraction.
Melvin. Honey. It’s a bad investment, let it go.
SNIFFING YOUR DATE BUT NOT SMELLING YOUR FUTURE
Bunny is a bar manager, which makes her either the dream girl of any man who still has a beard, or the first line of a Bon Jovi song.
She says thinks she’s single because she has resting bitch face, but I can’t really see it.
If you don’t already love Bunny, by the time Cam the Barman offers her a cocktail list and she says “Don’t worry about cocktails. Beer”, you’re shouting “HOW COULD ANYONE NOT LOVE BUNNY?” at the screen with a wailing guitar accompaniment.
The person voted most likely to love Bunny is Andy, a paramedic who loves strong, powerful, confident women.
Bunny and Andy hit it off instantly, giving us all a warm, fuzzy, excessively hairy feeling as only romances born in rock heaven can. They have good banter, you see. The bants. The quality banto.
“Without the beard, I’m just a large hairy lady”, he tells her. “ME TOO!” she replies.
A-plus banty-bants.
They ask each other why they’re single, which is a question that everybody on this show is required to ask by law.
“Because I’m undateable, obviously” says Andy.
“No-one will date me”, says Bunny, explaining that while she might seem like a bitch on the outside, she’s soft on the inside, “like a soft crumbed egg”.
Even when they sit in the Awkward Question Time room and Andy leans over and sniffs her, it feels like he was born to sniff Bunny and only Bunny until the end of time.
It’s going so well, and we just know that their wedding will be the kind that has a tattooed celebrant and smoked brisket food trucks instead of a buffet.
Except. Well. Andy says he doesn’t want a second date.
After laughing, Bunny does look a bit bummed, though.
Maybe she just has resting rejected face.
BRINGING A MONGOOSE ON A DATE
Matt and Annalise’s date is about two things: Confidence and body size.
Annalise, a heart-stoppingly gorgeous plus-size model and self-confessed alpha female, is confident, relaxed, and says being curvaceous is the seat of her power.
On the other side of the coin, the extremely lovely company director Matt is relatively new to dating since losing 65 kilos after gastric band surgery a year ago.
“I know literally two people — one is my cat, and one is my housemate”, he says, unaware he’s about to leap across several qualifying rounds in the Meeting New Friends Olympics. He can hardly believe his luck when Annalise walks through the door.
There’s just nothing not to love about these two people. With her stunning worldliness, Annalise could easily dismiss Matt as an insecure newbie, and Matt in turn could easily let his understandable nerves and inexperience undo him.
But instead we’re at a table with two people genuinely interested in the story of the other, enjoying two meals of vastly different sizes.
It’s a properly fascinating juxtaposition between a person who rejoices in being bigger and one who didn’t feel like he was truly living until he was smaller.
And then, as so often happens against a backdrop of sociological contrast, Matt tells Annalise that his main pick-up line is to ask girls what the plural of “mongoose” is.
By the end of the date, we really just want these two to be happy. But together?
“I do find him sexy in a weird way” says Annalise, and everybody punches the air with delight.
“I’d definitely like to see Annalise for a second date” says Matt, and everybody goes “duh”.
“Let’s just be friends” says Annalise.
“Ironically, you’re not the first person to say this” says Matt, misunderstanding the meaning of the word “ironic”.
That’s three duds from three. We have only one mistake left to make:
STICKING TO THE RULES
Sarah has a lot of rules.
She has a ten-date rule, and won’t go to the “next level” until she knows someone on the “next level”.
She informs us that when a female and male have “intercourse”, the “love hormone” is released, and she can’t trust how that affects her judgment.
She says a kiss on the cheek is fine, but because the lips are so “intimate”, no pashing on the first date.
She won’t accept a man shorter than her.
She does not share food with strangers. Because of how often strangers are wanting some of your food, see. It’s a thing, shut up.
Despite her date Reece claiming that he doesn’t take things too seriously and “if it happens, it happens”, flying in the face of Sarah’s clearly delineated world order, the pair engage in a bit of blatant flirting, albeit each in their own way.
Reece intentionally orders a different meal to Sarah so that she still has something to eat if she doesn’t like her own, but she sticks to her guns and doesn’t share hers. Oh okay, maybe just a couple of mouthfuls. Can’t hurt.
After a brief but clear lecture from Sarah about how broccoli is bad but broccolini is good, Sarah sticks to her rule about staying distant until there’s mutual affection and respect. But it’s more of a guideline, isn’t it, especially when you and your date say “the stem is the most nutritious part” in unison.
Happily Sarah doesn’t have a rule about blushing, or giggling, or enjoying someone’s company, or forgetting what she ordered because she’s distracted by falling instantly in love with someone.
But she DOES have a rule about kissing on the first date.
A totally … you know … steadfast …
Jo Thornely doesn’t get enough attention at her day job, so she writes for various outlets, takes up way too much bandwidth on the internet, and loves it when you explain her jokes back to her on Twitter. Follow her @JoThornely
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