I went on my first-ever blind date, here’s how it went

“I’m more accustomed to the regular form of dating where you can arrive with at least a few crumbs of knowledge.”

When I agreed to go on my first-ever blind date, it was with an unsurprising level of trepidation. Not because I’m terrible at dates (I haven’t conducted any post-date surveys, but I imagine I’d at least pass), but because the idea of it being ‘blind’ was totally novel.

Granted, I’ve gone on enough regular dates to know that I could probably fumble my way through a dinner without, I don’t know, shitting my pants, but the novelty of having next to zero information about my date was enough to send me into a predictable tailspin. What if I knew instantly we weren’t a match? What if, even more unforgivably, he was into crypto? Or what if, in perhaps the biggest deal-breaker of all, he was a serial killer?

For more thought-provoking content, tap through to our Life section.

I posed these same questions to the mutual friend who connected us a few days before the blind date. While she only briefly showed me his (private) Instagram, my friend at least divulged my date’s name and the details of our meeting. Beyond that, I was about as familiar with him as I am with rugby league or paying my taxes ‘on time’.  

She assured me that everything would be fine, that the two of us would get along, and that if all else fails, I can always say my nonexistent cat swallowed a battery and flee the scene immediately. Of course, this did little to quell my nerves, since I’m more accustomed to the regular form of dating where you can arrive with at least a few crumbs of knowledge.

If a date is from what the kids would call a ‘real life’ setting, like a party, I at least know what they look like and whatever other details I was sober enough to remember. If they’re from what the kids would call ‘the apps’, I also know standard details like age, job, star sign (!), and whether they’re pictured holding a fish, a fishing pole, or some other form of fishing apparatus, as they so frequently are. 

With these morsels, I could usually rock up to a date with a compendium of their entire life story, right down to their LinkedIn profile and the exact year they graduated high school. But since I was disillusioned with both forms of meeting people – I had encountered too many fishermen on the apps and I couldn’t even look that cute real-life barista in the eye – I figured why not remove all this guesswork entirely and go in blind?    

It’s here that I encountered the first benefit of blind dating. At the very least, being set up by someone else was a time-saver. I no longer needed to invest time into swiping to the point of an arthritic thumb or sign up to a pottery class in the hopes of having a Ghost moment IRL. All of this tedious preparation was expedited. 

This efficiency is valuable for someone like me, who manages time so poorly that I often eat cereal from a plastic bowl on the morning commute to work. The convenience of going in blind and removing all the excess clutter that comes with the dating scene also transferred to the moments before the date itself. 

Naturally, I had those pre-date jitters that forced me to consider making it an actual blind date by getting piss drunk to the point of divulging my deepest secrets. But besides that, having scarce information about who would soon join me brought a certain level of relief. I was unburdened by the preconceived expectations that I might’ve otherwise assumed if I had known him prior, which meant I could approach the date with fresh eyes and get to know him in real-time.

Then, he arrived (points for punctuality!), and I encountered yet another benefit of blind dating. Since we’d been mutually connected, both of us were immediately on the same page about what the date entailed, so neither of us had to do the mental work of deciphering whether this was a one-off, casual, or long-term type of arrangement. 

This straightforwardness allowed most of the jitters to subside quickly as we got to talking and I learned about him on the spot, perhaps more so than if I knew him prior and felt compelled to elaborate on the pre-learned details. The rest of the date was carried by this in-the-moment-ness and went pleasantly enough without even a mention of fishing or cryptocurrency. 

The success of the date (in a cosmic twist, he works part-time as a barista) isn’t the only reason I’d recommend blind dating. Even if I’d discovered he was a serial killer, being set up by someone else brought ease both in the time spent fussing around before the date, and in conversing without the burden of preconceptions. 

It lightened almost all of that baggage and put the focus purely on the one-on-one date itself. While I don’t think of myself as someone who has a ‘type’ (besides baristas), I’d imagine that going in blind also removes those limits – and since the algorithm seems intent on feeding me people who reply to the ‘Typical Sunday’ prompt on Hinge with “Hungover” it never hurts to broaden your horizons. 

We agreed to meet again (!) so all-in-all the blind date was a win. If he later even whispers the word “Blockchain” then I’ll give up on dating altogether and see what all the celibacy fuss is about.    

For more on blind dates, head here.