Date 2: Ordering for the Lady

Having successfully completed date number 1 with ABC Girl a few days earlier… Well I say “successfully completed”, but what are the criteria for a successful date? If it doesn’t lead anywhere with a particular girl, then have I just wasted a load of time and money? Or, as long as it’s not a disaster, do I take whatever learnings I can from it and move on?

I would say the latter, since as long as I keep gaining experience, then I’ll eventually level-up and evolve into boyfriend material for some poor unsuspecting girl.

Nonetheless, I was still riding a wave of confidence when I set up date number 2, this time with the previously mentioned Mainland-Chinese Girl… She had a strange-English-name-chosen-by-a-Chinese-person thing going on, although I shouldn’t really hold it against her; it’s not like she got to pick her own name… Oh wait ;-)

Obviously I can’t tell you her real name, so we’ll call her Layla which is close enough. Layla is from Tianjin and she’s here working for an engineering company in Luton as a Senior Engineering Manager. So she sounded like she meant business and her online dating profile seemed to show she was up for a laugh. I was mainly drawn to her because there was a pic of her shoving her mate which was quite funny (tick for making me laugh); I just hope she was being funny rather than an antisocial hooligan. All the messaging had gone well and she came across as a nice polite girl with a sense of humour, as well as similar life goals and objectives.

I don’t know if you guys know many Chinese folks at all, but there’s absolutely loadsa different brands / flavours / varieties of Chinese person. So what I mean by that is different dialects, geographical regions and ethnicities… And it seems that every brand of Chinese person instinctively looks down on all the other brands of Chinese. But because they all adopt their own rationale for their smugness, it’s like a big game of Rock-Paper-Scissors. One example of this is that Hong Kongers look down upon Mainland Chinese, I think because of a combination of disdain due to occasional shockingly bad manners and resentment that these Mainland folk actually have a bit of money now. It’s a a lot more than that, but I’m not here to do social commentary.

I told my BBC friend Ricky about the upcoming date, who then reported back the next day I should be very very careful if I was going on a date with a “China girl". Why’s that then? Well Ricky had told his Mum I was gonna go on this date, and she had informed him that China girls only have one objective in mind when wanting to date a non-China person. Oh dear, not this nonsense again, I’ve heard it a million times before:

“Ok, Ricky, can we just kill this whole money-grabbing stereotype right now? Admittedly we’ve seen a very valid example recently, but it’s a bit unfair to tar all Mainland girls with the same brush. And to be honest, I reckon this girl probably earns more than I do, so there’s not much money-grabbing to be had from my pockets!”

But then Ricky’s eyes widened (is that even possible for a Chinese person???)… He put on his serious face and responded:

“Mate… I’m not talking about that, this is serious… You know what Mainland Chinese people do? You have to be careful with this shit, don’t get too close to that chick. And watch out for anything she puts in your drink… … … Those Mainland people… … … She's gonna steal your organs!!!”

My immediate and only response was unstoppable laughter. A big thanks to Ricky’s Mum for providing me with my laugh of the day. And at least that’s part of my outfit for the date sorted now…

Not the Ideal Place to Meet

Both of us had a busy few days working late and Layla didn’t drive so I offered to make the trip over to Luton. I’ve never been there before and so the planning was left to the lady (I know, I know, rubbish form on my part). Now I must say, meeting at Luton Railway Station is definitely not my idea of romantic… scruffy walls, horrible lighting and some local yobs hanging around, but at least Layla was here already… Chinese girl with short brown hair (you know when oriental girls dye their hair lighter and it always ends up a sort of brown-yellow colour?). Still slightly nervous about how to do “the greeting” as per date 1, I opted to fake it and strode confidently up to Layla, big smile and a hello then the lean in and kiss on the cheek. Not sure if that was a fluke, but things seem to go a lot better when other people think you know what you’re doing.

She looked like her pictures, which was always a good sign… I’m a bit wary of the “her photos are about 5 stone out of date” horror stories you hear, but so far so good. My only issue with Layla was her slightly unusual dress sense – there was this big furry scarf thing that was just a bit too furry and seemed to dominate her top-half, and then these brown tan short shorts that most definitely did not work.

Layla asked me: “Where did you plan for us to go?”… Umm, I thought you had this covered but I'll do my best to roll with it then. I suggested a drink before remembering I was driving and it was already 9pm, so maybe we should just grab a bite. Being relatively new to Luton, Layla didn’t know the area too well either so we wandered around chatting, before eventually settling on an Italian restaurant nearby, La Trattoria.

She’ll have what I’m having

You may remember Layla is from China, so she had the strong Chinese accent going on, but also mixed in with various British-isms that you only acquire from living in Britain long enough. Like using the word “quid”; have you ever heard a foreigner talk about quid(s)? It just sounds so… alien and out of place. This being the first date I had been on with a Chinese girl actually from Asia, I must confess that I found the accent to be a little off-putting from a romantic perspective. That’s not meant in a nasty way at all, but Chinese accents are somewhere near the bottom of my list – give me a sexy Scouser any day!

Layla was interesting to talk to and came across like she did in her messaging. We talked about various topics covering work, being Chinese, the differences between Cantonese and Mandarin, hobbies, and also her educating me on Chinese-isms. I learnt the phrase 落葉歸根 which I like (for info, my Chinese reading/writing is terrible… I found that phrase using Google Translate).

Anyhow we came to looking at the menu and deciding what we might eat, with the conversation going as follows:

Banana: “ So what do you fancy for starters? ”

Layla: “ Oh I am not sure. Maybe I will have the payt ”

Banana: “ Which one? ”

Layla: “ The payt ”

I scanned the menu again, there weren't that many starters, I must be going blind or something… Ohhhhh… I see it now:

The "Payt"

Ah yes, I saw it... the pâté. I cringed in my seat a bit and thought hard about whether to say something. What does one do in this situation? Much like the date greetings from date 1, this is the sort of social situation that nobody tells you how to deal with. I pretended not to hear what she said and made small talk for a few minutes before going back to the menu at which point I mentioned that I was thinking of having the “patay”. I think she thought she'd gotten away with it, thus hopefully sparing the lady’s blushes. Banana Dater… AKA A true gent!

XP Gained

The rest of the date went fine although if I’m totally honest, whilst we got on perfectly well, there was distinct lack of spark or chemistry. It doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t consider a second date to see how it developed, but probably not on this occasion. After the date, there was some texting and emailing but that gradually fizzled out. I did learn a few things about dating and my dating preferences though:

• I do not like Chinese accents. At all. I might jokingly say that being from the centre of the universe and having the best accent allows me to be an accent snob, but the truth is I am a judgemental tosser and I really need to work on being less like this.

• On the other hand, whilst there were some very obvious differences in a number of aspects, the cultural and language gap between me and Layla was not nearly as bad as I thought it might be.

• You can get on with someone very well, but there isn’t always the romantic thing going on. Looking back, Layla would’ve made a suitable friend, but that’s not really what I was after.

• Luton is manky and I don’t want to go on a date there again.

Date 2 "successfully" concluded but no love found this time… Date 3 incoming. Continue?

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