BINGO!
I broke every first date rule in the book tonight. No, I didn't shag Kelly, or tell her I loved her, or take her home to meet my folks. But I did let her pick me up and pay for our night out. But that was only because the bingo hall is round the corner from my place. And I didn't have time to take out any cash.
Saturday night at the State may not be everyone's idea of a romantic evening. And with good reason. Once you get past the imposing gold and jade art-deco interior of this one-time cinema, it's just as I imagined it would be: smoky, lifeless and with about as much atmosphere as Mars.
A young Asian girl reads out the numbers: one and two, 12; four and eight, 48; six and nine, 69 (that one came up quite a few times as it happens, provoking rare moments of schoolboy mirth in yours truly).
Kelly, meanwhile, had brought an entire picnic with her. There were mango and chili Kettle Chips, baguettes, hummus. Even desert!
Bingo must be the last bastion of homeliness away from home - dare to sneak into a cinema with that much grub on view and you'll be out before the opening credits roll. I still try, of course: I'm the one with the rather suspicious-looking bulge in his jacket and a can of diet-coke poking out of the back of his jeans.
For the first hour, we hardly spoke. We couldn't. We were too busy darting from page to page in a fruitless search for our magic numbers. Pace the odd 69, during the course of an entire evening neither of us won a single line (which would have earned us £10).
During the break, Kelly told me about what she did on Friday night. She obviously feels comfortable with me, because she proceeded to furnish me with rather too many detais of the previous night's conversation. From what I could gather, it consisted entirely of bitching about colleagues, colonic irrigation, waxing and (everyone's favourite) smears.
Back at my place, religion reared it's ugly head. Was I too religious for her? Was she what I was looking for? I did my best to assure her that to think so far down the line when we might not even be speaking to each other in two week's time was pretty pointless.
I think she got the point. Because when I walked her to her car, and went to kiss her goodbye, she plonked one straight on the lips. Not the greatest kiss I've ever had, but mission accomplished nonetheless.
I broke every first date rule in the book tonight. No, I didn't shag Kelly, or tell her I loved her, or take her home to meet my folks. But I did let her pick me up and pay for our night out. But that was only because the bingo hall is round the corner from my place. And I didn't have time to take out any cash.
Saturday night at the State may not be everyone's idea of a romantic evening. And with good reason. Once you get past the imposing gold and jade art-deco interior of this one-time cinema, it's just as I imagined it would be: smoky, lifeless and with about as much atmosphere as Mars.
A young Asian girl reads out the numbers: one and two, 12; four and eight, 48; six and nine, 69 (that one came up quite a few times as it happens, provoking rare moments of schoolboy mirth in yours truly).
Kelly, meanwhile, had brought an entire picnic with her. There were mango and chili Kettle Chips, baguettes, hummus. Even desert!
Bingo must be the last bastion of homeliness away from home - dare to sneak into a cinema with that much grub on view and you'll be out before the opening credits roll. I still try, of course: I'm the one with the rather suspicious-looking bulge in his jacket and a can of diet-coke poking out of the back of his jeans.
For the first hour, we hardly spoke. We couldn't. We were too busy darting from page to page in a fruitless search for our magic numbers. Pace the odd 69, during the course of an entire evening neither of us won a single line (which would have earned us £10).
During the break, Kelly told me about what she did on Friday night. She obviously feels comfortable with me, because she proceeded to furnish me with rather too many detais of the previous night's conversation. From what I could gather, it consisted entirely of bitching about colleagues, colonic irrigation, waxing and (everyone's favourite) smears.
Back at my place, religion reared it's ugly head. Was I too religious for her? Was she what I was looking for? I did my best to assure her that to think so far down the line when we might not even be speaking to each other in two week's time was pretty pointless.
I think she got the point. Because when I walked her to her car, and went to kiss her goodbye, she plonked one straight on the lips. Not the greatest kiss I've ever had, but mission accomplished nonetheless.
posted by David Cohen at 12:20 am
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