Date #24

Date Matched:  1 April 2016

Ethnicity: English

Age: 34

Date Met: 7 April 2016

Icebreaker: Him

Icebreaking Message: “Hey how’s your travels ?? Why on earth would you choose to stop in Launceston haha x”

–

Being a Londoner, this Tinder Match was out of his element in the small quiet island State of Tasmania, a far cry from the bustling global metropole he left behind. He found it strange that as a traveller, I chose to make Launceston one of my destinations. The first thing this Match mentioned while messaging over Tinder was how bored he was in this small city.  I suppose coming from London, where the city is massive and constantly alive in noise and colour with always something on, Launceston would be like a shy, slightly dull distant relative in comparison.

Although I understood where this Match was coming from, as I have been to London myself, I urged him to reconsider his opinion on Launceston and enjoy it for its relaxed cool vibe, which should be approached from a different angle to London. He was amused by my methodical defence of Launceston and decided in his second message to me that we must meet for a drink. He apologised for being somewhat forward and abrupt but he was desperate for company.

He was visiting his family in Tasmania since his father wasn’t in the best of health and he didn’t have many friends in the area. He found it hard at times to escape his parent’s house in the countryside and he didn’t have anyone to hang out with in town, who wasn’t his relatives, so he turned to Tinder to cope.

He was a Tinder rookie and had never used the app before. He admitted that he didn’t “know the protocol”. It was evident that he was new to the whole thing as he kept firing heaps of messages at me. It was a bit much at first, but he seemed nice enough not to dismiss. We started messaging each other the night before I met Date #21. At first, I was keen to meet up with this Match, but then he told me that he was at St John Craft Beer Bar. Having had my last Tinder date there, I felt it would make the blog boring to have a subsequent date at the exact same venue. So I decided to stay in that night and meet him on another occasion.

To be honest, I wasn’t in a rush to meet him right away. I felt I ought to give it more time to suss things out before making the move to get out of the house. This Match seemed sociable and funny but he would send me these long messages that overwhelmed me. He also didn’t paint an appealing picture of himself as he described how he was sitting alone in St John’s and how important it would be for me to come soon so he wouldn’t look like a “complete friendless loser”, in his words. I’m personally a bit of a lone wolf and when people tell me that I ought to hang out with them because they can’t stand to be alone with themselves, it makes me want to hang out with them even less.

To make things worse, this Match threw in the speculation that maybe one of the reasons he was all by himself was because he smelled.  I assumed he was being funny and just cracking a joke, but how was I to know, I hadn’t met him in person yet, what if he actually did smell!?

The pictures on his Tinder profile also made him seem a bit weird. Weird isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but there is a fine line between cute and endearing weird vs off-putting weird and I wasn’t sure which side of the spectrum he fell.  There were a couple of pictures where he had shorter hair and looked clean-cut. Then in other pictures, he had long hair and had more of a crazed look. In one of his pictures he literally wore a disco ball as a hat, it was the most bizarre thing I had ever seen. I’m sure it was just a party gimmick, but I didn’t know what to make of it.

As the night went on I felt that this guy must be on the off-putting side of the weird spectrum. He was messaging me at a rate that was quite alarming. He was so needy for my company (or any company at all for that matter). He bemoaned the fact that he didn’t have his car with him and how, if he did, he would make the trip out to wherever I was just to have someone to hang out with. The rate he was messaging me and the urgency in his tone to have someone, anyone, to hang out with him, made him come off a touch too desperate and I was not keen to reward his behaviour with my presence.

I was still at Date #17‘s place, it was my last night there before I moved into my Tanzanian mate’s place in Ravenswood. It was getting into Autumn so we decided to have a quiet night at home. Date #17 had some of his mates come over to watch Australian Rules on the TV as it was that time of year when the season was getting into full swing. I had watched a few games from the previous season but I still was trying to get my head around the sport. Anyone who has ever watched Australian Rules before will know that it’s such a chaotic-looking sport, it’s hard to know what is happening half the time. Date #17 and his mates were getting fully into it, perhaps a bit too into it. They were constantly talking the whole time about this player… and that coach… and that one season… and that one AFL Grand Final… blah blah blah… I wasn’t absorbing a single thing as I stared blankly at the TV in a confused state.

Because I was preoccupied sitting on the couch watching Australian Rules, I wasn’t paying any mind to my phone. This Match, in the meantime, seemed a bit gutted that I didn’t end up coming out and expressed it to me in his messages. I was feeling indifferent about it.

–

The next day I received a message from this Match. He apologised for messaging me incessantly and admitted he was “mildly inebriated.” He commended me for staying in and assured me that it wouldn’t have been the best first impression if I had met him that night. He also mentioned that he got into a bit of a fight that night and how it was a good thing I had missed out on him making an ass of himself. I shrugged it off and decided not to judge him too harshly as everyone, including myself, is prone to making a fool of themselves when they’ve had a few drinks, so I continued to talk with him.

He asked me about what I had seen and done in Tassie. I told him my stories of hiking in Freycinet and soaking up the sun at the beaches on the Bass Strait and sampling the local fare at the Salamanca Markets and the Tamar Valley which then led to a conversation about how underrated the food scene is in Tasmania, especially in Launceston. It was evident from how the conversation was going, that food would be the common interest that would bring us together. Since we both fancied quality dining experiences, we decided to make an afternoon of it by going out for a cafe lunch and coffee date. The day we both were free was a Thursday. I had to work the dinner shift that evening so midday was the only doable time for me.

Being new to Launceston, I hadn’t seen much of the cafe scene, other than that one cafe date I had with Date #19 at Sweetbrew.  I let this Match pick the place to grab lunch. I loved the way he presented the options: “So I’ve got two places in mind, one is a classy stylish restaurant cafe (soho), and the other is a cool and bohemian style (boho) cafe.”

I wasn’t in the mood to dress up too much for someone I had never met before, and I felt that the soho place would be a dressier place. I prefer saving those sorts of places for people who I’ve met and definitely have a connection with. In the end, I decided to have our first date in a relaxed setting, so I chose boho. I had no idea where we were going, but he seemed to have some level of taste, so I trusted him to take me somewhere decent.

–

There it was established and confirmed, we were going to meet for real this time. I gave him my number and the address of where I was staying, hoping to God I was exchanging my details with a normal person and not some crazy stalker.

That morning I got up and leisurely pulled myself out of bed. I wore light make-up and pulled on a comfortable fitted t-shirt and jeans with a loose-knit wool sweater overtop. I figured it was just brunch, there was no need to get too dressed up for it.

He called me as he pulled up to the house. I heard this Londoner English accent on the other line, “Hiya I think I’m here? I hope I’m here anyhow. I’m not the best at directions.” I walked out the door and I saw him around the corner.

He looked a lot better than I thought he would. He was actually quite handsome. There was no doubt he looked a lot older than my previous Tinder dates. He was 9 years my senior and had a more mature look compared to the 20-somethings I had been meeting recently. He didn’t have the long crazy hair he donned in some of his photos and instead had a smart crew cut, but his hair was thinning and he had a receding hairline.  He was smartly attired in a brown gingham blazer and well-cut pants and stylish glasses. He had a lovely accent and an air of maturity to him that was initially intimidating to me.

During the car ride, he apologised again for his behaviour when he went out to St. John’s and then went off to some other pub. He gave me a blow-by-blow account of how he nearly got into fisticuffs with a bloke over a game of billiards but was lucky enough to get away unscathed. The way he was describing his night out made me think back to an English boyfriend I had when I was 20, who was a complete dog from Luton. He would be lovely and well-spoken when he was sober but was awful when he was out drinking and would get into a scrap one way or another. I wonder if that sort of behaviour is common in English men.

The conversation digressed to what each of us was doing in Tasmania and how we were getting on in this island state. He told me of his visit with his father, who is English, and his mother, who is Australian. I was curious to know if he had lived in both Australia and England, which he hadn’t. His parents were quite content with raising him and his sister the whole time in England. Then one day they decided to retire and up and leave England to be in his mother’s home state of Tasmania. My Date would come once a year to visit his parents in Australia but he was always happy to return back home to London.

He told me of his life in London and how he worked with cars and was settled in the house he owned in the outer boroughs. I asked him if he would ever consider moving to Australia to be closer to his parents, which then led him to mention that he had a 9-year-old daughter in England, so abandoning her for a life overseas was simply out of the question.

It was a bit strange for me to be on a date with someone who was ahead of me in so many aspects. Here I was living a vagabond life in Tasmania, with no one to look after but myself, and here he was living responsibly thinking about his house and his child and how to be a good Dad. I asked him about his relationship with the mother of his child and he told me they were still friends and that there were no hard feelings between them. I found that commendable, as I  personally come from a family where my parents are no longer together and are incapable of being amicable.

I had never been on a Tinder date with a Dad before.  Normally I avoid men who mention that they have children on Tinder as I am not that big on the idea of being around kids who aren’t mine and having to deal with their mother(s). Also, being in my mid-twenties I am still young enough to find plenty of childless men. But this Tinder date failed to mention his child until meeting in person and from his pictures he didn’t give off a Dad vibe, so here I was unintentionally on my first Tinder date with a Dad.

The day was sunny and beautiful and it was quite easy to find a parking space for the car, even though we were in the CBD on a weekday.  We parked on Brisbane Street close to The Mall and from there we walked up to George Street, which is the same street Sweetbrew is located. At first, I thought I was going to be having yet another date at Sweetbrew. Fortunately, my Date walked into a different cafe only two doors down, called Bryher.

The moment we entered we were greeted and seated promptly by the friendly and outgoing Alison, one of the cafe owners, who recognised my Date right away as he had clearly been there before.

“So lovely to see you here again!” She exclaimed to him.

“Yes, I enjoyed this place so much, I needed to bring my friend round to show her how good it is here,” he answered.

She seemed chuffed by the compliment and passed us these simple but well-designed menus to look through.  The first thing I noticed while leafing through was this long list of products and producers that they used from all over Tasmania.

I appreciated how transparent the cafe was with where all the food and drinks were sourced from. I had never seen such a transparent menu in my life. I felt like I was eating in a truly special place, a step up from any sort of cafe I had ever been to before. My Date said this sort of place would fit in well with the London scene.

Once the menus were passed around, the lovely hospitable Alison came around with water for the table and asked if we would like anything to drink. I ordered my usual flat white and my Date ordered a pot of Earl Grey tea. I thought it was very English of him to order tea instead of coffee. If I was in Canada I would have ordered tea as well, as coffee back home is typically atrocious. In Australia on the other hand, the coffee culture is incredible, so of course, I had to try the coffee here

You can certainly tell from the coffee, whether or not a cafe is up to scratch.  I am happy to report that this cafe’s coffee (pictured below) was one of the best I have come across.

This flat white was smooth and creamy, which is what I like in a coffee. I commended Alison on her excellent barista skills. She seemed pleased by the accolade.

My Date asked her how she came up with this cafe concept, which then led her to tell us her story of how she travelled with her partner, who are both from mainland Australia, to Europe and lived and worked in the UK.  During their travels, they were so taken by Bryher Island, a part of the Isles of Scilly, in Cornwall, that they decided to name their cafe after the island. I thought it was such a cool way to conceptualize a food dream and make it a reality in their new island home.

As I sipped on my drink and my Date carefully arranged and poured his tea, I had a peruse through the menu (pictured below) and found it difficult to settle on one dish.  It all looked so lovely.

In the end, I decided on the baked giant beans with black pudding, bratwurst, and a poached egg (pictured below with my Date’s cup of Earl Grey tea in the top left corner), as I had never tried black pudding before and I was curious to know what it was like. My Date settled on the Croque Monsieur. When the food came out, it looked so homey and delicious.

It was one of the most delicious cafe lunches I’ve had in Australia and the food was so different from anything I had ever had in a cafe before. I liked that this cafe, rather than jumping on the trendy vegan boat, they focused on creating flavourful traditional food with a twist. Rather than shunning all forms of meat and dairy, this cafe embraced these types of food and got them from local sources to create beautiful well-balanced food.

While we chatted over lunch, I felt this Date was much better in person than he came off on Tinder. We talked about places we had travelled to in Europe and Australia.  He asked me how I was able to manage living on my own in Tasmania. I admitted to him that it had been a struggle as I was barely scraping by with just one hospitality job in Launceston. When Alison came round he suggested to her that I should work here. I felt sheepish being put in the spotlight like that.

She thought about it and replied, “We are looking to hire another person soon. You should send us your CV to our email on our website.”

I was on cloud nine when she suggested I work with her. I liked that their cafe was the only one of its kind and not some chain. In my last job in Canada, I worked for a small local chocolatier and I was eager to work in a similar sort of environment, as I am not a big fan of food chains. The possibility of getting a day job to complement my evening job would be too good to be true, then I could definitely stay in Tasmania for a while and create a life here. All these wild fantasies flashed through my head of how I would write a blog post about how a Tinder date led me to a second job in Tasmania and how some Tinder dates can be truly life-changing affairs.

As my Tinder date paid for both of our meals, despite me pulling out my wallet and offering to pay my share, I felt like I had made the right choice in meeting this Match in the end. He was actually quite friendly and easy to talk to. When he dropped me off at where I was staying, I gave him a hug and he gave me a kiss on the cheek. I texted him later that day and said how great it was to meet in person and how I thought he was a lovely person. He then responded by saying that he should have given me a kiss. I blushed at the text. Had I not met Date #21 and been so enamoured with him, I think I wouldn’t have minded a kiss from this Date, but my heart was set. I politely told him that I would prefer just being friends as he would only be in Australia for a short time. He was understanding about it and decided that we must keep in touch.

Overall, I was happy with how this date went and I was glad I didn’t let the bad first impression get in the way of our meeting in person. I didn’t end up working at the cafe, despite coming back and following up on my application in person. Even though things didn’t pan out the way I would have liked, discovering this cafe was an incredible experience in itself. I am sure working there would have been a dream, but in the end, I found other work in other amazing places, but that’s a story for next time.

Have any of you readers ever had a date like this, where the date turned out to be much better than expected? I would love to read your stories in the comments section below.