What’s the difference between First Daters Sheri and John? Well, one inflicts involuntary pain on the people they meet, in a way that’s totally difficult to watch… and the other is a dominatrix. Most people wouldn’t be able to believe their luck if they were paired up with someone as foxy as Sheri, who has a total Susan Sarandon vibe going on, complete with a cleavage to give Piers Morgan a heart attack. Sadly, John is the sort of man who doesn’t seem to believe in luck - rather, that he is deserving of every good thing coming to him, because he is king of all he surveys. ‘I am an excellent catch, ‘he announces, in his package. ‘I have charisma, personality good looks, charm, I’m in good shape. Everything in one package, it’s beyond belief!’ Yeah, it’s beyond belief - because we don’t believe it. He specifies that he wants a woman with dark hair, dark eyes and ‘moh-ka’ skin. John, it’s pronounced ‘mocha’ as in ‘there’s so much about you that we want to moch-a.’
The highlight of their date is when Sheri explains puppy play to a dazed John, who would clearly rather that she shut up and start gazing at him with saucer eyes as he talks her through twelve ways with an Excel spreadsheet. John’s dating success has been predictably limited. ‘It’s very hard to find exactly what you want,’ he says, earnestly. Well, let’s be real: You’re going to struggle to find a woman who wants to let you burn joss sticks in her bath. ‘She’s absolutely besotted with me,’ he explains confidently, as Sheri goes to the loo, gets her phone out and tells her friend that he’s an arrogant idiot who laughs at her job. Sheri is an expert in providing pain that satisfies, and she doesn’t disappoint - when she tells John, nicely, that he’s a tosser, his face crumbles like a condemned building. Glorious.
We’re a bit more optimistic for Jack and Gemma, who are inexperienced in love but professionally experienced in using calculators and telling people not to panic if they get caught in a lift, respectively. ‘Fuck’s spatchcock? Never heard of it!’ Jack grumbles at a nervous Gemma, who asks, as if remembering love advice from long ago, ‘You are open to trying new things though?’ Jack thinks for a second and then replies. ‘Sexually, yes.’ Gemma, as long as you don’t want to be erotically smeared in green and yellow dip, you’re alright. Gemma also reveals that she hates cheese, but once ate three McDonalds in one day including a cheeseburger. The cheese is optional, Gemma! Why do that to yourself? It’s enough when you’ve got a gherkin to contend with! When there are plenty of people who bond romantically over their love of fine food, it’s very refreshing to hear Gemma and Jack do the opposite. When Gemma has to explain that the very hard ice cream is actually meringue, Jack asks ‘Can you eat it?’
Next, we meet twin souls David and Jen, possibly my favourite First Daters ever, of all time. It would be crass to make the ‘are they actually related?’ joke, until David says ‘Wow! You and my Dad are both from Scotland and love The Clash!’ Please be a cheerful coincidence and not a variation on an Oedipus complex! David tells Jen he has cerebral palsy, and her response is ‘No you haven’t!’ which is either an expression of shock, or a mysterious medieval medical treatment in which someone denies the sufferer’s condition until they’re cured. Movingly, Jen opens up about her anxiety, and then sneaks off the loo to tell her friend about David’s perfect ‘HD brows’. We’re not sure that Jen meant to compare David’s eyebrows to Bobby Norris’s, but we’ll let it go in the name of love.
Lovely Hannah is so posh, self-consciously wacky and slightly intense that I’m not convinced she isn’t Miranda Hart sneaking on to the programme for some Channel 4 prime time exposure. She loves the outdoors, and she’s been paired with Christmas tree farmer Robert. We have high hopes for this one, but perhaps through nerves, Hannah goes from 0-‘For goodness sake, please calm down, I’ve got half a valium in my wallet if you want it?’ She interrupts Robert with enthusiasm, commenting on his ‘David Bowie eyes’ (‘you sometimes see it on dogs!’) and eating oysters like a woman possessed with determination to turn a man’s life upside down. Robert quite likes his life the way he likes his Christmas trees - the right way up. ‘It took me a while to get used to her, she’s so positive,’ explains Robert, diplomatically. Hannah is heading back to the restaurant to find love. We need this to work out - as long as she doesn’t tell any more stories about eating until she’s in physical pain.
Crazy in love
Robert and Jen are everything, and I’m going to sing 500 Miles at their wedding, whether they want me to or not. They belong together! Hooray!
Giving love a bad name
It’s not Sheri’s fault, but urgh, John. If you need a reminder of why middle aged white men need to be told to just stop and shut up sometimes, here it is.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.