WHY I LOVE THE PROGRAMME 'FIRST DATES'
Do you watch the infamous Channel 4 programme First Dates? On Thursdays at 10pm? If you do, I hope you love it as much as I do, and if you don't, please go and watch it right now. It'll restore your faith in humanity. Trust me. I only discovered it very recently, ie. in the last month or so, and I don't even remember how either. I'd heard about it on Scott Mills' show on Radio One, but aside from that, no-one I knew really watched it or had spoken about it, so I kind of just remained oblivious to this amazing TV gold being broadcast yearly on TV without my knowing. Set in a fancy restaurant in London, near St Paul's Cathedral, every episode four or five people go on blind dates, having been matched by TV producers according to certain criteria. The whole thing is filmed on camera, and supplemented by one to one interviews with each person throughout, where you get to find out more about them and their experiences with love. Its just the best thing ever. I love it. I adore it. Every time I finish watching an episode I'm fist pumping the air with happiness, I can't stop smiling. I feel like Tom in 500 Days of Summer when he's dancing down the street to the sound of You Make My Dreams Come True, by Hall and Oates. It restores my faith in love, people, life, fate, the works, And apparently it's on its fourth series now, which makes me wonder what I've been doing the last four years of my life, having only just discovered it now, because I'm not lying when I say this, First Dates has literally changed my life. Or make that is changing my life, because it's an ongoing thing, you see. This programme is exactly what I didn't realise I needed. It's part of the antidote to a problem I didn't realise I even had till now, and so with that, let me explain to you why.
Lovely readers of mine, I must confess to you something about myself: I have never ever been on a date before. Out of my entire nineteen years on this planet, me and a boy have never gone somewhere together, just the two of us, as part of a romantic engagement (thank you Google for the definition). And if we're going along with the whole, something you didn't know about me thing, I guess it isn't much of an added surprise if I were to tell you that I've also never had a boyfriend before, nor have I had sex. Being able to say all those things still at the age of nineteen, is something that my younger self never imagined, and honestly there are times when I really do feel like some strange anomaly. When I was growing up and progressing through my adolescence, I never really paid that much attention to what everyone else was doing. I was too content doing my own thing. As did I assume that I was generally acting on the same wavelength as everyone else my age. Surely we must all be doing the same kind of thing. But one day, it was like I just stopped and took a proper look around me, only to realise that I had seemingly strayed vastly off course from everybody else. My trajectory had propelled in a completely different direction to most people I knew. The path I had unknowingly chosen, was advancing further and further away, leading me to a very different territory. It felt like there was this fast track train to adulthood that no-one sent me a memo about, and everyone else had boarded it whilst I had missed the final boarding call because I was too busy in the train shop, deciding whether to buy Maltesers or a Mars bar.
Lovely readers of mine, I must confess to you something about myself: I have never ever been on a date before. Out of my entire nineteen years on this planet, me and a boy have never gone somewhere together, just the two of us, as part of a romantic engagement (thank you Google for the definition). And if we're going along with the whole, something you didn't know about me thing, I guess it isn't much of an added surprise if I were to tell you that I've also never had a boyfriend before, nor have I had sex. Being able to say all those things still at the age of nineteen, is something that my younger self never imagined, and honestly there are times when I really do feel like some strange anomaly. When I was growing up and progressing through my adolescence, I never really paid that much attention to what everyone else was doing. I was too content doing my own thing. As did I assume that I was generally acting on the same wavelength as everyone else my age. Surely we must all be doing the same kind of thing. But one day, it was like I just stopped and took a proper look around me, only to realise that I had seemingly strayed vastly off course from everybody else. My trajectory had propelled in a completely different direction to most people I knew. The path I had unknowingly chosen, was advancing further and further away, leading me to a very different territory. It felt like there was this fast track train to adulthood that no-one sent me a memo about, and everyone else had boarded it whilst I had missed the final boarding call because I was too busy in the train shop, deciding whether to buy Maltesers or a Mars bar.
With regards to the rather problematic subject of love, I feel like I've had to carve out my own path because that train I should've boarded, that path I should've taken, those milestones and tick boxes I should've completed by now, are long since gone. I'm so overdue, so atypical, so far behind everyone else that there was and is absolutely no point in me even trying to catch up. I'd be learning the rules to a game that's already been played. I missed all the self imposed deadlines, which in a way is kind of refreshing because due to my abnormal status, people normally just leave me to get on with my own thing and do things my own way. They seem to recognise that I've done things differently, that I've ended up on a different path to them, and leave me to it, and interestingly enough, much to my surprise, I've never actually suffered any peer pressure or goading either. Everyone I've ever admitted these things to, the whole not going on a date-having a boyfriend-having sex thing, has surprisingly been very accepting of it all. And so it appears to be that I'm the one who actually has the problem with it all, the fear of how my decisions, which I'm 100% proud of, don't get me wrong, might be received. Likewise, it would also appear that I'm the one who is holding myself back when it comes to love, as am I the one who is making things rather hard for myself.
I completely accept the fact that I am the one responsible for the predicament that I'm in now. I didn't want to cave in to peer pressure, or more like I was so distanced from what my peers was doing that there never could have been any peer pressure. I wasn't brave enough to act on any feelings I had. I had too strong a sense of what I needed or what I was looking for, and I couldn't give in to anything that I felt was less than that. I didn't love or trust anyone enough to take things further, likewise I never felt totally comfortable around most people either. I wasn't confident enough to take things further, and the one time I did try, it didn't even work out. I never seemed to meet the right people, or I always fell for the wrong ones. I was scared that if things did progress, I would make a right tit out of myself because I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I didn't feel old enough for real, true love. I wasn't ready to take it seriously. Meeting new people scared me. Going on dates scared me. Having an actual boyfriend scared me. And anything beyond that didn't even bare thinking about, if I couldn't even handle the very first step of any potential relationship: going on a date.
I don't know why, but as much as I adore the notion of love, having a boyfriend, cute first dates and all that, and I really do want all of that for myself at some point, at the same time it all just proper freaks me out. Really gives me the heeby jeebies. I think that because I've waited so long, always found an excuse not to jump into the deep end, except for the one time when I was seemingly pushed in before I even had a chance to protest (and again I maintain that that was probably one of the most important things to ever happen to me), I've learnt to become afraid of it all. All those things, they're things that always happened to other people. Never to me. Those kind of things always belonged in the lives of other people. Never mine. For me it was always the stuff of dreams. Never my reality. I was the wallflower sitting and waiting, watching the world go by and dreaming wistfully whilst never actually doing anything to make those dreams come true. I didn't want to catch that train to adulthood that everyone else did, and I'm glad that I missed it because I just wasn't ready, but sometimes I do wish I'd thrown caution to the wind sooner and just got on with things already. It would certainly make it a lot easier for myself now. For now I am nineteen years old and my feelings scare the crap out of me. I hate the feeling of new beginnings or possibility, because it means I'm back to confronting those hidden fears all over again. The chance to confront them has come around again, and I often jeopardise things intentionally to avoid having to deal with that ongoing fear. I run away. I very rarely take a stab at dealing with things once and for all.
People asking me out on dates makes me want to run a mile. Everything about dates scares me. When guys message me, I have no idea what I'm doing and I often don't know how to deal with talking to someone consistently, when I'm so used to doing my own thing and not having to tell people about my life. I always ask people about them, because I love finding out about other people, but when the roles reverse I don't like them finding out about me. I close myself off. I love the idea of love, I meet people I actually want to go on a date with, I sometimes have days where I wish I had that other person in my life, but converting those dreams into reality is where I fall short every time. And though being single is something I equally adore, and I know, I know that it has been a crucial part of me finally coming into my own. It's helped me to become a person I not only love and am so happy with, but who I am also very proud of, the person I always wanted to be, but on the converse, it's been the perfect excuse to hide away from everything I'm too scared to confront. I'm so used to being that forever alone person, it's almost like a comfort blanket to me. It's what I identify with, it's my thing, being 60 years old and living with a bunch of cats and maybe a budgie or two for good measure. And as much as I realise that I love being single, I've also realised recently that it's limiting me. Really badly too. I keep myself stuck in that position because it's what I know best, it's what I'm comfortable with, and life is easier that way. I'm very, very independent. Maybe too independent now. So much so that I struggle with letting anyone else in. I don't know how to, nor would I know what to do, if ever I should let that happen. The thought of it all makes me feel so out of my depth. I hate it. I want to be someone who rides the waves of life freely and easily. I don't want this anymore.
Recently I've begun to realise that there's a massive disjoint between who I am now as a person, and my love life. If you were to join up all the dots that make me who I am now, all the different domains of my life, they'd be really high on that chart. I'm the best I've ever been. But when you get to love, that line would just plummet right down. It simply doesn't match with who I am anymore. With me being the way I am now, feeling the way I do, I shouldn't still be having these same old issues with love. The response I have to it doesn't correlate. It doesn't make sense. It's my weak spot, and I conceal it from myself and others very well. But like I said, I just don't want this anymore. I'm tired of it. Which is why discovering First Dates was something of an epiphany to me. It's like a first hand education in the operation and workings of love, and like the curious child who had a right tantrum, but then can't help themselves from peering between their hands, the door, the barrier they're hiding behind, I can't help but keep coming back for more. The curiosity bug has bitten well and truly. I discovered this programme by accident, a programme that essentially is an hour full of one of the very things that scares me most: dating, and initially I didn't want to watch it because I mean, come on, how awkward would that be, watching strangers going on a first date together. Nah mate, got better things to do with my time innit. But for some reason it hooked me from the very start. The intrigue I had was astounding. I wanted to know more. I wanted to find out what happened. I wanted to see what it was like. Maybe I should just stick around and watch till the end of the programme, just this once... and then what do you know, I'm completely hooked on the damn thing.
Yes there are awkward dates that happen, but you know what, it's actually kind of funny. It's a good story to tell at the end of the day. Plus you often get some nice experience out of it too. Then there are the dates that go so ridiculously well you're basking in the sofa in a daze of pure joy, because these two people have found each other somehow, and the credits after says they're still together. Cue another fist pump in the air moment. There are the dates where people are very resistant to one another, how could I have been paired with them, and yet as the date progresses, it becomes apparent that actually they're very well suited to one another. Each person is exactly what the other needs. Another fist pump occurs. This rich diversity of people come through the doors, different ages, genders, occupations, nationalities, heritages, beliefs, and I can't describe to you my relief when people my own age or slightly older have come onto the show, and their predicament has been exactly the same as mine. It's proof to myself that I am not alone. It is okay. If they can do it, then surely so can I. I love the interviews with all the people before and after the date. I love finding out all about them, their experiences with love, finding out their weaknesses. It makes you realise the value in every person. You realise how loveable people can be, when really, all that anyone wants most of all is to love and be loved.
I love seeing what happens when you bring different people together, I love watching how two people behave when they evidently like each other, likewise I love seeing how people handle it when they realise that it unfortunately isn't going to work. It makes me realise that whatever happens, it's okay, you can deal with it. Ask to be friends, or just thank them for a lovely evening, or if worse comes to worse climb out the bathroom window. It's never a waste getting to know another person, even if they aren't someone you want in your life on a permanent basis. I love how a date is essentially sitting down with someone and just getting to know them better. It's a very humane thing. I've realised that everything else on top of that can be put to one side, because irrespective of whatever else that person or you want from love, a relationship, to happen next, at that moment there and then, what you both want most of all is for the other person to like you for who you are. You want this to be something. Everything else can wait. Finding out who the person is within, how does this person react with you, what could they bring to your life, and then deciding if this is someone that you want to stay for a little while longer, that's what really matters. And even if it doesn't work out further down the line, it's a memory to add to the collection, and you've just got to pick yourself up proudly and try again.
Watching First Dates makes me want to get out there and meet people. Anyone. Everyone. Doesn't matter if it's someone I think might be right for me, or someone I never in a million years would've thought could be right. I want to talk to people, get to know them for who they are, I want to throw that damn caution to the wind and just ride along with the motion, wherever it may take me. Let fear be my fuel to rise onwards and upwards, instead of that dead weight holding me down. Let the unknown be a promising passage lined with silver and gold, not a black, grey, uninviting hole to an abyss. I want to let people get to know me. I think I could make someone else really happy. I want to learn from other people. I want to let people bring something to my life. I said literally yesterday, when I was off on another Independent Woman thing, that I just didn't have time for a boyfriend at the moment, but now I'm thinking that I can find that time for the right person. I want to stop moping around and being afraid, and just give things a go, because if you don't try then you'll never know, and you'll never really get anywhere either. First Dates has shown me that dating, meeting new people and getting to know them, love, relationships, the future, all these things aren't meant to make us feel afraid. They aren't meant to limit us. They're meant to grow us. They're some of the best gifts that life has to offer. And I guess that I need to stop being a chicken and just get out into the world, proudly present this dazzling new version of myself, like Beyonce whenever she steps out onto the stage to sing, and really start living. Heaven knows I'm long overdue it.
First Dates is on Channel 4 at 10pm on Thursdays.
I don't know why, but as much as I adore the notion of love, having a boyfriend, cute first dates and all that, and I really do want all of that for myself at some point, at the same time it all just proper freaks me out. Really gives me the heeby jeebies. I think that because I've waited so long, always found an excuse not to jump into the deep end, except for the one time when I was seemingly pushed in before I even had a chance to protest (and again I maintain that that was probably one of the most important things to ever happen to me), I've learnt to become afraid of it all. All those things, they're things that always happened to other people. Never to me. Those kind of things always belonged in the lives of other people. Never mine. For me it was always the stuff of dreams. Never my reality. I was the wallflower sitting and waiting, watching the world go by and dreaming wistfully whilst never actually doing anything to make those dreams come true. I didn't want to catch that train to adulthood that everyone else did, and I'm glad that I missed it because I just wasn't ready, but sometimes I do wish I'd thrown caution to the wind sooner and just got on with things already. It would certainly make it a lot easier for myself now. For now I am nineteen years old and my feelings scare the crap out of me. I hate the feeling of new beginnings or possibility, because it means I'm back to confronting those hidden fears all over again. The chance to confront them has come around again, and I often jeopardise things intentionally to avoid having to deal with that ongoing fear. I run away. I very rarely take a stab at dealing with things once and for all.
People asking me out on dates makes me want to run a mile. Everything about dates scares me. When guys message me, I have no idea what I'm doing and I often don't know how to deal with talking to someone consistently, when I'm so used to doing my own thing and not having to tell people about my life. I always ask people about them, because I love finding out about other people, but when the roles reverse I don't like them finding out about me. I close myself off. I love the idea of love, I meet people I actually want to go on a date with, I sometimes have days where I wish I had that other person in my life, but converting those dreams into reality is where I fall short every time. And though being single is something I equally adore, and I know, I know that it has been a crucial part of me finally coming into my own. It's helped me to become a person I not only love and am so happy with, but who I am also very proud of, the person I always wanted to be, but on the converse, it's been the perfect excuse to hide away from everything I'm too scared to confront. I'm so used to being that forever alone person, it's almost like a comfort blanket to me. It's what I identify with, it's my thing, being 60 years old and living with a bunch of cats and maybe a budgie or two for good measure. And as much as I realise that I love being single, I've also realised recently that it's limiting me. Really badly too. I keep myself stuck in that position because it's what I know best, it's what I'm comfortable with, and life is easier that way. I'm very, very independent. Maybe too independent now. So much so that I struggle with letting anyone else in. I don't know how to, nor would I know what to do, if ever I should let that happen. The thought of it all makes me feel so out of my depth. I hate it. I want to be someone who rides the waves of life freely and easily. I don't want this anymore.
Recently I've begun to realise that there's a massive disjoint between who I am now as a person, and my love life. If you were to join up all the dots that make me who I am now, all the different domains of my life, they'd be really high on that chart. I'm the best I've ever been. But when you get to love, that line would just plummet right down. It simply doesn't match with who I am anymore. With me being the way I am now, feeling the way I do, I shouldn't still be having these same old issues with love. The response I have to it doesn't correlate. It doesn't make sense. It's my weak spot, and I conceal it from myself and others very well. But like I said, I just don't want this anymore. I'm tired of it. Which is why discovering First Dates was something of an epiphany to me. It's like a first hand education in the operation and workings of love, and like the curious child who had a right tantrum, but then can't help themselves from peering between their hands, the door, the barrier they're hiding behind, I can't help but keep coming back for more. The curiosity bug has bitten well and truly. I discovered this programme by accident, a programme that essentially is an hour full of one of the very things that scares me most: dating, and initially I didn't want to watch it because I mean, come on, how awkward would that be, watching strangers going on a first date together. Nah mate, got better things to do with my time innit. But for some reason it hooked me from the very start. The intrigue I had was astounding. I wanted to know more. I wanted to find out what happened. I wanted to see what it was like. Maybe I should just stick around and watch till the end of the programme, just this once... and then what do you know, I'm completely hooked on the damn thing.
Yes there are awkward dates that happen, but you know what, it's actually kind of funny. It's a good story to tell at the end of the day. Plus you often get some nice experience out of it too. Then there are the dates that go so ridiculously well you're basking in the sofa in a daze of pure joy, because these two people have found each other somehow, and the credits after says they're still together. Cue another fist pump in the air moment. There are the dates where people are very resistant to one another, how could I have been paired with them, and yet as the date progresses, it becomes apparent that actually they're very well suited to one another. Each person is exactly what the other needs. Another fist pump occurs. This rich diversity of people come through the doors, different ages, genders, occupations, nationalities, heritages, beliefs, and I can't describe to you my relief when people my own age or slightly older have come onto the show, and their predicament has been exactly the same as mine. It's proof to myself that I am not alone. It is okay. If they can do it, then surely so can I. I love the interviews with all the people before and after the date. I love finding out all about them, their experiences with love, finding out their weaknesses. It makes you realise the value in every person. You realise how loveable people can be, when really, all that anyone wants most of all is to love and be loved.
I love seeing what happens when you bring different people together, I love watching how two people behave when they evidently like each other, likewise I love seeing how people handle it when they realise that it unfortunately isn't going to work. It makes me realise that whatever happens, it's okay, you can deal with it. Ask to be friends, or just thank them for a lovely evening, or if worse comes to worse climb out the bathroom window. It's never a waste getting to know another person, even if they aren't someone you want in your life on a permanent basis. I love how a date is essentially sitting down with someone and just getting to know them better. It's a very humane thing. I've realised that everything else on top of that can be put to one side, because irrespective of whatever else that person or you want from love, a relationship, to happen next, at that moment there and then, what you both want most of all is for the other person to like you for who you are. You want this to be something. Everything else can wait. Finding out who the person is within, how does this person react with you, what could they bring to your life, and then deciding if this is someone that you want to stay for a little while longer, that's what really matters. And even if it doesn't work out further down the line, it's a memory to add to the collection, and you've just got to pick yourself up proudly and try again.
Watching First Dates makes me want to get out there and meet people. Anyone. Everyone. Doesn't matter if it's someone I think might be right for me, or someone I never in a million years would've thought could be right. I want to talk to people, get to know them for who they are, I want to throw that damn caution to the wind and just ride along with the motion, wherever it may take me. Let fear be my fuel to rise onwards and upwards, instead of that dead weight holding me down. Let the unknown be a promising passage lined with silver and gold, not a black, grey, uninviting hole to an abyss. I want to let people get to know me. I think I could make someone else really happy. I want to learn from other people. I want to let people bring something to my life. I said literally yesterday, when I was off on another Independent Woman thing, that I just didn't have time for a boyfriend at the moment, but now I'm thinking that I can find that time for the right person. I want to stop moping around and being afraid, and just give things a go, because if you don't try then you'll never know, and you'll never really get anywhere either. First Dates has shown me that dating, meeting new people and getting to know them, love, relationships, the future, all these things aren't meant to make us feel afraid. They aren't meant to limit us. They're meant to grow us. They're some of the best gifts that life has to offer. And I guess that I need to stop being a chicken and just get out into the world, proudly present this dazzling new version of myself, like Beyonce whenever she steps out onto the stage to sing, and really start living. Heaven knows I'm long overdue it.
First Dates is on Channel 4 at 10pm on Thursdays.
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