Our first romantic hopeful is Eve, a beauty therapist from Bridgend. I confess that on seeing Eve, my first reaction was ‘HD eyebrows have gone too far. Those eyebrows would look outré on an especially villainous Thunderbird puppet. I’m not sure if that’s a person’s forehead or a big pad left out on a table in Staples where customers can test the thickness of the Sharpie markers.’ But then, my own eyebrows are so untamed and low maintenance that I wouldn’t be surprised to find a small family of hedgehogs walking across the bridge of my nose, and what I know about Welsh brow trends could be written on a single eyelash, so I’m in no position to judge. Eve’s date is charming teaching assistant Jordan, who loves Tom Jones and demands to know why Eve has a shell in her drink. (‘It’s passionfruit.’)
Next, we meet the glamorous 80-year-old Jenny, whose hobbies include attending ‘rock’ festivals and ‘going down the front’. Where does she go? Download? Bloodstock? Well, her favourite acts are Coldplay, Ed Sheeran and ‘Snow Patrol, but I don’t really know what happened to them,’ so I think it’s safe to say she’s more of a glamper than a mosher. Anyone who a) has a Granny and b) has ever seen an overexcited Slipknot fan poo themselves at Reading will be quite relieved by this. Jenny has been paired up with another music lover - the dashing 85-year-old Eric, who enjoys the ‘sensuous’ Argentine tango. Eric is so tango-focused that he does an excited dancing sway when he greets Fred the maître d. It’s either that, or he’s so desperate to see himself on telly that he’s trying to lean straight into the camera lens. Jenny does not tango, but Eric is not disappointed. ‘There’s other things that you can do! Sorry, I’m being a bit rude there!’ Just in case anyone thought that Eric was actually alluding to the Saturday night dance, he’s talking about octogenarian sex.
Jordan has told us that he doesn’t have a type, and that for all he knows, the woman of his dreams may well be bald. And Eve is bald. She has alopecia, and courageously removes her wig to reveal some excellent tattoos. Oh shit, this means that when was mean about her eyebrows…oh no. I am the worst person in the world. Jordan reacts with maturity, admiration and possibly horniness. He reveals that he’s a rugby boy ‘but I don’t play rugby anymore’, and an injury took him away from a sport he loved, which led him to a period of excessive drinking and depression. Once more, First Dates has excelled itself in normalising the subjects that are rarely discussed, and showing the reality of humanity. Occasionally we see people with alopecia on TV, but only if they’re on a programme about medical issues. We rarely see someone like Jordan talking about their mental health during prime time. It’s quietly and meaningfully groundbreaking.
Eric is angling for a dance, but Jenny said she’s had dance lessons ‘but my knees couldn’t take it’. Eric is confused. ‘Your niece?’ It’s loud in the restaurant! And if Jenny has a niece who hears any of Eric’s dancing innuendo, she’s probably right to be alarmed! Eric and Jenny talk about widowhood, and their respective spouses, which is quietly heartbreaking - especially when we see an old picture of Eric dancing with his wife. Just when we’re all on the point of suffocating in a puddle of our own sentimentality, we meet Ronnie and Carly, who have come into our lives to show us how to hate again! Ronnie is posh. We know he’s posh because he grew up in Scotland and sounds slightly less Scottish than Marion Cotillard. ‘When I first moved to London, someone tried to sell me drugs, I had no idea what was going on!’ he reveals. Ah, Ronnie must go to the same music festivals as Jenny! He’s a yoga teacher, and he loves meditation, which has led him to the peaceful conclusion that ‘we’re all going to die in the end’.
Ronnie gives us the impression that he doesn’t talk to that many humans on the regular, but he does seem sweet. Carly, on the other hand, is the sort of person that you might meet at a hen party and then spend two days hiding in an airing cupboard from. Ronnie offers her a sip of her hot toddy, and she shudders with such disgust that I have to rewind the programme to make sure that I didn’t mishear, and Ronnie isn’t actually drinking poison wee. Ronnie makes things very bad by contributing to a discussion of Carly’s newfound vegetarianism with ‘I help cull deer! I’m a blood-on-the-hands-killer!’ Carly makes things worse by doing an impression of her South African ex. ‘Definitely don’t shit where you sleep. Or work. Or eat.’ It’s like watching Mark and Jez’s most regrettable Peep Show conquests date each other.
Happily, we’re cheered up again by Jade, a stunning lingerie model who is wearing a skintight sequined jumpsuit. She looks like the star of an erotic Gladiators reboot - I want to make a gif of her walk through the restaurant and caption it #posturegoals. Jade is also a trained accountant. ‘All my friends call me Carol Vorderman.’ She has a daughter who is old enough to regularly remind Jade that she needs to meet a man because one day, her dog will die. ‘I want someone with a low sex drive. Not all men cheat, but I feel like there’s less chance if they’ve got a low sex drive.’ Her date, Adam, joins her for a porn star martini. They’re both 32. ‘You look young for 32!’ he exclaims. ‘It’s the Botox!’ she cackles. I love Jade. I love her even more when she talks about a recent trip to Rome. ‘I just wanted to stay in the room. Everyone wanted to look at the big columns, when you can just stay in and see on the internet what you can see in front of you.’ Right, I’m Googling Coliseum and saving myself at least four hundred quid. Cheers, Jade.
I’m worried that I’ve been a bit mean about Carly, but then she gives Jade’s outfit the most slut-shamey, judgemental once over, and I’m secure in my conviction that she is the very worst. For the record, Ronnie thinks it’s ‘jolly’. ‘Do you follow Eurovision?’ he asks Carly, before talking about his love for Now 95, his fondness for sleep and his confusion about reality. ‘It’s like meeting a really wanky version of me!’ she hisses to her friend on the phone. See, this is what you get when you pretend that yoga is making you spiritual when you only really want it to make your bum a bit firmer.
Finally, we have a properly romantic match. Jonathon and Crystal are desperate to find The One - admittedly it’s because their respective families are so desperate to see them settled that they’re on the brink of marrying them off to the first postman or DPD driver to come to the door - and their chemistry is so pure, potent and undeniable that there will probably be a science question about it in the next series of QI. They spend much of the date gazing into each other’s eyes, although Jonathon does tell her that he has ‘a foot thing’ - which is obviously enough of a thing for him to mention it out loud, in a restaurant, on the telly. Still, Crystal is unfazed and confident enough about her feet to start planning a trip to Paris with him. I have a theory that no-one is truly frightened off by a foot fetish - but we’re all so worried about our dry skin and freaky toenails that it’s easier to pretend that we’re freaked out. Apparently, Jonathan and Crystal are still dating, three months later, so Crystal’s feet must be true legends.
Match of the day
Although Jonathon and Crystal are hotter than the sun, love-wise, I can’t be the only one who whooped when I learned that Eric and Jenny were planning their third date. Although heaven knows what sexy innuendos Eric will throw into the mix during date number three…
Bad love
The meeting between Ronnie and Carly is the worst recorded interaction between sentient creatures since that pelican swallowed a pigeon. There’s a strong chance that millions of yogis will sue for defamation.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.